Do you think lore helps or hinders?

[Belhi]

Lore does hinder PvP due to GC limitations.

Scholars can't explore and make use of the Crystal Tower since G'raha thinks everyone is not technologically advanced ... yet we now have Azsys Lla.

Then there's the whole glamour deal that limits what people can wear when we see plenty of npcs wearing gear that they should not be able to due to their jobs/class

There were also lore-reasons why female Highlander and roegadyns npcs were not available. While male miqo'te kept true to the lore in terms of npc rarity, not sure why how/why female roegadyn/highlanders are everywhere post calamity

To be fair, the Crystal Tower as the centre of Aether production for the Allag empire. As far as potential for miss use its kind of on another level to Azys Lla. Frankly we probably wouldn't let people just walk around Azys Lla either if we could. Regardless, its the Crystal Tower that caused the destruction of Allag, not what came out of Azys Lla.

On the actual thread topic, Lore and story gives context to activities. You collect ten bear asses but its the Lore and Story telling you why your doing it. That makes a difference.

[BubblyBoar]

Lore does hinder PvP due to GC limitations.

Scholars can't explore and make use of the Crystal Tower since G'raha thinks everyone is not technologically advanced ... yet we now have Azsys Lla.

Then there's the whole glamour deal that limits what people can wear when we see plenty of npcs wearing gear that they should not be able to due to their jobs/class

There were also lore-reasons why female Highlander and roegadyns npcs were not available. While male miqo'te kept true to the lore in terms of npc rarity, not sure why how/why female roegadyn/highlanders are everywhere post calamity

Yoshi and team have already said that Lore isn't the reason for GC restritctions for Frontlines.

[SendohJin]

Lore does hinder PvP due to GC limitations.

that can be fixed in 1 day.

Option 1 add a line in where you can represent the GC of your Free Company.
Option 2 take off the 10 day restriction to change GCs and lower the cost to the price of a teleport.

neither of those are lore-breaking. if they want to, they can do so easily, they just don't.

[Dragon_Sanders]

Mostly it helps stand-alones while hinders MMO, because MMO needs exploration a lot. But we can do something to adjust, if necessary.
A law serves the people, a lore serves the players.
And to tell the truth,a lore should serve more than a law, because it is part of a game product.
When we find a law not serving well, we adjust it. So how can not a game lore?
Someone may say, lore of a game is just like the objective laws in the reality which can not change. But see, we learn those laws by exploring and researching. That means, an objective law can not change, but our ways of exploring and researching it can be mistaken.
Get it?

[SessionZero]

I think a lot of times when people bring up lore as part of an argument for why something should(n't) happen in game, they're more saying it does(n't) fit their view of the lore, rather than what is or is not feasible in the lore as presented. What we're shown as of 3.4 is only the lore as the devs and world building team have chosen to present it to us. What is or is not possible in the game can only be argued using lore if it directly impacts lore that has been explicitly shown to us already. Saying that something can('t) happen because lore when said thing exists objectively in a gray area doesn't work.

So, more to the point, does lore help or hinder? It does both. It just depends on the circumstances.

[Hinoto-no-Ryuji]

Oh, absolutely, lore helps. People have pointed out how it's hindered PvP, which is probably true, but on the whole the existence of lore and sticking to said lore gives the world a feeling of reality and consistency. That's really important in a Theme Park MMO, which avoids mechanics like shop times and ferry schedules out of convenience and thus needs other methods to feel as much like a real world as possible. FFXIV sticking to its lore largely achieves this in spades, and were it to start ignoring or abandoning its own established rules and history, it would start to feel less like a real place.* As such, design decisions should absolutely be made with lore in mind as much as possible.

In fact, I'm a bit astonished people are calling the lore of FFXIV lacking and shallow. It goes pretty deep, and is remarkably consistent; any small amount of attention payed to surroundings and quests yields - or at least hints at - a long and storied history. Things feel aged, like they exist and have existed far beyond the immediate player experience of them. There are ages upon ages to this world, and the more content you do in the game, the more you learn about them. The world shows; the quests tell. And even the various things appropriated from other Final Fantasy titles are painstakingly made to fit with the established Hydaelyn.
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*The game isn't perfect at this, of course. There are all kinds of things that stretch immersion to the breaking point - whole swathes of zones are skipped on transitions, shops are always open, airhips are always ready to go at your command, people go into battle in pig costumes and green banana hammocks, etc.

[Theodric]

Well, it's a Final Fantasy game - part of a franchise known for decent storytelling and a sense of solid immersion in many titles. Balmung is also one of the biggest servers in this game, primary due to housing a considerable amount of role-players. Thus it is safe to suggest that lore is a very good thing.

I would never be able to bring myself to play a game that lacks a story or character development. Say what you will about 2.0 but 3.0 was a massive improvement over the issues 2.0 had and I expect 4.0 will be even better.

With that said I don't feel as though FFXIV is 'limited' by lore. Most of the time when people put forward dubious/awful ideas that do not fit the concept of the game itself they bring up 'lore limitations' as an excuse to get self righteous instead of admitting that maybe, just maybe, their idea isn't as good or valued as they think it is.

[KitingGenbu]

I think lore honestly depends on the type and the individuals participating. Everyone has their own views on how extreme situations can get within a lore perspective or what can be modified. For example, WoW's demon hunter class only has two specializations due to "lore reasons" but that can be translated into various ways especially since several other classes in the WoW world have had specializations added and/or modified over the years. Blizzard could have honestly added a 3rd specialization because one of the demon hunter npcs has access to a scythe and utilizes some magic abilities, but they took the lazy route imo. This is seen any many mmorpgs though because people believe certain things can't exist at certain periods of the game due to "lore reasons" which can greatly hinder the advancement of the game depending on the ideas wanting to be introduced.

[Konungarike]

Lore is very important to me in an MMO. It doesn't have to be the best thing ever, but it has to be consistent with the rules it has set up for itself. I ask of an MMO to set up a world for me to immerse myself in, I don't really ask that of other game genres. With that in mind, there are already things that irk me slightly with FFXIV's lore. The seasonal events for instance; I like the concept of seasonal events but the Christmas trees and literal Easter eggs consistently yank me out of Eorzea and back to my dorm room.

For the topic of the thread, of the lore was shaky or outright disregarded for the development of a game mechanic or something, I'd be pretty upset about it.

[Naunet]

I don't think "lore" should be used as an excuse to limit a certain functionality in a way that makes a feature less fun for players. Unfortunately, that does happen all too often in this game. >_<

I like lore, and I appreciate the richness of it in certain aspects of the game. I just don't think it should be used to limit players.