Hello,

I'm new at modding but my intuition tells me global variables should be avoided whenever possible.

In my case I can't use locals to keep track of some quest progress, is using journal updates any better than globals ? (taking into account the journal entry already exists and has a value, so it doesn't even create a new variable)

If so, is there any way to get an empty journal update (it doesn't appear in the journal, that much is possible) WITHOUT the "Your journal has been updated" message appearing for the player ?

I don't want to clutter the journal with small stuff, and I don't want to tell the player his journal has been updated when there's nothing new in it.

The message does not appear when you issue the empty Journal command from dialogue's action box.

It's no big deal to have a Global Variable updating - you are only changing it's value from 1 to 2 or 2 to 3 - the modder who made the farming mod once wrote he had something like 400 Globals in action and couldn't see an impact on performance.

Journal updates can be useful to the player though in knowing what they are supposed to be doing on the quest - otherwise you can use notes - so the player picks up a note or an object that gives them a clue as to what they are doing next - it is always good to remember that players don't always complete the quest in the way we write it - they might save the game and not play for a month or more then they come back and wonder what to do next or they start the quest but then wander off and do a fighter's guild quest and by the time they want to do your quest again they need some clue as to what to do - so the journal can be really useful for that.

Indeed, by not adding empty journal entries at all the JournalIndex gets updated but gives no message.

And good to know about globals, though in my case the JournalIndex behaves just like one.

Thanks for the replies!

Just in case you ever need to hide a message in the future, you can use three empty MessageBoxes to push it "off" the screen.

SetJournalIndex, "ID_quest", index

This will help you absolutely!

There are places in scripts where you can't use a journal entry to detect what is going on - the game doesn't like it. In that case you should probably use a global. But journal entries are great for making dialog work correctly, and then you can use the dialog to call the script you need.

Yes. I have long considered empty journal entries as free globals. And even if global variables do not tax system resources it is still gratifying to achieve so elegant solution. There are a few things you should understand before you settle on this approach.

First: SetJournalIndex is a Tribunal function. Using it will introduce an expansion dependency for your mod.

Second: SetJournalIndex can create some unexpected results (potentially quest-breaking) if the player reloads a save without quitting Morrowind. Here is an http://www.yacoby.net/es/forum/11/8579511215803460.html examining the problem. It is only an issue if the journal is set before a normal journal entry is made for the quest.

Very interesting... thanks for all the info.