The Adventure Guide in its current state is serviceable. It does what it intends to do and functions fine. I’ve got no real issues or qualms with what it currently is, however, there is a lot more that can be done with it.
I think we need a reasonable way to find the story elements of the game. World of Warcraft would benefit massively from this. Having a journal of your travels, a repository of knowledge that is easy to access with the story so far. It would make sense to overhaul the current Adventure Guide to include these aspects in them.
There is a ton of story and lore in this game, and it’s a daunting task to try to piece it all together in a reasonable manner. Needing to rely on outside sources maintained by the fanbase such as databases, wikis, or outside forums just to get anywhere and dealing with the respective people who own or maintain those is an awful experience a lot of the time. It’s unreliable and unruly to deal with. It makes keeping the story together more of a chore than it needs to be.
People do it out of necessity, not because they want to deal with such headaches. Having all of the major story elements laid out and easily accessible would be a fantastic change for getting people invested in the World (s) of Warcraft. This would also mean including some elements from the novels that are important and expanded upon but have no reasonable place to put them into the game.
Most major factions and races should be included in this. Also, there should be character dossiers to help you keep track of all the major characters you meet who play importance to the story and shaping of the world.
There is already an in-game model viewer with the dungeon guide and it’d be great to expand upon it for both allies and enemies alike. Having the ability to see their in-game model as an option alongside reading about them.
A proposal I have is to see that guide able to be expanded upon the baseline just by the player playing the game. Alongside it offers players something to seek out and be rewarded for experiencing the game. The more you do quests with certain factions or dig up certain artifacts, the more story elements you are able to piece together.
The systems that could be included are: completing quests, doing dungeons and raids, reading books and other readable items, exploring the zones, some professions, and the reputation system.
All of this can be part of filling out your guide. There would be different tasks you can tackle to complete certain things and general overall progress to where you don’t actually need to focus on doing everything to learn it all. It would provide players an opportunity to do what they enjoy the most.
There would be account-wide awards tied to it such as mounts, pets, cosmetic armor and weapons, titles, toys, or heirloom items.
I know there are some existing weapon and armor models that currently have no place in the game aside from NPCs or that are simply existing models in the data files that could be awarded to a player. All of these could be tied into the system alongside creating recolors of other items and crafting some new weapons and armor sets.
If you completed a lot of the story for the gnomes/mecha-gnomes perhaps you get to customize your very own Mechanical Mount. You get a modification system to add different colors, put on decorations, and pick which aspects to modify and change to build it your way.
You could get a toy from the Tauren that allows you to transform yourself into a docile critter and roam Azeroth from the critters’ point of view.
This can be applied to every major culture and faction in Azeroth. It gives you something to hunt and work towards while also providing the benefit of getting you more invested in the story and world of the game. There are just a ton of possibilities with a system like this.
Ultimately I’d like to see the Adventure Guide be transformed to include a ton of lore resources and perhaps provide some rewards along the way.