SoulScroll

I received an email a couple days ago from Lord Vogel himself regarding the journal limits issue (pretty sure it was him):

"Thanks for the suggestion! This might be a quick fix. I'll look into it and see if it's possible for Avadon 3."

Awesome! This is all I could possibly ask for. The personal attention from Jeff aside from his busy schedule was greatly appreciated even if the improvement cannot be done. Thanks Mr. Vogel!

The Almighty Doer of Stuff:

The more I read your current plight regarding your living arrangements along with being overwhelmed by mental anguish, the more I feel like suggesting taking smaller, more simple steps to improve things. Physically moving to another address is a BIG stressor all its own, and trying to move to an entirely different country only adds to the complications.

My instincts suggest that you consider taking it easy and think about what small and simple steps you can take to improve your living situation first before graduating on to more complex undertakings such as moving to an entirely different country. Maybe the patriotic people you have been around recently are not for you? America is a huge and widely diverse country; you might find people more suited to your liking simply in another state. My childhood state of Minnesota is nice with a pretty liberal set of social programs if you can tolerate the brutal winters.

Having to deal with mental anguish and strain only adds to your life burdens, so why make it worse on yourself considering something extraordinarily complicted such as moving to an entirely different part of the planet? You may end up facing more serious stressors in your current life once you move out of the country and be worse off than you are right now.

I emphasize small and simple changes to your living arrangements first so that everything doesn't become overwhelming. Only go with the more complicated undertakings when you have exhausted simpler options.

The first countries that popped into my head were the Scandinavian countries (Norway, Sweden, Finland) and good 'ole Canada. I do not know which of the Canadian provinces would be the most liberal, yet as a bonus you wouldn't be too far from Massachusetts, Canadians speak English with a smattering of French, and the healthcare system is good. Canada seems like a good starting point with secondary options in Europe.

As an aside, I would feel weary of moving to Central America (Belize). High rates of homicide and property crime.

I think I remember Jeff writing in an old "Bottom Feeder" blog entry that he had a serious, perhaps even life-threatening medical issue to deal with in his late teens. I say this with seriousness: It might have made him grow older faster than most people (even if only in spirit) and made him hyper-sensitive towards his limited time on Earth.

On a lighter, more RPG'ish note...aren't programming and game design "wizards" with beards grumpy by nature once in a while in their stone mage towers?

Hyena of Ice: Thanks for letting me know why Mr. Vogel may not be able to raise or remove the journal entry storage limit. I am leisurely savoring Avadon I at the moment, and I can confirm the limit there is 200 entries. This supports your 8-digit binary explanation. Maybe we'll get lucky and the limit will be raised to 250?

I also checked the dlg files you mentioned, and I discovered exactly what you were talking about. Some of the files were very messy, and I started to see minor spoilers along the way so I decided to close everything again until a later time. Your explanation also answers Goldengirl's data dump question earlier in the thread.

Too much spoiler potential for me to dig into those files until I satisfactorily finish the game. I'll just grin and bear it as an annoying constraint to gameplay; still having plenty of fun so it won't break the game for me.

Goldengirl: I'd be very afraid of using text dumps even if able to do so. I haven't ventured very far into Spiderweb's games yet and the risk of massive spoilage would be high for me.

I do feel like I am burning down a classic library of great adventure stories with these journal record deletions. I've never, ever encountered a PC game that forced me to destroy well-written lore.

I submitted an email to Spiderweb support as per Lilith's suggestion. My hopes are low given how busy Mr. Vogel must be finishing Avadon, etc.

Lilith: I wasn't aware of the situation as you currently described it. I will try out your suggestion, thanks!

Lilith: It's certainly a functional idea in a crunch, but it would remove the immersive feel of the game for me. I suppose in the end I am just wishing for more (or even unlimited) journal record space. I can tolerate culling through junk inventory to throw out, but the journal culling really kills it for me.

It feels like I am forced to tear up good adventure stories and throw them in the trash.

Part of the fun of good adventuring for me is re-reading past heroics in detail sometimes to keep everything an authentic story throughout.

Having a list of already completed quests with the same original details as given upon acceptance of the quests would be another plus.

I've been completely won over by Lord Vogel's masterpiece collection of games.

The writing is great, and I really enjoy collecting the lore by pressing the "RECORD" button in the journal a LOT!

I am a journal entry hoarder, but I keep running out of space and having to constantly cull out the less important entries when I really don't want to.

It makes the games less fun for me when I would like to have a huge walking library of recorded adventure sights and dialogue.

Any possible way to expand journal entry storage space?

Thanks in advance.