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Found Journals-- Lore, Immersion, Quests


CzarUltra

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I was playing a file where my character kept a couple diaries and [spoiler alert] he died from infection. Before he died, I had him write a sad last journal entry and take a lethal dose of sleeping pills and whiskey.  Then I started the on the same map and went looking for the house he was in, I found it and the journals were in tact. It was really strange reading the journals as a different character, very immersive (but I bet it depends on your own writing skills).

 

This gave me an idea. What if some journals you come across already have writing in them? Perhaps speculating to the lore of the zombie outrbreak, or perhaps capturing a slice of an NPC's life before and during the beginning of the outbreak.  Think Skyrim and Fallout 3.  I think if executed well, it would be a dynamic way to get players even more immersed into the game. It could used for story as well as a form of introducing quests.

 

Lore- Something that provides insight into what might have caused the outbreak, or how life was at the onset of the outbreak. May also provide insight to some game mechanics

 

Example: a diary in a kid's bedroom:

 

Dear diary, Mom looked really upset when I got home from school today. She was on the phone with dad, or some of dad's coworkers I think. I asked her what was going on and she sent me to my room. I can still hear her crying. I hope dad's okay...

 

Dear diary, dad's still not home, mom won't tell me what's happening. She keeps saying 'this is really it... this can't be happening'. I think she's hysterical. I keep calling dad's phone but I just get voicemail, when I call the CDC to ask for him, all I get is a weird 'emergency brodcast' message. What the hell is going on?

 

Dear diary, mom gave me a gun... then she told me dad got killed at work... twice. All the teachers at school today were distracted and at least half of the class was missing. All over TV newscasters are arguing about some viral outbreak that causes "madness". Mom's drunk, she says it's the rapture.

 

Immersion - Something that contains no useful information aside from showing a little bit of what life was like pre-apocalypse that adds some flavor. It may also provide insight to some game mechanics in some cases

 

Example: Notebook found in a restauraunt.

 

Today's Special is Buffalo Ranch Burger

 

2 eggs over hard, hash browns, side of ranch, bacon

one special, medium well, bowl of beer cheese soup, french fries

orange juice, cola

 

Quest- Something that gives players info about the where-abouts of useful items, locations, NPCs.

 

Example: Journal found on dead NPC (apparent suicide)

 

Downtown's swarming with those freaks. They got Billy and... I still don't believe this... I got bit too. I feel nauesous. I don't know if I have what it takes to go on anymore... So... If anyone finds this, I've hidden some ammo and usefull provisions in a crate inside my apartment on 4th street. You can have it, I don't think I'll be needing it anymore. Just do me a favor and off as many of those bastards as you can. For Billy.

 

F-Dog came up with the idea of having users' write some found journals in effort to make this idea somewhat easier to implement for the Devs. So I encourage people to write and post their journals here. Just make sure to specify whether it's Lore, Immersion, or Quest.  Also keep in mind that Lore pertaining to how the outbreak got started should always be somewhat vauge, it's up to the developers what really happened.

Edited by CzarUltra
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It's a good idea CzarUltra, adds lots of stimulating depth to the game and if this could be incorporated with quests so that they activate stories or NPC scripts that would be exciting. 

 

Perhaps to assist the Dev's forum users could write journals with the potential of having a story / piece of their own work added into the game. Rewarding for the fan base and take a brunt of work load from the Dev's happy customers all round :) 

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Great idea! Let's make this the official thread for such "Found Journal Entries". 

 

It's probably a good idea if each entry isn't like reading a book, maybe the longest entry should be no less than 3 paragraphs? What do you think?

 

Here's some more stuff I wrote.

 

Lore: A doctor's notepad

Patient 32003, Elliot Werber, Caucasian Male

Suffering minor bleeding from an altercation with “muggers” last night. Patient exhibiting signs of nausea and fever. Being held for further care.

 

Patient's fever reached 105 this morning before he began seizing and his heart stopped. Time of death 6:12am...

 

It's a miracle! Either that or (more likely) our tools aren't working, Elliot began to move again at 10:30 am, his speech seems to be incoherent and he's prone to energetic violent fits, but this is still so fascinating. I don't even mind that the crazy bastard bit me so much as long as I get to continue studying this death defying man.


 

Quest: (found on the floor of a motel room next to the door)

Hey Jim Bob, I know life's been hard since Susy left you. I swung by your old place and got you some of your stuff (booze, gun. cigarettes), you were fast asleep so I left your dufflebag in the dumpster down the street. Don't want none of them hooligans stealin' it from ya.

-Bobby Jim

 

Immersion: A student's essay on the book of revelation

Name: John Jacobson

English Period 2

Grade: F [see me after class, this was obviously taken of off wikipedia]

The Book of Revelation, often known simply as Revelation' or The Apocalypse, is a book of the New Testament and occupies a central place in Christian eschatology. Written in Koine Greek, its title is derived from the first word of the text, apokalypsis, meaning "unveiling" or "revelation". The Book of Revelation is the only apocalyptic document in the New Testament canon, although there are short apocalyptic passages in various places in the Gospels and the Epistles.[a] The author names himself in the text as "John", but his precise identity remains a point of academic debate. Evidence for identifying the author as John the Apostle comes from second-century writers such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Melito the bishop of Sardis, and Clement of Alexandria and the Muratorian fragment.[1] Other scholars oppose this view,[2] proposing that nothing can be known about the author except that he was a Jewish Christian prophet.[3] The bulk of traditional sources date the book to the reign of the emperor Domitian (81-96 CE), and the external and internal evidence tends to confirm this.

Edited by CzarUltra
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I think that the length of the material you are reading, and how much you choose to read.  As in:

You start reading a "Quest" type material and after getting to a certain length it will ask you if you want to continue reading.  The more you read out of something like it then the more information you can get on whereabouts of items.  Maybe even some tips on keeping the horde away like "Making a wall to surround your current wall makes the horde less likely to hear you." "Those monsters are drawn to fire" "Avoid the white berries" and if you invest in them they can become even more useful.

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I think that the idea is great and then possibly you could have randomly in some journals there are tips like "These zombies are smart enough to climb barriers" or "Today i found a gun on a zombie" You can make it discrete like part of the story or make it so it tells you like someone was studying them. Just a thought.

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I was playing a file where my character kept a couple diaries and [spoiler alert] he died from infection. Before he died, I had him write a sad last journal entry and take a lethal dose of sleeping pills and whiskey.  Then I started the on the same map and went looking for the house he was in, I found it and the journals were in tact. It was really strange reading the journals as a different character, very immersive (but I bet it depends on your own writing skills).

 

This gave me an idea. What if some journals you come across already have writing in them? Perhaps speculating to the lore of the zombie outrbreak, or perhaps capturing a slice of an NPC's life before and during the beginning of the outbreak.  Think Skyrim and Fallout 3.  I think if executed well, it would be a dynamic way to get players even more immersed into the game. It could used for story as well as a form of introducing quests.

 

Lore- Something that provides insight into what might have caused the outbreak, or how life was at the onset of the outbreak. May also provide insight to some game mechanics

 

Example: a diary in a kid's bedroom:

 

Dear diary, Mom looked really upset when I got home from school today. She was on the phone with dad, or some of dad's coworkers I think. I asked her what was going on and she sent me to my room. I can still hear her crying. I hope dad's okay...

 

Dear diary, dad's still not home, mom won't tell me what's happening. She keeps saying 'this is really it... this can't be happening'. I think she's hysterical. I keep calling dad's phone but I just get voicemail, when I call the CDC to ask for him, all I get is a weird 'emergency brodcast' message. What the hell is going on?

 

Dear diary, mom gave me a gun... then she told me dad got killed at work... twice. All the teachers at school today were distracted and at least half of the class was missing. All over TV newscasters are arguing about some viral outbreak that causes "madness". Mom's drunk, she says it's the rapture.

 

Immersion - Something that contains no useful information aside from showing a little bit of what life was like pre-apocalypse that adds some flavor. It may also provide insight to some game mechanics in some cases

 

Example: Notebook found in a restauraunt.

 

Today's Special is Buffalo Ranch Burger

 

2 eggs over hard, hash browns, side of ranch, bacon

one special, medium well, bowl of beer cheese soup, french fries

orange juice, cola

 

Quest- Something that gives players info about the where-abouts of useful items, locations, NPCs.

 

Example: Journal found on dead NPC (apparent suicide)

 

Downtown's swarming with those freaks. They got Billy and... I still don't believe this... I got bit too. I feel nauesous. I don't know if I have what it takes to go on anymore... So... If anyone finds this, I've hidden some ammo and usefull provisions in a crate inside my apartment on 4th street. You can have it, I don't think I'll be needing it anymore. Just do me a favor and off as many of those bastards as you can. For Billy.

 

F-Dog came up with the idea of having users' write some found journals in effort to make this idea somewhat easier to implement for the Devs. So I encourage people to write and post their journals here. Just make sure to specify whether it's Lore, Immersion, or Quest.  Also keep in mind that Lore pertaining to how the outbreak got started should always be somewhat vauge, it's up to the developers what really happened.

This will be even better when NPCs are added!

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ok, I wrote a quest that involves a group of NPC's who establish an outpost at the railyard

 

Quest: (Found in Muldraugh after 10-15 days of survival on a random dead body or zombie)

(There will also be a dufflebag, a tent kit, a random amount of loot alluded to in the note and a pistol) as


Hey moron, remember you're only going to Muldraugh to get supplies, don't worry about useless sentimental shit. As much food, water and medicine as you can carry. Also, PAY ATTENTION this is important. Find a trowel and as many seed packets as you can find. We'll need them to start our crops. Oh and nails. We're gonna need nails and garbage bags for rain collectors. The whole survivor camp depends on you, so try and not get bit or lead a bunch of freaks back to the rail-yard. I sent a couple other guys but I figure it's best not to put all my eggs in one basket so to speak so they're taking different routes. If you see any other survivors don't take any damn chances, they're as deadly as the freaks for all you know. And don't get trigger happy with that gun, use it only if you're trapped and then fucking run. Those bastards come out of the woodwork whenever they hear gunfire. I'm giving you a week to get back here, so don't wander too far. Any longer than that and I'll have to assume you're dead. If you get lost on your way back, just remember that the train tracks that lead to the railyard are south of the baseball diamond and then all you have to do is follow them south through the woods. It's a long walk so bring a tent. Once you get to the road, just go east. Good luck! -K

 

It drops in several hints on surviving, like about rain collectors and crops. If the NPC's ever get as cool as I'm imagining, I would imagine the quest would conclude by delivering the supplies to their camp, where you might get rewarded and allowed to stay or be attacked by the paranoid survivors. If the NPCs aren't as cool as I'm imagining, you get to the railyard and although it seems to be heavily fortified, everyone's dead and there's zombies everywhere.  Perhaps even if the NPC's are fleshed out enough to have a whole survivor village there could be a random chance for any of that to happen.  In which case you could probably come across a couple more journals and quests related to it once you get there.

 

Quest (found in a hut of an NPC at the Railyard Survivor camp)

K's gone nuts. He keeps accusing people of being infected and “Quarantining them” in one of the store houses. I think the power of leadership has gone to his head. But none of us can really stand up to him since he's got all the ammo and food. I snuck into the warehouse last night to give some of those people a portion of my rations. They're not infected! He just didn't think they could pull their weight. Some of them just wanted to leave, but K wouldn't have that. K won't rest until we've built a wall around this place three times, or die trying.

 

And then you'd like find either alive survivors in there, dead bodies or zombies. And maybe if you saved the survivors while K was still alive, one of them would ask you to kill K and if you do you like... become leader of the survivor village.  (wow a lot of thoughts, sorry if it seems rambley)

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I'd pay extra for this to be added in the game. I love how there a left over notes and stuff in apocalyptic games.

That's the spirit!  I'm really glad you like the idea that much.

 

 

Would anybody else like to contribute?

 

Here's another thing I wrote, implying that wearing red makes you more attractive to zombies.  (more likely just a red herring *RIMSHOT* or if the developers think it's a good idea, it could actually affect gameplay.)

 

Lore: (Found on a corpse or zombie with a red shirt/sweater/vest. A pen/pencil is in the inventory as well as a blue shirt; which shirt it's wearing is random)

 

In the original Star Trek, it's understood between all fans that the “red shirts” are the disposable crew, faceless no-names who exist only to die later in the episode, revealing to the important main characters the deadly nature of their newest encounter. I've noticed that these walking corpses have a tendency to be wearing red more often than not-- at first I thought it was blood, but then I became aware that not only were these former victims turned monsters covered in blood, but their apparel was a similar hue. Born a scientist and determined to die one, I postulate that these reborn-dead are attracted to the color of blood. I believe that the wavelength 600nm resonates with whatever is left of their mind and optic facilities to both cue and exacerbate their hunger. I shall test this theory tonight. First I will create a control by walking down the block wearing a blue shirt, then again with a red one. If a creature follows then I will find shelter or subdue the beast and write my findings. If I die, then... well, at least I died doing what I loved.

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