Warhammer Info - Articles - Tome of Knowledge
"The things we're going to do with it, in terms of discovery, achievements, unlocking, scrapbooking, it's going to be unbelievably cool. The concept of the Tome is a concept of achievements, discovery and unlocking, but even beyond that, it's a concept of having a history of your life within the game, that you can share with other people. Item unlocking and discovery, monster unlocking and discovery, NPCs, areas in the game, different quests, anything and everything that's a major event in your life as a player, has the opportunity to become an unlock, an achievement, and an award for you." - Jeff Hickman
Each character is equipped with a Tome of Knowledge (free of charge!), which is an in-game knowledge database accessible to the player at any time. Every character's Tome of Knowledge starts out blank and is automatically filled in as they explore and adventure in the Warhammer Online world.
One of the major areas of the Tome is the Bestiary. As the character fights against a particular foe, they will learn more and more about them.
For example, a player stumbles upon a hostile giant for the first time in their character's lifetime. The character kills the giant and now has a new entry called "Giant" in their Tome of Knowledge with a picture of the giant pasted below it. Entertaining, I guess, but not very useful. As the character encounters more giants, though, more information is discovered about giants.
After slaying five giants, a brief description of what giants are and where they live might appear in the Tome of Knowledge. After ten, basic statistics of giants (HP and MP) are displayed in the Tome. After twenty, elemental weaknesses and special attacks of giants are avaliable. (note: I pulled all those numbers out of my arse - they're just there to give you an idea of how it supposedly works)
The Tome of Knowledge also records your PvP statistics, quest information, dialogues with NPCs, and various information about the world as you explore.
So the Tome obviously keeps track of a lot of information. But, the power gamer in all of us is now asking, "What's the point?" As you fill up your Tome, you will unlock various rewards. These rewards can range from new character titles, to even new abilities and tactics. For example, if you kill a bunch of wolves, you will eventually be able to add "the Wolf Slayer" onto the end of your character's name. If you kill even more wolves over the course of your character's lifetime, you may even gain a special ability to use against wolves.
It has been 35 years since the development of Pong.