Quoting Anomander, reply 5The Game is definitely coming along from the first time I fired up the BETA, looking so much better...
Frogboy so far I note your vids all follow a similar trend. Clicking tiles, throwing down building icons, noting NPCs, recruiting and stat referencing. For me I still dont see the immersion factor yet, I dont even feel the fantasy element....it currently could be any RTS game I've played. Example: When NPC 'cards' become merely that....stat cards, why have histories or pics even?
How are you going to build in this immersion, and how are you going to make this world come alive?
I don't know about you, but for me the most important factor in making the world feel "alive" and RPG-like is random events and quests. Little things like the rat infestation, the kidnapped nobleman's daughter, rescuing the cubs of the wolf giving birth in a nearby cave, etc. - those things already greatly help the immersion for my part, and presumably throughout the beta we'll get even more such events and quests to make the world feel more alive. I'd especially like to see some events that do not lead specifically to quests with rewards at the end, but are just things that happen you have to deal with.
Note I find a significant difference between these random events, and the quests you actually seek out at an inn - the latter feels more game like, you see an inn and seek it out as if it were a goody hut promising loot and xp, as opposed to the random event-based quests that just happen whether or not you're looking for them. I mean the inns are great, on-demand quests are important for gameplay purposes, to keep the player busy when random events aren't occuring - but the random ones do more to make the world come alive for me.
But that's just me, what do you think would help immersion, specifically?
Oh I agree, major and minor quests make a difference but is not everything.... but they must be done properly. I BETAed Pirates of the Burning Sea, and told them from day one that their quests had no sense of meaning or consequence. You very rarely read the background text, and merely followed the mission highlighter, killed or spoke to those in sight and ching, rewarded.
I feel that partially is what is happening with Elemental...and like with recruiting NPC's. It seems, as Brad proves merely skip the flesh and go straight the the bone (stats).
How would I do it, hmmm difficult... I'd probably reward those who bothered to read the quest details. Perhaps have wheels within wheels. Little snippets of info that if absorbed may give glues to other quests or missions. Have a huge background story, that 'some' of these missions somehow inter-connect. All leading to a artefact of power, or some game changing knowledge!!! 
Please dont get me wrong also, I'm not all RPG, I wargame too....and I'm not getting Epic Wargame either from Elemental at this stage. More roving bands of mismatched and odd companies. Thrown together in a random world. I wince when I see, Spiders alongside Dragons and Club wielding peasants.... its like some bad taste 80's cocktail, fantasy for fantasy sake almost.
