Well there are three basic ways to do the story:

1) the ''historical'' method, where there''s an overall plot for the game world but most players aren''t directly involved in it, they''re more like spectators watching history unfold, merchants taking advantage of a war to raise prices, etc. Some of these have a planned ending, at which point either an upgraded version of the game with a new plot is released, or the world is reset so a new story can begin.

2) the ''garden of quests'' method, Where the player travels around, encountering NPCs who offer him quests, each of which has it''s own self-contained story. It may be necessary to do some of the quests before more advanced ones are made available. This method can be combined with either of the other two.

3) the ''every player a hero'' method - this is quite different from the first method in that the world has no overall time; instead each player starts at the beginning of the story when they join the MMORPG and plays through a plot similar to that of a single player RPG; but they can interact with the other players by joining social guilds, trading items, chatting, etc.

Note that all three of these methods actually allow some use of cutscenes, as long as they are cutscenes of NPCs, places, or objects.

I wouldn''t know, I don''t have that many friends who are MMORPGers. I like the 3rd best myself, but that''s because I invented it. Why don''t you take a survey in the lounge asking what everyone would like in a MMORPG?

I do have some other things to say about writing for an MMORPG:

It''s important to decide at the beginning whether you''re going to have semi-autonomus NPCs with emotional state data, or standard static NPCs, because the writing for the two types is completely different.

It''s useful to study interactive fiction, particularly http://www.erasmatazz.com/ has some great articles.

It''s really helpful to have as many as three writers working on an MMORPG because there''s so much writing to do, and different writers are good at writing different NPC personalities, which it''s good to have a variety of. Also at writing different cultures, and players like it if different geographical areas of the game are also have new cultures to explore, or even to become a member of.

Don''t forget that NPCs should have a variety of speech patterns, not all sound the same.

Either the writer, the designer, or both together are responsible for coming up with the ''hook'', the unique and interesting thing about your game that you put in all the advertisements and that makes players want to play it.