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[SUGGESTION] Ideas for in-game contacts/journal/notes/etc
Wandering Mist
Moderator, Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha One
In this age of modern productivity using technology, it seems that most mmorpgs have fallen behind, giving only the very basics for helping us organise and track things in game (if that!)
So, in this thread let's put down all the things we'd like to be included for things like friend contact list, journals, notes or anything else related that you think would be useful in the game.
I'll start. I'm currently playing through Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and there are soooo many gatherables to keep track of, I often forget where I've found them before. Having a built-in journal where I can make notes on where I've found those items would be amazingly helpful. As a bonus, I'd like to be able to attach a location to the note that will then show up on the in-game world map.
So, what features would YOU like to include that will help you organise or keep track of things?
(disclaimer: I am making this thread as part of my own personal interest, not as a representative of Intrepid Studios. Nothing suggested in this thread is guaranteed to make it into Ashes of Creation - It's just for fun folks!)
So, in this thread let's put down all the things we'd like to be included for things like friend contact list, journals, notes or anything else related that you think would be useful in the game.
I'll start. I'm currently playing through Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and there are soooo many gatherables to keep track of, I often forget where I've found them before. Having a built-in journal where I can make notes on where I've found those items would be amazingly helpful. As a bonus, I'd like to be able to attach a location to the note that will then show up on the in-game world map.
So, what features would YOU like to include that will help you organise or keep track of things?
(disclaimer: I am making this thread as part of my own personal interest, not as a representative of Intrepid Studios. Nothing suggested in this thread is guaranteed to make it into Ashes of Creation - It's just for fun folks!)
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What kind of things would you want to do with the map?
On the topic of the map, one feature I liked in GW1 was you could temporarily draw on the minimap, or put little markers on. These would be visible to others in your party.
I would also love a built in note system, where you basically have an Add Note option in the player interaction wheel next to the Trade and Duel option for example, as well as in the friends/block lists. Let us type in a short note for each player. Like "Kill-stealing douchebag. KOS." or "Super friendly and helpful" or "Secret alt of xxxxx" or something. If it adds too much to network traffic, let it be a client-side solution, preferably with an export and import option.
Adding notes in the journal would be awesome as well.
Use a proper note-taking tool like OneNote (or Notion, or whatever the ADHD scrapbookers use these days) for all your games. Can fill in short notes from the phone, or tab out/use a second monitor for screenshots/links. The earlier you get used to it, the less frustrated you'll be every time a new game releases that doesn't give you enough note-taking space and you'll have to get used to a new routine.
And since they're all in the same place, you always know where to look.
As I said in the thread where this subject just came up, I support having lots of options like relationship tags and notes for your contacts to make it easy to keep track of people and places, BUT I dislike games creating *new menus* for everything that *could* be relevant to *someone.*
It just clutters up the screen with too much stuff that looks like you should use it. And if you unbind the hotkey and remove it from the UI, you'll keep running into rare situations where you need to access that menu for a rare related function that could be somewhere else. Ugh.
1 social menu (with tabs for Party/Guild/Contact List - again, any diplomatic information or complex guild administration requires stationaries anyway, so the social menu doesn't need to be able to fit infinite buttons and submenus.) 1 inventory (any crafting that doesn't require stationary tools should be done from there), 1 character & ability screen, 1 journal for quests and info, 1 map. It could be so easy and clean.
If you do add a notebook, please just put it in a tab next to the journal.
I will admit that right-clicking an item type in your inventory, or a contact from your social menu, and selecting "View Note" to be directly linked to a notebook entry for that item/person that you can then categorise in your notebook menu as you wish, and still have it linked from the original item...that that would be pretty cool.
I also like the idea of letting you see the short note you have made about a player, if you hover your mouse over their character for a few seconds, so you don't need to open a menu to remind yourself who someone is. Obviously would need to be possible to toggle it off.
Oh I totally agree with you that if Intrepid just implement OneNote (or another basic note-taking app) into the game as is then there would be little point. The main benefit to having a journal or note-taking function in the game itself is how it would integrate with the rest of the game and the UI. Having the notes you take automatically link up with the map would be far more useful.
You could also extend it to in-game tooltips. Say you are doing some crafting and one of the ingredients is something you've collected before, but can't remember where it is. You could hover over the item and the tooltip would show any notes you've written related to the item.
If there's unfortunately no such UI in Ashes, people will either use Notepad++ or create a mod (hopefully they change their mind and allow some modding) or create a third party software to help keep track of other players (I'm sure something similar already exists, if not WC3 Banlist was a great tool 20 years ago).
I'm very curious to see what people have to say here!
Never played Rust but have just looked through the basic system. There are some great QoL stuff in there, like automatically cateloging the players you see into the contacts list, although the overall experience will need to be tailored to Ashes.
And yes, if there's no such UI in Ashes I'll probably default to an excess spreadsheet instead.
Having this all included in notes in the game would be useful in some ways such as ease of access. However, having it in a paper notebook also has advantages like being able to review it on an airplane or while in a meeting at work.
I have yet to decide which I will do in AoC. Ideally AoC would allow all of our notes and files to be downloaded for access when we are not logged in to the game. However, asking for that would be scope creep of a bad sort...far better to get the game released than to delay to include that!
As a side note, I have already made quite a few notes about players based on their posts on the forums.
Maps;
Ability to set permanant points of interest, with description and icon, with information being held on when we set each point of interest, and who set each point of interest (see next point).
Ability to share our points of interest.
Ability to search points of interest based on icon type, description text, person that created the point of interest and/or date created.
Ability to link quests to points of interest, with the option to delete the point of interest should the quest be completed.
The above are all separate to the map functionality needed for PvP.
Friends list;
As standard, a friends list should have the base class of the player, their level and their guild.
A list of alts that our friends have shared with us as being theirs, with the above information for each.
The ability to see where our friends are on our map, and which character they are on (from the list of characters they have shared with us).
Ability to apply tags to characters on our friends list, with tags existing for each crafting profession at a minimum.
A notes field for each character on our friends list, with the ability to link map points of interest from above.
The ability to search contacts list by base class, level, guild, name, tag, or by any description text.
Option to add icon next to nameplate for characters on our friends lists.
The ability to become a mutual friend may be required for some of the above (I would suggest it especially for map location).
Journal;
Ability to write notes as we see fit, with the ability to save and sort notes using a standard file structure if desired.
Ability to link people in our contacts list to the journal.
Ability to link points of interest from our map to our journal.
Ability to link quests to journal.
To me, that is the basic functionality I would expect. An argument could be made that any more than that is getting a little scope creepy, but the above seems reasonable and functional to me.
If the player's written notes are stored locally (which they probably should be to avoid unnecessary server congestion) then it should be pretty simple to allow the user to download their notes to view them offline.
I believe the Ashes "companion app" is still on the table, so it can integrate with that.
Thanks!
The potential details for it are listed here https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Companion_app
Hmm I really like the idea of being able to put PoIs on the map for other people to potentially see. There could be money involved for explorers that way (potentially).
The problem with this as a general thought process is that you are then reliant on Discord.
One need only look around a little - Twitter, Reddit, Twitch etc - to see that this is not a good idea.
The idea that Discord will continue to function as it is today is really not supported by any facts.
Perhaps, but then again if you're using Discord for something like this, there are plenty of other third party apps that will work for the purpose.
All of these third party apps, including Discord have 1 major downside - they aren't fully integrated into the game. As I said earlier in the thread, if Intrepid just implements a basic journal/notes app in the game then there would be little use in it. The value of such a built-in app is in how it integrates with the rest of the game, like the minimap.
I'd agree that it's bad to have things outside of game. Ideally you should need 0 third party apps to play the game. However, dev commitment is a problem in a project that's already behind schedule. There's also something to be said for letting communities solve the initial problems themselves. A significant number of communities I've been a part of in previous games were the result of problems like map functionality and social functions.
Only thing that I don't want to see is an overcrowded mini-map with 12 different types of icons at all times that can't be filtered or turned off.