Did you use the Journal in Oblivon?

[Achilleus]

I sure as hell NEVER did. It was so pointless.

[Avron the S'wit]

Journals in RPGs are my lifeblood! Heck yeah! What else keeps you on track?

Although more realistically, I was obsessed with my fame and infamy. I was sad when they took that away... It's nice to have people recognize you.

[Mr.Argonian]

Are we talking about like the quest journal? How can you play without using it? I always lost track of my quests and where I needed to go. Without a journal I'd be lost.

[Achilleus]

No, the other thing. Sorry can't remember exactly XD but it's in my head.

[Dark Spark]

The Oghma Infinium? Hermaeus Mora's coloring book?

[DikaSmausha]

If you are talking about the actual journal, of course I used that.

[Kerr]

The quest journal? Yes.

[ClockworkCadaver]

Of course I used the journal. How is it pointless?

[dzio]

In Morrowind you could do without, because everyone would give you precise instructions and directions, but in Oblivion and Skyrim there's a bunch of quests that are almost impossible to do without the journal. Because all you get from the dialogue is "I lost my X while hunting" or "check out that cave to the east".

[CBR JGWRR]

The thing is the character gets told where to go, they've just skipped the part of telling the player for Oblivion and Skyrim.

[dzio]

I can accept that explanation, but I don't like it at all. When I play, I want to think about the character in the first person and this is ruining that a little.

[Mattbott]

My characters entire life might span 3 or 4 game months total - from prison to reaching max level as hero of tamreil and retirement in the fighters stronghold , so he remembers what he's told. So the journal reflects that imo. But i might spend 3 years playing that character, and the journal is vital for recap.

in Morrowind the journal was a nightmare - no fast travel means you walked almost everywhere, so you were constantly being sidetracked by random events and interesting finds. So i ended up writing names on bits of paper rather than go back pages of virtual journal, which completely broke immersion for me.. especially where a lot of tasks involved finding some ashlander with a name like a randomly generated password which i would not have a hope of remembering next week

i dont like playing my character on autopilot (which is possible now we have fast travel and the satnav quest marker system), but the new system is better than mw imo and these conveniences can be ignored when you need to

[dzio]

I actually roleplayed my out-of-game paper Morrowind journal as something that my character was creating. I was always carrying quill, inkwell and paper with me and it felt better than using the in-game journal, because the notes there didn't really look like something that I would write down.

[Avron the S'wit]

In regards to the Morrowind journal, I remember there being a mod that allowed you to write your own entries in-game, which made it much better. The Morrowind journal was a good concept, but it was so messy.

I actually still like the Oblivion journal best, if I'm honest. Something about the way it was constructed just seemed to flow very nicely to me the whole time I was playing, and it seemed essential to my journey!

[Mattbott]

I actually roleplayed my out-of-game paper Morrowind journal as something that my character was creating. I was always carrying quill, inkwell and paper with me and it felt better than using the in-game journal, because the notes there didn't really look like something that I would write down.

i tended to spill beer on mine or lose them lol

but i take your point and perhaps i had bought a note pad and done the job myself i would have got more out of it

[Mazer]

I often try not to see the quest marker in Oblivion so that completing a quest would actually feel like my own achievement and not just a mindless quest-marker following. Of course I use the journal.

[Dark Spark]

No, the other thing. Sorry can't remember exactly XD but it's in my head.

Any time now, sugar...

[Dark Spark]

*kick*

[OblivionDuruza]

It's interesting, because I remember once reading a rather profound interpretation of Oblivion's menu system, which proposed that the Journal was an Elder Scroll that was altered by the player, changing Tamriel accordingly.

Technically speaking, all four of the Menu's components (Stats, Inventory, Magic and Maps & Quests) are considered part of the Oblivion Journal. You can't play the game without them, which lends a degree of credibility to the theory.

Kudos Dark Spark, for such a thought-provoking take on what most would see as a simple gameplay-orientated mechanic.

[lmstearn]

Observatio de Profundis:

The Elder Scrolls foretell a well-ordered collection of Computer Files generated by an ever expanding, evolving, and mutating TES Construction Sets. Every subset is allocated types "Vanilla", "Patched", "Steam", "Ini", "Mods" together with finely detailed accounts of the howls and screams from the denizens of this world, who, in vain attempts to make functional their own particular selections of this compiled code, do so, on sometime various, almost certainly precarious, but assuredly nefarious, Gaming Devices.