A little addition to make things a little more... 'personal'

[KEEPCARLM 146]

I killed a guy the other day, he entered the same building as I was already in, in Cherno with an AKM in his hands. Naturally I couldn’t risk him shooting first when we both had the same weapon but that’s not what this is about. This is more about what I found when I looked through his stuff, which was more than you would typically expect from someone running around Cherno such as this man was. I took 4 AKM mags, a compass, binoculars, matches, an M1911, raw meat, hunting knife and a map. So I ran out of Cherno into the woods, now possessing enough stuff to keep me going on the trip to the north side of the map, and with my newly found compass and map this would be a much easier task than last time.

So, when I get into a wooded area I take a look at the map and I notice the markers this guy had placed were still on the map, I thought that was pretty cool actually. It really felt as if I had ‘stolen’ something that belongs to someone else, he had marked almost every shop on the map, all the good places to get loot, he had clearly put in a lot of time to this character and I had just taken it all from him, including the work he did on the map. Immediately, this served as an instant reminder that I didn’t just kill some pixels on my screen, I ended another person’s work.

This got me thinking, maybe there should be some kind of journal each character has. This journal would automatically log information about the player; such as.

How many zombies they have killed

Who they have killed (a list of player names they have killed, this gives an idea of the sort of player you killed)

Vaguely where they have been

Number of times they have healed themselves

Then it could also have an optional entry point where a player can write down their own notes.

When you kill a person, this journal is automatically added to your character when you search through a dead players stuff, it wouldn’t eat into the inventory, there would be a short cut to get to a menu like ctrl+J or something, and it would then display all the journals you have. Only one journal would be generated per character, and when you die all journals will be lost apart from yours which will be available to the next person who comes across your body.

Now usually, in most games where you can find logs and journals (Skyrim, Deus Ex etc) I am not at all interested, but I think this is the exact kind of environment where this sort of thing makes everything you do more personal, if you kill someone, you will be forever reminded that you killed that person – while I see an argument that it will give people one more reason to kill, as they will for some reason want to collect as many journals as they can, I don’t believe it would make much difference in most respects since finding a journal with information on it is obviously less useful than finding someone’s NVG’s. So they would have killed that person anyway.

I'm not sure how difficult something like this would be to implement, but since most the information is already logged in the game anyway, I can't see it being too difficult? Although, this is Arma 2's engine...

Well, that’s about all I have to say on the matter, to summarise, A journal which logs a players actions and notes, is then passed on to the murderer upon opening their gear, thus providing more personality to each player and making every players actions that little bit more personal, something that is surely welcomed in an environment such as DayZ.

Open to thoughts and suggestions, let me know what you think!

[lightnings0ul 19]

this idea +1

[cragzeek 29]

Awesome. You have my beans.

[con7act 29]

On my Server, if a person seems to be around 5km i can see all map markes those person did put on the map. so everybody can see everbodys marks.

So the map on my home server is full of jokes, funny notes, and painted dicks.

+1 for journal

[noguro 0]

i like it!

+1

[EnermaX 59]

This has alrdy been suggeseted.

[Evan858 3]

I like the sound of this. You've got to think in real occurrence survivors and scavengers would take notes on such things, write a journal for lets say safehouses, or the store with the highest amount of loot, other survivors they ran into or shot, feeling guilty or proud they have written it down. Yes i like this idea have my beans +1

[aversionfx 63]

Wow. This is quite possibly the most well thought thread to grace the suggestions forum.

And I am being 100% serious. Having stats from our encounters with other players would be incredible. It makes me sad knowing that this will get buried by a thousand "add X because it would be so cool!!1" threads.

Edited July 17, 2012 by aversionfx

[xDIx Revenge 51]

Sounds awesome. I've always wanted a journal to be able to be written in game. Mainly because im interested in making some video's where i use a journal style to describe what happened in my adventure/life/day etc.

Im not too sure about having all their stats on it, that seems a bit like your just opening a scoreboard in a journal. Hell if i had a journal in a Zombie Apocalypse, i wouldn't note down every time i healed myself, or killed a zombie.

HOWEVER, i may note down a survivor i just shot dead, and talk about how much thrill i had ending the bandits life, or how much regret i was feeling for shooting a fellow survivor and becoming a bandit.

So maybe a better option would be to add how many journals this player had on them, to give a kind of basic idea of how much of a killer they were. If i shot someone at the NWA and they had no journals but their own, i'd feel a bit guilty.

[happy_hasher 0]

Sounds nice. Also, journal must contain killed player's name only when his body was inspected and/or looted.

[vision1776 42]

I like the idea but I am not sure its cool that when you kill someone you will take all of the journals they also had acquired. Maybe just a journal of the person you killed. Think about how many journals you would end up taking for each kill as time progresses It would multiply exponentially.

I say limit the journal you pick up as only the one from the person you killed and not all of the journals he has picked up. ctrl + J would be a good addition as well but I think adding it to the "map notes" section would work.

[xDIx Revenge 51]

I like the idea but I am not sure its cool that when you kill someone you will take all of the journals they also had acquired. Maybe just a journal of the person you killed. Think about how many journals you would end up taking for each kill as time progresses It would multiply exponentially.

I say limit the journal you pick up as only the one from the person you killed and not all of the journals he has picked up. ctrl + J would be a good addition as well but I think adding it to the "map notes" section would work.

Read the OP, he stated exactly that.

" Only one journal would be generated per character, and when you die all journals will be lost apart from yours which will be available to the next person who comes across your body. "

[MythCell 7]

Wow, I just finished posting a thread similar to this one about being able to find journals. Except with my idea you can write in them

[vier0hr 21]

I like thje idea, I just read a notebook/pen and paper thread and I feel either or bother would be a great idea +1!

[KEEPCARLM 146]

I mentioned writing in the journals too, here...

How many zombies they have killed

Who they have killed (a list of player names they have killed, this gives an idea of the sort of player you killed)

Vaguely where they have been

Number of times they have healed themselves

Then it could also have an optional entry point where a player can write down their own notes.

Edited July 17, 2012 by keepcarlm

[Bludy 324]

really nice! i can imagine all the weird stuff you'll be able to read!

[KEEPCARLM 146]

of course there is the issue of different languages being used, but then again that could add even more character, and would be pretty amusing to try and translate what is written

[Epsilon 349 33]

this is taking immersion and blowing it out of proportions. amazing idea

[Hoogley 13]

Yup. Awesome idea.

[Madfast 22]

Great idea,would really add a greater level of immersion, but they likely weren't his map markers. Map markers show for you depending on what chat channel they were in when the placed it, if you could have heard them speaking in that channel the markers will be there for you. So if someone places a marker whilst in side chat, it will be visible for everyone etc.

Edited July 17, 2012 by Madfast

[xDIx Revenge 51]

Bump, wanna see some more opinions here :)

[vesmo 21]

Awesome. You have my beans.

AND MY PASTA!!!!

[Madfast 22]

AND MY PASTA!!!!

AND MY HATCHET!

[Jenga22 22]

I love this idea +1

[haz_ah 5]

This has alrdy been suggeseted.

Hey, can you provide a link to where it has already been suggested?