SE stop doing the "norm"

[Nix]

so ...has nothing to do with not wanting to read them ..it's how they introduce them into the mmo and how good they are. it's not like i buy a rpg that is offline and don't read them, i read every npc ...and even these days offline rpg jump you straight to the quest or main story npc most the time.

Your post resonated with me a lot!

I do enjoy a good quest grind but I find XIV's and WoW's not so much hard to get into... but maybe not as appealing in their presentation.
I'll still religiously read all the text and enjoy the stories that go along with each quest but it feels like there's something 'extra' missing.

FFXI had it down pat, it had the text but it also had engaging mini-CS that would help to immerse you. I think the best MMO that I've played that /really/ had the immersion down was SWTOR, especially with their interactive cutscenes.

I'd love to see more things like that from developers nowadays instead of the lines upon lines of flavorless (I'm not sure if that's the right word) one-way dialogue.

I looking forward to more engaging quest chains where it revolves around more than just "Kill 8 dodo", mini storylines, more prominent characters and a whole new level of immersion.

I've thoroughly enjoyed XIV's storyline so far but the sidequests have left me feeling a little hollow (if that makes sense at all?)

[KiriA500]

FFXI had it down pat, it had the text but it also had engaging mini-CS that would help to immerse you.

Not to say it hasn't happened to you...but I've felt the exact opposite with all of these cutscenes. Having my character stumble around like an idiot who has no idea what's going on is hardly immersion in my opinion. Final Fantasy XI was notorious for this as well... You'd have an awesome cutscene, and all you can do is scratch your head and walk slowly.

Let's use the Futures Perfect cutscene as an example. What happens in this cutscene? EXPLOSIONS! FLIPS! MAGIC! BULLETS! Then there's you...literally standing still the entire time...half the time you aren't even on the screen. Your NPC helper is a swappable model, so why can't Square-Enix have an animation for our characters doing something more interesting than "be there?" I'd like to see my character be awesome every now and then...

[Arcell]

i don't think you ever really took the time to play the ffxi quests or something, it's totally opposite. while in wow i only played to rank 40 and ran back to ffxi but i didn't read a dang quest in a box ..not a one. no cutsceens, no way of knowing what is true story or side story. all to me were walls of text that i just skiped. so totally 360 in what your saying. on top of all that if wow had side bosses and fights in them, those mobs with a different name lol, they all felt the same to me. no mobs in that games world feel different then the next.

You lost me at the bolded text. How can you evaluate the quests if you don't even read them? The story bits are the best part of the quests in most cases, especially in FFXIV. The objectives have been fairly standard but the stories are often quite interesting. Hell they even started the Dalamud storyline way back in patch 1.16 with the side quests.

Are you really saying that if there's no cutscenes there's no way of telling what's going on?

[Elexia]

Are you really saying that if there's no cutscenes there's no way of telling what's going on?

Welcome to 2012 MMORPGs...actually welcome to the new generation of Gamers.

[strallaalaa]

You lost me at the bolded text. How can you evaluate the quests if you don't even read them? The story bits are the best part of the quests in most cases, especially in FFXIV. The objectives have been fairly standard but the stories are often quite interesting. Hell they even started the Dalamud storyline way back in patch 1.16 with the side quests.

Are you really saying that if there's no cutscenes there's no way of telling what's going on?

i'm not a new gamer, i'm just accustomed to ffxi. the main part of anything i'm saying is. i want quests/story seperate from my grinding/exp. i want to do the questing/the reading on my own and during days or hours i feel like solo'ing or not doing anything else or got time inbetween events/endgame.

on side note, even cut scenes people try to tell you not to watch and skip them. a note to the devs they should not even have them set up so they are watched b4 entering the dungeon. it's the worste point in the game to put them. they should add them to the last part of the quest that people solo b4 entering so no one is pushed to skip or wait.

if we took a real pole i can bet that almost 70-90%(number out of my butt lol) will have said they didn't read any quests in a box in wow, and sadly just the same i new a lot of players that felt, why do quests in ffxi if there is no good reward to them.

even in games like swtor i didn't watch the cut sceens so it's not just cause it's not a cut scene. i didn't enjoy reading the story with simple body npc's flaming there hands around and talking in cut scenes to why i need to do any of what i'm doing. if they had it seperatly, again i would of at least took the time after i hit max level to do them and read them. heck then maybe 90% of the player base wouldn't be logging out and in for just 3hrs twice a week for some 16man endgame.

so all in all that is the main issue, keeping the grind and my story telling together will remove any want of reading it even if i would like to read at least some of it. so i can evaluate that a block of text is a block of text no matter how compelling the story is. i don't read books, i watch tv and movies. we not at a library we rockin a video game.

[PinkamenaDiane]

FFXI, that should have been your core model for 2.0 not GW2, RIFT, WOW, what have ya.

Please read these comments

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/10...ke-to-see-mor/

You can see, most people are tired of how MMOS are being made, and they want them back to how they were(aka FFXI)

"... What made MMOs fun back in the day (and kept me logging in) was the sheer challenge of the content. Quests are fine to me, but do we really need a HUGE question mark? Glowing trails and arrows pointing you EXACTLY where you need to go? All that does is focus the gamer to consume the content as soon as possible. And we all know how much fun that is. Questing alone doesn't make me want to logon everyday. Its the complete experience."

I'm also not saying be stuck in the past, but add new things, be creative try something new that another game hasen't but keep that whole MMO WORLD feel. To me that's adventure, companionship, not, "go here, go there, go here" That's not any types of fun, that's just a good time killer.

Edit:

From SOE:
"I have to be honest with you. We have completely blown up the design of EverQuest Next. For the last year and a half we have been working on something we are not ready to show. Why did we blow up the design? The design was evolutionary. It was EverQuest III. It was something that was slightly better than what had come before it. It was slightly better.

What we are building is something that we will be very proud to call EverQuest. It will be the largest sandbox-style MMO ever designed. The same exciting content delivered in a new way. Something you've never seen before. The MMO world has never seen before. We didn't want more kill 10 rats quests. We didn't want more of the same. If you look at the MMOs out there, they're delivering the same content over and over again. So are we. We need to change that. When we released EverQuest, we changed the world. We want to do that again with a different type of game."

This man speaks the truth. Squaresoft must make its MMO stand out not just copypasta another game. Need that sense of coolness and awesomeness whenever one logs on.

[Tonkra]

This man speaks the truth. Squaresoft must make its MMO stand out not just copypasta another game. Need that sense of coolness and awesomeness whenever one logs on.

Well Limit-Break.. Crystal tower, the enemies, the lore itself.... etc. pp is not really copy&paste to me

[Andrien]

This man speaks the truth. Squaresoft must make its MMO stand out not just copypasta another game. Need that sense of coolness and awesomeness whenever one logs on.

Don't dwell in the past, the company is called Square Enix.

They're taking aspects from Final Fantasy games like the Crystal Tower, Gold Saucer, job system, Magitek, and features that actually work in other MMO games.

Don't read everything what Rokien post

[Starlord]

Don't dwell in the past, the company is called Square Enix.

They're taking aspects from Final Fantasy games like the Crystal Tower, Gold Saucer, job system, Magitek, and features that actually work in other MMO games.

Don't read everything what Rokien post

Rokien is a Manipulator! "Beware of Dog"! BARK!

[Starlord]

Why.... Just Why did you bump this thread.... :/ lol. That's all I got to say! *Flame shield up!*