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Do you read ingame books?

RRRrrr

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 6, 2011
Messages
2,303
Someone posted the perfect, opposite example. That's The Witcher 1's books. And I loved them, yeah.
Having to read books in order to be able to skin certain monster types, collect herbs, have additional potion recipes etc was really good. I also liked that TW1 kept books short. Books being expensive and having to get money to buy them was rewarding. I dumped like 70% of my money in TW1 in books, while in TW2 and 3 I didn't have anything worthwhile to buy. Also, the lore-related books of TW1 were mainly based on the real book series, which was nice and novel (at the time, there weren't even translations of the real books yet).
 

Peachcurl

Cipher
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(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
Having to read books in order to be able to skin certain monster types, collect herbs, have additional potion recipes etc was really good. I also liked that TW1 kept books short. Books being expensive and having to get money to buy them was rewarding. I dumped like 70% of my money in TW1 in books, while in TW2 and 3 I didn't have anything worthwhile to buy. Also, the lore-related books of TW1 were mainly based on the real book series, which was nice and novel (at the time, there weren't even translations of the real books yet).

Are you sure? I could swear I read The Last Wish before playing the game. Although I may have played the game only a few months after release.
 

Tihskael

Learned
Joined
Jun 22, 2020
Messages
315
I like how they do books in the TES series. I can't even fathom to read all of them, just read if I feel like it, much like real life. I also like how the books feel visually in some games. In games like TW3 and Cyberpunk, they don't even bother to use the whole screen and I am expected to look at the small text.
Collect-Em-All-quest-fails-witcher-3-patch-1-21-1024x573.jpg


85


I like how books looked in Arcanum
the%2Bpagan%2Bgods%2Bof%2Barcanum%2Bpage%2B9.jpg


Things such as journals had different fonts

images



Finally, look at how the Todd implements this stuff.

Skyrim-Book-Category-3-In-Game-Fiction-With-Lots-Of-Daedra.jpg


Oblivion had the best feel about its books.

real-books.jpg
 
Last edited:

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,623
Someone posted the perfect, opposite example. That's The Witcher 1's books. And I loved them, yeah.
Having to read books in order to be able to skin certain monster types, collect herbs, have additional potion recipes etc was really good. I also liked that TW1 kept books short. Books being expensive and having to get money to buy them was rewarding. I dumped like 70% of my money in TW1 in books, while in TW2 and 3 I didn't have anything worthwhile to buy. Also, the lore-related books of TW1 were mainly based on the real book series, which was nice and novel (at the time, there weren't even translations of the real books yet).

Yep. It's the complete opposite of Morrowind. Can't say I'm motivated to read TES books when, having read a few ones, none of them stick out as memorable to me in any way or form. If it wasn't because I know reading some of them earns me a skill point, I wouldn't touch an in-game book at all. Just no gameplay reason to do it, and no reason to enjoy them at all.

I read a massive book called The Axe or something like it. The story was so edgy and boring I couldn't believe someone thought it was worth to put it in-game.
 

Falksi

Arcane
Joined
Feb 14, 2017
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Nottingham
No. It totally kills the pacing of immersing myself in the game itself.

If I want to read a book I want to sit down and read a proper book. Reading a handful of pages when in the middle of some trek to another city just feels off.

So many are so full of trash too. If they scattered the occasional relevant book around in the right place that'd be better. A story to lay a foundation and expand upon something up and coming. But reading about some random bollocks which has nothing to do with anything which you'll encounter ay time soon takes me out the moment rather tan immersing me in it.
 

Black Angel

Arcane
Joined
Jun 23, 2016
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Wonderland
Depends on how much I actually like the game, AND how involved the books are with the gameplay. Arcanum has been mentioned already, solving the puzzle of the Blessings was one of the top notch sidequest out there, and books are quite involved.

I also remember that books are somewhat involved in Kingdom Come: Deliverance, one of which is with the alchemy minigame, and I really, REALLY love the alchemy minigame here. I don't read the Codex, though, takes a lot to push me to go out of the way to look up for information only barely related with the actual game.
 
Joined
Mar 15, 2014
Messages
683
I did read the ingame books in Baldur's Gate as I found them well written and interesting to embed the game's limited world in a greater context. I really liked the lore. I liked it that much that I even extracted the data and bundled all ingame books in one word file.
In most other games I tend to look into one or another book but don't find them interesting enough so I tend to ignore them.
 

*-*/\--/\~

Cipher
Joined
Jul 10, 2014
Messages
909
I remember reading all the books in Infinity Engine games and writing down all the English words I didn't know to look them up later. Probably a better deal than any English teacher I ever had.

In more modern games I skip books (and loredumps in general) as they seem to have gotten a lot shittier. Or I am becoming an old grognard... probably both.
 
Joined
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The Present
I read them for BG, NWN, and Dragon Age I think. Probably anything in PST and Deus Ex also. Now I mostly skim. I did a lot if skimming in PoE and Kingmaker.
 

Mexi

Dumbfuck!
Dumbfuck
Joined
Jan 6, 2015
Messages
6,811
I was reading the ones for Dragon Age until a creator on the DA forum said that they were created by a 3rd party and not entirely cannon. I'm pretty sure I asked about a Codec entry that talked about some witch named Morigana or something, and a developer told me that they didn't have any input on that stuff so it's not entirely cannon. Anyways, I stopped reading them after that. They were pretty boring entries anyways.

TES series has some really good ones, but I also refrain from reading them because I don't think they're all cannon anyways. Plus, I fucking hate reading anyways.

The only thing I used to read religiously in video games were the Greek mythology entries in Age of Mythology and the old historical entries in Dynasty Warriors. Seriously, years later and I made the highest grade in my class for a Greek mythology class I had to take in college. Class would've been brutally hard if I didn't know the material like the back of my hand from reading Age of Mythology religiously in middle school. One of those times that reading in-game text actually helped in the real world.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
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Codex Year of the Donut
I was reading the ones for Dragon Age until a creator on the DA forum said that they were created by a 3rd party and not entirely cannon. I'm pretty sure I asked about a Codec entry that talked about some witch named Morigana or something, and a developer told me that they didn't have any input on that stuff so it's not entirely cannon. Anyways, I stopped reading them after that. They were pretty boring entries anyways.
This doesn't sound right to me. Maybe you misunderstood them?
Codex entries(the text themselves) in DA games, and their availability, are based on actions you take. It's sort of like a reverse of ME where the codex in that game flat out lies and tells you the council's version of events.
 

Glop_dweller

Prophet
Joined
Sep 29, 2007
Messages
1,164
I read the books, and am rather partial to developers placing in-game information and clues within the books such that the only way the player would know is to have read the book; jotting the info down in the journal manually.

eg. The location of well hidden secret doors, the efficacy of fire when fighting trolls, the recipe for some variant potion not normally found in the game, and the like.
 

Mexi

Dumbfuck!
Dumbfuck
Joined
Jan 6, 2015
Messages
6,811
I was reading the ones for Dragon Age until a creator on the DA forum said that they were created by a 3rd party and not entirely cannon. I'm pretty sure I asked about a Codec entry that talked about some witch named Morigana or something, and a developer told me that they didn't have any input on that stuff so it's not entirely cannon. Anyways, I stopped reading them after that. They were pretty boring entries anyways.
This doesn't sound right to me. Maybe you misunderstood them?
Codex entries(the text themselves) in DA games, and their availability, are based on actions you take. It's sort of like a reverse of ME where the codex in that game flat out lies and tells you the council's version of events.
I've not played the game in years, but you pick up these books. I know the exact one. It's about a witch that fell in love with a dwarf, IIRC. The witch's name was Morigana, and I asked if that was Morrigan and she was older than originally thought. You get the book prior to the Ritual and maybe during the first swamp where you meet Morrigan for the first time, IIRC.
 

Darth Canoli

Arcane
Joined
Jun 8, 2018
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Perched on a tree
I read the books, and am rather partial to developers placing in-game information and clues within the books such that the only way the player would know is to have read the book; jotting the info down in the journal manually.

eg. The location of well hidden secret doors, the efficacy of fire when fighting trolls, the recipe for some variant potion not normally found in the game, and the like.

Could you name a couple of good games doing this?
I mean "recent" ones from the last 20 years, not the classics.
 

BruceVC

Magister
Joined
Jul 25, 2011
Messages
7,698
Location
South Africa, Cape Town
I know for sure Rusty plays those because he played Fallout 76 and I vomited.
I've never been able to get close to completing any Bethesda game.
I think I have 10-20 hours played in all of them sans Enderal if you count that. That's about as long as I can last before getting bored.
I actually managed to finish FNV so it must be Bethesda.

Rusty I have a tried and tested proven methodology that allows me to finish all Bethesda games , I am not suppose to share this because I learnt this while attending courses on " how to keep white, male privlidege alive by pretending you dont support it " ....but I like you so I dont mind sharing

Firstly you always mod the game heavily with at least 200 mods that I always recommend are lore friendly and then you follow the main quest but you deviate a lot to side quests and general exploration that is always fun in sandbox games like most Bethesda and Gothic type games. But the moment I start getting restless or bored I focus on the main quest only. But the mods add additional excitement and help me to complete any Bethesda game with some exceptions like Dishonored series where I didnt use mods
 

just

Liturgist
Joined
Feb 6, 2019
Messages
1,297
i read the title and imagine everything else
 

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