[Liue]

Hello gamers!

As I kept thinking gaming scene in general, it brought me my thoughts about importance of music in gaming. It plays vital role and kinda finalizes the world around you. It might make you relaxed, make you smile or just give you chills.

But when I went even deeper with my thoughts, I was thinking: what about the story itself?

Writing a story line is one of the most important - and at the same time one of the hardest - tasks when creating video games. Failing to come up with a deep, engaging story can ruin the entire game.

After all, if we keep thinking, the lore is a whole backstory for the game: what happens and where, by who and why. Whatever genre you do like to play, there must be a reason why story is going as it is. Right? Good story can make players to become more attached with the game, feeling like they are part of something bigger.



It is also an aspect which is sometimes overlooked by either the developers themselves, or by the player base.

That seems to be genre-type sensitive, especially being overlooked by the MMORPG players. I was googling about this topic and most of the comments I found were: "Who cares? No one plays MMORPG for the story, ever." or "No one cares about stories in these games and if we want a game with story, we should play a single player game. I just press next and next till dialogue is gone and then go where I'm sent."

But that was no intention of the developers when they did create the game, was it? I am pretty sure it was not. There's a lot of work done in the background by the story-telling team. So why it has turned like this? This thought hit my head and I had to write about it.



What does lore mean to you? Are there particular games you love because of their lore? I would love to hear! For me, one of my favorite game I'd play for the story is Star Wars: The Old Republic. Another one is Final Fantasy XIV. Some do blame these games being too slow what comes for leveling compared to other MMORPG titles on the market, but that is purely because they were built around their lore. Leveling might be slow, but it takes you through wide-variety of quests, cinematic and deep story line, actually offering you the whole world to explore. You can be anyone and do anything in ever developing world.



I started a new character in Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) today. It's Smuggler and I do love that every character story starts with a prologue cinematic opening up a story behind of your character: "Sometimes luck is more important than skill, but it never hurts to have both."

If anyone is interested to try out one of these two games - explore the world, read the quest texts and give story-telling teams the credit they deserve, feel free to comment here! We can team up and play together!

So, what type of gamer are you? Lets discuss about story lines here!

[LockOut]

ok will answer point after point

music important for games this point sadly i cant help with it because i prefer open my music to foucs


without deep story game will failed? sorry but thats wrong alot of games get high success but with only online or with basic story i am not saying deep stories bad but its not the main reason


like i will not lie i said that too like in the past all rapplez player was care about story but now all of them want just get lvl up fast to follow others so dont care about what happened just gimme my xp


for me i am both
i want to lvl up so fast to follow up other players because now mmorpg games just a race who be OP first so no time for stories
BUT if the story will not stop me i have no problem to read it for example league of legends lore OMG its almost master piece
or you have horizon
and infamous 2
etc

[Liue]

Thanks @LockOut!

You're right, like I wrote above, it seems to be genre-type sensitive, especially being overlooked by the MMORPG players. So you are not definitely first or last! Rappelz is an MMORPG as well, so people's opinion about story being irrelevant there is no surprise at all. It is usually just about leveling up quickly and getting into endgame (dungeons, raids, pvp etc). From my point of view such a rush with leveling is sad, ripping a big part of the game away. I keep seeing this in World of Warcraft all the time, comments such as: "Does WoW have a story?" or "Who cares, I just skip, skip, skip to get into endgame asap!"

Infamous 2 and Horizon, those are good examples what comes for single-player games! So you do enjoy their stories @LockOut? Any particular examples why? What makes you intrigues by their stories?

[LockOut]

@Liue
hey c'mon xd please dont say i am not first or last because i love stories but its not fun to stay alone in the back


i am story lover like i dont care for graphics if the game/anime will give me a good story
and yeah i enjoyed much with stories in games for example rapplez story in fact not bad its good
but the time i joined the game was all try to get lvl 210 i guess so no one will wait you to read they take quest and finish it in same minute
man they reach end-game in 5days they play speed run sadly

fun fact i know rappelz have story from my brother he told me oh you reached when she make you bleed
like i stand what you mean with bleeding i dont have any debuff
he told me in story when you try to feed her she bite you to complete the mission for the guy in the city to find etc long story like i was hey what they said before the quest its a story not how to do the quest?

[Liue]

Originally Posted by LockOut

@Liue
man they reach end-game in 5days they play speed run sadly

Yep, this is it. It is true that you are able to reach endgame much more quickly if you do speed run all the way till the end by skipping, skipping and skipping, and then heading to the place where map points you next.

If we start looking at lore in a most well known MMORPG ever created, World of Warcraft, you can understand how big part of the whole Warcraft franchise the lore actually creates. You can never truly see the state of the game without reading more about it. It all goes back to as far as 1994 when Warcraft 1 was released and it's last part, Warcraft 2 released back in 2002 gives a push for World of Warcraft itself which was released in 2004.



Now we live a year of 2022, so you can just imagine how much story line they have managed to create for the game: the world, races, classes, ever changing world, decisions, NPC's, characters, development, all of those interesting topics which so many choose to ignore. Why?

I found this very interesting video from YouTube when I tried to find a shortened version about the Warcraft lore so far. 1,5 million views means people are interested.

But this is just a needle in a haystack. Also this video was released in 2019, meaning it misses current expansion Shadowlands, as well as upcoming expansion Dragonflight completely. Internet is full of texts and videos about Warcraft lore, so if you are interested, you can watch a video or read a text about any particular event in Azeroth or outside of it!

I also found a lot of beautiful artwork made by the Blizzard Entertainment themselves. If you do enjoy the zones alongside of story line behind them, there are some really nice wallpapers out there.

[LockOut]

@Liue

i dont know why i didn't get notification for that but yes sadly they just skip skip and you have 2 choices
1-read it and be in the end
2-skip to follow them

[Saka]

The lore in the games can be very important, but that depends on the genre a lot. For example MMOs are not known for having great story, with some exceptions. Some of them also are the type of an eternal catch-up game, so the players don't get a whole lot of time to wander off. But it can vary a lot between games and it can even change over time in the same game.

Some examples from my play history: Back in 2006 I played Ragnarok Online, I stuck with it for a few years. It was a game from 2002 and originally it did not have a whole lot of story. There was no leading motive when leveling up and available quests were rather short. The end game had a lot of focus on PvP. But years passed and the game grew. There were some fantastic, very long quests with long backstory added - they could take days to complete, a lot of traveling between zones was involved and it was quite a marathon simulator. I enjoyed those.

Then there is World of Warcraft, where originally all the endgame content was available at the launch of the expansion, so people rushed through the quests and zones in order to gear up and not be left behind. But then eventually Blizzard introduced staggered launch, that went like: Week 1 - max level dungeons on hardest difficulty, Week 2 - timed max level dungeons with capped gear level, Week 3 - raid launch. It's just an example to show the idea, but basically there was no punishment on taking the first week slowly and enjoying the story. I did read every quest text and wasn't left behind.

Then there are MMOs where the story is integral part of gameplay and these often also present an "any moment is good to join" philosophy. Final Fantasy XIV is known and appraised for its story, as is generally the rest of its franchise. I played a few of the old Final Fantasy classics and they were good, can still recommend people to play those despite dated graphics. Oh and some of them got remasters.

A more niche MMO with decent story is Guild Wars 2. It's not as deep and complex like the story in FF games, but the game is F2P or buy-to-play if you want access to all features, which makes it a really good value for money proposition. It certainly deserves a lot more attention than it gets, but the publisher is not too great at the marketing game. The combat is fairly fast-paced and the zones gorgeous.

In single player games usually the main appeal is the story, unless they present some interesting combat mechanics or puzzles.

Then there can be RTS games or shooters where the lore is often overlooked and might not even be implemented in the game. For example Starcraft has actually interesting campaign, but you have to buy the game to play it; the competitive part of the game is free to play - any account can hit the ladder. So some players can ladder without having a clue about the story.

[Liue]

Bumping this thread up for discussions again. Are there any games you have played recently and which lore/story you felt interesting? Or are there some games you are waiting just because their storyline seems something pretty much unique?

[James781]

Lore is an integral part of almost every game. Almost ... There are a lot of games where the backstory and plot plays an insignificant role or it is not needed at all. Only the gameplay itself and nothing else. But in many games that I played just the same, there was not enough lore development. More precisely, its existence. And all that is is just an invention of the players themselves, which are gradually becoming canon. Lore helps me to fully enjoy the game. So developers should definitely hire a screenwriter to create a beautiful exciting story. Something like this)