Incorporating lore through Item descriptions

[Betelgeuzah]

While quests and NPC's in general offer a decent deal of lore nowadays, I think the idea of fleshing out the lore through item descriptions would go a long way in presenting it to the player in an interesting way.

The idea came from Dark Souls, a game that works surprisingly similarly to FFXIV as far as the setting is concerned. The lore is not "in your face" type of deal but is told through chatting with NPC's and reading item descriptions that are related to the important figures, places and events in the game's history. Soon it becomes apparent that the game has a rich and detailed setting, just like XIV. The game also uses the item descriptions in loading screens which could be used here as well.

I think this could also cement items to the setting much better, instead of being merely tools to stimulate economy and offer an incentive to the player. I think that reading of Cotton Tabard having been used in the ancient empire X as an official attire for war, or that the empire's soldiers preferred using it due to it's light weight yet sufficient protection against piercing weapons, would make us appreciate obtaining and wearing it for reasons other than increased stats and looks.

Best of all, I think this wouldn't require relatively much effort to be pulled off. Sure, there's a lot of text to be incorporated to cover all existing items, but I doubt it would require too much resources over-all, at least when compared to the benefits it will offer. I'm not talking about creating graphical assets or something costly like that. In the end, I'm sure that the groundwork has been laid out and the lore already exists in some form, we just can't see it in-game in any shape or form. Some items already have descriptions so it shouldn't be a huge task to make it apply everywhere.

Hopefully this thread will still be on the first page when Monday rolls around so that the reps can see it, lol.