Better journal

powerfulally

Well, BG journal was certainly not the best one. My opinion is that it should contain the list of quests and after clicking on one of them you would get a description of the quest. Simple, folder-like management of the quests would be certainly more comfortable as you spare time on looking for a particular quest.
I've created a draft of how the journal could look like, you can see it right here: http://img826.imageshack.us/img826/2066/bgjournal.jpg I guess it wouldn't be so bad, but it certainly needs some tweaks (and more awesome quests). BGEE2 could also use the new one. If you have your ideas on how the journal should be managed, feel free to write it down in the comment section.

HeroicSpur

Haha, excellent journal revision.

Tanthalas

Lol, ok I think that Journal could use some tweaking in the looks department.

I agree that it would be nice if there was a new function in the Journal where you could have folders for quests too. Though I'd want it to look similar to our current Journal.

Bhryaen

Like @Tanthalas I already like (and am used to) the appearance and sound effects of the present quest screen, so although I'm in favor of an update, I'd hope they keep the feel of it the same.

powerfulally

Sure, the journal should keep it's style which is great, but some changes would be nice. It's a minor change but I think it would create some better game experience, especially when you have tons of quests and are looking for a particular one - now it's a bit time-consuming task.

FranticFey

Some changes would indeed be nice. One in particular that I've thought of is when you have a quest that has multiple entries, because it's long, it starts to take up a lot of space because with every journal entry it has to put the header again. Perhaps if the header was put just once, and all the entries for that quest were put together and delineated with something less intrusive.

Ward

@powerfulally

I don't like the drawing man, I've got to say. I think it has potential but it lacks basic artistic value.

Na I'm just kidding. The journal does need some organization for sure just to make things easier.

TrentOster

I think the big goals here are:
1) Clearly display the current major chapter objectives separate from the "My cat has hacked up a hairball" quests.
2) Visually link the status of a quest to the current journal entry (quest headings)
3) Give me the ability to dismiss unimportant quests
4) help me remember after not playing for a week where I need to go for a quest

Some of these are solved with more descriptive journal entries, but some clearly require better organization.

-Trent

Aliteri

Well, you could have the 'dear diary, this happened with me' annotations mostly the way they are, but quest information segregated into special pages accessed by a list next to the journal (a list of 'bookmarks' might be a interesting way to present it). Or maybe there's no segregation, rather have the bookmarks 'create' another page with only the information about a given quest.

Tanthalas

If possible, I'd really like that when you read a lore book (like "History of the ...") that the contents would be added to a lore section on the journal.

But I understand if this is more trouble than its worth.

powerfulally

@TrentOster
That clear separation would be nice. The journal is not the most important part of the gameplay, but some tweaking would be appreciated
And what do you mean by "more descriptive"? Hope it would still contain some thoughts of the main character, the journal was fine that way. Just don't go too far and don't make everything too clear, some thinking about quests and what to do was a part of the fun. But I believe in you, guys and I know you won't let us down

caruga

I think it should steal from Dragon Age in this area.

Tiggrr

What's the planned situation with journals - will we get the dreadful linear BG1-style journal or a lovely BGII-style quests-done journal?

Tanthalas

@Tiggrr

Merged your thread with this one since it deals with your question.

DamageInc

I don't know if enough people use this feature but one change I would like to make is to the user entries...

Please make the ones we create in BG:EE port to the beginning of the journal in BG2:EE. It takes me a while to play games this days due to life getting in the way and when its been a month its tough to get back into the mind of the character I was playing. For that reason I use the User Journal quite extensively. It would really help later in the saga if I could look back at him as a wee lost bard who barely knew which end of the bolt went forward to remember where he was coming from. It gets a bit difficult when you have beat this game with a sadistic, power hungry sorcerer to a overly righteous paladin (and everything in between).