Where, when and how do the player choices matter in RPGs and MMOs. Comparing and analyzing how your choices matter in The Witcher 3 and SWTOR
I often admit in the very beginning of my blog posts that I absolutely never claim to be a skilled blogger. However, sometimes I feel the need to write something instead of showing it or telling you about it in a video.
Today’s case is one of those. I would like to ramble before you today about the Storytelling in an Role-Playing game (RPG) and how important choices that your character makes are. Or should be. And most of all – what the creators of the game need to do to make us believe what we chose to do or say matters and impacts the world our character lives in.
What made me write this
Yesterday I read a great article about “The Story behind the story of The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt” (thanks to @efloresbtz1 for the link). In it I learned a few new to me details about the process of creating the Witcher’s world and atmosphere. Actually a single quote from the article made me open a blank page and star writing this blog post:
In a game as big as The Witcher, immersion plays a defining role as you can’t fully invest yourself in a world you don’t believe in. The same goes for the game’s consequences. There’s a big problem to seriously role-play a character if a player can just load a save to see the other outcome.
These are the words of Karolina Stachyra, senior writer at CD Projekt Red, the studio responsible for ~600 hours of fun I’ve sunk into the Wintcher 3 Wild Hunt.
Now, how would we translate this into Star Wars The Old Republic, my all time favorite MMO (mhm, I still consider SWTOR an MMO, can you imagine that? :P)? Bioware’s latest expansion Knights of the Fallen Empire was all focused on single player storytelling offering a dramatic and epic adventure for your character. I wont go into details how great the story was or how much better it could have been if this or that was done differently. I would like to finally start talking about the Choices we make in the games. How much they impact the story of our characters, where and how do we see the differences and most of all – how easy it is to spot that a certain choice we have made impacts this or that event.
In SWTOR…
We often complain about lack of choices and how most of them are fake ones. There’s one thing we also often miss to acknowledge and admit. SWTOR is an MMO game. It may be receiving solo content updates in the past year, but the world, that our characters live in, is still the one of an MMO game. Bioware is very limited with what they can allow us to modify and shape in this world. It’s not easy to allow the player to decide if the main villain should die or not, because this story connects several other lose ends in the global scale of all the events happening in the Galaxy. For all players and their classes, not just one.
There are ways to implement multiple choices and real branching storyline into an MMO, but we all have to admit the fact that Bioware doesn’t have the money, nor the manpower to do such think. And we have to agree with that. It’s not so much a limitation of the game being an MMO, it’s that fact combined with another one – an MMO needs tons of other content beyond the story and a big enough dev-team to support it. Can we all say now together (and loud!) “THANKS, EA!” :)))
In Witcher 3…
It’s all about choices. Geralt, the main protagonist, is known as a neutral figure. He, as a witcher, must always strive to remain neutral and cannot take sides. However, the control of his fate is completely into the hands of the player. It’s not the developers, but you and me who shape his character in the game. We can choose to be good or bad. All of the decisions we make have impact in current and future events. How is that possible? The main and most important reason is that this is a solo game, focusing entirely on story and adventure. CDPR never have to think about balancing gameplay of 8 different Geralts. Although the game allows for tons of different witcher builds and specs, it’s not the same as balancing MMO classes.
Geralt always fights the exact same creatures in the exact same areas and moments of the story. He’s always armed with his 2 swords (melee class). Geralt doesn’t have to think how all the other witchers will (re)act to complete a certain quest. This adventure is designed for one player alone. For Geralt, the Witcher. There’s no balancing required There’s only him. His actions alone shape the whole world around him. Every single moment of the game is all personal and depends on nothing and nobody else, but Geralt! There aren’t X or Y players doing the same quest(s) at the same time and shaping the same World all together. At the same time.
Back to the quote from Stachyra
Even though it’s not always clear where in SWTOR we make an important decision, they are present! It was disappointing to see my Sith Warrior failing to punish or kill my enemies. I was very frustrated when the story did not allow me to banish, punish and kill whoever I want. I am a Sith Warrior. The Emperor’s Wrath must have all the freedom in the world!
The amount of choices given to the players may be considerably smaller than what we would love to see, but considering the development time for KOTFE and the fact that we received 40-60 minutes of story each month, speaks for how hard these guys have been working. Please, let’s not mention the incredibly unfair price of $15/month for only 40-60 min of content. I am on your side on this topic. And I wish more companies would follow the example CDPR gave our gaming world with the expansions to their game. Both Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine offer more content than a standalone EA game would and they cost ~$25 combined!
Longevity is the key? Or replayability, perhaps? Both!
To complete The Witcher 3 once, the player needs 100+ hours. Including all side quests, that number would rise up to 200+. During my first playthrough I didn’t have a clue that one simple action or word may turn upside down a quest I will be doing 20-30 hours later. I needed 500-600 hours to discover all of these connections. And I shouldn’t say all! I keep discovering little things that explain some of the big things in the game even today. The popular line “Choices matter” became viable and interesting in SWTOR with Fallen Empire. I will admit – I have far less hours invested into it compared to Geralt’s adventures. And these two things are exactly what I’m trying to compare. Not Witcher 3 to SWTOR as a whole, but Witcher 3 to KOTFE alone.
I have, so far, played through all 16 chapters 3 (and a half) times with different choices on each Playthrough/Walkthrough. I’ve played through the Witcher 3 5 (and a half) times. I have seen Vulkk’s decisions being explained many chapters later after I’ve made them. I’ve seen the consequences for some of Geralt’s actions much later in the story too. It’s not always entertaining when you see the outcome immediately. We might lose the sense of continuation and connection if all of our decisions are always for the moment and short-term.
You know what? I can think of a couple moments where Geralt would have loved to tear apart the NPC sitting in-front of him, but the game denied him of that pleasure, because said NPC is important for another quest down the line. I’m sure we can all think of a few moments in KOTFE that fit this description.
Ending words, or… sort of
Did you know that Bioware made a promise of easier to notice and shorter decision-outcome cycles in the second season… I meant to say in the next expansion Knights of the Eternal Throne? Do we really need things to be so simple? Are we too lazy to play through the chapters more than once or twice? Or is it Bioware’s fault for not cooking them up nice and tasty enough for us to WANT to play them multiple times? I claim that all of the Witcher 3 is perfect, yet I too skip through cutscenes and whole dialogues often in order to reach the more important ones. Why can’t I do the same with KOTFE’s storyline? Just skip the parts I fine less interesting and replay the story a few more times with just focusing on the special moments.
In the very end… after thinking while writing all this. I believe I came to a conclusion. We all need to give KOTFE a few more tries and then resume complaining about the lack of choices.
What if all we needed from Fallen Empire was more epic and dramatic moments to cover for the lack of meaningful choices? We all love KOTOR, but how much of a story branching do you remember from that classic legendary Bioware RPG?
Your turn! Do you have something to add to my ramblings? Something to argue about? Something to share?
