The epic q line in lotro is therefore one of the big advantages.
The whole story setup in lotro is completely different. I actually READ the q's, feel WITH the npcs. As soon as I log in, i instantly feel part of the world much more than in any other MMO I've ever played.

Geronimo Caduff
 

Yup, I'm also looking forward to the Epic Quest line in LORTO - it will be really nice to have that one story that unfolds through the life time of your character. And I know one of my mates who loves story driven gaming and up to know has only really gotten on with CoH (because of the odd Story line missions that crop up in that game) is quite excited about LOTRO.

So I think it's a great selling point for any game to have a consistent evolving story. Its something Turbine did very well in Asherons Call (monthly story updates and occasional Developer driven events) and I hope that experience will be utilised fully in LOTRO :)
 

WOW's problem in this regard is that the story is stuck in one moment of time.
You may well kill Hogger and progress through to Illidan, but nothing changes. Within 5 minutes Hogger is back, and so is everything else.
I replanted trees in the Charred Vale, I killed the Legion's representatives in Ashenvale, and yet, if I go there now, nothing has changed. the Charred Vale is still charred, the Legion is still in Ashenvale, and Hogger is still causing trouble in Elwynn Forest.
Progress can only be measured by running out of quests and having to move on to the next quest giver, who will give you the same quests again - kill x monsters, rescue y, bring me z items.
It would be nice to walk into Westfall and see the npcs ploughing the fields rather than the rusty machines that are there today (and always will be).

*Vlad*
 

I'd already be happy if by clicking on a quest giver for whom I have done lots of quests, I wasn't greeted with the same standard "hello stranger" message than before I did the quests for him. Would it be so hard for him to greet me with "Oh, hello again, and thanks for all what you did for me"?

The problem with making the replanting of trees in the Charred Vale permanent is that if you did that, the quest would be gone, and not be available for the people who come after you. But I really liked the way LotRO displays the same area in different instances, so if you start as human in the village of Archet your newbie quest line ends with you witnessing bandits burning down that village, and then afterwards you get quests from the survivers living in that now burned-down village. So something has permanently changed, for you, but of course the next human newbie can still witness the village burning in his personal instance.
 

And of course Guild Wars does something similar but on a bigger scale destoying more than just one village, but pretty much an entire zone.
 

I gotta mention guild wars here. The game has a main story...there are quests but there are also "missions". Quests work the same way as they do with wow...but missions are more linear, and often include many cut scenes to fill you in on the story. The cut scenes have an option to skip over them if everyone in the group selects to do so.........whats really funny is that in some parts you can enter a cut scene while still in combat, and during this your character can not fight, but only die. Very funny to enter a cutscene on purpose and then not select to skip it while you see your party being torn apart.......


haha!


seriously tho I think wow should have a better sence of linear story in it.......I still like the
"random access" part....but I few cut sences would be nice...and the part at the end of sm cath doesn't count! DON IMUS!
 

I think some of the storylines are there in WOW IF you want to pursue them. The lore of the game is actually quite interesting (to me) but required that you actually read the quest text and pursue those quest chains. Example: As a new bloodelf, I was sent to the leaders of the different faction s of the Horde. Undead, Orc and Bloodelf. Following the quest, I got chills up my back when I was sent to Thrall as an emmissary of the bloodelves. Thrall crushed my leader's missive in his hands and said "Welcome to the Horde!" And that was how the bloodelves became allied with Thrall. I did that. It's optional, it's semi-random access, but it's there if you want it.
 

One of the best examples both of the idea of a main storyline, and of your actions changing the world (to a degree) would be Final Fantasy XI.

Each expansion for FFXI, in addition to adding new zones, new monsters, sometimes new jobs, adds a series of specialized sequential quests called Missions. Missions are basically the storyline of FFXI.

The original game came with three mission lines, one for each of the starting nations. Prior to the first expansion these missions went up to around level 60 (the original level cap) and finished with defeating the Shadow Lord.

The first expansion, Rise of the Zilart (RotZ), expanded upon the national missions (adding an additional 8 quests per nation), with each nation's missions focusing on an aspect of their nations history. RotZ also introduced its own mission line that was mostly independent of the national missions. It focused, in a way, on the fourth nation of the game, Jeuno, and specifically its ruler.

The second expansion, Chains of Promathia (CoP) focused on a much grander scale that the previous mission lines. First off it introduces a previously thought lost nation of Tavnazia, and concerns the rebirth of the Twilight God, Promathia (really big bad guy).

Finally, they've recently released the third expansion Treasures of Aht'Urghan. This adds a whole new continent, a new nation, more and missions focusing on exploring that area.

An example of your actions changing things for you would be one of the missions in the middle of the mission line for CoP involves bringing to attention the lost nation of Tavnazia to the "main" game nations. Through this, Jeuno sends envoys which start shipping stuff to and from Tavnazia. This increases what is sold by vendors and makes Tavnazia have an Auction House which is connected to the Jeuno Auction House. These are major changes for most players since it allows access to the biggest AH in the game in a zone that is far out of the way of said town. Another example is the national mission lines. You start off not being able to access a certain area (Chateau d'Oraguille, the castle of the royal family of San d'Oria) and through completing missions you become more renowned and then due to your exploits are allowed access to it. There are other minor quests or missions with similar effects as well.

One other addition that I think FFXI did which I've seen rarely if at all in other MMOs is in-game Cut Scenes. These are pre-generated events which take place with you either watching or playing an integral role in the cut scene. For example, in CoP one of the first cut scenes involves you coming upon a mysterious boy, who gives you a pendant, as he escapes from the authorities. Stuff like that, that makes you really feel like the central character during a mission line, and really makes FFXI shine IMO. Some of the illusion of being a central character is lost since you need upwards of 5 other people to complete some of the mission’s fights, but it’s still better than games such as WoW where the world is trapped in an image of a single moment, and you really do just feel like one out of a million other people.
 

One thing I would love to see in a mmorpg, don't know if this is done yet is to have a kind of a 'natural' cycles in the world.

Say you are in a zone and a village is not happy about some wolves that you need to kill.
You have the standard kill X get N quest.
But when 10-100 quests of these type has been done, the quest disappear and a new kind of beast appear in the zone, says boars.
Now you have a new quest with kill X get N for boars. When there is no more boars you go back to wolves.
There is always the same number of quests, they are just cycling in time.

You can have short cycle like the one I gave before or more longer cycles like two villages tearing each other apart, at one time in the cycle you need to help one side, later you'll need to help the other sides.

Cycles could as short as 2-3 hours or several weeks.

Warhammer online seems to want to do that with there quest zone, but when you have kill the big boss it seems it goes back to the beginning of the sequence instead of playing another sequence.
 

Reading this makes me think you'll really enjoy PQ's quest system. There's one main quest and a billion side quests...
 

I'm not so big on storylines and find that my favorite parts of RPG's and MMPORPG's are the side games. Things like the card games in FF8 and the Bulk Order Deeds (BOD's) system in Ultima Online. In WoW, I loved participating in the fishing tournament and playing the auction house.

For me most of the storylines seem to the same handful of stories told over and over again

Zigabob