spawn journal entries from previous runs

[KinoUnko]

I'm assuming this isn't already suggested, nothing similar turned up in forum search. Since I don't keep entries, and I only occasionally read notes in game, I can't be certain this isn't already in game. Though nothing I've read in game so far suggest it is. Cairns are reserved for KS backers so are excluded from this process.

• game journals are saved when player dies. They are still accessible to the game.
• game journals are saved on per day basis
• there is random spawn, so notes can be inserted practically anywhere.
• player's travel history is recorded on per day basis.
• notes use same game asset with different on screen texts.
• total game session numbers is recorded somewhere, as evidenced by automatic sandbox name+number scheme

So it seems to be all the necessary internal mechanisms already exist to randomly spawn some journal entries from previous games in new games. the notes can be found at locations player has visited in previous game sessions, and on corpses near those locations. Selection of entry can simply be random but with a check to cull blank entries. Maybe 0 to 6 notes per region.

To go a step further a new journal item can be created, 0 to negligible weight, as a scaled down version of generic book asset, or new art asset altogther (not a whole lot of work) and randomly spawn once or twice per game, same basic criteria checks as notes, but limited to locations that player has spent more than sometime, e.g 30 days, and/or corpses near said location. This item contains a consecutive series of journal entries less/equal to the days spent at the location where the item is found. Blank entries are omitted. If no prior game sessions meets the number of consecutive entries check, then no journal book items spawn in the game session, only single notes.

Edit: As per suggestion made below, Journal Entries could be exported as ASCII or serialized TXT file, which can be shared at players' discretion via email or online file hosting. The file can then be downloaded by other players and the game automatically includes the additional text when generating random notes for new game. 

All in all I think it's a fairly light feature that adds a lot of individual flavor for players in the end. good value for the buck.

[Fuarian]

Or a corpse where the last player died... if it's accessible or doesn't look like ridiculous corpse placement.

[KinoUnko]

yeah, that's a possibility. I didn't mention corpse since that could lead to people requesting the corpse retain gear from before and that would lead to people complaining about making things too easy.

[Wade]

Help me understand what you are going for here?  You want to leave notes for yourself???  Maybe you are getting lonely out there and you really do have cabin fever!

[KinoUnko]

no not leave notes for yourself. This doesn't (shouldn't) affect game play balance at all. Purely for ambiance and immersion. If you have multiple saves and keep journal entries in those, new games you start will randomly pull text from the other saves and drop them in game as notes, same as the other ones you find scattered around the regions. 

If you don't write in journal then nothing changes in game. the more saves you have with journal entries, the more colorful your new games become.

[Wade]

What is to stop you from leaving yourself notes on spawn locations etc?  The honor system?  Wouldn't it make more sense to upload\download your journals somewhere and have the game pull random approved journals from other people?  I mean you are reading journals you wrote correct?  You already know that story right?  Maybe I am just missing the point all together.

[KinoUnko]

It's not like you start new games with these notes. they are randomly spawned like any other item, there's no guarantee your own notes will spawn at any given location or the note will be specifically about the location it is spawned at. A note about CH may be spawned in FM or TWM, you may find it on day 1, or day 100. There are maybe a handful of locations that have guaranteed spawns, those are all well known, there's no utility in leaving note about those even if you are guaranteed to find that specific note on day 1. Everyone knows there is great items that spawn on TWM summit, that doesn't help in the least bit when you spawn with a dress shirt, jeans, and running shoes in the Light House or Maintenance Yard. 

Upload/Download and sharing would be great, except the game doesn't give player access to the journals after player dies, there's no way to export the text in game. All it does is saves the journal "somewhere.", no one knows where exactly. For all practical purposes, everything one writes in game is lost once player dies, except the raw stats. It makes the in game journal system a wasted feature. What's the point of writing anything if you can't go back and read it, as yourself or yourself pretending to be someone else?

Implementing uploading/downloading and maintaining the database of user uploads would greatly increase the man-hours required. In which case it probably wouldn't be worth the time.

Of course if the game doesn't really save the journals, only the raw stats, this is a moot point. Or maybe I'm not getting the point of your questions altogether. If you are implying this is a useless feature in strict game play sense, I would agree. So are quite a few other features. If you are implying this gives unfair advantage, you'd have to give me a case where it could be the case. 

[Wade]

39 minutes ago, KinoUnko said:

Upload/Download and sharing would be great, except the game doesn't give player access to the journals after player dies

You mean to say you can't read your journal notes after you die, because I can.  In the game menu at least.

[KinoUnko]

ooh, never noticed that before. Well, that makes implementation that much easier. it's really just a matter of parsing text and displaying it in game.

[Wade]

Sorry for not fully understanding the exact mechanics of what you are suggesting.  Just trying to get an idea about what you are suggesting\envision.  You are suggesting to take the notes from the currently saved journals which can be viewed in the main menu and place them in the game, okay.   And you are suggesting the the notes are completely random excerpts, placed in completely random places(I.E. not corresponding with where the entry was actually written)?  Say for example:  "Its day one since I crashed, went down to mystery lake and found some fishing gear in one of the ice huts.  Did some fishing and caught a lousy whitefish.  Cooked it up in the pot belly stove.  Wolves everywhere.  Found a can of peaches, gonna save it for breakfast if I make it through the night.  -Bill McCracken"  Now you are saying you would like to spawn that in say TWM hut instead of the note that is currently there?

[JAFO]

2 hours ago, Wade said:

What is to stop you from leaving yourself notes on spawn locations etc?

The fact that most spawn locations are random, perhaps? There aren't that many guaranteed spawn locations in the game.

Also, in addition to random spawns, testing has shown that there are at least 4 "sets" of possible spawns, controlling where certain key items will be located. When you start a new game, TLD chooses one of the 4 sets at random. Further random placements of other minor items then takes place.

So your notes aren't likely to help much.

[Wade]

So he is suggesting that the journal entries would be treated no different than a can of peaches.  It would be completely random on which ones were chosen and where they spawned, not in replacement of current notes, as those are clearly not random.

[JAFO]

4 minutes ago, Wade said:

So he is suggesting that the journal entries would be treated no different than a can of peaches.

Well, I'm saying that even if notes were placed randomly, it wouldn't matter. Notes on item spawn locations from previous games won't help, because there's no guarantee that your new game is from the same "set" of spawns as before.

[Wade]

1 minute ago, JAFO said:

Well, I'm saying that even if notes were placed randomly, it wouldn't matter. Notes on item spawn locations from previous games won't help, because there's no guarantee that your new game is from the same "set" of spawns as before.

Okay, I see what you mean about they would never be helpful in any way.  Wouldn't you have to link them to dead bodies for them to make any sense whatsoever?  I wouldn't really make any sense to find a random journal entry about Bobby Joe collecting wood in mystery lake, spawned for you to read in a crate at TWM.  Or do you write journal entries different from what I am thinking.

[JAFO]

2 minutes ago, Wade said:

Wouldn't you have to link them to dead bodies for them to make any sense whatsoever?

1 minute ago, Wade said:

Or do you write journal entries different from what I am thinking.

Someone else would have to answer those questions.. I rarely make journal entries, and when I do, they're about things like where I placed a cache of items for future use in the same game.

 

[Wade]

1 minute ago, JAFO said:

Someone else would have to answer those questions.. I rarely make journal entries, and when I do, they're about things like where I placed a cache of items for future use in the same game.

In other words, this topic has no real interest for you.  You are just here to clear up the mechanics of how it would never help anyone in game.

[JAFO]

Exactly.

[KinoUnko]

Yeah it's not for helping with anything, I remembered making that point in the OP but apparently my Alzheimer is acting up again. No, this is purely for people who enjoy writing detailed descriptive journal entries in game. Some existing notes tell a cohesive story of past survivors. Other notes are just random ramblings about the benefit of keeping one's knife sharp. Additional notes need not replace existing notes. As one plays more and write more entries, the game builds up a larger pool of text to draw on, subsequent games have that much more "life".

[Wade]

15 minutes ago, KinoUnko said:

this is purely for people who enjoy writing detailed descriptive journal entries in game

Wouldn't these have to be tied to a corpse to make sense?  If you found one of your previous runs from mystery lake atop TWM in some random crate wouldn't you wonder how it got there?  Otherwise for them to make sense wouldn't they have to be linked to a certain region?

[KinoUnko]

It would make as much sense to find notes entirely unrelated to the region or location as it is to find notes related to the region or location. As much sense as finding a note about cellphone ringing in the Light House. Makes just as much sense for such a note to be found in an abandoned car, or a house, or a corpse. Wondering how any of the notes got to where you found them is really the reason for having them at all in game no?

[Wade]

29 minutes ago, Wade said:

writing detailed descriptive journal entries

I guess it just depends on what your idea of "detailed" means.  Maybe if you provided an example of how you write your journals it would help me understand.  If I write a big long journal entry about what I was doing in ML on day 27 and find it in my next run in atop TWM in a crate, am I to assume that the person before me just randomly dropped pages everywhere?  Hmm, I think since I am atop TWM I will leave a note from 33 days previous about what I was doing.....  Do you see what I mean?

[KinoUnko]

5 hours ago, Wade said:

I guess it just depends on what your idea of "detailed" means.  Maybe if you provided an example of how you write your journals it would help me understand.  If I write a big long journal entry about what I was doing in ML on day 27 and find it in my next run in atop TWM in a crate, am I to assume that the person before me just randomly dropped pages everywhere?  Hmm, I think since I am atop TWM I will leave a note from 33 days previous about what I was doing.....  Do you see what I mean?

Yes, but this only works if you assume you are the same character in game over and over again as if in some nightmarish scifi scenario. Presumably most people will not think they are the same character in each new survival game. If you want to take the literal route that's entirely up to you, it does add a unusual bend to the whole affair.

[Wade]

5 hours ago, KinoUnko said:

Yes, but this only works if you assume you are the same character in game over and over again as if in some nightmarish scifi scenario

That is not at all what I am implying.

[Riotintheair]

My journal would look like most primitive text - a list of items and how many I've stored at a location - I just keep track of where I've put what and how much should be there when I come back - mostly a list of places I've put 10 sticks, 1 coal, and 2 L of water. Interesting variations are 20 or 30 stick and/or 2 coal, and 3-4L of water. An especially interesting note will list food or cloth.

As for spawns, it's as @JAFO says. Once you know where the items are you know and that's just how it is. Start at DP enough on Interloper and you'll quickly see how the game handles important stuff (Lantern, Bedroll, Hacksaw, Hammer, Fire-starter, and Mag. Glass). Lantern at Hibernia? Then Scruffy has the bedroll and the mine has the fire-starter. Found the Hacksaw at Hibernia? No bedroll in DP, don't head for Scruffy. I don't know off the top of my head how the other regions work based on how one interior plays out, because I've had fewer starts in other regions and it often takes much longer to traverse the other regions than it does in DP (seriously the game LOVES starting me just under Katie's Secluded Corner).

[KinoUnko]

1 hour ago, Wade said:

That is not at all what I am implying.

Perhaps you should state clearly what you are implying then. My understanding is that you're implying it doesn't make any sense for a note written in ML, about the Camp Office or some activity that took place in that vicinity, to end up in the TWM hut. or from any place in game to any other place in game. I'm saying it doesn't make sense only if you maintain the belief that each "Survivor" in a new game is the same subjective entity, i.e. yourself. That is true in the strict literal sense, why would I write something about a certain location and then leave that information at a completely unrelated location that I may or may not ever visit? It's absurd. If you chose to maintain that belief, or refuse that degree of suspension of disbelief, that's perfectly fine. 

If you assume each new "Survivor" is wholly a different person, then there's no reason why a note written ML must stay in ML. The "Survivor" who authored it simply moved and dropped it, intentionally or unintentionally, somewhere else in game. A new "Survivor" would have no prior knowledge of what a prior "Survivor" did or where they have visited while alive. How and why a given note is found where it is found can only be subject to speculation by the one who found the note. Whether the location where the note is found makes sense in relation to the content of the note is for the founder to decide and may or may not reflect the actual events. As I said before, the entire point of having notes in the game is so the player will speculate about events and actions that led up to the point where and when the note was found.

Maybe the whole point of your exercise is to aggravate the arthritis in my fingers. I don't know.