Do you think lore helps or hinders?

[SenorPatty]

Ever since the announcement of the 4.0 expansion, threads have popped up about a number of things: from new jobs to qol issues to possible new activities and many others. One recurring thing that I've seen in nearly all of those threads is lore and how it can impact what people want or don't want.

Do you think lore advances those issues? Or does it limit what could be coming? My take? Its my first time seeing lore having such an effect on decision making made by the players here and I'm not sure if it should have that much weight when it comes certain parts of the game. Then again, I will admit while I do like the lore, I don't like it enough to say "yes that should happen cuz of lore" and vice-versa".

[Zigabar]

Yokai event kills all lore excuses.

[Kaurie]

Personally, I think Lore makes a game great. That said, a game with good lore does not automatically make it a good game. Conversely, a game without good lore can still be a good game.

In the context of MMO's, I find FFXIV's lore to be thoroughly underwhelming and uninteresting. Despite that, it's my most played MMO.

Conversely, I really loved the lore of Wildstar, World of Warcraft and Guild Wars 2, but due to other reasons (mostly gameplay related), I don't play any of the 3 actively.

In terms of adding content, it depends on the depth of the content in terms of how much lore will matter. As the previous poster said, Yokai event is obviously not lore-friendly, but it also wasn't terribly important to the core of the game. Jobs, on the other hand, are. I think it's important that the devs stick to the lore for core things, otherwise it ruins the credibility of both the content and the lore.

[SendohJin]

it doesn't do either, when it comes up it's just an excuse to do or not do something.

[myahele]

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

[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?

[CosmicKirby]

Conversely, I really loved the lore of Wildstar, World of Warcraft and Guild Wars 2, but due to other reasons (mostly gameplay related), I don't play any of the 3 actively.

IMO, it's readily apparent WoW's writers know less about the lore of the game than most of the fans do. They have so much and do so little with it. They're the Disturbed/Nickleback of story writing.

FF14 has a lot less, but upon examination they're actually consistent and self referential with it. I much prefer this.

[Airget]

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

To be fair, the Crystal Tower excuse leaves the door open to introduce it at a later time when we've reached that lv of tech. Overall, prefer a game with lore than without but in the case of XIV, the reason why the lore influences it so much is because we are still following this singular narrative since 1.0, you could consider this "Tale of the Scions" and until we reach the conclusion of that story we aren't going to branch away from that.

It already sounds like they have plans for 5.0 to be a part of the overarching story but after that we might end up seeing storylines that aren't part of the overall lore and can be part of it's own narrative. Which I honestly look forward to granted we might not see that for 5-6yrs. But it would be interesting to see the world past the Garlean tyranny.

[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.