So I’ve read everything out there at the moment on TOR, scanned through all the screenies, watched the presentation and promo videos and digested it all — same as most of you out there. And here’s something that occurred to me earlier today…
TOR promotes itself as “the first” story-driven MMO and, putting aside the existence MMOs like LotRO that have had some pretty serious story progression arcs in addition to regular questing, let’s just take that on face value for a moment.
This story driven questing will push your character forward. Level after level which, hopefully, won’t feel like grinding. You’ll be part of your own, class-specific story which will adapt, to some degree, based on decisions you make.
Sounds great, doesn’t it? And I really hope it is. Quite sincerely, I do. But…
(Isn’t there always a but?)
… when it comes to games with scripted story lines, those story lines always have to come to an end. They simply can’t go on for an infinite time. So what does this mean for TOR? Well, that’s the million dollar question, and the point of this thread.
Does it mean:
- The scripted storyline will take your character through an epic story and then, at the end, you’re essentially “done”? ie: You’re at the level cap; you’ve done all the content and, beyond that, there’s just whatever end-game is on offer for your character?
- The scripted storyline will take your character through an epic story but, importantly, needs to be combined with other random quests to make it to the level cap? The result being that the epic story doesn’t feel like it stops dead when you hit the level cap?
- *Something else entirely?
The best example I can think of, to date, is what happens in LotRO, whereby there’s a wealth of “book quests” on offer and, from time to time, new ones are made available for a free download. In that way, the storyline continues, and you have new stuff to do with your character. However, it’s also worth pointing out that most people hit the level cap in LotRO pretty quickly and easily and are often then left hanging for a long, long time in between book updates. Will we see similar in this game? I cannot see how we would not.
It would strike me as astounding if BioWare could somehow keep the epic storyline going indefinitely. So, the question begs, if the storyline has to stop sometime, when must it stop? And how? Your thoughts please!