What type of quest journal would you like to have?

[Hassat Hunter]

Where's your imagination, guys? Where's your sense of challenge? Where's your sense of realism/authenticity? Where's your sense of immersion?

This should be an "old-school" game imo without casualized quest journals for people who don't want to follow the dialogues or read the journal properly.....

Well, BG1's journal was hell if you took a break for a week or so, and had to come back and remember what to do.

 

They can definitely impove upon that, without adding quest markers or active quests as you say... but they do need to log them per quest for easy access. Especially useful for those longer quests (the entire stronghold section, eternal dungeon etc.)

[LordCrash]

Where's your imagination, guys? Where's your sense of challenge? Where's your sense of realism/authenticity? Where's your sense of immersion?

This should be an "old-school" game imo without casualized quest journals for people who don't want to follow the dialogues or read the journal properly.....

Well, BG1's journal was hell if you took a break for a week or so, and had to come back and remember what to do.

 

They can definitely impove upon that, without adding quest markers or active quests as you say... but they do need to log them per quest for easy access. Especially useful for those longer quests (the entire stronghold section, eternal dungeon etc.)

 

I think it's not a bad design idea to implement a "real" journal like a diary. It's a choice between immersion and "casualization". A good RPG should be a comparable experience to reading a good book - with the one difference that you can decide about the direction of the story and the results of your actions. But like a book you will (and should!!!) "fall out" of the world if you quit it for a week or a month. The most dense and emotional experience can only be reached when you follow the whole thing in a relatively close timeframe. And if you are forced to quit the game for a longer time you should also be forced (by the game) to work you in again.

[Jasede]

Where's the "none, I want to write my own notes" option?

[Darkpriest]

Where's your imagination, guys? Where's your sense of challenge? Where's your sense of realism/authenticity? Where's your sense of immersion?

This should be an "old-school" game imo without casualized quest journals for people who don't want to follow the dialogues or read the journal properly.....

Well, BG1's journal was hell if you took a break for a week or so, and had to come back and remember what to do.

 

They can definitely impove upon that, without adding quest markers or active quests as you say... but they do need to log them per quest for easy access. Especially useful for those longer quests (the entire stronghold section, eternal dungeon etc.)

 

I think it's not a bad design idea to implement a "real" journal like a diary. It's a choice between immersion and "casualization". A good RPG should be a comparable experience to reading a good book - with the one difference that you can decide about the direction of the story and the results of your actions. But like a book you will (and should!!!) "fall out" of the world if you quit it for a week or a month. The most dense and emotional experience can only be reached when you follow the whole thing in a relatively close timeframe. And if you are forced to quit the game for a longer time you should also be forced (by the game) to work you in again.

 

While I understand your point of view, I also would like this game to succeed beyond the Kickstarter campaign and be a sales hit, that will sell 2-4 mln copies. Quests, while can be done without "arrow" indicators and other strictly hand holding stuff, they should be well organized and easy to reach by a player. Going too far with the hardcore mode, where you would have to collect info by yourself, could be too much. I would not mind it to be toggable (i.e. by default you get organized quest journal, but you might switch it off, so you have to keep all the notes manually).

 

I'd prefer a default journal to be modernized, i.e. we get a name of the quest "Red Ruby" - and there you start with journal entries related to this quest, saying that one said it's most dear to his heart, etc and eventually finding out that it's a redhair girl called Ruby...

Edited October 26, 2012 by Darkpriest

[Metabot]

Where's your imagination, guys? Where's your sense of challenge? Where's your sense of realism/authenticity? Where's your sense of immersion?

This should be an "old-school" game imo without casualized quest journals for people who don't want to follow the dialogues or read the journal properly.....

Well, BG1's journal was hell if you took a break for a week or so, and had to come back and remember what to do.

 

They can definitely impove upon that, without adding quest markers or active quests as you say... but they do need to log them per quest for easy access. Especially useful for those longer quests (the entire stronghold section, eternal dungeon etc.)

 

I think it's not a bad design idea to implement a "real" journal like a diary. It's a choice between immersion and "casualization". A good RPG should be a comparable experience to reading a good book - with the one difference that you can decide about the direction of the story and the results of your actions. But like a book you will (and should!!!) "fall out" of the world if you quit it for a week or a month. The most dense and emotional experience can only be reached when you follow the whole thing in a relatively close timeframe. And if you are forced to quit the game for a longer time you should also be forced (by the game) to work you in again.

 

While I understand your point of view, I also would like this game to succeed beyond the Kickstarter campaign and be a sales hit, that will sell 2-4 mln copies. Quests, while can be done without "arrow" indicators and other strictly hand holding stuff, they should be well organized and easy to reach by a player. Going too far with the hardcore mode, where you would have to collect info by yourself, could be too much. I would not mind it to be toggable (i.e. by default you get organized quest journal, but you might switch it off, so you have to keep all the notes manually).

 

I'd prefer a default journal to be modernized, i.e. we get a name of the quest "Red Ruby" - and there you start with journal entries related to this quest, saying that one said it's most dear to his heart, etc and eventually finding out that it's a redhair girl called Ruby...

 

I hear BGII did quite well.

[quantum_freak]

I like the system in Planescape Torment. A little bit of both. You`ve got a journal that writes down your adventures and notes on people, locations and what not and a Quests tab with all the info on ongoing quests (but its still in a journal format). I think that would be the best way to go. It still keeps you up to date while keeping up a fantasy feel.

[Jaesun]

A quest journal that specifically requires you to think, pay attention to information, and reason would be most welcome.

[Kecaw]

Well if you want a good cross of old school and something new i recomend the Witcher journal style, the entries were "man made" (the feeling that you wrote them yourself) but it was well well segregated so you had a clear understanding of what to do plus there were segments for NPC,lore,monster info.

[LordCrash]

This is the style of the journal in Inquisitor. There are three different tabs for questnotes, general notes and proofs (the last section is related to the keydetective element of the game). Completed quest notes are deleted from the the journal while general notes and proofs are kept during the whole game. I love this style, it looks like a "real" diary in which the main character has written his thoughts with differentiation between tasks and general notes but without "artificial" systems like sort, help, search or even clearly noted step-for-step approaches for single quests. Yes, it's some kind of "hardcore" but it's perfect for total immersion. And for sure, the look of the UI and the journal and the fit to the art of the game supports this immersion aspect.

 

(And a warning for everybody who plans to play Inquisitor in the future: the picture may contain minor and major spoilers so be aware....)

 

 

 

 

 

[Metabot]

I don't want a journal where things get randomly deleted, otherwise that looks neat.

[Hassat Hunter]

Completed quest notes are deleted from the the journal

That's just stupid. What if I wanted to reread what was written about quests? This is worse handholding than what you are against!

 

Also seems that 'quest' screenshot is really empty. I don't suspect to be on so little quests at the same time in PE, so that wouldn't work then...

And for sure, the look of the UI and the journal and the fit to the art of the game supports this immersion aspect.

I still am under the presumption that that UI looks absolutely horrible... :/

[nikolokolus]

Whatever form it takes, key information needs to be easily found. I've never found the exercise of scouring notes for a nugget of information particularly gratifying in games.

 

That said, the tack taken by games like Skyrim isn't the way to go.

 

It doesn't need to be dumbed down but it does need to be usable.

[LordCrash]

Completed quest notes are deleted from the the journal

That's just stupid. What if I wanted to reread what was written about quests? This is worse handholding than what you are against!

 

Also seems that 'quest' screenshot is really empty. I don't suspect to be on so little quests at the same time in PE, so that wouldn't work then...

And for sure, the look of the UI and the journal and the fit to the art of the game supports this immersion aspect.

I still am under the presumption that that UI looks absolutely horrible... :/

The journal has more than two pages, you can turn pages....

 

For completed quests I would prefer if they stay in the journal but marked as completed with a check mark or with text being crossed out.

 

And for the UI, that's a question of taste. But it fits really well to the game imo, I don't know if you have played it.

[HansKrSG]

Although I feel you have too few options in this poll, thankfully for me, I agree with one of the choices. A journal that feels like a journal, but which is grouped logically to make it easier to get the info you are looking for, sounds nice.

Edited October 26, 2012 by HansKrSG

[Metabot]

@lordcrash

 

I kind of like the idea of there being notes in the margins that the player can write such as, "did this", or "need to find this", etc.

[Metabot]

By the by, I am getting Inquisitor now thanks for costing me 15 bucks

[LadyCrimson]

I like a journal that feels like as much like a journal as possible, but it has to be organized well enough for me to fairly easily find the information I want. I don't like paging and skimming and reading for 10+ minutes when all I want is to re-read a quest dialogue from some NPC I met 3 hours ago.

[PsychoBlonde]

Why does it have to be only those two options?

 

I'd rather have a system where:

 

1. Quest entries are usefully grouped in a quest log, which is not the same thing as the "journal".

2. Each entry is topped by a very brief "this is what I need to do next on this quest" blurb, such as "should talk to X in Ytown" or "hmm, need to find sword somewhere in forest of Doom"

3. For every "step" in the quest (and maybe some other things that aren't specifically quest related, like "visited Ytown for first time" or "gawd what monster was that!" or "found this old book with interesting section, copying it down" or similar), you get a brief blurb of text appended to the journal about it, so your journal is actually a chronological record of what you did when.

 

This would make it very quick and easy to place what you're doing right now if, for example, you stop playing the game for a few weeks, but you would also have a comprehensive journal that could record your entire journey. I'd like it even more if different character classes/races got slightly different journal entries for doing different things. That could be very entertaining to read.

Edited October 26, 2012 by PsychoBlonde

[bragi]

Definitely Planescape: Torment style. First-person narrative journal with sections about active, completed and failed quests, NPCs, monsters, etc.

Edited October 26, 2012 by bragi

[LordCrash]

Why does it have to be only those two options?

 

I'd rather have a system where:

 

1. Quest entries are usefully grouped in a quest log, which is not the same thing as the "journal".

2. Each entry is topped by a very brief "this is what I need to do next on this quest" blurb, such as "should talk to X in Ytown" or "hmm, need to find sword somewhere in forest of Doom"

3. For every "step" in the quest (and maybe some other things that aren't specifically quest related, like "visited Ytown for first time" or "gawd what monster was that!" or "found this old book with interesting section, copying it down" or similar), you get a brief blurb of text appended to the journal about it, so your journal is actually a chronological record of what you did when.

 

This would make it very quick and easy to place what you're doing right now if, for example, you stop playing the game for a few weeks, but you would also have a comprehensive journal that could record your entire journey. I'd like it even more if different character classes/races got slightly different journal entries for doing different things. That could be very entertaining to read.

The system you describe is nearly exactly the one I presented (Inquisitor). There is a quest log and a notes log (which is a chronological recording of the experiences of the player). Both consist of small text passages and not just only half sentences about what to do next.

[Jaesun]

Journals that do not require you to do any form of thinking, listening and reasoning are just awful. You might as well set the game on auto-play and just sit back and watch and do nothing.

[Coincidence]

As long as there is an option I can toggle where my character says "Updated my journal" then I'll be happy.

[Sylvius the Mad]

The thing I don't want is I don't want the quests in the journal grouped by importance or plot relevance. That's metagame information that shouldn't ever appear in the game.

 

All the in-game journal is is a labour-saving device. It should never provide any information that I couldn't have written down myself. In modern games, I've actually taken to keeping my own hard copy notes outside of the game because the journals are just a disaster. And then a bunch of quests don't make sense because the designers didn't ever take the PC's perspective into account.

[Superdeluxe]

Baldurs gate

[sesobebo]

also: chat log.