Narrative In MMORPGs: How Important Is It?

There are many reasons people play games: pure escapism, to socialise, to be challenged, and for many it is an interactive way to be involved in a story. With the invention of MMORPGs the gaming community has come closer together and are now able to play together in a more complex world where we interact with one another and assist (or destroy) each other. The great thing about MMORPGs is we can all fight and die and triumph together, but what are we fighting for? And if we’re told do we even remember?

It seems a common theme in MMORPGs is the opening cinematic explains where we are and what is happening in the world, then we are supposed to follow a bunch of NPCs orders until we attain the highest level and then we all clash in the marvel of PVP. The problem here? Isn’t that war against the dragons still happening? Isn’t the high priest of the dark god still happening? We get the set up for a plot that fizzles over time until we don’t actually know what has happened to the threat, or (even worse) we enter a dungeon and defeat the threat only for the world to still be in peril. So why is this? Why does the plot never move forward?

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The main issue with MMORPGs, is that the developers want players to play through the story they have made and don’t want to go through the effort and time of programming another story arc and another and another. I mean that’s what DLC and expansions are for! This is understandable. It would mean a lot more work for the production team to be constantly adding content. An uninteresting plot leaves much to be desired for many players.

The excuse used by the developers of such MMOs, the “the players make their own story” is a huge cop out. Developers of MMOs spend a large amount of money on asset design and mechanics but it seems that the plot is given a backseat, often falling into a simple formulaic structure.

It is unfortunate that the MMORPGs that do work hard on their plot do not know how to employ the story they work so hard on. With the gameplay revolving mostly around mob farming and item retrieval quests it can be hard for a player to feel like they are having any impact on the main plot of the game. This coupled with the fact that dungeons and bosses can be re-challenged so you can get that ultra-rare purple sword of smiting, making the act of defeating key plot elements just part of the grind.

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Now the industry has been making some astounding efforts to make sure that at least the dungeon crawling doesn’t feel like walking up a downward escalator. With news of the introduction, and potential widespread, of procedural generation to future MMO titles players can feel like they are constantly exploring new areas, which is a good thing. At the forefront of this is the highly anticipated No Man’s Sky, which uses full procedurally generated planets for its players to explore. As it stands though, the games feel like they are a direct translation of the “Hero’s Journey,” creating a cycle from which there is no end, leaving you hacking through the same old tropes and enemies time and again with nothing innovative or interesting in sight.

It will be interesting to see what the industry does to combat this problem. I will be going into more specific games and analysing how they tackle the tall order of telling a story. A game can be more than just a thing to pass the time, it can be an experience. MMORPGs are a social experience with a bright and colourful culture and community and they deserve a story that engages them, not just a throwaway background that gets lost under the search for loot.

Sources:

"A Practical Guide to Joseph Cambell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces" by Christopher Vogler