World of Warcraft at Ten Ton Hammer

Not to be outdone by anyone, those masters of storytelling I made reference to earlier, BioWare, are set to bring the role of story within an MMOG to new heights of glory with the highly anticipated Star Wars: The Old Republic. They stated on numerous occasions that each class will have its own individual storyline that will keep the player engrossed throughout their journey. How they plan to accomplish this ambitious task remains to be seen in full, but if anyone can pull such a feat off, BioWare is that company.

Despite my personal preference, game companies don't need to cater a storyline to individual players. There are plenty of success stories that confirm this, with World of Warcraft being chief among them. Rather than focusing on storylines that revolve around individual players, the majority of story within the game is centered upon the various races and nations. Blizzard has taken more of a lore-centric approach to their story telling and who can argue with almost 12 million subscribers?

The story telling in EverQuest II takes yet a different route in that it attempts to combine the best of both worlds. Most of the lore and story within the game involves the various capital cities, races, and the gods of Norrath. The team at SOE has gone one step further though by making the NPCs of various cities react to your presence in different ways. This was highlighted best by an incident shortly after the game went live.

My guild had been concentrating on completing tasks for the Freeport Militia. At first, the guards would mock you at worst, or completely ignore you at best. I'll never forget the first time I came tearing up the ramp with my necromancer, ready to grab another task for them, and the guards all snapped to attention as I went by. I had to stop and turn back around to make sure I wasn't seeing things. Like the CoX newspaper stories, it's a small thing, but it made a profound impact on my relation with the game.

For me, story plays a very intricate role in my enjoyment or distaste for a game. As technology advances, more companies are making an effort to make you feel as though you really are important to the world and have a distinct role to play. At the same time, there are plenty of successful games that have felt no need to follow this trend. I want to know where you fall on the scale. Does a personalized storyline matter to you and if so, how much? If you think I'm just off my rocker, feel free to let me know that too!