Is Final Fantasy XIV the champion of immersion? Or is it easily usurped?

[Azurymber]

SW TOR is going to kill it immersion-wise. Have you seen the massive guilds already being formed just in anticipation of it? People get really into the Star Wars universe partly because its so iconic. and with over 400,000 pre-orders and over 1.4 mil beta sign ups its pretty well guarenteed to be a success. Plus those that have played it so far seem to like it and it will be launched before christmas now.

I just released a massive Lore guide for this game and have had like only 3 people in an entire day contributee. One post was to something i knew about, one was something that turned out to be wrong (i think) and the other was just a small thing (although -very- helpful).
People in this game don't seem to care much about the world they play in.

[Lyndis]

SW TOR is going to kill it immersion-wise. Have you seen the massive guilds already being formed just in anticipation of it? People get really into the Star Wars universe partly because its so iconic. and with over 400,000 pre-orders and over 1.4 mil beta sign ups its pretty well guarenteed to be a success. Plus those that have played it so far seem to like it and it will be launched before christmas now.

I just released a massive Lore guide for this game and have had like only 3 people in an entire day contributee. One post was to something i knew about, one was something that turned out to be wrong (i think) and the other was just a small thing (although -very- helpful).
People in this game don't seem to care much about the world they play in.

I'm very interested in lore, but I like finding it in the game. I'd like to see your lore guide but never seen it.

As for star wars, the graphics and animations look terrible for a modern game. That kills immersion for me. I have a hard time believing I could create a character that I'd enjoy playing as. I enjoyed the storyline in the older knights of the old republic games, but this one hardly interests me from what I've seen. Also, sci fi MMOs are hard to make really immsersive unless you do something like Eve. Which I think Eve proved that the sci fi universe is not my thing.

[Azurymber]

I'm very interested in lore, but I like finding it in the game. I'd like to see your lore guide but never seen it.

As for star wars, the graphics and animations look terrible for a modern game. That kills immersion for me. I have a hard time believing I could create a character that I'd enjoy playing as. I enjoyed the storyline in the older knights of the old republic games, but this one hardly interests me from what I've seen. Also, sci fi MMOs are hard to make really immsersive unless you do something like Eve. Which I think Eve proved that the sci fi universe is not my thing.

yeah i prefer FF graphics too.
my lore guides in my sig. It covers all the lore from the start of the game and from normal npcs and a few quests and leves atm.
the new SW story seems to be just like the old ones, and its kinda the same play style. Im not a huge fan of the graphics but the gameplay looks (and from what i heard is) sound and fun. And again, people are already immersed in it. There are like jedi groups and sith groups who are already enemies in the forums and stuff. i mean the game will be full of geeky RPers but at least it will have character.

[Lyndis]

Voice overs probably would help the general community get involved in the lore. Most people I know skip over the text in FFXIV. In a game with graphics voices are often needed to accompany the picture.

[Rhomagus]

Voice overs probably would help the general community get involved in the lore. Most people I know skip over the text in FFXIV. In a game with graphics voices are often needed to accompany the picture.

It's mindboggling that someone so superficial is asking for immersion. Have you ever played any old games? Were they not immersive because they didn't have voiceovers?

This is why I argue against this type of thing. This "sense of immersion" does more to hurt the game than to help it. Especially when you design for this in mind from the outset. Let's sacrifice other's freedom so that we can enjoy voiceovers. It's not immersive if I can choose to skip the cutscene. I mean, I can't skip events in my real life, why should I in game?

[viion]

SW TOR is going to kill it immersion-wise. Have you seen the massive guilds already being formed just in anticipation of it? People get really into the Star Wars universe partly because its so iconic. and with over 400,000 pre-orders and over 1.4 mil beta sign ups its pretty well guarenteed to be a success. Plus those that have played it so far seem to like it and it will be launched before christmas now.

I just released a massive Lore guide for this game and have had like only 3 people in an entire day contributee. One post was to something i knew about, one was something that turned out to be wrong (i think) and the other was just a small thing (although -very- helpful).
People in this game don't seem to care much about the world they play in.

XIV went through an Alpha and beta with lots of people, even with all the restrictions it still gained about 50-60k active players. It even sold 600k boxes of which most came with a buddy key, thats almost 1million Playable CD keys out there.

And whats XIV now? A hurtful fall that lead to its very few thousand players.

Numbers dont mean a single thing these days when even a Final Fantasy game which has a huge fan base and is just as iconic as SW can lose half a million of its audience within the first month.

SW will either suceed in a Rift state or fail in an XIV state depending on the exact same thing both those games had or did not have: First impressions content.