In a previous aritcle we covered what SRPG fans can learn from people who play and enjoy MMO's, now let's look at the other side of the coin. With BioWare making an unprecedented push on the importance of story in Star Wars: The Old Republic, we could see many single player tropes working their way into the final product. While almost all MMO fans started off playing single player games, there are some things you may have forgotten while working on raid schedules and dealing with guild drama. So now we are going to focus on what MMO fans can learn from those who prefer single player RPGs.
Our Story Begins...
The best place to start is an aspect of MMORPGs that has been greatly diluted in comparison to their single player cousins: a main story. Many MMOs have adopted the stance that players should be allowed to make their own destiny, carving out their place in the world with little, if any, direction from the game's developers. This freedom has drawn many people to the genre, but has also caused some gamers to simply play the machine without experiencing any story at all. The Old Republic's player-driven tale could be a shock to those who have become accustomed to ignoring quest text in pursuit of levels.
The roots of the RPG genre are entrenched in wonderful, fascinating stories and shared experiences. Returning to these ideals will encourage a much deeper connection the the game world. Yet the feeling of being unique will hopefully persist in this more structured style. Branching dialogue options should allow players to retain a feeling of individuality within the story arcs, fostering a personal immersion in the narrative.
Many MMOs also suffer from stagnant points because of their free form nature. Some games, such as LOTRO, have avoided this trap by supplying a story line that gives players a subtly directed focus. BioWare hopes to expand on this by giving players a constant path, that can also be altered by their actions. This should create a more compelling experience that will help alleviate these stagnant areas.
Story Should be Experienced, Not Learned
This isn't to say there is no story in more traditional MMOs, quite the opposite. In order to supply the vast amount of content required to keep players engaged, MMORPGs end up being filled with more quests and story lines then even the longest running offline RPG series. If you count up all the quests, and side quests, from the primary Final Fantasy games you still might not reach the number of distinctly separate quests in World of Warcraft. (image compliments of Shacknews)
The end result of this over saturation is that most quests are shallow and short, which adds another reason MMOers may ignore the stories entirely. Most players don't care why they're retrieving and antidote for an elf or killing boars for an orc, they only care about getting the next quest or reward. The narrative is there, but conditioning has removed the desire to experience it. This can lead to players bypassing the NPC information entirely, opting to find the solution to the quest on FAQs and Walkthroughs instead.
When used as a crutch, these resources strip the gameplay down to only the purest nuts and bolts.SRPGs, on the other hand,are normally approached from a more experiential point of view where players let the story be the reason they are performing the actions.If an MMO is able to recreate this feeling and produce content that makes players care about why they are questing, then it will encourage them to care about the characters and world, reducing their dependence on walkthrough shortcuts.
Not to say all wikis are bad
Characters have Character
MMOs are designed with vast environments, populated with an immense numbe rof Non-Player Characters (NPCs). Some NPCs are important characters who are integral to the lore, others are simple questgivers, and others still are primarily people you cant interact with at all.While many gamers will become somewhat familiar with the main characters and a few of the quest givers, this knowledge is purely academic in nature.
Your average MMOer doesnt feel any empathy for the king or disdain for the evil dragon on the level of their character. They are only effected by the game play elements surrounding them.They may hate the dragon because their party wiped 20 times, but not because the dragons story has it murdering orphans.
SRPGs invoke an emotional response based more on the story then the game play. Gamers are effected by Sephiroth, for example, because of what he does in the story of Final Fantasy VII, not just because of his actions in the final battle.BioWare is betting that companion characters and voice over work will allow players to become much more connected to the NPCs in TOR, breaking down yet another barrier between the two styles.
Don't Just Roll an Alt, Replay the Game
Many MMOs on the market offer remarkably similar experiences regardless of what race, class or faction you choose. This has caused many gamers to view the leveling of an alternate character, or alt, as a chore. Slowly trudging your way through the same quests over and over, not because you are enjoying the content, but because you are trying to get to the end game.
As we've seen in single player RPGs, the progression to the end is vastly more enjoyable if you are able to take alternate routes in the story. Many popular RPGs have used these branching paths to entice players into restarting a game they have already completed. This is because they offer the chance to repeat an enjoyable game while still experiencing new content. This, along with the inclusion of separate story lines for every class, means that rerolling in The Old Republic could be more like restarting a single player RPG then simply making an alt. This should make playing multiple characters vastly more interesting, and something one-character MMOers would be remiss to ignore.
Move at Your Own Pace
MMOs traditionally bring out the competitive side in gamers. The desire to get more loot and levels can be placed in overdrive when you add the urge to keep up with other players. SRPGs allow players to avoid this and enjoy the game at their own speed. Whether it's your first character, or your eighth, a more relaxed approach to a game like TOR could lead to a much deeper appreciation for what the game has to offer both in story and atmosphere.
Additional Notes Located in the Comments
These are just a few of the themes that are normally more prevelant in SRPGs. We won't know which, if any, will apply to TOR until we have more knowledge about BioWare's implementation of the fourth pillar. However, there are some aspects of this genre merging property that are very exciting, and hopefully these guides will help prepare TOR followers for how they will approach Star Wars: The Old Republic when it launches.
The best place to start is an aspect of MMORPGs that has been greatly diluted in comparison to their single player cousins: a main story. Many MMOs have adopted the stance that players should be allowed to make their own destiny, carving out their place in the world with little, if any, direction from the game's developers. This freedom has drawn many people to the genre, but has also caused some gamers to simply play the machine without experiencing any story at all. The Old Republic's player-driven tale could be a shock to those who have become accustomed to ignoring quest text in pursuit of levels.
The roots of the RPG genre are entrenched in wonderful, fascinating stories and shared experiences. Returning to these ideals will encourage a much deeper connection the the game world. Yet the feeling of being unique will hopefully persist in this more structured style. Branching dialogue options should allow players to retain a feeling of individuality within the story arcs, fostering a personal immersion in the narrative.
Many MMOs also suffer from stagnant points because of their free form nature. Some games, such as LOTRO, have avoided this trap by supplying a story line that gives players a subtly directed focus. BioWare hopes to expand on this by giving players a constant path, that can also be altered by their actions. This should create a more compelling experience that will help alleviate these stagnant areas.
This isn't to say there is no story in more traditional MMOs, quite the opposite. In order to supply the vast amount of content required to keep players engaged, MMORPGs end up being filled with more quests and story lines then even the longest running offline RPG series. If you count up all the quests, and side quests, from the primary Final Fantasy games you still might not reach the number of distinctly separate quests in World of Warcraft. (image compliments of Shacknews)
The end result of this over saturation is that most quests are shallow and short, which adds another reason MMOers may ignore the stories entirely. Most players don't care why they're retrieving and antidote for an elf or killing boars for an orc, they only care about getting the next quest or reward. The narrative is there, but conditioning has removed the desire to experience it. This can lead to players bypassing the NPC information entirely, opting to find the solution to the quest on FAQs and Walkthroughs instead.
When used as a crutch, these resources strip the gameplay down to only the purest nuts and bolts.SRPGs, on the other hand,are normally approached from a more experiential point of view where players let the story be the reason they are performing the actions.If an MMO is able to recreate this feeling and produce content that makes players care about why they are questing, then it will encourage them to care about the characters and world, reducing their dependence on walkthrough shortcuts.
Not to say all wikis are bad
Characters have Character
MMOs are designed with vast environments, populated with an immense numbe rof Non-Player Characters (NPCs). Some NPCs are important characters who are integral to the lore, others are simple questgivers, and others still are primarily people you cant interact with at all.While many gamers will become somewhat familiar with the main characters and a few of the quest givers, this knowledge is purely academic in nature.
Your average MMOer doesnt feel any empathy for the king or disdain for the evil dragon on the level of their character. They are only effected by the game play elements surrounding them.They may hate the dragon because their party wiped 20 times, but not because the dragons story has it murdering orphans.
SRPGs invoke an emotional response based more on the story then the game play. Gamers are effected by Sephiroth, for example, because of what he does in the story of Final Fantasy VII, not just because of his actions in the final battle.BioWare is betting that companion characters and voice over work will allow players to become much more connected to the NPCs in TOR, breaking down yet another barrier between the two styles.
Don't Just Roll an Alt, Replay the Game
Many MMOs on the market offer remarkably similar experiences regardless of what race, class or faction you choose. This has caused many gamers to view the leveling of an alternate character, or alt, as a chore. Slowly trudging your way through the same quests over and over, not because you are enjoying the content, but because you are trying to get to the end game.
As we've seen in single player RPGs, the progression to the end is vastly more enjoyable if you are able to take alternate routes in the story. Many popular RPGs have used these branching paths to entice players into restarting a game they have already completed. This is because they offer the chance to repeat an enjoyable game while still experiencing new content. This, along with the inclusion of separate story lines for every class, means that rerolling in The Old Republic could be more like restarting a single player RPG then simply making an alt. This should make playing multiple characters vastly more interesting, and something one-character MMOers would be remiss to ignore.
MMOs traditionally bring out the competitive side in gamers. The desire to get more loot and levels can be placed in overdrive when you add the urge to keep up with other players. SRPGs allow players to avoid this and enjoy the game at their own speed. Whether it's your first character, or your eighth, a more relaxed approach to a game like TOR could lead to a much deeper appreciation for what the game has to offer both in story and atmosphere.
These are just a few of the themes that are normally more prevelant in SRPGs. We won't know which, if any, will apply to TOR until we have more knowledge about BioWare's implementation of the fourth pillar. However, there are some aspects of this genre merging property that are very exciting, and hopefully these guides will help prepare TOR followers for how they will approach Star Wars: The Old Republic when it launches.
Comments
I think it's important to consider that people may play existing MMOs differently than they will play new mmos. I will be incredibly happy to go through the entire game experience the first time I played the game. I didn't play WoW until BC was released and was picked up by a guild who noticed my pace lvling over a few days (I played on a new server) and they got irritated when they noticed how much time I spent instancing and BGing because they were already in endgame and needed a reliable player of my class. I was content to get every penny I spent on the game out of it and ran every instance at least once, and I imagine people are always excited about new content. Looking back I'm happy to have experienced the content, though wish I wouldn't have taken quite as long as I did.
I think, even hope, that TOR will eventually have the same problems of maintaining an endgame environment for long time players while also allowing newcomers to access that community in a reasonable amount of time.
If that happens old content will lose value as further content is developed. People will want to play with others if they are paying for it.
This article serves the two purposes, based on the experiences of its audience.
Highlighting the differences between mmo and sp rpgs for people who have played both but not bothered to consider why the two felt different to play.
While also describing the differences in enough detail that an MMOer who had never really gotten into sprpgs would understand the difference as well.
My guess is that there will not be a lot of end game content upon release, so there should be an opportunity to experience another class without drastically falling too far behind other top level players in gear. I'm definitely looking forward to having a completely different experience with multiple characters.