Story telling in MMO's

How do you incorporate story telling elements in a game world which you must share with thousands of other players, who are all at various points in their own journeys? This is a substantial obstacle in the design of an MMO, one which has not been satisfactorily resolved in any game I have played to date. In fact, the games with the least problems in this area are ones like Maple Story which pretty much forget the storytelling thing all together. While this doesn't exactly solve the problem, I find it preferable than the efforts of other games like LOTRO or WoW.

The main problem in my mind is that the heroes in all the legends which we love so much (we'll consider star wars as an example) are generally unique and distinguished above everyone else in the world/universe. Luke Skywalker would not be nearly as interesting if there were ten thousand other jedi masters strolling around Mos Eisley. Consequently, any attempt to recreate that hero's journey is going to feel cheapened if there are thousands of other players doing the exact same thing- and in close contact with you no less. This fact is why a game like LOTRO is never going to make you feel like a real hero- no matter how many epic events they try to let you participate in.

There are a few methods which game developers explore in an effort to add a sense of story to their MMO's. The most significant one in my eyes is the instance. Though I haven't played WoW much, I have played LOTRO pretty extensively and have concluded that instances are at least moderately successful. I think the concept is implemented quite well in LOTRO in particular, with recurring characters in your story, excellent cutscenes and sometimes even changes in the gameworld (albeit only visible to you, and they are rather superficial). Developers also use story quests to advance your journey. These main quests are not so impressive in LOTRO. One of the problems is that they are for the most part no different than a side quest. As one review noted, kill-ten-goblins-type quests are best left as side quests.

However good these mechanics are, however, I have never been able to fully immerse myself in my character for an MMO, at least story wise, because the fact remains that everything I could possibly do has been done thousands if not millions of times already. I regard this as a permanent feature for MMO's: their nature is such that it is impossible to provide good story for players, as they can neither isolate the story-driven experience, nor customize it in any significant way.