Lore...integral to an MMO, or extraneous?

In the MMORPG industry, there seem to be two schools of thought regarding "lore," that nebulous concept that's a combination of backstory and living history. The first is that lore is a secondary concern and should take second place to the gameplay mechanics. Games that follow this line of thinking are World of Warcraft, Star Wars: Galaxies (arguably), and Runescape.

The second line of thinking is that lore is integral to the game. The most notable example of this is Everquest 2, where lore is so ingrained in the game mechanics themselves that it's almost impossible to play the game for even half an hour without learning something new about the game world.

When thinking about 38 Studios's MMORPG, which school of thought do you hope they follow? Personally, I vote for the second one.

I would have to put my vote up for the second one as well. I can never really get into a game if it doesn't have a real story behind it. That's why I enjoyed playing games like Everquest and Everquest 2, lore just helped me get into the game and made me feel like I was part of that world.

Definately the second!!

If you don't have the story line, what will happen to the game? Talk about your mass meanderings! ICK! It takes them forever to pull things back together if they do it the first way. But if you have the story set and the lore known (EQ did that, too, actually...remember the dragons and the orcs vs Kelethin/Felwithe stuff?), the faction is there with no questions. The story is set so if something crazy happens, it's a riff in the world that foretells things to come!

Besides, with R.A. working with 38, how could it be anything different? uh-uh....lore set first, please and storyboard from there!

You'll have to forgive me but I attached a poll to your thread. It seemed like a perfect candidate for doing so.

As to the question, I consider lore integral. I really enjoy getting immersed in the who, what, why, when, where and how of things in a gaming world. What I wish game developers would do is figure out a more streamlined way of introducing quests to players that doesnt bludgeon you with a page and a half of text like WoW does. Everyone sees an exclamation point and goes up and clicks the NPC and just clicks accept. I know so few people who actually bother to read the quest text unless they absolutely must. While it was alot less intuitive and elegant the Everquest method of questing certainly forced people to slow down and read into things to really understand their world instead of just flying through it at warp speed.

Originally Posted by Pirotess

You'll have to forgive me but I attached a poll to your thread. It seemed like a perfect candidate for doing so.

As to the question, I consider lore integral. I really enjoy getting immersed in the who, what, why, when, where and how of things in a gaming world. What I wish game developers would do is figure out a more streamlined way of introducing quests to players that doesnt bludgeon you with a page and a half of text like WoW does. Everyone sees an exclamation point and goes up and clicks the NPC and just clicks accept. I know so few people who actually bother to read the quest text unless they absolutely must. While it was alot less intuitive and elegant the Everquest method of questing certainly forced people to slow down and read into things to really understand their world instead of just flying through it at warp speed.

Absolutely. The last quest I did in EQ2, for example, I got from a book. I first had to read the book's "introduction" to get the quest. After each stage of the quest was completed, I had to read another "chapter" in the book to unlock the next stage. The final reward for the quest (besides coin and xp) was a version of the book that could be placed in my house. I thought that was awesome.

I loved having items from the quests that we could keep and put in our houses. My fae's house is really cute, even tho it's christmas all year round!

Here's a post I made at my old Green Monster board that goes along this same line:

So R.A. Salvatore brought this up at a book signing, about how it's sorta sad that game companies have people creating this rich history and lore, and thousands upon thousands of lines of dialogue, only to have players ignore the lore of items (Ex. the many books of lore in the Baldur's Gate games), and just speed click their way through dialogue.
One the one hand, I understand the desire to get through the dialogue quickly, and that's fine. As a developer, they really have no choice but to have the option for players to do so. But, on the other hand, it must really suck to be someone creating lore for these rich, massive worlds, only to have players ignore it/skip it.
Is there some sort of happy medium? I think so. I think a line could be drawn that sort of draws the player into WANTING to read the lore, and hear the dialogue. Things such as clues to quests found within the lore of items, or within dialogue with NPCs. Info that is not going to magically appear in their questbook. Brings out the need for the developer to add a "notes" tab to the journal as many games these days seem to have.
I dunno. Just a thought.

Good thoughts!

This is what they were trying to achieve in Vanguard, but found that players today (not all, but many) feel that they have to WIN the game, rather than get to know the world. The devs really didn't think there would be lvl 50's within a month! su-PRIZE!!!!

"Winning" has to be tied into learning the lore somehow. And, as has been said so many times, an MMO isn't ever really "finished", so "winning" is badly used, but you know what I mean! There is an insatiable need to be first...have all the goodies...go uber and l33t...and it just kills things for games. And then, to top it off, they gloat and ruin it for others.

Originally Posted by Aredhel

Good thoughts!

This is what they were trying to achieve in Vanguard, but found that players today (not all, but many) feel that they have to WIN the game, rather than get to know the world. The devs really didn't think there would be lvl 50's within a month! su-PRIZE!!!!

"Winning" has to be tied into learning the lore somehow. And, as has been said so many times, an MMO isn't ever really "finished", so "winning" is badly used, but you know what I mean! There is an insatiable need to be first...have all the goodies...go uber and l33t...and it just kills things for games. And then, to top it off, they gloat and ruin it for others.

I know exactly what you mean! It just seems like people don't play the game to have fun anymore. It's all about who the best is, and who can get to the top first. Everyone takes themselves too seriously in MMOGs today; it's like a second job to some people.

I guess some people have just forgotten how to appreciate a good storyline. :/

Setting has always been an important factor to me in any MMO. I've always found myself to stick with an MMO longer if there is lots of storyline to discover because there is simply more content to go through. Back when I played EQ, I used to run around and just talk to NPCs and find out why they paced around in the areas that they did. Now, I'm not really a role player as I never really try to talk in character, but I do like my character to have opinions based on the world around him. Story just really helps me get into a game. The best games to me are the ones that are like reading a book where you make the decisions for the main character, and it sounds like this new game by 38 Studios is going to incorporate a strong story line.

One problem with trying to enjoy the story is the fact that a lot of players, in my opinion, only really care about phat lewts and pwning whatever they can in the game. I've been yelled at by groups before when I've tried to actually read quest text to find out why the people want me to complete whatever task for them. I think that a lot of players just feel some need to be the best. I do admit that when I first played online games, I was very competitive and always liked to have the coolest character... The main problem with that is that it's just so time consuming!

I think a good analogy is backpacking. You can rush to wherever you're going just for the sake of getting there faster, but along the way you miss the beautify scenery and can get exhausted from the fast pace. If you just take your time, you can still get to the end of the trail, but you may find wonderful things that would have been missed otherwise. That's why I try to take in game lore now and really see what the game is about. Taking it easy really leads to a better game experience, in my opinion.