"You are the Chosen One! And so is everyone else!"

[morrigan]

I started playing EQ when I was like 9, I was a wee tiny babe and Luclin hadn't even come out yet. This started a lifelong love of games where I could interact with others in some form and participate in a giant world (and die, over and over and over and over again in Dark Soul's case). Twinsun's Odyssey and Boba'd Diablo 2 were great, but EQ was special.

MMOs today? Not so much really. So I want to talk about a slight gripe I have with modern MMOs.

Why are you the 'Chosen Hero' in almost every single one now? I don't quite understand why developers feel the need to do this. It's hard to be the Chosen One when there's a few hundred others running around talking to the same person at the same time to learn about their 'destiny' and to get their first quest. Elder Scrolls Online did it, Rift did it, that Star Wars MMO sort of did it but in a weird way.

Why can't we have you as some random adventurer dude again? Is there some weird marketing strategy behind it? If TESO didn't have the whole "Chosen Soulless Hero Dude" thing following you around I probably would have enjoyed playing it. If Star Wars didn't have you on this thin defined path playing as Darth Serkis while hundreds of others were also at the same time playing as Darth Serkis (and if they fixed the Miraluka headgear clipping problem) I would have enjoyed playing it.

So yes, basically, it'd be nice if everyone started off without this Grand Destiny. Let us build our own characters as we want to, we don't need a pre-written destiny for them.

Any opinions on this phenomenon or possible explanations?

[Tann]

Why are you the 'Chosen Hero' in almost every single one now?

I would assume that devs want the game to have a story, and just like in single player RPG's you are typically the main character. They want the whole audience to experience it, etc..

Would anyone watch a Starwars movie about some random drunk guy sitting in a bar while the "main story" was happening somewhere else? or LoTR where the entire movie was the daily life of one of the regulars at the Prancing Pony.

[morrigan]

I would assume that devs want the game to have a story, and just like in single player RPG's you are typically the main character. They want the whole audience to experience it, etc..

Would anyone watch a Starwars movie about some random drunk guy sitting in a bar while the "main story" was happening somewhere else? or LoTR where the entire movie was the daily life of one of the regulars at the Prancing Pony.

Movies are a bit different from video games, I think, so that's an extremely poor example. There is only ONE Luke Skywalker. There is only ONE Frodo Baggins. Do you remember seeing dozens of Luke Skywalkers surrounding Obi-Wan in the movie?

You don't need to force your entire audience into one character for them to experience a story. EQ had an overarching plot in each expansion and as far as I know, and it usually didn't force you to follow along a main quest line to 'complete your destiny', you were just some podunk adventurer who kicks the shit out of Tunare with the rest of your guild.

Also in an MMO why are you forcing them all to play basically the same person? Make a single player game then. Why not let them build their own character and their destiny? It's especially annoying if the game has an RP server, because again people like to give their toons their own backstory and future, not whatever a developer thought up at a 2 AM brainstorm.

[Recycled Children]

It taps into people's subconscious power fantasy. Look up monomyth for a better explanation.

[FoxxHound]

The Mary Sue syndrome~

[MrSparkle001]

Would anyone watch a Starwars movie about some random drunk guy sitting in a bar while the "main story" was happening somewhere else?

That's Game Of Thrones.

[loramin]

Would anyone watch a Starwars movie about some random drunk guy sitting in a bar while the "main story" was happening somewhere else?

They actually made a game like that: Star Wars Galaxies. Only instead of being a drunk guy at a bar you were the drunk guy dancing or playing an instrument in the bar (the game had dancer/musician classes ... *sigh*). Meanwhile Han and Luke and the rest were all busy having their own adventures, and the most involvement you could have in those adventures was getting very loosely-related quests from them.

It was actually pretty sweet though: although the game failed for other reasons, I really liked how it basically said "you are a nobody, have fun becoming a somebody in our giant sandbox". It's too bad that modern games all have to pretend the world is filled with a million unique chosen ones.

[morrigan]

It was actually pretty sweet though: although the game failed for other reasons, I really liked how it basically said "you are a nobody, have fun becoming a somebody in our giant sandbox". It's too bad that modern games all have to pretend the world is filled with a million unique chosen ones.

Yes, this! Thank you loramin! This is exactly the spirit most MMOs should have and yet lack. Because for some reason people think having some half baked "YOU ARE THE CHOSEN ONE" plot sewn into their game is a good idea.

An MMO should be able to grow. If you have some Big Bad and you defeat the big bad... well... what's left? Sure the developers can do an ass pull and create an even BIGGER enemy but... that's just what it is. Your character is done. It has fulfilled the prophecy/story. All the damn end game content revolves around it and there's very few side quests or things you can do. There is no room for the MMO to grow.