Does an MMO need a story?

Having criticism of the game does not mean it has failed.

An MMO should have enough story to get you started, beyond that it is a hindrance because it takes developer time away from doing what only an MMO can do (as opposed to a single player game) allow people to make their own stories.

I've been saying for years, The ONLY way to keep the players (i.e. Content consumers) happy is to turn them into content creators. Plop down a large (very large) piece of land, populate that world with NPCs/Mobs. And hand over the TOOLS to the players.

This way all the Devs really need to spend time developing are the tools they give players to create content with. Therefore, Once they have the atmosphere of the world setup, they should have ample time to test the hell outta those tools to ensure they can't be heavily abused/exploited beyond their intended use.

The only failure of this design is people are generally unwilling to think or act for themselves. Given that fact your server pop probably won't get very high. But the few that can and WANT TO think for themselves would be damn happy for a very long time.

hehe.. true MMO.. hehe..

Massive: Large
Multiplayer: More than one player
Online: Through the internet or another form of data communication
Roleplaying: To play a role, or to play as a character in a story
Game: To do fun or competitive activities.

MMORPG, in it's definition, does NOT need any of those things you define 'True' MMO's to NEED to be an MMO. Heck, by just calling it MMO you are suggesting it only needs to be massive, multiplayer and online. All the things you mentioned are a sub-market of MMO's of interactive sandboxes. Also known as: Second Life put into a specific pre-defined world.

If you want Sandbox, 'play' Second Life or other sandbox MMO's. In my experience though.. any Sandbox MMO loses the whole Game aspect of MMORPG though, as your action after a while become so tedious and repeating to keep the world going that it really becomes a Second Job, and a Second Life.. if not the First.

actualy most games do have a udner lining stroy, dom, wolf 3d did to KoTOR and eve the most of the FPS these days ahve a basic stroy line like " in the year 20## terriost/badguy group/orginzation has done something, your/your team being sent in to clean/recover/kill/etc.

it mostly the unser based games that have the weakest stroy optoins, since it the users that got to come up with a idea and if it a multi player type hope the other players play along or if does not really work.

Now i am personaly ahving a ahrd time thinking of a non-sandbox-ish game that id not ahve some story to give it a gernal idea to why you playing it. but if someone can tink of one please feel free to tell me.

I think you missed my point, after playing a story based levelling system from 1 to 50 (taking approximately a month at 3 -4 hours a night), not having to repeat a single quest the only way to obtain your equipment for the PvE Operations ect is to do dailies.

Dailies are 10 quests that take between 5 and 10 minutes per quest that you repeat each day. This is for someone that followed the story through the complete opposite of the levelling process and designed to repeat and grind every day.

My complaint with Flashponts, warzones and Ops is not that there is a limited number and that you have to repeat them (that is to be expected) but that they are instanced and placed outside of the context of the levelling.

The Flashpoints should begin at least with the same sort of context as "The Jedi Prisoner" quest line, a lead in and a conclusion once completed. Not go to fleet, talk to a droid and enter.

Why, for example, is eternity vault not on Balsavis with a quest line leading to it?

Why are all Operations instanced and no open world dungeons with bosses to raid? It makes the whole end game and PvP fell like the space combat, a mini game to play when I have nothing to do in the game world.

Fixed.

Actually the first M is "Massively", an adverb that modifies "Multiplayer" -- Massively Multiplayer. It doesn't refer to the size of the world, but to the number of players in the world -- much larger than the typical multiplayer game that has maybe 12-20 players, usually in some sort of team against team play. Massively-Multiplayer implies number that are much larger than a group (but not precluding some of those players from grouping).

The problem with a sandbox approach to Star Wars is that you need some sort of "story" to ensure that players act consistently with history. Nobody can be "King of the Universe" because that isn't one of the choices in the official Star Wars timeline.

That said, there is probably room within the Star Wars lore to have some more individuality added to the game. I'm sure there are a lot of less-than-Galactic factions that have controlled areas or whole planets from time to time that never get mentioned in the Galactic History Books. What if they added new planets that were empty and let people add stuff to them. You wouldn't have to go there if you are happy running solo quests on the regular planets. Would enough people be interested to make it worth dedicating developer time?

The game we have is the game we have. Changes and additions will come, but I don't see them ripping out the storyline to make a sandbox game at this point.

Players, unfortunately, lack any imagination or creativity, thus they must be lead by the nose or bribed into doing something or they just won't do it.

Plop down a piece of land, give them tools, populate it... they stand there wondering why they are there and what they should do. If there isn't a reward attached, they don't see a reason to do it. Will I get XP for killing this creature or not? No reward? I won't kill it then. Will I get something if I climb to the top of this mountain? No reward? Then I won't climb it then.

WoW added all the useless achievements to encourage people to do what they always could do long before achievements existed. You could always grind rep with useless factions for nothing more than the self-pride of having done it. Now it's an achievement, so instead of something unique that you did, now it's common because everyone and their brother does it for some stupid achievement... and it's a 1000 times easier to do to boot.

Yes, MMOs need a story... its why they fall apart at end game so easily... because there is no story left... it's more like a broken record repeating itself. The leveling process has the most engaging content in the game... THE MOST ENGAGING CONTENT... dailies, flashpoints, operation, hard modes... this is just the broken record left playing to keep you around until the next expansion in which, get this, you are given new story as part as your leveling again. Rinse repeat. All MMOs follow this same formula. All of them.

sorry if someone's feelings will be hurt, that's not my point.
i just wanted to say, that actually i Expected it to be voiced game and I could not imagine a cRPG being non-voiced. Yes, it satisfies me, it suits my playing style. And the story I can play actually at least 16 times, due to possible stances one can take.
So this is a game for looong time. That's the only thing I care about. The whole discussion whether" PvP is balanced" or "we need more MMO content" is not bothering me at all, because i am NOT MMO player. If this game would be another WoW or whatever MMO was made before I would not play it. Not my cup of tea, so to say.

Real game MUST have a story and environments to enjoy and character to build.

And SWTOR actually has it.
My only question is why it is made the MMO, but since it does not disturb me whether certain MMO factors are there or not, I am fine with the game, I actually enjoy it a lot!

Naah the abonnament, that is weird, I am not used to pay for play, once I BOUGHT the game.
But maybe this is "sign'o the times".