Author Topic: Writing skill  (Read 2701 times)

Glaciusor

  • Hydlaa Resident
  • *
  • Posts: 76
    • View Profile
Writing skill
« on: May 16, 2010, 11:38:17 pm »
I was just thinking about in-game jobs and I got an idea. What if we added a sort of writing skill to the list of jobs? I know people can write, but what if they could have a skill attached to it? My reasoning is this: many people in medieval times could not write (or read for that matter, which might be implementable in the library). My thought was that one could learn to write through Jayose like how Harnquist teaches metallurgy and basic smithing, and by writing, one trains. What if we added "blank paper" and "blank scroll" items, similar to how we can get blank books? We could then make it so that one can only use paper to start with, and at a certain level, scrolls, then books can be used. Other items could also be added. The skill also allows you to write longer and longer documents, as your character will be able to handle that sort of task.

Here are some reasons why I think this would be a good idea:
1. Few modifications have to be made to implement this feature as parts of it are already implemented.
2. Quests can be done which require writing things such as notes (thanks Azhira).
3. It will improve the richness of the economy by providing incentives for people to write and sell literary pieces.
4. It improves the richness of the game by adding another job.
5. It gives people who need more things to do something else to do.
6. It can go hand-in-hand with other knowledge-based jobs, especially ones like alchemy or herbal. I think this because one can take in-game notes regarding their crafts and use them later, or they can write notes to those they may be working with in an industry-type structure.
7. These literary works can be used to enrich role-play in many different ways.

I do realize that there are a few issues to deal with here, but then again, any addition or modification to a piece of software usually has complications. I think adding "Scribe" to the occupation list would be well worth the effort expended to add it, and could be an appreciable improvement to the gameplay of this game.
"This might seem odd, but you should get a battle metronome."

Nivm

  • Hydlaa Citizen
  • *
  • Posts: 271
    • View Profile
Re: Writing skill
« Reply #1 on: May 17, 2010, 12:08:19 am »
 Your limits are a bit confused; in real life, even if a child is only just learning to write, the only thing limiting him from writing a book is his patience. The child's problem is steadiness of hand, understanding of grammar, and generally making his writing readable. So, a person with low writing skill, would have random symbols ruined, letters forgotten or added, and things somewhat scrambled. The skill would probably be called "calligraphy", and those who are good at would be at an informational advantage.
 When it comes to reading, if you do not know the language involved, the words would be completely scrambled. When the character learns the language, they will translate for you.

BoevenF

  • Hydlaa Notable
  • *
  • Posts: 543
  • Amdeneir citizen, mostly travelling
    • View Profile
    • The Doømed Ones SVG
Re: Writing skill
« Reply #2 on: May 17, 2010, 01:12:25 am »
even a masterpiece is usually made by successive approximations

Geoni

  • Veteran
  • *
  • Posts: 1182
  • -
    • View Profile
Re: Writing skill
« Reply #3 on: May 17, 2010, 05:45:12 am »
Your limits are a bit confused; in real life, even if a child is only just learning to write, the only thing limiting him from writing a book is his patience. The child's problem is steadiness of hand, understanding of grammar, and generally making his writing readable.

Um...children don't matter, because of some unreleased settings info that will probably be released around 1.0 state that 'there are no children in Yliakum.' I don't know how this will be once it happens, but we'll have to find out. When it comes to this, it might be added in 1.0 if the setting team/whomever else wants it to be in game.

I myself think that the reading skill is an awesome idea, and writing is in the same skill when you level up with reading. I don't know what you could do at level 5 writing that would be different during lets say...level 50 writing. But I say that a character has to level up in his/her/kra's reading skill to read certain books. [The longer the book is, the higher level in reading you need to be.]

The only critique/eye-opener I have to give is this: How would you level up in reading? I suppose writing a book would give you experience in writing each time you buy a personal book from Jayose and fill out a few paragraphs, or a certain number of characters. Though how would leveling up in reading be done? Reading a book could be a lie, since anybody can just click on one, open it up, and then close it. Perhaps Jayose should give quizzes before you are able to level up or something...

Well this is your idea, those were just some of mine I could add.


-sig by sarras

Nivm

  • Hydlaa Citizen
  • *
  • Posts: 271
    • View Profile
Re: Writing skill
« Reply #4 on: May 17, 2010, 05:56:38 am »
 Geoni, I was just using the child as a real life example of a person only just learning to write. The fact that I used a child has nothing to do with the world of Yliakum.

 Again, length of book should not matter all with reading or writing skill, just the quality of the ideas conveyed and the letters written. Once the player has gained legibility in their writing, later levels would be a measure of how long they have been writing, such as line saying "it is written in perfect flowing script".
 Leveling up in reading could be handled simply by opening a book and turning the pages. There could be a system where you get to see the words on the page translated as your character reads it. The down side to this is that it would add more waiting to a game where you already spend so much time waiting.
 Writing would level up as you watch your character make horrible (hilarious) mestakes with what you tell him to write. It will take much testing to get a good scrambler going; this scrambling could be applied to the mad (curses, death-realm), poor writing, and an skewed version for those with speech impediments.

 It is everyone's concept once it has been posted. This is far more prominent in large/fast forums, but once an idea has been posted, the author exerts no more control upon it than anyone else who posts.

Geoni

  • Veteran
  • *
  • Posts: 1182
  • -
    • View Profile
Re: Writing skill
« Reply #5 on: May 17, 2010, 06:13:57 am »


 Again, length of book should not matter all with reading or writing skill, just the quality of the ideas conveyed and the letters written.

Nivm, what is quality is an opinion. NPC's don't have a mind of their own, and NPC's are the only ones that level characters up in anything. Though it does come with the problem that somebody could just write down jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj....and so on in a book, until there are paragraphs of that nonsense, and the NPC is okay with it because there are plenty of characters written. There should be some way to fix that problem and then this system sounds for the most part good.


-sig by sarras

Nivm

  • Hydlaa Citizen
  • *
  • Posts: 271
    • View Profile
Re: Writing skill
« Reply #6 on: May 17, 2010, 06:39:15 am »
 Oh, that. A placeholder for until someone begins seriously advancing the parser (and I'm told the entire art) would be to leave the lessons as "pay money and time to advance".
 When I said "quality of ideas" I was talking about how scrambled a translated book would get when it came to words. Such as the character mistaking Yliakum's word for "waterfall" with Yliakum's word for "river".

Glaciusor

  • Hydlaa Resident
  • *
  • Posts: 76
    • View Profile
Re: Writing skill
« Reply #7 on: May 17, 2010, 07:05:15 am »
I was only proposing some specifics to help illustrate potential usefulness for my idea. Regardless of some issues with the specifics, I think that the general idea would be good to implement.

As for ensuring that something like "jjjjj..." doesn't yield experience, one could make even a rough parser to determine complexity of work, use of legitimate words, basic sentence structure...

The length requirement was proposed as it takes more time, practice, and skill to write progressively longer works while keeping them coherent, hence the document length idea.

Another possibility is to have a sort of scrambler that messes up longer words until one's level is high enough. For example, someone with a very low level would write "because" and would get "bekaus", then at a slightly higher level it would be "becaus". Also, the frequency of error goes down as the level goes up.
"This might seem odd, but you should get a battle metronome."

Nivm

  • Hydlaa Citizen
  • *
  • Posts: 271
    • View Profile
Re: Writing skill
« Reply #8 on: May 17, 2010, 07:53:07 am »
 Yeah. Although, the player is the one really composing a the work, so you can't attribute that to the character's skill. The character just scribes it.

Tirion

  • Hydlaa Resident
  • *
  • Posts: 161
    • View Profile
Re: Writing skill
« Reply #9 on: May 18, 2010, 02:48:49 pm »
I'm a book writer but.... no longer because i think it's very very hard to earn money from writing literacy pieces
so I changed job into harder but somewhat rewarding: a fighter
I miss to write books but emm......
* Tirion Sighs
too hard to earn money because no one will buy my books so i burnt them
Quote from: bloodedIrishman
Have some hope for the human race. We might be misery incarnate but with a little goodwill and some understanding we tend to shine now and again.

Ceromas

  • Traveller
  • *
  • Posts: 15
    • View Profile
Re: Writing skill
« Reply #10 on: May 19, 2010, 10:01:10 pm »
So.. Lets play a scenario in our minds shall we.


Noob starts game.

Noob is told to go read a few books to get an idea of some part of the settings.

Noob opens book.

Noob sees gibberish.

Noob goes to do something that doesn't belong in the settings because of this.

----------------

We already spent so much time trying to get skills.

Do not do this to reading. If someone gets on a game only to find out that they can't even READ without having to level a skill, they will scream and leave.

verden

  • Hydlaa Notable
  • *
  • Posts: 716
    • View Profile
Re: Writing skill
« Reply #11 on: May 19, 2010, 11:09:13 pm »
Quote
Do not do this to reading. If someone gets on a game only to find out that they can't even READ without having to level a skill, they will scream and leave.

Agreed. There is no practical value from implementing this. Although the lack of a team member commenting here makes me think mentioning this is redundant.

Now, if this were suggested as a Code or Cryptography skill for a character, it would be different.
« Last Edit: May 19, 2010, 11:13:00 pm by verden »

Nivm

  • Hydlaa Citizen
  • *
  • Posts: 271
    • View Profile
Re: Writing skill
« Reply #12 on: May 20, 2010, 05:14:28 am »
 People already scream and leave, because of the information cut-off, and because they might not think the same way the programmers do. I didn't think anyone was going to care about it being user-friendly.

 It would be nice if it was finally defined just what the character knows about the world. In some cases it sounds like they're supposed to be created from nothingness; knowing absolutely nothing. While other times it's supposed to follow the character creation.

 If an encryption option doesn't already exist, it could be done with a "you can't read this message" line as placeholder. The skill would be interesting.
« Last Edit: May 20, 2010, 05:16:18 am by Nivm »

Tirion

  • Hydlaa Resident
  • *
  • Posts: 161
    • View Profile
Re: Writing skill
« Reply #13 on: May 21, 2010, 01:46:26 pm »
Writing and reading skills are good but what NPC Trains them??
Example
Arkuleas wants to write a book

Arkuleas finds no NPC That trains it

* Arkuleas SCREAMS "OH NOO I CAN'T WRITE OUT MY ASPIRATION"

this meets a real bad end

P.S Arkuleas is my in-game name available on EZPC ONLY ;D
Quote from: bloodedIrishman
Have some hope for the human race. We might be misery incarnate but with a little goodwill and some understanding we tend to shine now and again.

Raikana

  • Hydlaa Resident
  • *
  • Posts: 73
    • View Profile
Re: Writing skill
« Reply #14 on: December 01, 2010, 04:32:08 pm »
My character, as a journalist, can not but agree with this proposal. My time in game is mostly spent producing books and i got no skills from it. If the skill, according to the basic concept of RP, is the representation of time spent creating things or training abilities in game, then any book created could easily raise by a point my "Scribe" ability.... why not?

Do you guess why nobody wants to do what i do? Because gives no money and no skills... now, for the money we can't do that much but for the skills, well, here a simple idea that may help!

 I quote it!

 \\o//
Characters: Zakena Plip