MMO storytelling: "more isn't better"

By Robert Purchese Published 21 October, 2010

Age of Conan boss argues the toss.

Age of Conan executive producer Craig Morrison has written an interesting article on the inclusion of voiced stories and cut-scenes in MMOs. The upshot: "more isn't always better".

It's why people have "reservations" about a game like Star Wars: The Old Republic, he alleged - a game in which story is "so integral". And what a time BioWare's MMO has had of late.

Morrison believes character progression has always been the "bedrock" of what is expected from an MMO. You earn experience, you level up.

Today's upswing in storytelling is great, Morrison wrote, as long as it doesn't "interfere".

"Sometimes a player just wants to progress, and they will be frustrated if you don't help make that experience smooth.

"The best cut-scene in the world won't help if the player really wants to be hitting something with a stick when you decide to show it to them.

"Why," he rhetorically asked, "was a 'skip quest text' the first GUI modification to be written for World of Warcraft, for example?"

Morrison witnessed game makers put this down player personality and "blame the culture of immediacy and short attention spans" that are "prevalent" today. Worse, the designers tried to "forcibly" alter player behaviour.

But, he countered: "This doesn't mean an MMO player can't appreciate a good story element ... [or story] be an important factor in the entertainment provided by a quest or encounter in an MMO.

"Sometimes players want, dare I say need, to be given some more dynamic and interesting experiences as well.

"It just has to be at the right moment," he wrote.

The "key" is to put story elements at non-disruptive junctures in gameplay; at "lulls" in your motivation to progress a character. Typically these are before a quest starts and then when it ends.

"I really like the sequences in Aion, or the World of Warcraft expansions where you get cut-scenes or intros to an area the first time you visit it. Those are good examples of smart use of that kind of sequence," Morrison shared.

"Those lulls are the perfect point at which to energise the experience with better cut-scenes or voice work."

Morrison asked that even if the resources were available to voice a cut-scene for every step of a quest, should you use them? "Is it really any better just because you voiced the NPC?"

"More isn't always better," he declared. "The smart use of resources can often actually create a more compelling game-play experience."

Morrison believes there are "numerous" other "more intuitive ways" of getting a story across, too.

"Text pop-ups, item descriptions, brief cut-scenes or boss quotes - a designer has a lot of options here," Morrison wrote.

"Don't make the player run back and forth between NPCs purely for a stage of the quests to update. Don't be afraid to have the quest unfold before the player and have them propel it forward."

He has always felt running back-and-forth between dawdling NPCs was "counter intuitive" to the idea of being a hero.

Morrison closed with: "The desire of the designer to entertain and lead a player on a journey will always be slightly at odds with some of the motivations that players find in MMO gameplay.

"All too often I hear designers say, 'I want the player to do...,' when what we should be saying is, 'I want the player to want to do...' That's a difference worth bearing in mind."

Story is the heart of BioWare's Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (30) Latest comment 2 years ago

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  • FortysixterUK #1 2 years ago

    Fair comment. Arguments fall on both sides of the fence, but for me, progression is where its at.

    If Fallout Vegas hadn't turned up today I would be levelling my Necro in Age of Conan....damn you Fallout !

  • Spekingur #2 2 years ago

    So basically he is talking about everything that Guild Wars 2 promises.

  • Freek #3 2 years ago

    Diden't Bioware talk about this specific issue in a recent interview? About balancing the story mission with grindy missions and that they found out through testing that they had too much story. That they took allot of that content out to make a more balanced gameplay experience.

  • Kami #4 2 years ago

    It is a fair argument I guess, although I think I can hear Alanis Morisette warming up her vocal chords here...

    Storytelling is not merely limited to NPCs and text and scenes - the world has to tell a story as well. The way characters progress has to give players the feeling they're embarking on an epic quest of their own. There are tons more ways to tell a story than is being proposed, and partly that is why I read the Rift: Planes of Telara preview with some interest. If you limit the story to only one particular spot, you're going to find something lacking - Aion has am amazing world which tells a story, but the NPCs lack true passion or personality. By contrast, in WoW: WotLK the NPCs and quests had a lot to say and were very personable, but Northrend itself was pretty bland overall (as were the raids, truth be told).

    Storytelling isn't just about text and dialogue, it's about experience and imagination. These things can survive without each other, of course, but it's when they all come together that we'll know an MMO has just changed the market forever.

    And here she is... "It's like ray-eee-aaaaaaayn..."

  • actionfitz #5 2 years ago

    He makes a few fair points, but i can't help but raise eyebrows over the fact that here we have the guy tasked with cleaning up the aftermath of one of the most spectacular MMO flops ever...
    who works for a company who's last decent game or games are the 'Longest Journey' series - some of the best examples of games story telling I personally have experienced since Planescape Torment... (Ragnar tornquist take a bow).
    Lecturing Bioware about how overrated good game storys are.

    he has a big pair, i'll give him that.

  • Rack #6 2 years ago

    He's not wrong but given the horrific state of MMO quests at the moment full voice is a huge step forward. I'd agree going full voice over something like 40% is more of a triumph of marketing than content, though Bioware may be ahead of that one anyway. However fully voiced quest content is always going to be preferable to "gather 17 stoat intestines".

  • iokthemonkey #7 2 years ago

    Does AoC allow you to skip that (what seems like) 10 minute droning from that fucker on the beach at Tortage yet? Or skip the seer woman chuntering on for an eternity?

    It's a valid point he makes, yes - storytelling in MMOs is usually too forced and sitting for 10 minutes watching a cut-scene is boring. But at the same time, if you've no motive to do what you're doing, you just end up grinding mobs and quests repeatedly. LOTRO, for example, stikes a good balance, IMO: the Epic Quests have nice plots to them, there are non-Epic quests and when there are cut-scenes, they're in appropriate places, as rewards when you complete specific quests or whatever. And they can be skipped.

  • Kami #8 2 years ago

    "Does AoC allow you to skip that (what seems like) 10 minute droning from that fucker on the beach at Tortage yet? Or skip the seer woman chuntering on for an eternity? "

    It has been a while since I played it but I do vaguely remember that I was able to skip it - of course, the want to skip mit probably means it isn't important anyway.

    I had a whale of a time with this idea though, even put my thoughts on my own (supposedly WoW-focused but in truth not) blog. The more I think about it the more I understand what the point was, but also the more I snigger childishly at it - Age of Conan is one very good example of way too much. Too many abilities, too many dialogue choices... way, way overboard. It was ambitious and tried hard, but I remember AoC as a game which never got the balance just right.

    I'm not sure the chap trying to get AoC moving is in a great position to be pointing fingers at Bioware - who, let us be fair here, are by many gamers considered to be gods of the industry. Could it be too much? Well, duh. I'm not so dense that I'm not aware mthis could all be depressingly formulaic or just have more parts than the whole will accept. Will I play it? Most likely (Noooo! Don't tell them I have regularly taken the piss out of Star Wars!).

    But it's a great read and perhaps some glimmer of hope that Age of Conan maybe, just maybe, could end up something special. He has a good grasp on it (even though it takes a few reads and a bit of thought to digest the entirity of what he's trying to say). But of course, actions speak louder than words - and that is not merely limited to the scope of how MMO quests should work...

  • DrStrangelove #9 2 years ago

    The less story, the better. If you want a story, watch a film. In a really good game, a story is just an annoying distraction from the gameplay.

    Half-Life might be an exception though, they managed to make a background storyline that never interrupts the gameplay.

  • Kami #10 2 years ago

    I disagree, story is important. But story isn't just words. Progression isn't about level, sometimes it's about the quests - when you're chasing rabbits after 81 levels you do feel cheated. "After all this time I'm still chasing vermin? The f%$£?!"

    There's so many levels to this debate. That makes it interesting.

  • hiddenranbir #11 2 years ago

    Woo Guild Wars 2!

  • Zaiz #12 2 years ago

    @DrStrangelove

    Story is integral to immersion.

  • DrStrangelove #13 2 years ago

    Nah, it's integral to being annoying.

  • Kami #14 2 years ago

    No no, it is integral but it's how you do it.

    If you just keep telling us in text and dialogue, THAT is annoying. Less talk more work!
    If you let the environment tell the story and focus on shorter, more snappy dialogue and text, that is better.

    Quests are and will always be a necessary evil in any RPG, from basic to MMO. We just need it to be more believable - as I said on my blog, how many of us would seriously trust a stranger who walked through our front door carrying a bloody great big sword?

    I am all for suspension of belief... but ground it in common sense at the very least!

  • iokthemonkey #15 2 years ago

    The point is though unless you have some form of ''story'' you're not part of the game world. You may as well be shown red boxes and asked to click 100 of them and then be given a green circle as your reward. And when you have 100 green circles you can trade them for an orange triangle.

  • AOFanboi #16 2 years ago

    <em>"Why," he rhetorically asked, "was a 'skip quest text' the first GUI modification to be written for World of Warcraft, for example?"</em>

    Is he talking about the option to render the quest text at once instead of dripping it out like a 300 baud teletype? That is because some of us read a bit faster than that and prefer to have the whole text there to read. And we do read it.

    Face it, the only things AoC have going for it is the huge install, the excessive computer requirements, the lacking promised XBox 360 version and a QTE-like system that only marginally changes the standard MMO combat formula of power cooldowns and hitpoint whittling.

  • steviepunk #17 2 years ago

    So, is he saying that players that like one style of game, might not like another style of game?

  • dagas #18 2 years ago

    Those ADD people are ruining it for us people who can actually pay attention for something for more than 10 seconds before the urge to kill something becomes too strong. I hope Bioware keep their focus on story. Every other MMO is a grindfest, Bioware comes along to change that and the whole MMO-world goes up in arms. Remember when people used to say westerners would never care for RPGs? FF7 proved them wrong. There is a market for people who like a good story and not just grind.

  • Vyggo #19 2 years ago

    I hardly read any of the quests in MMO's. If the game has no waypoints I am just scanning the text for the location, what mobs to kill and how much I need. Shameful, I know....

  • Kami #20 2 years ago

    Good luck with that, you'll be hard-pressed to find many games other than pure puzzlers that haven't got a strong story element...

    It's how it is done that is important, not that it's there.

  • DrStrangelove #21 2 years ago

    Remember Doom 1? That was one of the most immersive games of its time, and it had practically no story. Same with Quake 1.

    Or take Mario. "The princess has been kidnapped..." ok stop talking. Fortunately, they do stop at that point.

    This is even true for Adventure games like Zelda. Fine, have a background story, but leave me alone while I'm playing (Zelda 3). Then, in Ocarina of Time, everyone started harassing you with their frustrating meaningless babble. Suddenly it was more talking than fighting. And most of the time, you can't skip it. When they start telling that endless bullshit about the triforce goddesses you have to watch TV until they're done (which is awful too, unfortunately). I can't see anything good about that.

    If a game had a really good story, one that doesn't seem like it's copied from a pulp magazine, then maybe I would change my opinion. But I have little hope.

  • Ertardo #22 2 years ago

    If it's as terrible as the story in AoC, I'd rather have the option to just skip it all. No story, at all, in that game was good. The first 20 levels had some semi-interesting story, but it was all told so fantastically terrible that it just failed.

    In WoW however, you can tell that Blizzard put time in the last expansion (and in Cataclysm) to make interesting questlines that span over several zones, with rewarding conclusions, that tell interesting stories of the world. Then again Blizzard are competent storytellers in the MMO-verse. Amazing that the talent that made The Longest Journey couldn't muster up anything better then AoC.
    Edited by Ertardo at 22/10/10 @ 04:42

  • NegativeZero #23 2 years ago

    "Do as I say, not as I do"

    I don't really think that Bioware have been talking about having gigantic long cutscenes or anything. They don't really do that in their games any more. Usually they break it up fairly well, and it's fair to assume that with the full voicing on stuff they'll be pushing conversations with NPCs, rather than click-dude-and-he-pops-up-a-text-box. Additionally my understanding was their 'story' elements were more about making encounters feel more purposeful, significant and structured than just "collect me 12 lizard gonads" or the like. This was also something that Blizzard have been doing with the newer World of Warcraft quest content. Longer chains of quests where you're actually working toward some purpose and the quests play out an interesting subplot that might set you up for visting an instance. It makes the experience much more compelling when it feels like you're grinding with a purpose.

  • Moz #24 2 years ago

    For me having a fully voiced world is exactly what I want I can't stand having to read a load of text each time I collect or turn in a quest so I often skip it which ruins the immersion. When I am in the mood to read the text so I know the story I find the game far more enjoyable. So having the NPC talk to me would be perfect for me. and much like Oblivion or Fallout 3 you can all have text too and make the voice skipable for people who can ready quickly and prefer that approach.

    However actually cut scenes that take control away from the player have no place in MMOs I want to control my character all the time. I don't mind standing and watching NPCs go through a scripted sequence (like the end of the death knight starting area in WOW) but full on cut-scenes like you get in FFXIV just don't work for me in an MMO setting.

  • DrowJones #25 2 years ago

    Why everyone wants to skip stories in current mmos? Because so far it has been just a wall of text? A wall of text that makes no difference whatsoever? The story and the game are completely separated from each other, it would be like adding quest text to Tetris and then wondering why everyone wants to skip that part of the game.

    I don't know anyone who has played Fallout, Planescape Torment or - you know, any roleplaying game really - while totally skipping all the dialogue and the story. (But then again Mr. Purchese here thought that the toolkit in NWN was a stupid idea, so I'm sure there are people who just like Big Numbers and nothing else.)

  • drhickman1983 #26 2 years ago

    @Drowjones

    I do know somebody who plays RPGs skipping all the dialogue and cutscenes he can. Needless to say, he wasn't an RPG fan, so it's not like he purchased these games himself, only played other peoples copies. But still, they exist.

    On a more general note, it depends how the story is told in an MMO as to whether it's succsesful. If you can tell the story through gameplay it's more effective. Blizzard get this right in WoW sometimes, though often they fail. I'm not yet sure about Bioware and TOR, and wont be until I've played it, but I'm not sure their dialogue choices will work in an MMO, especially in groups.

  • Kami #27 2 years ago

    @DrStrangelove; I hate to break it to you but...

    Quake - You are an un-named protagonist sent into a portal in order to stop an enemy code-named "Quake". The government had been experimenting with teleportation technology, and upon development of a working prototype called a "Slipgate", this enemy has compromised the human connection with their own teleportation system, using it to insert death squads into the "human" dimension, supposedly in order to test the martial capabilities of humanity. You arrive through a slipgate alone and hopelessly outnumbered.

    Doom - The player takes the role of a nameless space marine who has been punitively posted to Mars after assaulting his commanding officer, who ordered his unit to fire upon civilians. The Martian marine base acts as security for the Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC), a multi-planetary conglomerate, which is performing secret experiments with teleportation by creating gateways between the two moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos - supposedly the most boring job in the universe. Computer systems on Phobos malfunction, Deimos disappears entirely, and "something fragging evil" starts pouring out of the gateway, killing and possessing all UAC personnel. Responding to a frantic distress call from the overrun scientists, the Martian marine unit is quickly sent to Phobos to investigate, where the player character is left to guard the hangar with only a pistol while the rest of the group proceeds inside. Over the course of the next few hours, the marine hears assorted garbled radio messages, gunfire, and screams, followed by silence: "Seems your buddies are dead". Guess who's cleaning up?

    Mario - You are a plumber who has been sucked down a pipe into a strange fantasy land. The princess has been kidnapped, and the people leave it up to you to get her back. Whoop whoop! Very easy plot device. Mario must love "cake"...

    The point here is plot is important, but you don't need to be slammed over the head with it. It's how you tell it - not that it's there in the first place. If you can keep it simple, you don't need to tell it much over the course of a game - just allude to it. You can tell a story by visuals alone, by a gruff accent, by the environment around you...

    You will be hard pressed to name many shooters or platformers that don't have a story - it's there, but for the great ones it isn't important. It is a setup, the gameplay comes naturally. But gameplay is nothing without something to drive it... be that a story, a high scores board or an ending...

    Again, it's how you tell the story... not that it is there to begin with.

  • Trikk #28 2 years ago

    MMORPGs are supposed to be persistent worlds that you can affect and change by your actions. This whole trend of static pre-written stories that you simply unravel is missing the point of a massive player-driven world. Nobody logs into World of Warcraft to see what happens in the next part of the "kill 7 wolves" quest line.

    Stories are important for some genres, but they are more like graphics for the MMORPG genre: they make the experience more enjoyable but are by no means central to the experience. Getting to know your server population, dabbling in clan politics, making friends and enemies - these are the things that make people come back for more (besides the delicious grind).

  • Fallenlords69 #29 2 years ago

    Asking this guy about what is best for an MMO is like asking Dr Crippen for marriage advice. Craig 'PVE' Morrison has no idea what makes an MMO tick. He specifically doesn't listen to 'his' user base with regards to the game and AOC is suffering a slow and painful death. In essence whatever Craig 'PVE' Morrison states I would do the opposite and you will probably be fine. Craig should play things like Fallen Earth if he wants to see what a real MMO is all about. AOC = cash cow for Funcom while The Secret World is being developed. He doesn't care about AOC nor do Funcom. Lack of bug fixes, poor client performance and slow development just proves that to be the case.

  • Wyrm #30 2 years ago

    For me, WoW became ten times more interesting when I read into the lore and took the time to understand what was going on in the quests rather than just completing the objective.