Most modern MMOs are garbage.
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You seem fun, but we’ll have to agree to disagree.
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Again, it’s not prohibited from MMO’s.
You can have the story tell you that your champions and still have the core experience be group based. I think DC Universe online comes to mind, since it’s about a band of Superheroes and Supervillians, rallying together (or against) this big threat that is going to …destroy the world or something, i don’t know much about the game, all i know it has Batman in it.
Warframe also comes to mind, despite playing differently from the other MMO’s.
Maybe you don’t like playing those kinds of games and find the Non Power fanasty MMO games better to play as, like Classic or Everquest 1, and that’s wholly understandable. … Which makes me wonder why then you have a rank 3 legendary cloak on your character if that’s the case. 
(Before you tell me where’s my cloak, i was playing on my Mage for 8.3, Mages has been surprisingly fun.)
Star Wars The Old Republic exists, and it’s writing is pretty much good, as good as Bioware’s gets.
Your not wrong in swtor storyline it’s very biased to single player but each class has multiple endings and they make it a point that yout the hero in your story but a rather small spec kn the game/galaxy. Probably the one thing I liked most about the game.
I think wildstar and rift nailed it better than most in group effort quest/story effort. Haven’t done final fantasy though so cant compare that one.
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I’ve played Warframe and they don’t do the power fantasy garbage. The Lotus talks to you like you’re one of many, because that’s exactly what you are.
You get maybe two unique interactions with the Lotus herself that gives the player reason to think their Operator is a stand-out (and even then, not realy), but these are so few and far between that they’re easy to compartmentalize. It’s not at all the scale of WoW or GW2 where the sequence of events depends on you and you alone.
You can make an argument that the story of “The Sacrifice” is a power fantasy because it’s dealing with a Warframe that is apparently one-of-a-kind, but its so subdued.
Why am I using the legendary cloak that is the corner stone of doing the main content feature of 8.3? Can’t imagine why.
If you’re gonna scope my character for style points at least take note of the fact it’s mogged to the most basic red cloak ever.
Played it. It was middling, but the story-heavy dialogue really killed the momentum for me personally and I wouldn’t really call it’s current iteration the hallmark of success so it really goes to show the kind of staying power it had in the first place.
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Maybe not in story, but with all the other things.
I haven’t played Warframe, but i would assume it would be some kind of group play power fantasy, if not in story, in things like combat, customization and all that.
That still doesn’t change the fact that i can look in the armory and see that you have it on. Come to think of it, the cloak is not/hardly noticeable on the profile pic at all, so if your asking me to take a look at your cloak, i can’t actually see it without going to the armory, even then, i can barely see it (cause you can’t rotate characters). I can hover my mouse over the cloak and see it that it has been mogged. But i really don’t know why you made this defense in all honestly.
I wasn’t doing it for “Style Points” (Assuming that you said that my intention was malice, i don’t think it’s wise to assume malice or anything like that on my part. But you have my Mea culpa if you feel that way. ) i’m tossing my guess that from what your saying that i’m getting the impression that you don’t like those kinds of games, then it just struck me a touch odd if you do happen to say “yes i hate them” when i go check the armory.
Personally i would, since Mass Effect Andromeda and Anthem exists.
Plus i would imagine the story would be a big draw for the game, considering, again, Bioware wrote it.
Story is the only place the power fantasy happens. It’s in the NPC interactions, the cutscenes, the presentation, the gimmicks. Whether it’s the Order Hall, the Garrisons, or being the Champion of Azeroth, the story is all tailored around that and used to serve these things. Otherwise you have just features but no narrative to string them together or contextualize.
And what exactly is the point you’re making by observing that I’m wearing the legendary cloak? That because I’m using it, I’m buying into the power fantasy? If you’re confusing game mechanics with story, allow me to clarify that I’m speaking strictly of story beats.
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And quite honestly, WoD did them okay (not good, but not too bad), but Legion and BFA did them worse. And again, from a power fanasty standpoint, it’s not that great. From a non power fanasty standpoint, it’s not much better either.
Still, even if it’s bad, it’s still doable cause somebody will come in and eventually do it right.
DOOM comes to mind to basically having little to no narrative. Earth decides it’s a great idea to open a portal to hell to get power, demons came, now you got to kill all the demons.
Also Far Cry does as well. 
Their only single-player games, but those come to mind since you’ve said that.
I actually said my point down below… 
It’s basically stems from curiosity, I still yet to get an answer from you if you like these kinds of games or not. I just want to know if you do or not.
And fine, i can understand how that question at the end with the cloaks may be leading to something for you, so Mea culpa.
Well, Mea Maxima Culpa. You Clarified that for me.
Not in an MMO.
Out of curiosity, what do you define as a power fantasy?
I’ll explain my own understanding and you can tell me where we are at odds.
I consider a power fantasy to be any game in which the player character is proped up as some kind of savior, the hero around which the game’s story revolves around and would certainly lead to catastrophe if they do not succeed. I consider games like the Witcher and Mass Effect to be power fantasy games because of the scale of their stakes and narrative.
The reason a power fantasy is at odds with the shared world nature of WoW is because in Mass Effect, you never interact with another Commander Shepard. Within your save file, you, and only you, are Commander Shepard and you are not put into a world inhabited by other Commader Shepards between cutscenes.
This is a mixing of oil and water and why I firmly believe you cannot have a convincing power fantasy in a shared world MMO. Players act as though this is what they want, but then we’re still talking about awful content draughts and why Blizzard is adopting retention strategies. I have to wonder that if this power fantasy narrative is so desirable why players stop showing up.
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Is “cringe” the buzzword of the year or something?
What? How has cringe even made it into the gaming lexicon? It’s almost indescribably vague and can have so many meanings depending on point of view it makes almost anything the word is put into worthless. And none of those meanings have ANYTHING to do with the actual definition of the word itself, just mind boggling.
As to the OP, i like it when my characters are in the cinematics. It gives them validation in the story as a whole and that they are taking a part and there at that point of history.
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A power fantasy to me is… well it’s a story that is centered around you, and your the chosen one, and the idea is to… well make you powerful. I mean the very name alone pretty much explains it: a fantasy where you have power. I think the way i look at power fantasy in more of a gameplay aspect then the story aspect, though it’s important factor to take in too.
Saints Row 2 - 4, Far Cry 3 - 5, DOOM, GTA (SA and 5 most certainly), and Skyrim, comes to mind as the kind of games i would definitionally call The Power Fantasy, as in it plays heavily on that idea of making you the center of the universe to a degree where you have godlike control. Running my own gang in SR 2 and causing mayhem and havoc in the city i play in while amassing the amount of money i earn to buy up properties in GTA (or in SR4, killing aliens with my super powers as the president of the USA), slaying demons on the surface of mars in Doom, being an awesome discount predator and stealth murdering bandits in Far Cry, and taking down dragons with my voice in Skyrim.
One example of a Power fantasy that is pretty great, but the story is at complete odds was Dead Rising 3. Despite being able to craft a Flame sword out of a butterknife and shampoo (along you have the perk for it) under 3 seconds to deal with mass horde of zombies with, in story, your character you play as acts like a bumbling dum-dum. And i’m sure theirs power fantasy games that fail at being a power fantasy.
When i think the opposite of one, i think of games like Far Cry 2, Dying Light, The first two Dead Risings, and GTA 4, where it shows your not always mega powerful and sometimes you can’t take a problem head on, or the story wouldn’t always heavily lean towards your favor. Being chased by super zombies at night in Dying Light, constantly contracting malaria and etc in Far Cry 2, have to avoid huge hordes of zombies while escorting your survivors to safety and being prepared for anything in Dead rising 1 and 2, and while GTA 4 still somewhat remains a power fantasy, it is much less so in with it’s realistic and slower approach, displayed prominently in the combat where a single well placed shot or landing wrong while ragdolling can be the end of you.
WoW, GW2 and SWTOR, does come to mind of a power fantasy done in an MMO setting. Again, not so great with WoW, cause the focus at times are handed to the characters, via be pre-rendered cutscenes, actions, etc. So like for example in WoW, where all 40 of us at ICC took on the Lich King and whittle him down, Tirion gets the final blow and pretty much gets most of the credit to a point where even our credit is kinda worthless compared to the named characters. I do believe they can do a power fantasy right in a multiplayer game, and i don’t mean just copying it single-player and that’s done, but adapting it to the multiplayer game.
That said, While i do enjoy the fact that the BFA raid finale explicitly shows you killing N’zoth yourself, it doesn’t save the story of BFA,not because it’s a power fantasy, but how bad the writing is even if it’s a self contained character’s story, and how lackluster the effort was put forth from start to finish. But i digress.
And some of them do actually want it. Some of them even want them to be done well.
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We seem to agree on what a power fantasy is. I still don’t understand how you think you’re not immediately invalidated in the MMO power fantasy the second you come in contact with another player. Do you just pretend that they aren’t seeing and experiencing the same things that you do? Or are you satisfied that their experience is entirely different because you might have been a Male Night Elf Rogue in league with the Unseen, and someone else had a Female Forsaken Rogue instead?
Why do you want credit?
That question might sound weird, but think of it like this: The kill matters to your guild because it’s the challenge your guild has been trying to overcome. It’s the culmination of group effort and time invested toward this goal. Your raid acknowledges your contribution to that fight.
Why does anything other than that matter?
Why does it matter if the story says Tirion Fordring got the kill? Relevant to the gameplay, he’s just script and code occupying space until you get the boss to a certain point that triggers his animation and dialogue.
Why do you require that the game’s story acknowledge what you’ve done, or at least, why do you seem to care more about that than whether or not your fellow players do?
I don’t think this is someonthing anyone should admit to.
I really don’t know what your experiences are until i ask, but to answer your question, i understand this is a multi-player game and other people do exist, and i understand very well that this isn’t single-player.
I just come to accept and acknowledge that other players are either less, more or equal in terms of power to me. Keep in mind this is an RPG still, inevitability those things are going to be power fantasy somewhat, cause your literally building up your power.
Cause we killed him? 
That’s one of my main gripes with the story in WoW from a power fantasy stand point, doesn’t really matter what i do, it wouldn’t really matter cause this named character is there, and by the powers of the writers, just soaks up all the credit/glory. Even worse, even if you do get called like Champion or something, your still treated like you are as if your adventurer, but less so and being access to commander level stuff like mission tables, and become the most trusted companion with this named character, only to find the named character apparently can’t do it without you or just lazy, and still take the credit.
That script and code still irks me, even though i know their script and code. When i play GTA SA, i know the entire world is script and code (cause it’s ironic since i played on the PC version and i see that all the time), but it helps immerse in the world all the better to know what i’m doing matters throughout the story and such.
Satisfaction, i mean, isn’t that what having a fantasy come true what leads to?
Why shouldn’t it? cause they will be shouted down for that?
Just because an RPG is about a gradual progression of power doesn’t mean it has to be a power fantasy. Before the player character was heavily involved in the events of the story, that’s what World of Warcraft was, and that’s what a MMORPG should be.
The game tells you that you’re the greatest. You as the player accept that this isn’t actually true. Are you unwilling or unable to see why this is a contradiction and why MMORPGs are not a suitable place for the power fantasy where your character can ascend to literal godhood.
You’ve missed my point in spectacular fashion. Thank you for pointing out that video games are script and code. The reason I said that about Tirion Fordring is because these are factors of his character that have no impact on your raid group’s ability to complete the challenge.
What the story says happens and what the player accomplishes should be two different things. Why do you want credit for something that is accessible to everyone?
Your personal Lich King kill only matters to your raid group. Why do you need a place in the story for something that you aren’t the only players to accomplish?
Only if you presume a fantasy has to have an end, or has to meet some kind out outcome. If your fantasy is just to be part of the world, then that it doesn’t matter what credit you get for what you’ve done.
This isn’t how MMORPGs are built. They’re meant to be persistent worlds that live and breath without you, will continue without you, and your individual presence is not at all required to make things happen.
Because it’s an admission that you want to be treated special for something that is not that special to do. It’s an admission that you want a participation trophy because it makes you feel good personally. It’s selfish.
That though is one of the main reason games are made and sell so well.
Because they create the illusion of challenge and success and with many people too desperate to be able to avoid falling for that, they enjoy that delusion.
Games are pretty much a way to give the feeling of greatness to the unworthy.
There are plenty of games that cater to this and do well. Any of the single-player RPG games listed above do this without encroaching on the sense that the world is actually shared by people who have the same experience you do.
The power fantasy appeal is not the problem.
Pretending it can coexist with the MMORPG model is.
When I first started playing I loved that this game didn’t treat you the individual as the greatest hero of all time but as one of many that banded together to save the world…or fight for your faction… it’s feeling a little cliche and hokey being the “hero” now after all these years of being a team… It makes me a little sad
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The only fault i see is how they wrote it. With good enough writing, you can make practically anything work. Again, i still hold my opinion that GW2 and SWTOR did it better then WoW.
It still contributes to the overall experience of the game despite having no supposed impact to the gameplay.
Hows the Lich King is accessible? he’s a major villian and expansion finale boss fight of Wrath of the Lich king. Everybody can join in, but not everybody can beat him, at least back then. This isn’t some random mob i beat up and expect a to see a “You’re Winner” screen. If i have played back then and worked hard to defeat, then MMO or not, i want the story to reflect that we killed him, and not some paladin that got frozen for a good chunk of the fight and only got the final blow.
At least with the Illidan Boss Battle, we get the final blow, and don’t even get me started on the Classic/Vanilla Raids where we just waltz right in without anybody following us and just took them down.
I mean, is it bad to ask that in an MMO or a video game in general?
You do realize MMO’s has phasing? The very least they could offer an illusion of a changing world via by your actions.
Cause it makes me feel accomplished and make me feel like what i’m doing mattered and so the game reflects that? Is that participation trophies you were talking about later on, in your mind?
So defeating Bosses aren’t special? Doing a very hard task that took time and effort isn’t special?
What’s wrong with feeling good in a video game? Also WoW has a good chunk trophies to earn that isn’t “handed” to you, you still got to go and earn it. Mythic+, Normal and + Raiding, PvP, even Pet Battles, if your doing the tournaments and etc.
I can think no more selfish things like using the feeling of being special as an excuse to remove content, which, i hate content removal. Even if i feel accomplished in the things i work very hard for like i did for Flame-glaives, it only make me happier to see more people have the same thing as i have, not cause i want it to be easier, but i want as many people to want it as they possibly could, cause it’s such a great mog piece. It wouldn’t do me any good to go “ha ha ha ha ha ha, you can’t have this, ha ha ha ha.”.
All three are awful at it because the nature of the power fantasy cannot be fulfilled while you share a world with people no different than you. You cannot be a god when everyone else are gods.
How? Why does the satisfaction of working toward a goal with your raid team get trumped by the story playing out a certain way? Would you have preferred it if Tirion fell to his knees right there and proclaimed everyone the champion that he couldn’t be himself?
By virtue of being in the game. This was when Blizzard introduced 10/25 man raids. If a player wasn’t able to find a raid that would take them, that’s the player’s problem. Anyone who knew their class, knew the fights, brought food, pots, and flasks, and contributed to their environment in a positive way could find a team that would want to keep inviting them. Normal-mode Lich King was absolutely accessible to anyone who put the effort in.
How can the story accommodate the millions of players that defeated him? You can’t treat everyone like they’re there to land the killing blow. If the game treats you as the vaunted champion that defeated the Lich King personally, they they have to do the same for me, and they have to do the same for everyone else.
At which point does an experience mean less than its presented when you know it’s not actually personal?
There’s a reason why people tune into the world first races, btw. In a world where everyone can get credit for clearing a raid, the one who does it first is going to get notoriety for the accomplishment in a way no one after them does.
Why? Why give the player the impression they’re the one the world revolves around? Why do you want personal impact on a world that is shared? If the game could be changed through collaborative effort, that’d be another thing entirly. That’s why the Scarab Gong was such a big deal. It was a group effort, even if only one person walked away with the title.
There are plenty of games out there that do this for you on their own. Why is it so necessary to make shared-world MMORPGs behave like this? If you want a game that offers a story where your actions matter, go play one of those games. Don’t expect a world that you share with other players to feel like it’s your personal playground.
Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren’t. Nice strawman, though.
If it’s something everyone can do with no effort, it’s not special. This means the storyline for WOD, Legion, and BfA, that is the basic experience you’re first exposed to, props you up as this mythical champion the world is reliant on. If you get the same treatment other players do, then no, it isn’t a special or noteworthy accomplishment.
Here’s an anecdote: Back in WoD, my little casual RP guild did Hellfire Citadel as something to do together. We only cleared to Kilrogg. This is not a noteworthy achievement but those of us in our raid cared because it was a group effort. Any one of us could have just done LFR and experienced all the bosses that way, but that required no effort. Killing Kilrogg was better for our raid than anytime we killed Archimonde on LFR.
We didn’t go and expected to be the only players hailed for killing Kilrogg, btw. We knew the world didn’t revolve us and we didn’t expect the story to treat us like that. We were a small raid doing something a lot of other raids did, and did better, but we didn’t care because we weren’t in it for the story out come, we were it in for the accomplishment.
There’s nothing wrong with feeling good in a video game. If you want a game that treats you like the super important hero, there are plenty of game experiences that you can find that do that. Stop expecting a game world that you share with millions of other players to act as if you’re the only one that matters.
No one’s talking about removing content. We’re talking about removing the power fantasy from WoW. All that means is advocacy for a different story, not this constant smoke blown up our butts by Magni and everyone else, especially when it doesn’t pay off or feel like what we’re told we are.
Power fantasies in MMORPGs that make you the Chosen One of your story don’t work because no matter how much you try, you know it isn’t true. You may not notice it or acknowledge it, but your brain does. The game tells you that you’re special and the world revolves around you, but you know you’re not.
No one’s talking about this and it makes no sense that you’re bringing it up.