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Adding a Codex/Encyclopedia: A good idea?
Feldschlacht IV- 12/19/2016 06:52 PM
- 3548 views
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KoopaKush
3024
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CloseI think it's a great idea actually, it adds a lot of flavor to the game for one. Some pretty good informational tidbits of enemies is always appreciated in my view, whether it be stats, lore, or other things.
I always love completing beastiaries in most games that they're available in, half of me being a completionist, and the other half being to see if I'm missing some valuable loot only acquired through that monster, etc.
I always love completing beastiaries in most games that they're available in, half of me being a completionist, and the other half being to see if I'm missing some valuable loot only acquired through that monster, etc.
The information and extra lore for those who would be interested in it sounds like a good idea. If the player gets invested in the game enough that would be a good thing to have.
Arieri
0
I think these things are good insofar as they are representative of player progress, in a way. Take, e.g. the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games - as the player progresses through the game, a lot of lore is actually uncovered. An example of how I felt it should not be done would be the (otherwise splendid) isometric D&D games by Black Isle (IWD, IWD2, to a substantially lesser degree BG and BG2), where random tidbits of lore were just thrown at you, with no connection to your location or narrative, in random books on random bookshelves in dungeons. I get that this was done to increase immersion, and perhaps it did, but it could have been done better.
On that note, I keep an entire wiki on the game world that was created as the basis of my games (and continues to emanate from them).
On that note, I keep an entire wiki on the game world that was created as the basis of my games (and continues to emanate from them).
author=Skie Fortress
As long as you don't pull an FFXIII with the Datalogs, you're good.
I hear a lot of scruff about the Datalogs in FFXIII. I wasn't going for that route, but I don't remember the Datalogs very well, what was the beef with them?
I really liked the stuff from XII.
In XIII, the datalogs basically were the lore and such of the world. Instead of interacting with the world and talking to people and learning over time, it was just dumped on your lap in a huge block of text. You wanna know about the world? Stop playing the game and read all this shit, yeah?
I'm a fan of datalog type things, but only if they're used to expand apon information that was put in the game, not as the only way to present the world and characters to your players.
For example, you talk to a few NPCs and learn about a prison out in the ocean where people are being held against their will. You also learn that they have guided tours to a front-type area and that the Warden is a nice guy who likes to take off and go fishing in the evenings. From that you can get a general idea from talking to the people in the game - in the datalogs you'd learn more about the prison, it's history and some of the more gritty details (depends how your game sets stuff up - do you unlock datalogs by finding documents and books? is it by talking to certain people or learning a certain amount about a place? is it by going there?).
In the case of XIII they'd mention the prison once and just dump all that info in a text file and that's it. Not even a notification that there's anything new to read - gotta check through the datalog on your own time for a long-winded text about nothing interesting.
Not sure how they fucked that up considering they hit really well with XII's logs.
In XIII, the datalogs basically were the lore and such of the world. Instead of interacting with the world and talking to people and learning over time, it was just dumped on your lap in a huge block of text. You wanna know about the world? Stop playing the game and read all this shit, yeah?
I'm a fan of datalog type things, but only if they're used to expand apon information that was put in the game, not as the only way to present the world and characters to your players.
For example, you talk to a few NPCs and learn about a prison out in the ocean where people are being held against their will. You also learn that they have guided tours to a front-type area and that the Warden is a nice guy who likes to take off and go fishing in the evenings. From that you can get a general idea from talking to the people in the game - in the datalogs you'd learn more about the prison, it's history and some of the more gritty details (depends how your game sets stuff up - do you unlock datalogs by finding documents and books? is it by talking to certain people or learning a certain amount about a place? is it by going there?).
In the case of XIII they'd mention the prison once and just dump all that info in a text file and that's it. Not even a notification that there's anything new to read - gotta check through the datalog on your own time for a long-winded text about nothing interesting.
Not sure how they fucked that up considering they hit really well with XII's logs.
dethmetal
990
Always a good idea. I plan on adding one to my game, as well. Sometimes players are given way too much lore and forget most of it, so this is a great remedy.
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