Hi there Bohemians,
I was wondering if many of you are reading the letters and books that are written by the story writers in-game? I am not talking only about the big books like [see another post][1]
[1]: Historical sources but more about game related and maybe quest related letters. I played recently a few hours Witcher 3 and i was amazed what in-depth some quests become when you were reading their letters (most quests are boring). Letters written to family, lovers, friends and so on. These letters were important because they helped you drawing an imaginary perfect picture of this npc and his story. And you could like, hate or feeling empathy.
In KDC (since they go for a historicaly accurate game) you wont have this tons of letters and books of course (except Henry walks in a scriptorium or a library) and many simple folks couldn’t write or read as well. But I still think letters, books and scripts are very important.
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l do read quest related letters and such but not every book I loot.
Same in Witcher 3. I would read letters founded near corpse… but not books from shelfs. Few exceptions were when the title was related to quest I was doing (and it helped to decide).
But Im going to read it more in KCD as history is closer to me than fantasy and it is also the history of my country.
depends. i think for a realistically written, grounded game, it can be very enthralling. but fantasy stuff,i just kind of yawn at it.
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I tend to read the books in games. The Elder Scrolls series usually have large amounts of literature to read in-game. I like to take my time and slowly suck in the experience when playing quests.
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There will be actually a lot to read in KCD. Their latest stretch goal was historical codex.
We will create ilustrated historical codex for every interesting place and important person or event from the game, so you will be able to walk through history with us.
but from that I would assume that it will not be in-game codex, but real book.
@ProkyBrambora Ohh, you mean a real book that comes with the collector editions? Or a completely separate merchandise product? I mean I am sure it will be easier to digitalise it and implement it in-game. At last thats what I am hoping for. But on the other hand, getting a physical book full of illustration is also appealing.
Hmmm, I don’t think so. I agree that such interpretation is possible from the text of the stretch goal, but it doesn’t make much sense to me. How would they distribute it? Selling it when they reached a stretch goal for it would be wrong, and giving it for free would be also impossible. It might be just an e-book, but then why not to include it into the game? @TobiTobsen might want to comment? 
I still hold my latest opinion in the issue. KC:D can be an interesting and exciting medium to show all kinds of aspects of the medieval life, at least with some basic appearance. For example, we see some blacksmithing, but maybe there could be animations with people repairing the roof, threshing grain, feeding animals, but also some craftmanship, like tannery, textile dyeing, pottery, gunsmithing, cart making etc.
…of course, I’m not living in a dream, so I except barely anything of these in the game. 
Still, our knowledge of the workflow of the era can be interesting and fitting enough to put them into books in the game. All-around “handbooks to help life”-kind of books were, as far as I know, very popular considering the limited numbers of books, and those books described cooking, herbs and fighting too, for example. So, we know some interesting facts about the people, their deeds, their work or some place nearby historically, but not worth to animate it? Put it in a book!
Heck, maybe some of the players even try out stuff at home, like, I don’t know, dyeing textile with plants you can easily gather around the house or some middle age receipt of some food.
But again, not just that, but you can write about chronicles of the people and places too. Plenty of room for interesting content without the need for hundreds of pages of bullshit lore with dragons.
And someone who doesn’t care to read twenty rows about how to make clay brick or a loghouse, won’t read about a fictional god either.
Some of those Henry could use to gather some skillpoints too. “Put your half-done blade into manure for a month, and it’s surface will be harder” - wow, seriously? I just learned medieval nitridation of steel. +3 to smithing. 
I am just assuming from how the statement is worded.
Reading the tier descriptions none inculdes codex. So probably another mrchnedise.
But as it is stated:
this would really be a newspaper then, wouldn’t it.
How many books would be there (the printing press was invented later)?
Is Henry able to read right from the start?
Wouldn’t the most books been written in Latin?
What are your thoughts?
…wrote something stupid, never mind.
Hmm all in all I rarely read books in games. In Skyrim I recall The lusty Argonian maid. Of course I read that one just for research purposes… ehm… Reading Mysterious Xarxies was… uninteresting…
But in Witcher quest related letters are often very intriguing. Not reading them all, but sometimes when I do, they indeed do complete the picture.
Im looking forward to seeing what kinds of documents we will be able to read and or steal, especially from the monasteries.
When I play TES games I collect every book/note/scroll, with every character I make I make a large library with all the content I can find.
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Putting my czech occupatio to use.
Following will be quoted from wikipedia, which is not really reliable source but it will do for general understanding.
In 12th to 13th century there was growth of czech literature.
You are right that Latin was used and it was mostly reserved for legends and chornicles.
German was favorite of nobility. Mostly songs. Romantic songs to be precise. This literature was hugely affected by wandering bards.
Lastly Czech language was used for lyric, religious texts. Later, literature in czech grows into more general topics. Popular was stylistic form “dispute”.
Even later folk song begin to appear and after that drama, again religious topics. Slowly secular elements began to soak into dramas and humorous parts aftewards.
This tells us that in game we might see a lot of songs and merry plays.
But special notice goes to “Dalimil’s chronicle” or also "Boleslavic chronicle"
It was first czech writen chronicle. Dated at the beginning of 14th century.
This chronicle supposedly had many copies by 15th century and was mostly popular during the times of opression thanks to its patriotic theme.
This makes the Dalimil’s chronicle perfect candidate for the game.
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I always read books in-game. I try to immerse myself more into the lore of the whole game and it’s world. I think best examples are books like in The Elder Scrolls or Fallout. However I also like audio-tapes or similar stuff very much. Bioshock did this brilliantly with the Audio Diaries.
The only thing that can make me go “Not this again” or “Boring…” is when they talk about things relating to religion. But that’s probably because I am not religious myself and don’t have a positive thing to say about it either. Sometimes I still read them like in Dragon Age with the Paragons and more, that’s actually interesting and clever, wish it was like this in real life if it could be possible.
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i will say in certain games, tomes and grimoires come in such abundance, it’s hard to spend the time, because you have more urgent matters at hand and you totally forget. the when you find the time, you have 20 books already. could it be designed such that you can read while traveling on horseback?
also, maybe a way to mark which books are read. witcher 3 was difficult to keep track. again, a lot of books i just keep picking up.
Its not many games i reads the letters, but only few of the really good games i do often just read throughout the story missions letter and so on
I am one to usually get involved with the lore and the books and letters, especially in a game like Skyrim. I found myself very often forgetting my quest objective because I was reading correspondence in my inventory and books I find on shelves. I suspect it will be the same with this.
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