Linearity of the story?

[JFrombaugh]

I haven't gotten too far into this game, but one of the things I've noticed is that, in terms of the major story quests, they seem to be much more streamlined than most other MMOs. That is, unlike say for instance SWTOR or ESO, you seem to have very little if any control over the story, despite the fact that your character has a number of choices at the beginning.

I also don't like that your character has pre-given dialogue lines in the cutscenes, it makes the game feel a lot more like your typical single player game. Generally speaking for me, the worst examples of this are where the developers literally use player dialogue as a vehicle to force certain personality traits onto the PC, a la the DRK & SCH questlines in FFXIV Heavensward, the Bronze Dragonshrine time travel quest in Wrath, many other quests from WoW in general...Slightly less annoying but potentially just as bad is when you have to scroll through “conversations” in order to accept and advance quests, so you may get unlucky and end up doing a questline where your character says things that contradict who you had imagined them to be personality-wise, E.g ESO, Aion, EQ2.

So is this in fact true for the majority of the game?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I haven't gotten too far into this game, but one of the things I've noticed is that, in terms of the major story quests, they seem to be much more streamlined than most other MMOs. That is, unlike say for instance SWTOR or ESO, you seem to have very little if any control over the story, despite the fact that your character has a number of choices at the beginning.

So is this in fact true for the majority of the game?

The choices in the beginning have very little to no impact at all on the story. Your personality chosen does not change how your character approaches situations. Take the Charr story for example; your chosen legion only matter for a couple quests at 10 and 20. Your chosen cub pal only matters for a couple of instances in the story. At most, the only starting "choice" that really matters is who you're father was, as that changes how the final racial quest plays out. Otherwise, you can pretty much speed through the questions without a care, without repercussions.

At level 30 (or 40?) you get to chose which of the three Pact divisions to join, and that only matters for about twenty levels. After that, there really is nothing else your dialogue options truly affect.

[JFrombaugh]

The choices in the beginning have very little to no impact at all on the story. Your personality chosen does not change how your character approaches situations.

So pretty much, you might be out of luck if you're more of a PvE RPer type of player?

I guess what I'm really meaning to ask is, how expressive overall would you say the PCs are? With Aion for instance, sometimes your dialogue lines when interacting with NPCs will be fairly simple and apporpriate to the situation, but depending on the race you play as and what questline it is, many times your character will show arrogance, zeal, or other personality traits that more or less color them in to be the advanced NPC that the STORY makes them out to be, regardless of what the PLAYER may want to be. This has always been my number one complaint with WoW since the days of Wrath even though there are only a handful of quests where the PC actually talks per se.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

So pretty much, you might be out of luck if you're more of a PvE RPer type of player?

I guess what I'm really meaning to ask is, how expressive overall would you say the PCs are? With Aion for instance, sometimes your dialogue lines when interacting with NPCs will be fairly simple and apporpriate to the situation, but depending on the race you play as and what questline it is, many times your character will show arrogance, zeal, or other personality traits that more or less color them in to be the advanced NPC that the STORY makes them out to be, regardless of what the PLAYER may want to be. This has always been my number one complaint with WoW since the days of Wrath even though there are only a handful of quests where the PC actually talks per se.

Throughout the story, your character pretty much takes a passive-neutral response to the story. Your personality traits DO NOT affect the dialogue.

If you were hoping for a Mass Effect style of RP story telling, than I'm afraid you're out of luck.