One thing that greatly bugs me about MMORPG character creation is how little thought that these games give into providing any sort of backstory for your characters. When you roll up an avatar, it appears out of the aether as a fully grown adult with no prior history whatsoever — at least, none that the game provides. The common response is that you can write up your own biography if you care to, but that’s often seen as merely an “RP thing.”
It makes me miss how CRPGs would often allow you to select a backstory for your character, often with special attributes or bonus items at the start. Even a line or two about how my character grew up as an orphan, or how I got my skills from training as a secret assassin. So I tip my hat to Guild Wars 2, which at least made a token effort to giving each character a history and an initial guiding purpose.
Have you given your MMO character a backstory? Would you like games to make more of an effort to add one as part of the character creation process?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
