Resently Bioware as said that there is “No Point” to MMO’s and that "MMO [games] showed up, and it wasn't that. It was the ruleset to an RPG: There was combat, and there were areas, but that was all. Someone had left out the module. There was no story, there was no point. You just kind of wandered around. And that hasn't really changed all that much over the years.” This made me question what he ment by no story. Most MMOs lack a narrative in the playable world but have light overal stores that help explain characters, enviroment and reasons to play but doesnt the story come from playing the game?
I was reading the blog of Craig Morrison a game producer and director. He has a popular blog that he shares his thoughts and feelings of the gaming world. It was a post that caught my eye labelled: Let me tell you a story. This post he talks about how stories are created by users in games mainly MMO's. The players prefer these story's to build in story worlds.
At one point he writes that MMO’s “May lack some of the traditional elements of a single player story” Then carries on to talk about the ‘Hero Story’ by this he is referring to the protagonist vs the antagonist narrative theory were the player plays the hero in the story. This type of story has more narrative and story over the player because he is put into a role in which they are the main part of both the game and story. But is there a way of creating this effect for thousands at one time?
Morrison then talks about his experiences of online play on an MMO and its more of what the other players talked about and how they played is what he can remember of the game and that to him was the story. An important part of his experience he mentions is how a player asked other players as group how they achieved to get to that point in the game in which he didn't get a reply that had anything to do with the game story itself, the players played together and that was all what was taken in not the actual story or narrative but how the players work in a world. Every character is all based around a player meaning each character is individual for an MMO meaning the amount of unique characters that you can come across and experience is infinite and with this creates a world that is forever changing, dispite if the environmental world stays the same. The world is as only as good as the players the create the experience.
During reading his post i felt myself asking questions of new games on the market today that don't fall under the lable of a MMO do they now have the same story telling technique as a MMO? Games like Halo: Reach and Call of Duty: Black Ops both have such a large audience that there are thousands of players on at one time, and due to the game world getting larger customisation has appeared in these games meaning each character is different. Now unlike a MMO were there is normally a huge world to play in this games are limited by barriers of game space but in this smaller spaces there is a thousands of different battles and outcomes as well as the different players to come across. Isn't a lot of story in modern games being seen on the online multiplayer rather than the campaign. These games players spend more time on the online play than the campaign. Personally i find myself being immersed during the campaign for only a moment before i find myself playing for hours online and then telling my friends of the games i played and what happened just like a story.
Adding onto this players can now record there experiences and tell them like a story, the shear amount of videos recorded of gameplay then voiced over to explain what happened why and when like telling a story is largely popular.
http://top100mmo.kafeklub.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massively_multiplayer_online_game
http://usuallyfine.blogspot.com/2010/06/let-me-tell-you-story.html
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=248858
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