What type of quest journal would you like to have?

There are many ways to be creative with the journal, but I would prefer one where the player takes an active role. Geneforge did this in an interesting way, quests you got were automatically jotted down for you, but only the basic task and not anything surrounding it. Instead of being spoon-feed each and every step of a quest you had to manually write down important parts of conversations you've had yourself.

 

Let me make up an example to better illustrate what this does in practice. A farmer is missing one of his hens and wants you to find it for him, you now have "Find hen for farmer x" among your quests. Next you speak to another farmer and he mentions in passing that he saw an suspicious individual carrying a hen heading towards the east, now in many games this would have updated your quest entry but this is not the case here. The quest entry doesn't change, but if you were attentive and read what he said you now have written down the relevant information in your journal for future reference and are hopefully one step closer to finishing the quest.

There are many ways to be creative with the journal, but I would prefer one where the player takes an active role. Geneforge did this in an interesting way, quests you got were automatically jotted down for you, but only the basic task and not anything surrounding it. Instead of being spoon-feed each and every step of a quest you had to manually write down important parts of conversations you've had yourself.

 

Let me make up an example to better illustrate what this does in practice. A farmer is missing one of his hens and wants you to find it for him, you now have "Find hen for farmer x" among your quests. Next you speak to another farmer and he mentions in passing that he saw an suspicious individual carrying a hen heading towards the east, now in many games this would have updated your quest entry but this is not the case here. The quest entry doesn't change, but if you were attentive and read what he said you now have written down the relevant information in your journal for future reference and are hopefully one step closer to finishing the quest.

 

Please don't add unnecessary busy work to the game. If I wanted that I'd be off collecting Rat Teeth (that seemingly only drop from one of out every ten rats) in World of Warcraft.

 

Please don't add unnecessary busy work to the game. If I wanted that I'd be off collecting Rat Teeth (that seemingly only drop from one of out every ten rats) in World of Warcraft.

 

It's just a quick example. Did you expect him to lay out an entire epic quest for his example?

Please don't add unnecessary busy work to the game. If I wanted that I'd be off collecting Rat Teeth (that seemingly only drop from one of out every ten rats) in World of Warcraft.

 

It's just a quick example. Did you expect him to lay out an entire epic quest for his example?

 

In his example he is suggesting that it is a good mechanic for you to have to write down information that is explicitly given to you. This is not a good mechanic, this is not an interesting mechanic. It's busy work.

 

It's busy work just like killing 10 rats to get 1 Tooth for a quest where you need 10 Teeth is busy work. They could just make you need 100 Rat Teeth and make them a 100% drop rate, but they know if the player understands just how poorly designed and implemented the quest is that it's horrific game design.

 

Just like a Journal that requires you to write down, "Shady guy with Hens went west" or whatever random bs that needs to be entered. The game can easily facilitate that for you, it isn't a matter of player skill, and as long as the person playing isn't a blithering idiot it amounts to busy work. This is bad game design.

 

An example of a good Journal would be the Witcher 2, written as portrayed by a companion of a character doing the quests, it adds lore and dialogue that you won't see unless you read it, meaning it isn't just a note of what's happened thus far, it's all interesting from a story perspective. This is good game design.

Please don't add unnecessary busy work to the game. If I wanted that I'd be off collecting Rat Teeth (that seemingly only drop from one of out every ten rats) in World of Warcraft.

 

It's just a quick example. Did you expect him to lay out an entire epic quest for his example?

 

In his example he is suggesting that it is a good mechanic for you to have to write down information that is explicitly given to you. This is not a good mechanic, this is not an interesting mechanic. It's busy work.

 

It's busy work just like killing 10 rats to get 1 Tooth for a quest where you need 10 Teeth is busy work. They could just make you need 100 Rat Teeth and make them a 100% drop rate, but they know if the player understands just how poorly designed and implemented the quest is that it's horrific game design.

 

Just like a Journal that requires you to write down, "Shady guy with Hens went west" or whatever random bs that needs to be entered. The game can easily facilitate that for you, it isn't a matter of player skill, and as long as the person playing isn't a blithering idiot it amounts to busy work. This is bad game design.

 

An example of a good Journal would be the Witcher 2, written as portrayed by a companion of a character doing the quests, it adds lore and dialogue that you won't see unless you read it, meaning it isn't just a note of what's happened thus far, it's all interesting from a story perspective. This is good game design.

 

If you need the journal to tell you to go east when the guy just told you, then you're kind of dumb.

Please don't add unnecessary busy work to the game. If I wanted that I'd be off collecting Rat Teeth (that seemingly only drop from one of out every ten rats) in World of Warcraft.

 

It's just a quick example. Did you expect him to lay out an entire epic quest for his example?

 

In his example he is suggesting that it is a good mechanic for you to have to write down information that is explicitly given to you. This is not a good mechanic, this is not an interesting mechanic. It's busy work.

 

It's busy work just like killing 10 rats to get 1 Tooth for a quest where you need 10 Teeth is busy work. They could just make you need 100 Rat Teeth and make them a 100% drop rate, but they know if the player understands just how poorly designed and implemented the quest is that it's horrific game design.

 

Just like a Journal that requires you to write down, "Shady guy with Hens went west" or whatever random bs that needs to be entered. The game can easily facilitate that for you, it isn't a matter of player skill, and as long as the person playing isn't a blithering idiot it amounts to busy work. This is bad game design.

 

An example of a good Journal would be the Witcher 2, written as portrayed by a companion of a character doing the quests, it adds lore and dialogue that you won't see unless you read it, meaning it isn't just a note of what's happened thus far, it's all interesting from a story perspective. This is good game design.

 

If you need the journal to tell you to go east when the guy just told you, then you're kind of dumb.

 

That isn't what I said, but being stupid as you are I don't expect you to understand my post, let alone good game design. Which, by the way, was what my post was actually about.

 

To reiterate: Making me write down knowledge put out in the open, busy work. Yes, it may not be relevant to something just said as I should remember it, but this isn't book keeping simulator 2012, having to write down every detail of every quest because it may be a quest that lasts for several hours or longer is busy work.

 

Busy work = collecting rat teeth from rats that don't drop teeth every kill

 

= Bad gam design.

 

ITS. SIMPLE. READ.

Edited October 27, 2012 by HereticSaint

I have a confession to make... I love reading journals while playing rpgs, especially when it's in some character's voice, as if it was a real journal. Some people might not like it but for me it adds to immersion into the game universe, with the people in it demonstrating ability to think and feel.

 

I certainly hope PE continues that tradition, though with some fixes to make information searching and objectives finding easier.

 

One thing I really hope the devs don't do is turn it into a simple to-do list to be checked off.

I have a confession to make... I love reading journals while playing rpgs, especially when it's in some character's voice, as if it was a real journal. Some people might not like it but for me it adds to immersion into the game universe, with the people in it demonstrating ability to think and feel.

 

I certainly hope PE continues that tradition, though with some fixes to make information searching and objectives finding easier.

 

One thing I really hope the devs don't do is turn it into a simple to-do list to be checked off.

 

Actually, this makes me think... you know what would be great? If not only your character kept a journal, but if your companions did too. Though for you to see it you'd either have to pickpocket it from them successfully or have a high enough approval for them to let you see it. I think it'd be neat and a good way of seeing their perspectives on events too.

As long as they dont dumb it down to generic sentences ala Skyrim, and make it interesting It's all good. Nidrolok's idea about being able to write down detail yourself was cool as well though (someone calling it busy work made me lol) I suppose a compromise might be either having a section in the back of the journal where you can type "notes" like the space in the back of old game manuals? Or you can even allow players to edit or add to entrys on the fly.

 

Are the features I just mentioned extremely important? Not really but anything that requires the player to think and be more creative can only be a good thing. RPG's should make you think about what your doing and why, I appreciate Bioware and most other development companys have tried to change that in the past decade but this is an Obsidian game so screw those guys.

-snip-

 

If by, "notes", you mean they were suggesting that you be required to type out any and all important information for every quest you do (because you have no idea how long they'd be and what parts of dialogue would be important), then yes, it's busy work and it's bad game design to require the player to do that. This isn't about having an extra notepad and you not understanding that makes me, "lol".

 

Having a player keep notes on information explicitly given to them doesn't require the player to think, it requires the player to type for five minutes (or longer) after every encounter with any NPC tied to any quest that has any important information, dialogue, items, etc. Having a player think would be adding books to the game about lore, people or other peoples journals within the game and then later on having an NPC who specifically asks you about something and you needing to make a connection between the two and having to specifically type out the answer required (as opposed to it being a selectable option from within the dialogue boxes).

Like BG2 or PS:T would be nice. I like having the option to edit them like in BG2.

Like the Journal in BG2. Divided into chapters, you can view the entries as Quests, Done Quests and generic Journal entries, and then each of those can be sorted by name or date. The entries are written in a manner that lets you see who gave it to you, what they wanted and where to go if known so there's no wandering blind. Also, there's a portion for you to make your own entries and edit them. I would really love to have that back.

 

DA2 & ME3 are good examples of how NOT to do a journal.

 

A section that lets you read all past dialogues would be good, but possibly difficult and or tedious to find what you wanted. I'm sure Obsidian would think of some kind of search or sort function to fix that if they thought it was worth putting in.

One that you look down upon at the end of the game and nod to yourself as you remember a hag asking, "What can change the nature of a man?"

 

DA2 & ME3 are good examples of how NOT to do a journal.

 

Yeah... but then DA2 and ME3 are good examples of how NOT to do just about everything in an RPG.

It does not matter the style as long as it's well organized and can be filtered easily. Older games just had a list of things in series and it was a pain to track everything, more so if you had to stop playing the game for a while and came back a few weeks later. I don't need markers or trackers but would like to be able to annotate both the map and the journal with my own notes is possible.

Please no

 

- active/inactive quests

- quest markers

- clearly defined steps of quests in journal

 

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.....

 

Pfft, screw that. Don't even give us any journal at all, a REAL old school game should require you to keep your own journal with a pen and paper. Don't have an area map either, we should have to draw our own.

 

I also want the inventory to be like the old Ultima games where every party member has dozens of bags and you need to keep track of which items are in which bag on which party member. Automatic sorting is for lazy, illiterate wimps! REAL roleplayers need it not!

Please no

 

- active/inactive quests

- quest markers

- clearly defined steps of quests in journal

 

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.....

 

Pfft, screw that. Don't even give us any journal at all, a REAL old school game should require you to keep your own journal with a pen and paper. Don't have an area map either, we should have to draw our own.

 

I also want the inventory to be like the old Ultima games where every party member has dozens of bags and you need to keep track of which items are in which bag on which party member. Automatic sorting is for lazy, illiterate wimps! REAL roleplayers need it not!

 

I sincerely hope that it's sarcasm...

 

I do like PnP experience and I would not mind having the FULLY MANUAL journal as an option... but that said.. it should be an OPTION...

 

The one thing that can cause a lot of frustration is not not be able to follow a quest line without a massive WORK... Work is rarely fun...

 

I would love to see old school journal entries style, BUT modernized in a way, where they would be grouped per quest name (like that said Red Ruby). Don't impose WORK on players as a default and the only true experience... I doubt that majority would consider that a FUN way of looking for completion of quests.

Not read all the posts in this thread so it may have been covered - but what I want is a Arcanum style journal. Very similar to the Baldur's Gate style but with a bit more sorting to it.

The style of the journal should match the setting of the game. Generally an embroidered book for example in fantasy themed games. The pages turn over animation wise, the writing in style akin to handwritten. The updates as progress through should be in the same style, additional handwritten paragraphs that expand on what new information you have found out. Pretty sure character won't be carrying around an iPad of Kindle so no electronic or mechanical themed journal, images or writing please.

 

The book is carried by the player visually maybe see it hanging on belt or satchel just to give a visual continuity to it's presence not only as quest tracking gameplay mechanic and lore facts but as a real ingame world presence used by the character. The journal needs to be relatively empty at the beginning of the game or even empty if used as plot device in that find the journel slightly later in the game akin to after any tutorial phase. I don't want to see helvetica or arial font used as typeset lettering within the journal as that would be out of place imho.

 

I would like it to have hand drawn diagrams and pictures that from roleplaying perspective the character has drawn as he or she updates it from time to time, meaning no photograph type screenshot images present just drawings by the character. Maybe it could have content inside the book of information clippings, other pages torn from other books that are inside it like bookmarkers would be within real life books potentially. These could fold out via animation if larger than your journal book itself much like fold out maps you have placed in the book or journal for reference taken from other sources.

 

This is my sort of ideal situation.

Edited October 28, 2012 by Dragoonlordz

poll speaketh the truth...I was worried for a moment that i would be only. I hope they make spell book in similiar fashion, eye pleasing...

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

Well, that's too darn hardcore. I have to reject!!!

...

(j/k)

Still, I do rather want it per seperate quests where completed quests stay rather than being nuked, never to be seen again.

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.

Checkmark? Immersion breaker.

Cross out? Hard to read.

I am fine with the first part, not with the proposed solutions though.

I don't know if you have played it.

Everyone I know hates it and tells me to avoid it like the plague. It's like reverse mouth-to-mouth advertising.

Considering I have many games garnering my atttention, it's probably on my to do list for 2017. Or never.

If you need the journal to tell you to go east when the guy just told you, then you're kind of dumb.

If you boot the game up after 2 months and are completely lost because you didn't remember 2 months I had to go east (I'm such an idiot see) and it's no longer an option to ask... it's the game being stupid.

I prefer the BG-style quest journals, but I'll be okay with the newer ones so long as:

 

1-It's sortable by the various states of the quest (finished, ongoing, etc.).

2-It's detailed enough that I know what the heck I'm supposed to do.

3-IT UPDATES when I complete various stages of it (holy hell ME3 keeps coming up when I think of things not to do in a game).

As much as I love stylistically the first option, It does make it hard to track progress.

 

I do like being able to check who I promised I'd help without having to read 20 pages at a time.

 

Ideally I'd have both a rolling journal chronicling my progress and a to do list.

i liked journal in Arcanum ) ogre scribbles and everything

BG style with modernized categorization. I loved how the journal was actually "written" by your character. It makes the character feel more relevant to the game world in a way, and if done right, avoids conflicting with your roleplay.

 

Obviously you wouldn't want an entry saying "The man i'm looking for is in loopooville. I WILL TEAR OUT HIS STOMACH AND FEED IT TO HIS PUPPY DOGS". But more neutral journal entries that don't express a strong opinion would be great.