Ah, yes, the libraries.

It's been quite a long time since the last feedback topic and many things have changed or been added since then. As such, I decided it would be time for another feedback topic to see what could be improved about the current system.

All in all I am a bit confused by the lack of enthusiasm that the library system is getting in comparison to the villages, I never expected the library system to gain a compairable following, but as it is now few people even recall it exist and writers are not regarded to be very beneficial to the city or commune (While on their own, on a person to person basis, they generate -much- more power than those involved in village influencing).

Another complaint I've heard recently is that bookshelves are useless as it is nearly impossible to obtain copies. I would like to hear the opinions of those of you who have bookcases in their manse or even just their guild on how difficult it is to obtain a copy of a book you would like, because this is something that appears to be seriously stunting people's ability to actually put anything in their bookcase that wasn't written by themselves.

On a last note, I would point out that there are only a couple of days left for cities and communes to submit their works for the prestiege awards. I would suggest putting a knife to your librarian's throat, unless you want serenwilde to win by default again. (And there's a -lot- of power involved with this contest, as well as honours for those that get their books published in the World Library.)

My manse library is empty... but I thought it was intentional that you can only put personal books in there. The limitations are pretty significant for personal libraries - no extra copies, no fees, 50 books total. Seems more like a personal bookshelf for one's own amusement than designed to serve others.

Also, don't discount the cost of books. They're bloody expensive - not something I'd use casually or often.

Cost would seem to me to be the main factor. Anything bigger than a scroll is an absolute waste of a LOT of money, except for serious RP. And if you limit page length, you really should drop the cost of books, because the large ones cost WAY too much.

How exactly do manse libraries connect to the org ones? Say I write my book (which will happen, eventually ) and want to keep the original in my manse. Before I put it in the bookshelf, I make a physical copy and that copy can go into the Serenwilde library?

Is that right?

And then what happens with credibility? If I change the original, does that filter through and reset credibility on the commune copy?

Edit: Anyone know?

I was thinking of starting a bookshop, actually.

I'd grab a bookbinder and make cheap and shoddy copies of the best sellers and sell them for a decent profit. I'd also add the occasional copying mistake and the like for authenticity, and so that if you want to read it properly you still have to go back to the library.. just haven't got round to it.

With regards Library power... it's bloody important,.. and I want Mag to take back its slice of the cake. Serenwilde is taking.. what 2.2k power a month from Culture? Which is 5 villages... The thing is.. when I log on to Lusternia, I've spent the whole damn day reading books and writing essays. And I -really- don't feel like writing more for culture... I'd much prefer to influence a few villagers.. less brain power. As and when I'm working less in the holidays, I'm going to churn out a pile of moderately poo books to see if I can improve things.

Indeed, the only problem is that only the original author may copy books because it appears they are autosealed as soon as they are published. Perhaps normal books in libraries (unpublished ones) can keep this while I look into the possiblity of making published books freely copyable? Opinions?



3.5k actually

For Librarians I think it would be an awesome feature to have a LIBRARY LOG

The library log could automatically show the librarians what books has been critiqued. What book has been successfully published. What book hasn't, but for all the libraries. It would also be nice if the critiques didn't disappear when the book was published. It would nice if that went into a long somewhere so that we may use that as learning material.

That would be great, it would mean that each new edition would actually reflect a change and not just a copy.

I was also wondering if there could be a way for a bookbinder to take a book out of a library for just copying?

Only a bookbinder would be able to and it would allow copies to be made without the author present (good for classics who's authours have wandered off on us). Perhaps a setable price on it? If the author would like to receive a little money in return for their work they could charge a small fee for each time the book is taken out for this purpose though it would be possible for multiple copies to be made with a single fee.

Also personally Saran would love to have a bookcase filled with knowledge, It only has his book so far. and when I tried to buy more, there was no response

Perhaps if you could create inferior book copies - they're exactly the same as the book is at the time of copying, can't be changed, ever. Decay after, say, 20 months, delayed while in a bookcase. For some incredibly cheap price. And we chain Elcyrion to a desk and make him write for a few years. Just to get the market started.

That or they are locked to the edition they were created under?

*imagines*
I'll trade you my first edition "Invocations of the White Hart" for your third edition "Nightmares of Insanity"

I.e if some event happened that required a rewrite of books or something authours would change the original, the copies in the libraries would work the same but any the other copies (unless made from the original and not just a checked out copy) would not change.

Locked as the book was at the time of writing, so yes, editions.

I'm happy as long as it only requires me to hunt down a single person, So you don't need the author but certain highly valued works could earn the authour money for copies

I don't like the idea of "inferior works" or "decayable books" or editions. I think the coolest thing about the way the system works is that you can have copies of the original and they update when the author updates it. That's really cool. All you're doing is punishing people who buy the book if that's the case. It would be useless to me to have books decay. If you want to break out a copy, Translate and Enchanted Script does the job.

Perhaps we should just allow bookbinders to copy books without the help of a librarian. I'm not sure why you can't copy a copy, especially if the copy just points to the original text. I think the only reason I haven't gotten a copy of the History of the Elder Gods book for myself is because I can't find the damned original. I want a sack filled with books of my own.

Cost, I believe, is an issue. Being a scholar for the work of scholar itself, I have created several books and copies for people. I think I have 15 copies of my in-progress who's who book around, and I've given away a
few books. Since I get most of my cash from OOC Credit buys, then selling the credits for gold--I think I might have spent at least $100 real world money on all the books I've bound and copied pro-bono.

I'm not sure the economic reason for charging a lot, but the problem with books is you have competition with the news (and even news is consider "expensive"), clan, guild, and city help files, and these forums. Those actually compete with the cost of these things. I do think you need to lower the prices to encourage people to write.

Another possibility is to stop making the culture awards solely a community thing and give incentives to guilds, clans, orders, and individuals for writing. Since writing is hard work, and there's a limit to the bardic/artistan award system...maybe if you write a book you get karma for placing it in a bookshelf or library, or if somebody else put it in theirs. Or maybe a little experience, especially since if you spend time authoring you don't get to go bashing. Combine this with the power tributes--base it on what community the player belongs to. Maybe the award could be tied into how many copies are on other people's bookshelfs.

I think the players need some incentive for their own sakes to spend time writing. You'd have to spend some time thinking on preventing abuse and metagaming. But I think if there are individual incentives more people will start seeing writing as a viable alternative.

The decayable works are a cheaper option to the current system. It'd stay in place, these would just be added ontop of it.

I like Phred's suggestions, particularly as relating to making writing less of an organizational duty.

One thing I didn't mention. For orgs, maybe a benefit that helps both the community and the org a person belongs to. How many books are on a guild library might generate a lesser form of power. For Orders, maybe the number of books or more likely the number of copies on other bookshelf generates some minor essence. Dunno what to offer clans.

Might I make a note, If you have lesser copies and decayables they won't require magicink, and perhaps could have halved-price. This allows prices to be lowered as such some extra money to be made by the bookbinder and, with a royalty, the authour

No.. I was planning to simply copy and paste the books out of ZMUD, add a few spelling mistakes and then copy and paste into a new blank book. The mistakes would look like mistakes in rescribing.. then I'd sell in a shop. To be honest, I don't think you need to create a mechanism to copy published books.. I'd prefer RPing a series of hard working scribes in my Stockroom, scribling away on library books before the return date.

except those copies wouldn't change when the author of the original made changes. And if anyone recopied one of my books and put intentinal mistakes in them I would be pretty upset.

A mechanic also give's bookbinders just that lil' bit more to earn money with.