I don't know how feasible this would be, but I would like general publishing to be far, far less profitable for the org than it is now. Prestige books should be where 90% of the power income lies, not in churning out quantity over quality. Sure, if your org publishes 50 books one year, they should get a nice power bonus for it. But if another org publishes a prestige winner, they should be getting at least twice the power income you are getting.

I'm always intimidated looking into the library system from outside, it makes me uneasy... the purpose of writing is almost entirely to generate power for your nation, it seems more a duty than a creative pursuit.

As others have said before, shift some of the benefits of general publishing of books to more personal reward, and leave most of the nation reward for winning/placing in prestige.

To be honest, I believe there's an underlying issue with nations and individuals. In short: Nations ask for much and give little to their people.

Avaer makes a point that much of the benifit to libraries goes to the nation instead of the individual person. I believe, though, that the nations themselves should be benifiting the person, not the system.


As for lack of response from the non-serenwilde nations, I can't speak for the others, but I can see why Magnagora isn't contributing, and I don't think the system is the only key reason for it. I'm afraid of OOC -> IC bleeding, so I'll leave it at "This lack is just a symptom" and leave it at that.

The books, though, are quite lovely. I can already think of something else I'm dying to get into book form (and can just now actually do it. Kayde).

The librarian only needs to choose books that have already been published to submit to the contest. I know Magnagora has published a ton of books, so it's not like there's nothing for the librarian to choose from.

Huh. Sounds like Magnagora needs a new librarian or something then. Same with New Celest and Glomdoring if they had books published they could have submitted too.

As for other things, I agree with what most everyone has said. It costs too much to make books.

I also agree with that authors themselves don't get much out of writing books. I mean, yeah, they've got a book in the library that can be read by others for as long as the library stands and that's neat, but it doesn't put bread on the table. Nations are the ones that reap the rewards.

I think Cwin's statement that nations demand a great deal from their people and offer little reward is true. The nations should reward their authors. I mean, if you spend hours of RL time writing something, spend thousands of IG gold on a book to write your whatever in, your nation should show a little appreciation for your efforts. That's not a thing that needs to be hard-coded ythough, that's something that the players can change themselves.

Definitely. I never carry much gold on Everiine, as he is just a simple hunter. I had 1500 gold on me, and decided I would finally learn how to book bind. So I made myself the simplest scroll I could find, 1 leather and 1000 gold. Put a little story on it about a Squirrel finding his mate, a comical little fairy tale sort of thing. Can't sell it, it's too small, but it took most of my gold just to make the scroll. A simple scroll should cost far less than 1000 gold to make. I'm thinking 150-250 is pretty good for such a thing. If I didn't have to pay so much, I would definitely write many more things (since I now know how to create the books).

I remeber sending messages to the glomdoring librarian and getting responces like "huh? theres another prestige contest? I don't remember there being any posts about it"...

When it comes to the libraries there is ironically a lot of ignorance.

I'm pretty sure some of that already shows up in the commune revlog(as it belongs there).

I but it would pretty annoying if the transfer of funds started showing up in the individual ministry logs. I know I don't want that showing up in the Power logs.



Someone's been playing their Magnagorian charactor too long.


Edit: Just to reiterate, if one thing about Libraries/writing books is to be changed, I think that it's the price of books. Possibly cut them in half of what they are now.

If the Stagleaf TM isn't around, I'd definitely consider taking up Bookbinding, contesting TM, then switching to Alchemy again after I grab the template list so I can submit designs without it being a TOTAL hassle.

In Magnagora's case, the city simply didn't realize that the year had come for another prestige contest, and by the time we realized it was an odd year and a work couldn't be submitted. So, we knew a while before the end of the contest that Serenwilde would win by default, and there was nothing to be done for it.

The prestige awards could do with a bit of a reminder for the Librarian, I think, along with their own helpfile.

Agreed. Magnagora's latest librarian is -very- new in his post.. and still hasn't really got the hang of the basic library publishing commands, let alone knowing that it was a prestige year. We should have reminded him.. but it seems no one did. Oh well. Annoying, but there we are.




Which is damned useless for the Librarian if he can't read the revlog. I aided the Librarian to the Steward when I realised he'd been doing without for so long.

No.. I agree.. the Libraries could do with a log.

Whenever the winners to the prestiege contest are announced, a new contest is started immediately after.

These are the general points I have heard so far:

- Bookbinding is too expensive

- Books should be easier to copy

And lesser things to concider and look into coding possibilities:

- A small honorarium for a writer when their book is checked out or copied

- Adjust helpfiles (I will start another thread when people will be able to help me with this, as -you- are the ones who need to work with it, so you would best know how to make it clearer and more understandable)

Anything else? Opinions?

Sounds good to me!

Thanks.

Im just thinking but wouldn't that encourage libraries not to have books of anyone but their own citicens then?

I'm confused maybe, but don't all books that get published go to all libraries automatically? Do librarians have the ability to remove books from their library or something?

I'm not sure I follow you, why would they do that?

And no, libraries do not have the ability to remove books that have been published worldwide.

It does show up in the revlog but the Librarian can't necessarily read it, nor is it readable from the library, which is where most of the library business gets done. In addition, publishing a book is a fairly high cost taken directly from ministry funds, so I think it would be useful for the Librarian and aides to know when more funds are made available. Either way that's just one item. Most of the other stuff I suggested also shows in the regular commune log as well, this is basically a compiled log for convenience with a few additions such as critique notification.

After Nokraenom's comment that Magnagora didn't realize it was time to submit for the prestige contest, maybe adding an automatic "the period for submission to the prestige contest is now open for one year" to such a log as well would be helpful.

Well I was thinking for example

There is a seren book by lets say Ialie in the glomdoring library if someone uses that book, copies it etc or something then she would get a bit of gold or a reward or something for it. It wouldn't be in glomdorings roleplay to keep that book as it helps the serens. Same things for celest they wouldn't want magnagoria books if they knew that using it would give gold to a magnagoraian.

There's no one standing next to the library forcing them to withdraw and read the book. If people find it a problem to fund a writer from celest that extra 10 gold, don't read books.

Though I have to admit I find it not just a little bit over the top, especially as the Scholarly society is supposed to be more open and accepting, why do you think people are publishing these books in the first place? If they don't want to participate they're welcome to close their great library and hand all the power to the others on a serving plate. I am sure no one would complain.

Thats the thing I was worried about though, people will stop reading books. It would be really bad roleplay to have something in the commune that obviously aided enemies, Definatly I would say that all books written by enemies of the commune would be banned from the library at least, maby even all celest and serenwilde books, Im sure celest and others would do the same banning all the books that help the tainted, it just isnt in their roleplay to pay royalites to magnagorias.



Its constant conflict in the basin though we cant trade tools, herbs, weapons with our enemies why should we trade books and pay them constantly for it though? Sure it would hurt to take out our enemies books from our library, we would lose power for it wouldn't we? It may be mechanically harmful with the game mechanics but it is good roleplay in the end.

I'm confused again.