Hey,

Topic #1: Taking Notes...

I was playing ArmA II a while ago, and if some of you have played the game, you know you can take notes ... like opening your map and add X's and write a little "resume" of what you found on that X place.
I know Oblivion had some sort of system that works like this, but its all scripted a.k.a current objectives... (for example, "I just found a cave with some kind of powerful stone in it")
Would you like to have some kind of a "personal" space to write your own annotations? or some kind of "Paint" (yes, Paint the Microsoft one...) to draw something you find in your travels (symbols, runes, etc..) to add some more immersion to the game???

Yes, i know consoles might be on a disadvantage here ... discuss...



Now, for the second Topic "Finding Treasures"...

Again, for those of you who have played Red Dead Redemption, you might know how treasure hunting works ...
If you don't, here it goes, suppose you are exploring, lost in the wilderness and you come across a chest... you open it and find some kind of drawing referring to a place on the world, maybe a big cliff, or a stone with some sort of "shape", maybe a big tree with broken branches .... so you keep exploring and you come across THAT stone, or THAT tree,.... you poke around a bit and BAM! you find a chest full of loot...
What I wouldn't like is the game telling you "That rock looks like the one in the drawing" just because you walked near that rock.... would be better if you realize it yourself...

So what do you think?

Hell yeah, to both question!

I think that your first request will be somewhat fulfilled - there were a very small amount of non-quest journal quests in Oblivion, a LOT more in Fallout 3, and a lot of the FO3 reviews mentioned the small unlisted quests as being one of the best things about the game.

I would love to see the quest compass dissappear completely, and just get an imprecise map marker and some really good written instructions, but that probably won't happen - they seem to love their magic GPS for the bigger quests. I think that the many unlisted quests in FO3 were an attempt to have something for everybody, and to a large extent that works for me.

I can totally understand the other point of view - "I don't have hours and hours to play the game, and want to get the most questing done in the least amount of time" - although, for me, the charm of big open-world games is connected to the feeling of exploration.

I would, however, love it if they made an effort to always have written / spoken instructions that are precise enough to find stuff without the quest compass, so that us explorer types can turn it off without being totally screwed. This is also more immersive (a word that gets thrown about too often, but come on... people who supposedly give you directions should ACTUALLY give directions, seeing as all the other dialogue is explicitly spoken in the game).

And as you say, it would be nice if quest updates didn't seem to whack you over the head with the stupid stick all that often. "This is the cave that Johnny told you about. You should go inside." "You are now inside the cave. You should probably explore the cave." "You have found the McGuffin. You should consider going home." That's not making the game accesible, that's teabagging the player.

Yes to both, that sort of thing always appeals to me. And I want to be able to write my own notes in my journal (maybe on a separate page/tab) and place my own markers on the map to remind me of places I need to revisit and things I need to do.

omg yess, but the paint tool should have immersion appropriate colours

A big yes to both questions, moreso to the first. I play on Xbox so I can't get Mod's e.t.c and I've always wanted the ability to keep a journal that I can write in whenever I like. :read:

[EDIT] More than one marker to place on the map so I can remember several locations at once.

I like it. Myst IV I think had a journal where you could take pictures and write notes to yourself. I'm not sure how much I'd use it on my console, though...unless I could use a keypad.

Yes, I want to be able to write in my journal, I've been wanting that since Morrowind. Sure, Morrowind has Writing Enhanced, but it's horribly unstable. I want it in my default game, please. Being able to write in one's journal would be such a HUGE boon to roleplaying.

Yes please!

/support


The treasure hunt thing sounds great but I really really really want the ability to make notes. Doesn't necessarily have to be on my map, I'd be happy to do that in a player-made notes section in the journal.

As a fellow Arma 2 fan, a resounding yes to both. I like these Ideas very much. :thumbsup:

Definably Definably Definably

I remember in Morrowind, When i first played i was even writting down things myself on a pad next to me. I thought thats what you had to do to find things out. Like that Daedric script.

Never felt any of that in Oblivion

Those are nice ideas man! I am sure they will add lots of treasures at the bottom of caves and such but still.

* Add notes (and show that it has one) to normal markers.
* Placing note markers on the map (same as normal markers but with custom icon).
* Draw on the map.
* Notes based on quest like entries, that doesn't rely on a map.

This is the computer age. Who uses pen and paper anymore? Oh, us...
And oh yeah, I'm heavily into Arma2 realism as well

Good to see I'm not the only one looking for this type of features,

I feel I didn't make Treasure Hunting any justice, here are some examples of the kind of treasure map you find in Red Dead Redemption


This is the 1st one, it's the easiest of the game and it could be taken as a tutorial

http://images.wikia.com/reddeadredemption/images/0/0e/Rdr_treasure_map01.jpg

and this is the actual location

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100626164647/reddeadredemption/images/a/a6/Rdr_hanging_rock_2.jpg



Another:
http://images.wikia.com/reddeadredemption/images/8/8b/Rdr_treasure_map02.jpg

Location:
http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100627200659/reddeadredemption/images/4/42/Rdr_rio_lobo.jpg


Map:
http://images.wikia.com/reddeadredemption/images/b/b6/Rdr_treasure_map08.jpg
Location:
http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100629194033/reddeadredemption/images/b/b5/Rdr_broken_tree.jpg

and so on..

A big yes, to both of your suggestions. Having the ability to add notes to the map (and the journal) would be a nice little feature.

The Red Dead-style treasure hunting you mentioned reminded me of the Chocobo side-quests in Final Fantasy IX. Basically the same as RDR; you have a picture of an area on the map you have to locate. I enjoyed this in both games, and it would really suit an ES game.

Basically, I just want loads of non-quest/faction, preferably unscripted stuff to do in the wilderness.

I would also enjoy if I was manually allowed to write in my journal. That was always annoying that I couldn't document my own travels. Hell, OREGON TRAIL had a journal that you could write in!

I'm all for both topics, and one thing I don't want to see in Skyrim that I saw in Oblivion, getting measly loot after cracking a "very hard" lock.