I'm sure I am not alone in thinking that the undiscovered and dynamic nature of Verra is one of AoC's strongest appeals. I cannot wait to discover what the world has to offer and all of the dynamic events that may occur. This excitment was further amplified by early developer posts where we were told about the "imperfect information" that would drive exploration and intrigue.
https://ashesofcreation.com/news/the-mighty-beard
"...uses imperfect information to cause intrigue..."
"Since our maps don’t illuminate when a point of interest becomes active, Taverns act as a large source or regional information. A haunted tomb has been uncovered, a cave with kobolds (sound familiar, Tavern starters?) or a sprite-filled forest are all points of interest that will be passed by word of mouth in Taverns. Perhaps a more nefarious band of adventurers are spreading false rumors to trap others, but, you need to go out and adventure to solve or confront these rumors."
I was therefore super duper disappointed to see some of the benefits of node specific buildings being the exact opposite: detailed and irrefutable information about the world. Scientific nodes provide "Locations and inhabitants of new Dungeons or POIs (Points of Interest) that have spawned" and "Unique and Rare drop information for surrounding areas" while economic nodes provide "Map of active trade missions and requests from World Node Map" and "Map with information on current exchange rates for resource-based trade routes".
I think this is a tragic lost opportunity for AoC to create a truly mysterious world where information is a powerful commodity. Player and community driven sharing of information allows for brilliant gameplay moments otherwise not possible. Distant guilds may share information as acts of friendship or deception. Players are encouraged to explore based on rumors without the knowledge or promise of guaranteed reward and may stumble onto unexpected adventures and riches organically.
The lack of perfect or confirmed information also encourages a sense of community at a meta-level where server-specific websites will be made to compile information on points of interest, local market price rates etc. Based on the "know your nodes" series, it seems like this word-of-mouth sense of intrigue won't be fully eliminated because the information that node-specific buildings may provide will be (from my understanding) only available in said buildings. So these websites and community-driven meta-resources will still likely pop up, but instead of people contributing information (correctly or deceptively), it will be an amalgamation of screenshots. This will thus do massive damage to the extent and potency of player and community-driven sharing of information that would have otherwise existed without such "perfect" information.
Given how the world of Verra is undiscovered, unique per server and dynamically changing, imperfect information provides extremely exciting opportunities for unprecedented narratives to organically form. Information will be a commodity that influences guild and node politics. I strongly hope that Intrepid reconsiders the "perfect" information that nodes offer and thinks back to their initial ideas of "imperfect information" and all of the unique opportunities it provides, and how well it synergizes with the uniquely dynamic world that they are creating.
