Dynamic Quests and Tracking

Having seen the alpha preview video, I just wanted to write down a couple ideas I had in case others find them interesting or useful, or they spark other ideas, so here goes.

From the video, it was looking like quests are dynamic, in that you can use natural language to talk with the NPCs and learn things, then decide for yourself how to proceed. I love this. I also love the minimal UI. And to that effect I don't want a quest tracker or anything like that, but I also don't want to be writing down a bunch of notes with pen and paper.

Not that I don't want to make notes. I would just rather they be notes in game, perhaps in a journal. (And forgive me if anything here has already been discussed.) I think it would be awesome if that in game journal was in the form of a personal wiki, where I can link sections of text to other pages in the journal, or to my current map coordinates, so I have journal entries like "Found a neat cave down by the fork in the river, should come back when I have some tool or more supplies." with "fork in the river" highlighted and linking to a map that shows the coordinates where I wrote the entry.

More awesome still, if I can send excerpts of my journal to friends, complete with the map links. And if its a wiki, I can make the first page the bulleted list of things I'm currently working on so I don't lose track when I get side-tracked (which I'm sure will).

 

I don't know about the wiki idea but I was pushing for a similar idea a few months back. Thinking about it now this could tie in to some of the writable book ideas people have posted. We know we'll be able to write in books and so if you're immersion you're after you can always just carry a book around with you to write in for your own benefit.

We had also talked about some interesting ideas like maps and maybe being able to have images (ie maps) in books. I could go either way.. I've always wanted to be able to take notes in an in-game journal.. but a regular book can serve the same function (assuming no other features) without the team needing to spend extra time on it.

Now what might be cool is possibly doing a hybrid of those ideas.. where you possibly had a 'journal' or spare book slot in your inventory for fast access and enabling special journal specific features if there are any. You could then swap books out of that slot in order to keep separate journals for different things of if one got too full or messy and you want to start a new one without deleting the old.

 

Being able to place pins on the map would be nice.
If you clicked on your pin it could open something to type in.
I mean if I can't recall somewhere I need a marker to tell me where my favorite vendor or something is.

 

I seem to recall UO had that feature did it not? I'm all for cartography in any form in SotA.. oooh.. even stuff like moon runes.. that'd be sweet.. maybe I'll mention it in that archeology thread.

 

The developers have already said several times that there will be a journal that records important information for you automatically as you play that it just won't be as formal of a quest log as other games. Also I'm pretty sure they said you can turn if off to go full blown old school with notes if you really wanted to.