In regards to audio diaries, there is something of a deeper connection to those style of exposition devices.

Look at games like System Shock and Bioshock and see how they so effectively used Audio diaries to carry some plot. They are some of the best things those games did well.

Bioshock always made me wonder...People must have spent a lot of money on those recorders to use a lot of them for minute long entries.

First lemme take a Audiee (like Selfee?)

I've always thought it odd that I find a note, and instead of just reading it.. I type it up in my pipboy (or scan or whatever)... I'd welcome book/notes mechanics, but I wouldn't want them to take the place of audio logs & computer terminal entries. They all have their place.

I've never been a fan of the whole magazine/skill book idea. It seems odd to me that I eat or destroy a magazine to get a better understanding of something for a few seconds. But seeing how skills are gone, I don't see how these are going to function the same way (if they even still exist).

Anything that builds on The lore would be wellcome, if it was Even remotely coherent.

I imagined the Magazine was probably turned to ash between the fingers of the player.

Absolutely!! I loved it in TES. I don't know why but it's so much more satisfying when you actually open the book. I never liked it on the pip boy or just a screen like Witcher 3 and most other games. Really good idea

What if books/magazines had different volumes/issues? This way when you read one you could keep it but you would no longer receive any new knowledge from it.

Just for my own amusemant I once changed the reading sound on those books to the eating sound.. I giggled for a bit.. then uninstalled the mod.

That'd make more sense to me anyways. But without skills in FO4, don't know if we'll even see them. Looks like they've merging skills with perks (and perk ranks).

I'd love it if they were filled out a bit more but it wouldn't be a deal breaker for me if they weren't.

One thing I noticed last night in FO3 was that when I went into the Beta Testing area of the Hubris Comics building there was a terminal that has a small text adventure game for Grognak the Barbarian. I can't recall seeing that before. More things like that would be a nice touch.

No, I like using the arrow keys for activate and vats. I can't do that in Skyrim, I'm forced to use the page down key to talk to NPCs. I would give up reading a book just so I could use the keys I want to play the game.

Yes, if anything just for the skill books. I've always wondered what the skills books actually said.

Guys, a suggestion?

Maybe you could find copies of the book around the wasteland... but all of them are missing certain pages. Each one you find raises your skill a little, but you can't actually READ it yet.

But if you get enough copies, eventually you'll have a full book, and you'll be able to read the whole story, in addition to getting a small perk, like 2% melee damage, in the case of Grognak the barbarian.

That way, the devs only have to make ONE piece of writing/whatever for each book type, instead of 3 or 4.

Half of the books don't even need pictures. The D.C. Internal Journal of Medicine, or "Lying, Congressional Style" could just be bits of creative writing that give insight to the game's world.

Lying Congressional Style: Talk about the time Senator Whatshisface convinced the president to Annex Canada.

Grognak the Barbarian: Grognak faces off against the AntAgonizer, armed with nothing but a tree branch!

Pugilism Illustrated: An article on disarming enemies with bladed weapons, or a diagram of pressure points.

D.C. Internal Journal of Medicine: Journal on the development of Rad-X and RadAway.

Big Book of Science: Hey kids! On page 56, you can learn how to make your own Atomic Bottle Rocket!

Chinese Spec Ops Training Manual: Written in Chinese, with illustrations showing proper posture when sneaking.

... and so forth.

"War a terrible thing. Japanese kill every man in my city, except for Suchong. Suchong have opium. Very good opium. This war, terrible thing, too, but not for Suchong..."

I like this! Very good idea

For me this was always a case of "If you don't have the time/budget to go all out with it, don't do it." It was fun to scan through books in Oblivion, but lets be real, those are "2-3 page short stories" not books. If Bethesda was an intergalactic super corporation with the ability to put 40 or so 200 page novels into their game, I'd say ya, go for it. As is, It just takes away from the immersion to read a 'book' that looks nothing like an actual book.

Well they said there were Holotapes you can put into your new Pipboy (I wanna play Red Menace!).

So its possible they could do a combination of text and audio holotapes. (although I think its more likely it will be just text)

It would be quite interesting to actually be able to read the books. I'd still want it to be saved to the Pip-Boy, but some things cannot be properly conveyed on a monochrome screen.

Why would I want to read a book & be blinded cause I didn't do some stupid ritual?