Problem with content is that: We actually SHOULD not make a difference, but we must “think” we do. As for good storytelling is the story that is told all the same to anyone, but means something intimate and relatable to each one.
That is what we say when we say WoW is not a story driven RPG.
I can cite a good example in Mass Effect.
Ordinarily, and to most people, Mass Effect is a “masterpiece” of storytelling, in which multiple choices and multiple threads flow through an open story that you make as you go by the choices you make. And one could agree with that if not looking “outside”. As if you invest and immerse yourself, YOUR story in Mass Effect is YOUR STORY. And you can feel that if you are not presented with what I will say next. If not, you watch a YouTube video of another person playing, and you think their story is different.
However, when you get outside the “protagonist seat” and analyze the story from a “algorithm” perspective, it is actually a very simple story that follows the linear tale. Then you start to notice some stuff.
You can romance with any character, the story and the dialogues will remain mostly the same, unless they are in private you and the other character, and the broader story flow happen the same way no matter who you get intimate with, or who dies, who you not friends with, or whoever survive provided that enough and specific people survive. And if they dont, it doesnt really CHANGE the outcome, rather it blocks the outcome.
When you notice that you will see that the only story that actually fulfill mass effect trilogy is specific romances, specific decisions, specific actions. Otherwise you start to notice characters talking about things that did not happened as if they did, or disjoint temporal mind theory, which means, someone will act as if they know something before they could actually know something, and act as if they dont when they should have.
Well, the excellence of Mass Effect is not the ability to give you freedom, but the ability to make you think you have. Ability that WoW story tellers lack. And that influences the exact thing you mention: Feeling you matter.
People dont like this example, and I dont really like to spoil things, so I will be reticent:
In FF you always have had some points you choose what to say, and that changes little to nothing in the story as a whole, but for your personal relatedness and immersion, it changes many things.
However in Endwalker they really outdone themselves to the point you really can get a personal feeling of participation as your decisions dont really change the story, but they change how you feel about it. You feel that you are in control of your character in the story even if you are not in control of the story.
That reminds me of my days as PnP RPG narrator. It was good, and people liked my campaigns for that. But I couldnt bear the lack of being the player, and it is not the same, it should not be the same. Narrator MUST have a deep knowledge of the story and be able to make it drive the player to want to do what the narrator want them to do. You should not force or direct your player to do something. You need to make a “irresistible force” that compels the player to do what you want because they come to want it too.
That is where story in wow fails. They are not able to make what they want done to be the desire of those who are interested in the story, and lack also the foresight of making rewards drive that desire in those who are not interested in the story.
And that is what is rotting wow. It does RPG poorly, and tries to beat it with other game elements that it does poorly too. So it cant be better in the RPG sector, and much less in the MMO sector.
