Note taking

[Night]

Some sort of way to write / read text would provide a nice way to roleplay note taking/journal writing for players. Lot's of ways to implement it so just thought I'd throw it out there incase you think it might fit well for UnReal World's setting in some fashion.

Maybe instead of text, Finnish symbols, or other marking methods.

Had the idea after reading a post on the old forums, in regards to players tracking hide spoilage and other time sensitive information.

[Brygun]

My mixed view on whether to put this in game or not is that the text editor needed is a medium sized chunk of code. There are probably pre-made simple ones available for $$$.

It is actually so important to track dates that it is how I got into character journals. At first I was noting down that a task needing 12 days would get an entry at # Day of # week. Then as I journaled I would bump into those notes.

I think if there was an editor we need to flip through lengths of it and sort entries somehow with the calender.

Note taking in the game's font and character pic would be a nice thing for screen shots.

While I agree completely with the need for note taking the hesitation is that putting the game in window mode lets you access so many better text softwares the users of today almost certainly have.

[JP_Finn]

I’ve used the F6 notes, colors and some mental math to label meat drying and smoking(pre3.63) ready times. Even with them, switching characters can be tricky.

I’m about 100% certain that any non-Driik could even read or much less write. So RP note taking is debatable at best.

[ineedcords]

@Night, with regards to note taking/journal writing for players:
While I agree it is a useful thing to note down stuff, I am not sure it would be worth the programming effort to do it inside UW.
I feel it would be better to simply focus UW programming effort on adding/improving borderless-window feature so that people can quickly/effectively alt+tab to their favourite text editor with all the features, shortcuts, defaults they love.

@JP_Finn, I do something similar: I simply use CTRL+P SHIFT+P screen 'current age in days'  information combined with map markers to mark pickup dates on stuff.
e.g.:
* current age = (16 years) + 130 days.
* preserve skin screen says it'll be ready in 7 days.
* I add a marker saying "cured fine elk skin 137" (i.e.: pick up date is day 137).
Next time I travel (or plan to travel) towards that part of map, I just need to take a quick look at CTRL+P SHIFT+P (character age info) screen as a primitive form of today's date and compare that value with the date in map bookmark text.

edit: corrected the keystroke as shift+p
edit: corrected the 2nd keystroke as shift+p

[Brygun]

@ineedcords shift-P

 

[ineedcords]

@Brygun you are of course right. Edited the post above & corrected - thanks!

[aat]

@Night, with regards to note taking/journal writing for players:
While I agree it is a useful thing to note down stuff, I am not sure it would be worth the programming effort to do it inside UW.
I feel it would be better to simply focus UW programming effort on adding/improving borderless-window feature so that people can quickly/effectively alt+tab to their favourite text editor with all the features, shortcuts, defaults they love.

@JP_Finn, I do something similar: I simply use CTRL+P SHIFT+P screen 'current age in days'  information combined with map markers to mark pickup dates on stuff.
e.g.:
* current age = (16 years) + 130 days.
* preserve skin screen says it'll be ready in 7 days.
* I add a marker saying "cured fine elk skin 137" (i.e.: pick up date is day 137).
Next time I travel (or plan to travel) towards that part of map, I just need to take a quick look at CTRL+P (character age info) screen as a primitive form of today's date and compare that value with the date in map bookmark text.

edit: corrected the keystroke as shift+p

I didn't know about that command too check the age! Good to know

Anyway, it is a bit sketchy and not so immersive.. as if we would think about our age in days in order to remember stuff in our calendar.

What I do is to convert the date to urw calendar system: year divided in quarters of 13 weeks with weeks counted in reverse from the end of the quarter.

If something is ready in N days, it's quite easy to do the math. just divide by 7 to get the number of weeks and subtract it from current week number, then add the remaining number of days to the current day number, subtracting 1 more week if you go over 7 days. If the week number goes to zero or below, it means you get to a new quarter, so you need to subtract the remaining weeks from 13

@Night indeed it would be nice to have a simple in-game editor.. it wouldn't be so difficult as it seems, the code to add notes to markers is already there.

Or alternatively, having markers with the "ready date" be automatically generated when initiating a long task like curing, smoking or drying

[Brygun]

To be honest... I hadn't known about the days alive on the character sheet either. I hardly ever check the attributes after character creation.

What I normally do is that is something says it will take 9 days is I add that onto the current date. This is used for pre-entry in the journal. As mentioned that's part of how I got into writing the character stories you see. It was needed to track data.

I could imagine a real person doing something like having a long string. A basic knot is tied for each day. When a certain camp is to be checked there is a certain knot, loop or something after the basic knot. Each day you wake you untie the next day knot. If there is a 'task' knot you then go do it.

[Sami]

Some sort of way to write / read text would provide a nice way to roleplay note taking/journal writing for players. Lot's of ways to implement it so just thought I'd throw it out there incase you think it might fit well for UnReal World's setting in some fashion.

Maybe instead of text, Finnish symbols, or other marking methods.

Had the idea after reading a post on the old forums, in regards to players tracking hide spoilage and other time sensitive information.

We already can add text to message log and on the map markers, and I think that's enough for player written information. Although, I'm not quite sure what kind of ideas you're thinking exactly.
Some character made wilderness and sacred site markers in the historical fashion would be nice to add at some point. As a side note, ancient Finns didn't have written language back in iron-age.

[PALU]

I'm sure peoples that don't have a written language are much better than modern ones to remember the things they need to remember, simply because they needed to and thus got the training for it. In addition to that, a player may leave the game on hold for a while and then come back with the bearings lost (if planning to leave the game some additional note taking might be in order, but all interruptions aren't planned).

Just a general comment, without trying to influence this particular issue.

[JP_Finn]

Sample for map notes attached.

[JP_Finn]

I like the fact that only top line of the F6 note is displayed on the Wilderness view. So those above notes only show "deer smoking" and "bear smoking" when entering the settlements.