Terminally Online
This is Terminally Online: PC Gamer’s very own MMORPG column. Every other week, I’ll be sharing my thoughts on the genre, interviewing fellow MMO-heads like me, taking a deep-dive into mechanics we’ve all taken for granted, and, occasionally, bringing in guest writers to talk about their MMO of choice.
My credentials? Well, I’ve had the fortune—or misfortune, if you will—to’ve been playing MMOs for most of my life, and I will be playing them until they no longer exist or until I am dead. In other words? I’m Terminally Online.
Ah, the MMO quest journal. Once designed to help players find objectives in an open world you had to explore on your own two feet, now… uh. Er. On second thought, why are they still here?
Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not sentimental enough to believe the old days were inherently better. I like following quest markers and bonking bad guys on the head as much as the next grinder—but I have to wonder what function the journal is filling now those days are gone, and whether it’s actually worth all the effort developers put into it.
Quest text in any modern MMO is there to provide context, and it tends to do that job with relentless competence, but when it comes to delivering on story? I’m not so sure. There are some exceptions, sure. Questlines in WoW, like Korgran’s questline in The War Within, might be well-executed enough to keep me paying attention.
But the lion’s share of story happens in-game now, be it via cutscenes or dialogue that happens as you quest. This leaves most quest journal entries to be bland, rote explanations about why you’re there to capture 10 bees or retrieve 10 crates of supplies or whatever.
Even if there are diamonds in the rough, it’s an unreasonable ask to expect every MMO player to read through miles of quest delivery just to occasionally stumble upon some solid character work. Who’s got time for that? Me, I guess, but I’m certainly in the minority.
At best, these journal entries are places for newer writers to flex their muscles, and that’s about the best reason I think to keep them around. I want MMO stories to be written by people, and everyone’s gotta start somewhere. From an industry standpoint, I’d rather this entry-level writing job didn’t simply vanish.
But the fact remains that, from a player perspective, it’s a bunch of wasted potential and empty air. People don’t read these things because, more often than not, barely anything interesting happens in them. Final Fantasy 14 is no exception—and its quest journal is uniquely useless. All quests are exposited in cutscenes, leaving the journal a mere holster for your list of tasks, with little to nothing interesting therein.
Except for one quest chain. Perhaps one of the most beloved in the entire game, outside of its main scenario questline: The Dark Knight job quests. I’ll be getting into some spoilers below, but given the quest journal’s history, chances are you weren’t gonna be looking at these things without someone recommending ’em to you.
Easily missed; worth reading
Natsuko Ishikawa might be one of the best videogame writers in our generation, and I will never forgive her for repeatedly splitting my heart in two.
In case you’re unfamiliar, she’s responsible for FF14’s absolute home run of Shadowbringers leading into Endwalker, acting as the lead story designer for both expansions. She is also responsible for making me cry, I’d wager, about 20 or so times.
Ishikawa wrote the Dark Knight questline and, being incapable of doing anything uninteresting, she went ahead and made every single one of the quest’s journal entries worth reading. Not just a summary of what you’re there to do, but an active, thoughtful addition to the story.
See, FF14’s Dark Knight is a job all about introspection—tapping into your darker half. It’s delightfully edgy, sure, but it’s also the closest the game gets to holding a mirror up on its own themes. The grief and horrors of being a hero, the exhaustion that comes with everyone needing to be saved—it thoughtfully chews on the game’s core story.
As part of this plotline, you come into contact with Fray—a dead Dark Knight who (to keep things vague, and spoiler free) is hitching a ride in your brain. And it’s here that Ishikawa does something incredibly interesting: The journal text for every single Dark Knight questline is different, depending on whether or not you’re currently equipping your Job Stone.
With the stone equipped—unlocking your job and giving you access to the abilities of a Dark Knight—you’re also tapping into the memories of the edgelords who came before. And, crucially, giving voice to your darkest impulses. Turning your journal into a mixture of your most unseemly thoughts and, occasionally, Fray’s thoughts, too.
Each of these journal entries is absolutely brimming with character. They act as the voice of pessimism and frustration of every MMORPG player, managing to be both entertaining and heartwrenching. Here’s a couple of my favourite quotes:
- “Where do these people come from!? These helpless, hopeless weaklings who see fit to beg the assistance of every passing adventurer. And now comes another, beseeching the Warrior of Light to recover some stolen chest or crate of only the gods know what!”
- “Madness! Utter madness! That spineless sack of shite actually demanded compensation for his property! The nerve of these people, after all we do for them! But Fray was not about to let that pass, oh no! It was a thing of glory, Fray giving voice to our feelings. Our words tumbling from Fray’s mouth. But why did he have to leave? Where could he have gone?”
- “His heart knows naught but guilt. Seeks naught but forgiveness. Ware the penitent, for theirs is a compulsion all consuming.”
- “Myste muses on the possibility of a world where time and death hold no power of us. A world you could share. You need only ask. But we know better.”
I could keep rattling these off, but I’d be robbing you of the pleasure of reading them yourself. I’d also do a sorry job of conveying just how much of a pleasant surprise they are, how additive they become to the questline Ishikawa sets out, and how baffled I am that MMOs don’t make use of their own journals in similar ways.
After all, they’re free real estate, open ground to play and add layers to your MMO’s story. Of course, not all could be metatextual, edgy monologues like the Dark Knight questline, but they could stand to be just a smidge more interesting, surely? An opportunity, ripe for the pickin’, a chance to reward invested players for paying attention—almost completely unused in the genre as a whole.
They’re free real estate, open ground to play and add layers to your MMO’s story.”
It’s a fine line to walk, but a good D&D dungeon master does it all the time: You can prompt introspection, thoughts, and feelings without deciding how your player should feel, offering suggestions instead. MMO quest logs could be a great place to show reflections on what you’ve seen, or add smaller details to flesh out character motivation.
And hey, even if it goes a bit wrong, engaging with them is optional anyway, so they’re a perfect space to experiment. I’d rather MMOs—and games in general—take big swings and be found wanting, rather than keep trotting out the same traditional expository slop. Being bored senseless is the bigger crime, by far.
Instead, I’m left hounding for the same fix that stumbling into the Dark Knight quest journals gave me: Panning for gold, occasionally finding a nugget, but having to scrounge endlessly for a pittance.
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