Online Worlds Roundtable #16, Part Six
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One way in which this delicate balance can be achieved is to tell the story in narrative layers, from the personal (the player completes a quest to deliver a weapon to an NPC), to the local (the NPC is a member of the town guard, and needs the weapon to help protect the town against an enemy army that's about to attack), to the global (the enemy army is not only attacking the town, but waging a full-scale invasion of the entire planet).
If the connections between these layers are always transparent, and the scope of the player's quests and other story-driven content expands as his or her character increases in power, then that individual will have effectively become a part of the large-scale story, even as hundreds or thousands of others are also doing the same thing.
It also helps to take a wider perspective. Sure, Luke Skywalker's role in saving the galaxy was vital, but he couldn't have done it without the rest of the Rebel Alliance behind him. Unlike single-player games, where your character is often the only one who can end the threat, MMOs are better served by organizing players into large groupings. They are all united by a common cause, joined together as a single faction, army or race against a powerful enemy, possibly another player faction.
