Auto written diary entries

[kemb0]

The first time I went to make a diary entry in this game, I was expecting a time bar to come over the player's head after which, on completion, I could check in the diary and see what my character had written (yeah I know, I have unrealistic expectations). I was a little disappointed when it turned out I had to write the diary myself.

 

So would be cool if your character could automatically fill entries in the diary based on, say, the last five things you'd done of significance. I think it'd be funny to find out what he's written based on your actions.

 

For example:

 

"Harvested some potatoes this morning. Got a good yield of 8 potatoes. Nice! Headed over to Dixxies after that and found some apples and a water bottle - waste of time! Later on I ran in to some trouble with some zombies and got a small scratch on my crotch. Terrified I might be infected - there of all places! Patched up the scratch though and it seems to be fine for now. Downed half a bottle of Chardonnay....hahah..hic. No water. Just cereal to eat tonight - so lame."

 

All these things could be auto-generated pretty easily if the game keeps track of the last five or so significant things that happened to you (which in itself I shouldn't think would be hard to do). You'd just need to track stuff like:

 

1) Where you travel

2) What you loot

3) zombie interaction (number seen / killed / proximity to danger)

4) crop interaction

5) crafting

6) injuries (and how they were obtained)

7) cooking and eating

 

For example, a cooking entry could consist of:

 

"Grabbed some (fruit/vegetables/meat/various foods) from the (fridge/cupboard/rucksack/stocks) and chucked it in the (frying pan/saucepan/baking tray). Made myself a (bland/hearty/delicious/incredible) (stir fry/soup/casserole/pie). I (wolfed it all down/took a little/left it all for later)." 

 

Of course you could flower up the writing as much as you like. For example, if the character writes the diary while they're in a panicked mood then the tone of the entries could reflect that.

 

You could also include other significant details like:

 

"The electricity/water/gas has been off for XXX days now."

 

"I've been feeling (great/a little bored / really on edge) a lot recently."

 

"I've not seen another living person for XXX days."

 

 

And even include useful hints for the player:

 

"I know the gas is off but I don't see why I couldn't just make a camp fire to cook something decent."

 

"Maybe if I combined different foods in the saucepan I could make something more interesting to eat"

 

"Been thinking about making a tent so I could camp out in the wild and get away from all these zombies."

 

"I seem to really enjoy killing zombies with a butter knife but I'm sure my axe would be better."

 

[kemb0]

Edit:

 

In fact, if the player has an empty notebook and pen in their inventory, maybe the diary would be auto-written each day in the same way that water is auto-drunk? So allowing your boredom level to be auto-depleted (or would it be replenished?)

[CaptKaspar]

I would absolutely love to see this in game!

[Some Clever Username]

So, so. It's hard to say I like both ways. :/

[Suomiboi]

The amount of things you'd have to write and code would be immense, if you wanted to make it anywhere near modular or seem anything else than "I've survived for # days" Even that line requires 2 ways of doing it. If the number is 1 there needs to be "day" and if more, "days". Now if you do this for 5 sentences with working articles etc. you'd probably have at least 15 lines plus the code for each type of variant and dependancy.

 

Basically it'd be awesome as hell, but I don't see it happening. Too much work and too many other things I'd prefer.

[kemb0]

I agree I cant see it happening. For a start there's probably several development years worth of better ideas already here that would come higher in priority.

I don't believe it's that complex to code though. I've previously written code that randomly generated stories. A few hours work and you can get the fundamentals working. Obviously there'd be more depth to this that what I'd done as you need it to reflect what the player is doing.

[Impetiso]

The idea sounds good, but even if it might not be extremely complex, it's basically a lot of work to do, because is basically adding a bunch of evaluations to almost every action you take, and that means an awful lot of extra code.

[Dreadstone]

I could totally see myself wasting hours of time reading my own auto-generated diary......

yet regardless of how cool it would be .. it would be a good number of man-hours that are needed for a great many other important things ...

[Marinus]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zafehouse:_Diaries

you should probably take a look at the game Zafehouse Diaries. Its centered around the concept of a selfwriting diary in a zombocalypse

[Jack Bower]

Then I shall follow your auto-revealing diary I took off your body on the street all the way to your base.

[wpisznazwe]

Yes, I was thinking about this idea many times. The game is so great that every gameplay could be the inspiration for a good story about an average person's last days.

 

I think that this could really flesh the game out, but only if done properly. I mean that there would have to massive amounts of text - It needs to be done in the non boring, non repetitive way. Actually TIS is on implementing radio and TV broadcasts, which imo will be similiar to hipotetic diary - needs lots of text, so they could say their thoughts on how they see this from the practical perspective.

 

To help VDM (Virtual Diary Master - YES!) writing notes, there could be implemented a taskslist. A player would have an option to set fast, choosable priorities for him, which could be helpful for him ingame (find a safe place, barricade, more food, water source) and for VDM to create stories.

 

I think that the idea is worth considering, but would need tremendous amount of work, possible to be performed by enthusiasts (i.e. with previously created, simple editor). After a fresh, emotional gameplay, enthusiasts could write down their stories into the program, in VDM-readable format, which could be uploaded, quickly edited and added to the recent database of the diary. After some months it could look nicely.

 

The amount of work would increase with NPC's introduction. BUT it is still possible to write down a good, automated story played with the players' perspective, even with NPC's in game.

 

For me the idea is good, but has to be done (ok, let's say this) "in cloud". IMO lots of this game could be co-created by players (maps, dialogs, broadcasts, traits, implementing more mods into vanila etc.). It would save LOTS of devs time, though they could only choose form communities' creations, keep their hands on immersion and focus on key features.

[Skotie]

Sounds cool. I only played in sandbox thus far but I still use the dairy to write to future occupents (all of whom are me obviously). I think of it as inspiration to others to hear you survived for quite awhile. Btw the perfect time to write in one is right after you got bitten, just list how you messed up, then tell if your just waiting for zombification, or killing yourself.

 

I honestly thought about building myself a wooden skyscraper to run off the top of if I got infected, if the game would even let you do that. But my current game has infections turned off so I can only die from being really stupid. My longest playthrough was about 1900 kills (proper zombies), I just wanted to survive long enough to figure out all the crafts and such so turned off infections for this playthrough.