FFXIV shows what's wrong with MMOs (Not what you think)

[Zojha]

MMOs in the West are having a tough time. Mostly because it's all about ilvls and/or PvP ratings. FFXIV is about the story. And that's rare these days.

It's rare in general, because, well... story and MMO don't go very well together.

That's why the vast majority of the MSQ is solo only. The story is largely pushed outside the realm of multiplayer, with all the lengthier cutscenes playing after the group is abandoned and you've left the dungeon, because the one time they didn't do it like that, it went very, very badly. We know that as the Castrum/Praetorium issue. People even go as far as to disable chat to avoid spoilers and let's face it: That Lalafell jumping up and down in a pig suit is just immersion breaking.

Moreover, the story takes up quite a bit of resources, but is a one-and-done kind of deal, whereas the MMO genre lives and breathes repetition to facilitate group play. And the gating the story creates hinders meaningful player interaction, which is the core of MMOs. It's not a very good fit and creates an innate conflict of interest in the playerbase as well.

As such, single-player games and movies are simply far better suited to tell a story as neither have all that baggage and conflicts attached. The prior is superior if you want players to be able to alter the flow of the story, the latter if you just want to tell a fixed story without interaction from the viewers. And it's IMO a very sad thing that this game's story doesn't capitalize on the unique potential of the interactive medium (i.e. a video game) to make the story interactive as well.


Personally, I must confess I don't even care for the MSQ. The only cutscenes I watch are those in sidequests and I regularly find myself cursing when I skip a cutscene that looked interesting out of sheer habit from the MSQ. A long, mandatory story is a pretty meh affair if you dislike the characters and find the plot cringey. At least if that happens in job quests, it doesn't last long, so it's more tolerable.

[Lium]

Snip

To each their own. You sound like the type of player that would be comfortably at home in a game like WoW. And that's TOTALLY cool. I played that game for 13 years. They don't care about story at all. It's all about raiding and gear progression. WoW players have long abandoned any care about story because they realized Blizzard doesn't really care about it. They just retcon and come up with nonsensical stuff because reasons. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. They know their playerbase.

Also, your idea about interactive storytelling in an MMO sounds dubious to me, precisely because of what you pointed out: some player in a pig costume jumping up and down screaming, "GO GO GO", with a name like Fleshsaberforyou. Again, nothing wrong with that. That's people. And that's exactly why I love the solo story where others can't muck it up for me.