Swimming and underwater content?

[Balbanes]

Questing, underwater fishing, reaching otherwise inaccessible areas... like some kind of sunken temple/ruins which would be a dungeon or a place where to find some rare NM. Once in the temple you wouldn't be swimming or in the water anymore.... at least not the whole time, there might be some areas of the dungeons where you still need to swim.

There is a lot of possibilities, take a look at what the others posted, there is some nice ideas here. I'm not saying they should absolutely not add fighting but it seems more people are against it because other games failed at that. Of course if SE could make underwater fighting fun and have it really well done then i'm all for it.

It would enhance the gameplay just like jumping would.

I totally agree. It doesn't have to be like WoW, since that's what everyone seems to be complaining about. This could be done really well, and be a lot of fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Me9x9STwDiw <--- linky

This is a short video I made that shows how jumping/falling/swimming/underwater battle could be like in XIV. Taken from EQ2.
*edit* the slow falling is due to a Safe Fall character trait.

[Preypacer]

I totally agree. It doesn't have to be like WoW, since that's what everyone seems to be complaining about. This could be done really well, and be a lot of fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Me9x9STwDiw <--- linky

This is a short video I made that shows how jumping/falling/swimming/underwater battle could be like in XIV. Taken from EQ2.
*edit* the slow falling is due to a Safe Fall character trait.

Heh, I was just thinking after seeing a couple posts in this thread, "You know, for all those folks who act outraged when people suggest they want SE to turn the game into WoW... there's an awful lot of people asking for things that are either specific to WoW, or otherwise use WoW as a direct reference".

I mean, the two quests linked in a previous post (the Katamari Damaci one, etc) above... I hope we never see anything like that in XIV. Blizzard abandoned any pretense of keeping the integrity of the world and setting of WoW and have gone crazy with cultural references, to other games, to actors, and so forth. That's one of the things that, to me, killed any sense of WoW's Azeroth being anything more than a game. It's all but completely undermined the sense of Azeroth being a unique alternate world, and has reduced it to a haven of never-ending cultural wink-nods.

Seeing references to Mr. T, or "Haris Pilton" or any of a number of other overt references just seems so, so horribly out of place to me. All it gets from me is a groan and an eye-roll. I don't even see it as creative. "Hey let's use a Paris Hilton reference! She's popular in the news right now! Woo-hoo! Free content!"

FFXIV already has some cultural references, but they're definitely downplayed and much more subtle. They don't call attention to themselves like they do in WoW. Some are pretty obscure and likely wouldn't even occur to a number of people. For example, I found one early on in FFXIV's beta that's a reference to a Radiohead video. It's not even a lyric from the song. It's based on a line of subtitled dialog that's on the screen at the very end of the video. Unless you've seen that video and recognize where it's from, it would just seem like random psychobabble.

SOE has delved into the cultural references as well. However, not as badly as Blizzard. One thing SOE has done a better job than Blizzard at is keeping Norrath's integrity as a virtual world mostly "intact". They respect the lore, the setting, the areas, etc and don't regularly break the fourth wall with cultural reference "wink-nods".

SE does a great job of this in their games, making each world feel internally consistent and maintaining a sense of integrity and believability. They feel like truly alternate worlds. I really hope they stick to that in XIV as well.

I'd really prefer to see them be creative by working in in-references and such that pertain to people, places or events in Eorzea itself. That would help give the world that much more sense of authenticity, than making cheesy references to some popular internet meme or something.

[Eekiki]

Seeing references to Mr. T, or "Haris Pilton" or any of a number of other overt references just seems so, so horribly out of place to me. All it gets from me is a groan and an eye-roll. I don't even see it as creative. "Hey let's use a Paris Hilton reference! She's popular in the news right now! Woo-hoo! Free content!"

Couldn't agree more. Let's hope we never see a reference to Paris Hilton reference in XIV.

A Matt Hilton reference wouldn't bother me so much.