This might have been discussed before, but I find it an interesting question. Especially with the words; "Build worlds not games", in mind.
If you're a part of the world, it could mean that the game is not designed around you. But who would accept that in a game? This would entail that you can consume content, the world might get influenced by many players acting in the same style or fashion within a certain timeperiod. But it will still remain the world that initiates to everyone and not just towards you.
Worlds for characters: the game is designed "around and for you"; that one single Character, every npc wants you to help, defeat, conquer etc. Different choices, races or classes will define the world that this specific character is experiencing. Slightly, but overall the general storylines are the same for all.
Characters in worlds: the world excist with or without you. Events that occur and content that is rolled out, does not look for that 1 specific player, but instead requires a larger player base' actions to influence the outcomes in the world.
Which of the two would be your preference or expectancy be of this game (especially with what we've seen so far).
Would you like to be the legendary character of which every npc has read in the stories of old/prophesied.
Should your character grow into a legend or be one right of the bat? As you consume content, you and your reputation evolve and you have the sense of gaining esteem based on how the npc's reacts differently as you progress.
Or would you rather be a less epic character that is influenced by events in the world. You can still do heroic deeds, but the difference here, no npc history tells about your long expected carrier/actions.
Do you want to be the only, designated hero? Or be one of the many heroes helping out in the world?
Would you accept that your legendary reputation is mainly "alive" within the community and not in the stories and legend of the npc world?
Personally, I hope to experience being a part of the world. Instead of experiencing that every npc has heard about me and think that I'm the best they've seen in long time. I find it challenging to accept when I'm reading these kinds of conversations when I'm just starting off somewhere. It would make more sense if I had actively built a reputation and npc's react on that. Still, if an npc sees me as that one special high reputation character, in the back of my mind I still know that the next player talking to this npc would have the same "special treatment". So from that perspective, I rather be part of the world but less "legendary" at least coming from the npc's.
A community world within the game world where I've built a reputation is something that would really have me hooked in a game. I might have used the game world to build my community world reputation. If this can allow me to stand out, I would prefer it this way. This however has a lot of influence on how content is offered to the player and designed in general.
I think a lot of people have tired of the "you are the hero!" method in multi-player games. It's not so bad for single player, though, even then, it can be very cliche and trite. For multi-player it quickly becomes tiring and absurd.
Guild Wars 2, for me, is the greatest 'recent' example of this. They made a big deal of the "you are the hero!" thing and it very quickly becomes weird and over-done. Every character 'is the hero' and there are many 'hero' sub-quest parts where other player characters can be dragged along or have to wait for their friends to finish. So, you either get weird, multiple 'pauses' in your group progress, or you get to join in with each one being told how unique and special each of you are, often, if you are the same race, being told exactly the same thing and having exactly the same adventure... It quickly became bizarre, weird and annoying.
I much prefer the "you are a no one!" games where it begins almost as a survival story and you are just another no one who's decided to get some little training and go out into the dangerous world to have some adventure.
Then your character slowly discovers whatever small or large stories and events there are going on in the world and can do what they want to either follow those stories or ignore them and enjoy more day-to-day stuff like hunting and crafting.
Of course, this can still be done badly or well, but it is a much easier premise to make more immersive or, rather, less unimmersive.
In any world where monsters respawn and characters can do 'the same' adventures, there will be some element of weirdness. It would take some incredible writing to make a world convincingly 'real' when it is so fundamentally not real in such fundamental ways, but yeah, like the OP, I would much prefer VR to approach the world of Pantheon as something much, much larger then my individual character(s) that goes on turning when I'm offline.
A character's adventures may well become more and more 'epic', but please don't go the "you are the hero!" way, VR.
I thought LOTRO handled it well in how it was based on a classical story line, but you were one of many citizens of Middle Earth who could contribute to the greater good in some small way. Even in the "epic" story line, you met key characters, but you were never central to the plot.
Leave the "You're the hero" plot lines to the single player games. I want to inhabit the world, not be the focus of it.
There are a great many "you are the great hero" MMOs. While Celandor is not entirely wrong by any means, LOTRO is one of them. Instead of being the one who saves the world you are a second tier great hero known to and respected by all the first tier great heros like the Fellowship, Galadriel, Gandalf and the like.
I have played many of these MMOs and they can work well. But I share what is probably the general view here. In an old-school throwback game better to have the world be the world and we find things to do appropriate to our abilities and level.
It is somewhat jarring if one thinks about it to have a level 5 or 10 or 20 play a significant role in world-affecting events through the common device of lowering the powers of great evils to the level of the character. To *realistically* play a role in such events at least through direct combat with the great evils one should be maximum level with long experience and exceptional gear. Until then - fighting local evils should suffice. I speak from a long bias in favor of the good. If one plays a character that acts ...otherwise .... the same theory applies to supporting or being one of the great evils.
All game loops can contribute to an overarching plot.
Similarly, all roles within a loop can be fun and challenging.
A simple example would be adventure, crafting, diplomacy. All can be fun and challenging, all can have progression, risk & reward.
Kingdoms have martial/military goals, economic goals, social, religious and diplomatic goals. Having each loop contribute to one or many keeps customers engaged in the long term.
How would such a thing be done? PC crafters & adventurers can outfit NPC armies. Once they provide enough, the plot advances.
Similarly, worshippers can offer services or outfit temples that provide services to adventurers. Adventurers can donate to temples and guilds. Blessings from gods can be the result for the kingdom.
Adventurers and diplomats can be used as emissaries to good & evil aligned neighbors.
It's definitely not necessary to have the player be "The Hero". Nothing wrong with them being a normal productive citizen, with their deeds distinguishing them as notable, or not.
That's one thing I liked about EQ, you were basically average. Just another person. Yes you could have magical abilities, or fighting skills, but so did most everyone else. It was just part of the world. You weren't the chosen one. EQ was a world you existed in. It had a history of things that occured before you and that history dictated the current world. The lore behind the Iksar and Kunark was one of the most interesting things I've ever seen in a MMO. The ancient ruins that littered the land weren't just there to fill space, they had a story, but the story wasn't force fed to you. Like cities many people live in today they have a history and stories but you may simply not know them.
EQ had one of the greatest stories in a MMO because it wasn't a story, it was a history book.
I prefer EQs old slogan, "You're in OUR world now!"
The world should not revolve around our characters. It should be exist with or without our individual characters. The world exists, we interact with it.
I concur with the others here. The only thing worse than the game claiming I'm the hero they've always waited for is finding out that's completely bogus. For example: Conquer all of Skyrim including becoming the leader of most of the guilds in the game only to be greeted at the gate of Whiterun by a guard who suggests you might find work with the local guild.
I'd much rather be a complete unknown and have to build up my reputation through deeds. But the world had better recognize and react to those deeds or it isn't a world; It's just a static envirnoment with no life of its own. I've only played a couple games that got this partly right.