Developing a narrative for a massively multiplayer online game, or MMORPG, is seldom as simple as coming up with a straightforward and linear storyline as you would in a single-player game.
Whereas in single-player games, the narrative can remain relatively similar to movie scripts, MMO titles have to account for the freedom they provide players to explore the game at their own pace and not detract from the experience by forcing players to watch cutscenes. Numerous MMOs, including the heavily scripted Star Wars: The Old Republic, have faced criticism for pushing cutscenes that serve only to break up the action instead of working within the framework of the game mechanics.
Additionally, these scripts often only account for a single narrative, and are thus inconsistent with how players of varying races and classes may approach the quest. The developers at ArenaNet have a completely different philosophy from those at BioWare and intend to provide a consistent narrative to players as they go through Guild Wars 2.
“The way I tend to write a story in a game – same way that I tend to gamemaster for an RPG – is I build a world and I make it as detailed as I can and then I just turn the players loose.” Soesbee said in an interview with PC Gamer.
“I know within the story that these points are going to happen – this place will be attacked, that good guy will die, you’ll eventually have to fight that bad guy – but I don’t know how the players are going to get there. There are eight different ways they could get there,” he added.
“In Guild Wars 2 you could be an Asura, you could have an invention and it could go wrong and you could realise that it went wrong because that bad guy did it. You could come from the Sylvari and be in the forest and find several murdered Sylvari. When did that happen? Oh, that bad guy did it. When you and the Asura decide to go into the dungeon, you’ll find that you’re both fighting the same bad guy but from very different motivations.”
“That allows us to tell a singular story about the dragons that are trying to take over the world, but depending on your motivations the story might be different, the NPCs coming with you might be different.”
