Watching a friend play some FPS & flying/shooting games, alot of the time they inject the story line through small video transmissions from HQ in one of the upper corners of the screen. You see your commanding officer describe the
mission that they are sending you on, and what your objectives are.

What would be sweet, is if after you collect the quest from your NPC, highlight it in the quest tracker, and you can have a small video window appear and have that NPC brief you on your quest. With really good voice acting, and
good facial animation/ gestures from the NPC video would add a little bit more immersion to the game. with so all the quest stacking these days, i dont even bother to read the quest text, i just see what i have to do and where i
have to do it.

Some would prefer this to cut-scenes on smaller side quests because, with the cut scene some people would get impatient with waiting for it to end before starting to travel to the quest area.
It would break up the game a little too often. With the mini-video you could get 1) your quest specifics 2) storyline all while traveling to your quest area.

I still think there should be some cut scenes for large story arcs / chain quests. I really got into the story when i first picked up Metal Gear Solid 4. I never played any of the earlier MSG games before. i dont really play console games
at all. I have a PS3 for blueray & media streaming. But with all the 9.0 - 10.0 ratings that game got i bought it for the hell of it. I have never gotten so into the story of a game before, and i wish some of these MMOs would give me the
feeling i got playing MGS4.

I'm praying to the video game gods that SW:TOR will give me some of this.

/End_Brain_Spill

-Ray



PS: to put this topic back on track, i am digging Aion so far both in beta & china retail, because of a) beautiful scenery/landscapes b) pretty graphics/animations c) awesome soundtrack d) a PVP system that agrees with my playstyle better than WoW's