Journal & Map System

[mentored1]

Howdy, folks.

Regarding a possible journal and map system, here are some ideas and how to fit them in the game:

- Find materials such as paper, notebooks, or even newspaper (material to write upon)

- Find something to write with such as pens, pencils, charcoal, markers, etc

- Once these items are located, allow the player to access two possible options related to the journal and map:

1. A map that is largely blank; the player can click on the map (current position at center) and add an icon and/or note. The map can be scrolled (click-drag or zoom in/out) and added locations/notes can be referenced for location, distance, and so forth.

2. The in-game log not only contains events occurring to the survivor, but it should include a journal section allowing us, the survivors, to type in things that we experience and our reaction to it. Also, notes can be added to the event log to reference locations on the map (see above), what was stored where, and so forth.

2b. The current game log should include every detail of the game (as noted in another thread)--every item found, thing harvested/repaired, and so forth. The log could have a few tabs for organization (or filters) such as 'Events', 'Food', 'Resoures', and such things.

* A really nifty feature in relation to the above-mentioned would be to enable community features for the maps and journal notes. It would pretty friggin' awesome to read a journal written by a TLD player who survived a long time, how they did it, what they experienced, and so forth. It would also lend a sort of grim reality to the game if there was a repository of "recovered" journals.

I'm not a fan of automation when it comes to maps and journals, so automatic recording or map notation shouldn't be a default for those who prefer the immersion of doing it manually... the notes and map-making, I mean.

[s_miracle]

Good post. I had a very similar idea regarding the map, although I had thought of it being just one blank map that you find and create your own map notes. But your idea with papers and writing utensils makes more sense and I like it better.

I absolutely agree that it would be nice to have an option to fill out the log yourself and/or disable automatic log entries. In general, I think anything they can do to increase immersion would be a benefit to a game like this.

As for 2b, this reminds me of features from Dark Souls and I agree it would be very, very cool to see notes if not short "flashbacks" of where and how a player died or something of that nature. But even doing just notes would be incredibly hard for them to implement at this point, since it would mean introducing networking and data storage. So while it would be cool, I think it's going to be a long wait if it ever happens.

I'm going to add these to my big list. Good stuff.

[mentored1]

Good post. I had a very similar idea regarding the map, although I had thought of it being just one blank map that you find and create your own map notes. But your idea with papers and writing utensils makes more sense and I like it better.

As long as that basic idea of having the map be something unique to the player, like you feel as if its your own world you're drawing...

The idea of finding a map is pretty cool, though, if we think about it: other survivors may have tried to fill in details and map fragments (with notes or locations) could be uncovered in the world!

As for 2b, this reminds me of features from Dark Souls and I agree it would be very, very cool to see notes if not short "flashbacks" of where and how a player died or something of that nature. But even doing just notes would be incredibly hard for them to implement at this point, since it would mean introducing networking and data storage. So while it would be cool, I think it's going to be a long wait if it ever happens.

I'm going to add these to my big list. Good stuff.

Yeah, that sounds like something very far off. At least letting us keep a journal in the game and maybe dumping it to a text file (or letting the player save it as a text file) would work, so we can post it ourselves in the forum. Sometimes writing a survivor story or telling the whole grim tale of 5 days in frozen hell is more compelling if told immediately and not much later in a post.

Thanks for adding it to the list--good call. You're all right, no matter what they say about you.