Stories in MMORPGs
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Most MMORPGs work on two essential principles; all paying customers should have an equal opportunity to do well, to be a hero, and the game itself should not end. These two rules make sound economic sense, but can conflict with each other, and play havoc with the '˜story'. To preserve them, the concept of the beginning-middle-end story, by necessity, has to be abandoned. Instead, the thousands-strong population of questing heroes is presented with infinitely respawning monsters, whose death changes nothing, and a multitude of small, relatively unimportant tasks that need repeating over and over gain, but which do nothing to advance any specific cause.
This leaves a world that exists in a vague but non-specific general peril, which players are unable to do anything noticeable about a status quo which cannot even recognize player's efforts in any concrete way, in case the crucial balance is permanently tipped. Since a hero that can't affect his world is a hero without purpose, other, more abstract purposes have to be found; namely levelling an endless regimen of training, practice and self-improvement, in preparation for.well, ultimately nothing. Level 500 will arrive, in time, and still the player is unable to be a hero in the grand story sense. Instead, they will look back on several years of generally unremarkable pest extermination. While the actual combat and gameplay itself might have been extremely enjoyable from moment to moment, in the grand scheme of things, that player has really left no mark at all.
