One way to spice up new and existing zones. World Tomes:

[Jynx]

I think everyone knows that my main focus on the XIV forums is to push for the world to become more "Immersive".

Now before you cringe and cry about that word, immersion can be done very well without effecting your playstyle, and just make the world feel more alive. Let's walk away from the telport and travel debates for now and look at ways to make the world feel more alive, more dyanmic!

Map changes are one thing, but without context even the most amazing map is going to feel a bit drab.

For now I beleive that a bestiary is still something that can "Spice up" the drab world we are exploring everyday, give us a goal to strive for. Even without rewards completing a bestiary is just one more thing for people to strive for and complete, one more activity among the new instalments of content. Givin that the developers are interested in spicing up the zones and making them a little more "Deep" I think a perfect addition to this thread is beyond the bestiary give the larger or more important areas a "Bestiary" like page as well.

Give us something nifty to read about the area once we unlock the page "Perhaps through exploration with the new up-coming map system?"

For a good relatable example let's say.... the new Amaal'ja base Zahar'ak

Zahar'ak

A stronghold erected by the Amalj'aa, its name meaning "like a rock" in their native tongue. Its location was said to be chosen by thaumaturges who, through ancient rituals, divined the position to be auspicious for waging war. Beginning life as a humble frontier outpost, over time Zahar'ak grew to become the foremost Amalj'aa base in all of Thanalan, boasting an intimidating array of siege engines and troop conveyances as well as a facility for breeding war drakes. Recent moons have seen a sharp rise in activity at Zahar'ak, which has sparked disquieting rumors among Ul'dahns of a full-scale assault on the sultanate.

Sure this is available on the loadstone but why not have it available in-game as well? I think having tid-bits of information like this before I waltz into the enemies fortress gets me more "Into" the area.

This is why I am making a new suggestion to spice up the world.

[SIZE=5]World Tomes:[/SIZE]

The basic priniciple behind World Tombes would be to give the larger more important areas of the game some context when going into them, wether it's discovered when you reach a new zone or hear about it from a NPC, I think having such lore available is cruical to making a area feel "Alive"

In XI (yeah yeah) Much game lore was provided by NPC's in small quips here and there and compiled by players, still many people don't know what happened at Gusgen mines or why it is haunted by so many ghosts. A few keen people who did quests revolving around the area and other such things as the nature of the NM's in the area cobbled together the reasons behind the area a tragic mining incident left many souls to haunt the area.

I think Developers have an idea about why a zone exists or why certain things appear in certain areas, we have so manyt mysterious objects and areas in the game that we have no idea what they are for, or who used them.

I'm not saying every bar-stool should tell me it's life-story, or that every mysterious object have some sort of tool-tip beside it. But a little bit of context can go a long way while still being able to leave a air of mystery and awe.

What does the community think? Do you think having world tomes would be a good idea? How would you implement them? Or should the lore remain just strewn in bits of information by NPC's for only the more discerning individuals to peice together?

I'd love to hear the communities thoughts before I edit this post some more. Go at it!

[Avraym]

Unfortunately your idea serves little purpose other than Lore, which for a lot of people will "TOMES? TL;DR"

HOWEVER, if the tomes had some practical uses, such as achievements, possible quiz/puzzle based events, quests via tomes, then it would be a good implemenation.

Unfortunately todays generation do not want to read unless it benefits them physically.

[Echo]

I kinda nerd out when it comes to lore, so I think this could be an interesting idea. We have newspapers. Adventurers could be hired to explore and investigate significant areas and people in the game world. Using the echo, we could see the past first-hand and give back to the newspaper our own personal account of what happened, or some otherwise unknown historical fact backed up with evidence. There were six other umbral eras... the potential for as yet uncovered history is almost limitless.

[Vesper]

Unfortunately your idea serves little purpose other than Lore.

Which is more than enough. SE likes to pride itself on story, adding what the OP suggested is a good idea, you have those updates go into a LORE journal and just to give the people who cant fathom spending time reading something, you can give small amounts of XP (from exploration) based on how hard the item was to reach.

[Avraym]

Which is more than enough. SE likes to pride itself on story, adding what the OP suggested is a good idea, you have those updates go into a LORE journal and just to give the people who cant fathom spending time reading something, you can give small amounts of XP (from exploration) based on how hard the item was to reach.

Like i said, xp reward :P

[Rokien]

I liked it!~ I'm all for lore(helps with immersionLOL)

[Konachibi]

I like the idea. Used to spend ages on Warhammer Online trying to fill up the codex on that.

Other thing that could kick in the 'immersion' (the damnable word!) is a few more moving objects in the scenery. Everything is always so static, I was happy to see those machines displayed in the beastmen stronghold, heck, just looking at the sparkler balloon (floating over the lake right now during the event) in Gridania felt strange because it was moving.

[BruceyBruceyBangBang]

Look, it's a nice idea. Maybe better for some temp who is running out of simple tasks to do at the development offices in Japan could write these up. I say this because I feel like this is the only person who could have the time to get this done with all the crap they have to work on ATM. No offense.

I'm going to have to commend you on your commitment and I think that your task of pushing the game to your own specific threshold into what immerses you is a pretty ballsy undertaking! Your next task should be to get a clue and remember one simple fact: your quest for immersion is futile being that it's subjective. So, let's try to stay away from that for a little while... cause you can still come up with some pretty good ideas. Which goes to my next thing...

Now, to asses the actual content of this OP rather than venting on your opening sentence, I'd be into it. I love the story of FFXIV so far. There were many class quests that stuck out for me, one being the MIN quests surprisingly, that was pretty heavy with Ul'dah's past and it's ancient sister city. It really kept you interested and was read very humorously. I won't give anything important away with that... just an example. As long as the writing captures the spirit of those few fun class quests, as far as story goes, then I'd think you'd have a hit.

[Jynx]

Oh much like many of my ideas I understand core game mechanics are going to come first for the dev team, it's just an idea for the community to chew on and pass around their thoughts.

But once the game (Fundamentaly) can support itself the developers need to start thinking of ways to keep people in the game beyond the relatively short run to 50 and sparse end-game content. You can't just keep ramming new end-game content forever your going to need to let the game run itself for a bit before adding new Raids, Dungeons, NM's, level caps increases. Focusing on the other aspects of the game will need to happen sooner or later or you will have a game with a great skeleton but no meat on the bones.

Far be it for me to tell them when such changes need to happen though, I'm sure Yoshi and his team are well aware of these issues. I just like the discussion on the forums so they have places to ping ideas off of, or gather basic intel when/if they ever decide to go in a direction like this.

To say they don't have time to do Lore and story elements is strange though, it's part of the game as well. As much as you love to harp on Immersion being subjective it doesn't mean a game can't come to a certain level, you act as if "Immersion" is some sort of measuring scale that everyone has when Immersion is a pretty simple thing and it mainly depends on a personal level if thats "Enough" immersion for you.

It's more quanitfiable than you think it is. Mainly the less time you spend breaking the "4th wall" the more (generally speaking of course) you are trying to immerse your consumers. Making us go to the Lodestone or Wikis for information is breaking the 4th wall, having that information inside the game though...that's immersive. Sure the option to look at the Lodestone or Wikis for the same information in a easier to access format is available, but the option remains in the game for those of us who feel it's a great way to suck us in the game.

wanting for a game to be immersive is not futile, believing that it's a futile attempt is just being ignorant to the facts. But continue your Tirade on immersion if you must, it seems it did something terrible to your familly or something for all you hate it. If you really want to continue on this we can, but I'd rather reserve this for on-topic discussion there are 500 other immersion threads to go at it in.

*edit*
I totally agree Konachibi, I do hope that the map revision include more animated objects within the overworld map "And less animated water that we can't see under the ground!"

[PikachuLink]

A stronghold erected by the Amalj'aa, its name meaning "like a rock"

What are you getting at?......weirdo......