Books / Library

[Namach]

Just an idea..

Prerequisite: the library should be organized by sections (romances, chronicles, pohems, magic manuals, alchemy, etc..). Then:

- I write a book
- I talk to Jayose, give him my book and make it available for reading to everybody via the library (in the appropriate section)
- I can decide to allow the reading of my book for free or for a certain amount of trias (which I tell to Jayose, he will propose to me alternatives, wich a cap)
- When somebody goes to the library and wants to read my book, I get just a notice if the book was for free, or trias if it had a price
- People should pay only once for a specific book and of course they can decide to decline after seeing the price
- Eventually, when a certain number of people reads my book, I can gain a rank in 'book writing' (new skill)
- Each time I rank up in 'book writing' Jayose can allow me to sell my new books for higher prices

I imagine that such a thing will require a lot of coding for developers, but I hope you like the idea

[Caarrie]

Jayose's library is for settings approved books, that means that Talad has approved them. There would have to be another location for player made books. i believe before was suggested in the tavern

[Piker]

I really like the idea .  You could add progression points as well as skill gains in book writing. This way a good book writer could earn a little tria while gaining some progression. Not everyone wants to earn a living killing things 

[Namach]

Jayose's library is for settings approved books, that means that Talad has approved them. There would have to be another location for player made books. i believe before was suggested in the tavern

No matter if the library is Jayose's one or a new one (I thought that the existing one could be enhanced with a dedicated section for user books)! See you!

[ThomPhoenix]

Some guilds have libraries, you could sell your books to them. Their libraries are in their guildhouses.

[Orgonwukh]

A nice idea, Namach.
Maybe you have to pay a publisher who will provide the books to the public library (this could be an NPC or maybe you can submit books like a petition)?
The money could be dependent on factions or skills like empathy etc.

[Mlato]

The money could be dependent on factions or skills like empathy etc.

I thought the empathy skill was used to control familliars?

[ElWu]

Hey. I just want to ask is there some way to publish books INGAME?
For example in Jayose's library?
I started to think seriously about writing books so I'm really interested in that case. .
It not neccessary shoud link with profits, just having chance to publish something.
As I know there are few players feeling the same. .
Thanks in advance.

[Prolix]

There is at least one bookseller player around but it is easy enough to just print copies of your book on demand. So publish it by offering it for sale. You could put up a notice on one or more of the town message boards.

[Nalain Tarek]

This is a great idea.  i would like to be able to give my books to the dealer, and he sells them for me.  that way i don't have to hand copy all of my books every time someone  wants a copy.  that would be nice.

[Prolix]

I believe the new style books allow you to import a text file from your local filespace and it is to that I was referring by "print copies".

[ElWu]

Yeah it's a nice idea.

But to be honest I thought about some place, that I could place my book and where it could be read.

So everyone who would like to read some of my books  went there and could read without trashing his inventory 

And I'm not about selling but about sharing

[jaycol]

              What about the possibility of a book store using one of the several buildings in the city of Hydlaa? It would double as a library and a a store. An NPC could be used to allow the sale and the purchase of written books or maps. By using a selection list of different topics. A seller could select the correct topic and sell the book to the NPC. Once the book is sold it would appear in the shelf assigned to that topic. A player could then brow the shelves for a desired book, title or author. The shelves could be seperate enties for the purchase of  the books. with a buy option open for each book veiwed. The copy is bought and the player moves to a different shelf. This would keep the NPC from being overloaded with every item in the store and spread the mechanics out some. The NPC could sell blank materail and/or specail interest items.

[Kempeth]

Prerequisite: the library should be organized by sections (romances, chronicles, pohems, magic manuals, alchemy, etc..). Then:

- I write a book
- I talk to Jayose, give him my book and make it available for reading to everybody via the library (in the appropriate section)
- I can decide to allow the reading of my book for free or for a certain amount of trias (which I tell to Jayose, he will propose to me alternatives, wich a cap)
- When somebody goes to the library and wants to read my book, I get just a notice if the book was for free, or trias if it had a price
- People should pay only once for a specific book and of course they can decide to decline after seeing the price
- Eventually, when a certain number of people reads my book, I can gain a rank in 'book writing' (new skill)
- Each time I rank up in 'book writing' Jayose can allow me to sell my new books for higher prices

I like the idea of some publishing mechanism! However I would not tie the price of your books to a skill. What if your first book would be a detailed map of Hydlaa or the area between Hydlaa and Ojaveda and your skill would only allow you to sell it for 50 Tria? It doesn't make sense that you would have to write a dozen or so crap books just to get your skill up to sell the map at a decent price...

I can see two ways for publishing: via an npc or through players.

NPC variation would work similar to what the OP described. You write the book and submit it to a publisher npc for review. If accepted it is moved to the game database and the book is available at your requested price from some kind of book shop / library. You would have the option of changing the price and stopping the sales (in case you want to publish a new version).
Advantages:
* Books are moderated / checked for settings compliance
* Books are in game db -> content distribution is simple.
Disadvantages:
* more work for mods/devs due to checking
* more updates due to new books (unless books are kept server side and only pushed to client on purchase)

The player way would include some kind of skill like "publishing" or "book copying" that allows you to produce uneditable copies of your written books. You would then either sell your copies directly or hand a stack of book over to some npc book outlet and have it sell the book at your price (taking some provision of course.)

[khoridor]

I'd rather see player books go through players economy entirely. Dedicated merchants, guilds...
I'd also rather see copyist as a proper job, although maybe a NPC could do it.
Heck, I would even be happy with a read/write (expensive) skill, to make it more medieval, although I'm not going to put that in a wish list.

What about oral tradition? Don't sell your books, folks. learn them and speak them out loud. (You can even use shortcuts, you lazy ones!)