EP: Research - Ragnarok Online

I've been thinking of storytelling methods and I have identified what types of storytelling in games I enjoy the most. Telling information through exploration and collection seems to be what I'm drawn to, I used to love playing Ragnarok Online and my favourite game of all time is Dark Souls; they both have storytelling through environment and item collection as a key feature.

I think if I add in items to collect or places of interest to interact, read and learn from in my game level that would be a much more clever way of implementing story into the game than just providing the player with a voice over or a floating dialogue box that explains what is going on. There are  difficulties with the collection ideas as I think I'd then need to develop an inventory system which may be quite complex and time consuming for this project. However, I do think it's still something for me to take into consideration when thinking about storytelling. 

My 'Ragnarok Online' Inspiration Board