This discussion is inspired by this post:


So, I decided to compare the tradeskills in those aspects, and more. This is here because I'm not exactly coming up with ideas, neither am I ranting about it, merely pointing out the flaws.


Profitability

-MagicScroll
Let us put aside books and scroll first, and take a look at MagicScrolls. They're intended to be the money-making bulk of our tradeskill, the only ones which can be sold in shops.

1. MagicScroll itself does nothing. You can't sell plain MagicScrolls, unlike how plain jewelry or clothes can be sold.
2. Enchanters earn more profit from Scrolls then Bookbinders do, as people will be recharging their scrolls from cubes.

-Scroll/Books
Hoo boy. So many things.

1. They cannot be sold in shops. Only other tradeskill with such a large portion of their trade being unsaleable in shops is Artisans.
2. They have a huge gold outlay cost even if you do not intend to copy the book.
3. They last forever.
3a. Means no need for repair costs the way tailoring and forging can.
3b. They never ever need to buy a book to replace the one that decayed.
4. Everyone gets a free, non-decaying, fully-functional journal when they start. Sure, its a little plain. Almost all guild advancements ask for some recording in journals, and all novices get one free. Everything else a novice starts with has some 'flaw' to prompt the novice to buy from the tradesmen. Alchemy? Their vials only have 10 sips. Tailoring? Their clothes are made to look grey and ugly, and have poor prestige. Artisans? Lutes given out are 'worned-out' and decay fast. Forging? Weapons given out have poor stats. Herbs, Jewelry, Enchanting, Poisons, and Cooking? Nothing given to novices at all. But Bookbinding? A fully functional, never-decaying, and merely plain journal is given to every novice.
5. We have organisational books, but all organisations get free help scrolls.

Convenience
If you say that it will be more convenient for a bookbinder to get a book, it will be true for the other tradeskills with their respective trade goods. However, how often do you actually need a book, versus, say a cube for recharging, or kegs for refilling? Heck, Bookbinders don't charge their own scrolls, so we can't recharge them on the go the way enchanters can, or the way alchemists can refill from their own kegs.

Utility
Not many tradeskills have it, but some do. Herbalist get to cram more puffs out of a single herb, Artisans get Prized (yeah, before you shoot this, it is utility of some sort), and Jewelers get Tierstone. Perhaps adding some utility might help balance out Bookbinding.

Creativity
CARTELS:

CARTELS BOOKBINDING

The closest tradeskill is cooking, which has 17 cartels, more than double of Bookbinding. Artisan has 28, Forging has 30, Jewelry has 33 and the obvious winner is Tailoring with 35.

Now, I'm very glad that Bookbinding at least get to design stuff, unlike Herbs or Alchemy. However, when the entire designable portion of the tradeskill simply boils down to scrolls, books and bigger books, there isn't much to work with.

Next, the only shop-able part of our tradeskill cannot be designed. The only other tradeskills with this same problem, are the tradeskills that get no cartels. Where then is the incentive for us to design new scrolls and books, when we cannot even showcase them in shops?

Also, books cannot be seen easily. Clothes and jewelry can be seen with LOOK . Weapons can be seen just by LOOK. Furniture are displayed in all buildings/manses/important places. Cooking is a little harder, but at least you can display food during herofete, and the eating message is displayed to the person eating. How then, do I display my very nicely designed book? I recently made myself a beautiful journal to replace my own plain one, but no one notices because no one can. With the exception of Stealth users, of course. And at libraries, people would be more concerned with the contents of the book, and be very unlikely to probe it. Again, lack of incentive to create new designs, if no one can even see it.

Lastly, our Transcendent item is the only generic item, with the exception of Alchemy's because Alchemy has no cartels. Why is it that every other Transcendent trade item are either an 'improved' version of their goods the way Forging, Jewelry, Artisan and even Enchanters can, or get a totally new category to design with, the way Tailors get? The only Bookbinding item that is likely to be visible to everyone, is the one item that cannot be customised.

Combat
MagicTome being unusable by warriors and monks.
For everyone else, either they forgo a shield, or have to buy a shield rune.
Does nothing new other than absorbing part of the damage.

Roleplay
I like how we get Languages. I like the DivineScript, even though it is used only during events. I like the label of being a Bookbinder.

However, beyond that, which actually has nothing to do with books, we got nothing much. Like I mentioned above, there is little to work with when it comes to books, as it is used so rarely, and that it is not as visible to others. Often, the contents of the book play a more larger role in roleplaying than the cover.

Unlike with Tailoring, which can determine your dressing.
Or with Jewelry, where you can get piercings and wedding rings.
Or with Artisan, where you can control the decor of your manse or guildhall.

Versatility
Face it, the bulk of our tradeskill is predictable. Personal scroll --> organisational scroll --> personal book --> organisational book --> bigger personal book --> and on and on. There is no diversity in our goods.

First off, why is it necessary to separate personal and organisational books? Is the difference between one person and one organisation writing a book so large that you'd have to separate them for all the different sized books? I don't see any personal chairs and organisational chairs. No other tradeskill have copies of skills which essentially do the same thing, but for different people.

Next, each book, when compared with the one higher up the skillset, is exactly the same, just with more pages. This is just strange. Imagine if Artisan was composed entirely of kegs, with each larger than the other. Oh, and half of them can only contain potions, the other half can only contain poisons. Not a perfect metaphor, but you get the same sense of puzzlement as to why it works this way.

Conclusion
I'm not saying that Bookbinding is terrible in all aspects; for example, Herbs and Forging wins hands down in terms of Time Spent, and how Bookbinding has some redeeming features in terms of roleplay (which I would guess is the main reason why many stay Bookbinder). I just hope that this has managed to show why Bookbinding needs working with on almost all criteria.

It's been made pretty clear that bookbinding is not going to change to make it more profitable-- we are an RP tradeskill. That being said, I think you are right-- for a tradeskill to be balanced within itself, the positives must balance out the negatives. There aren't enough positives with the RP and versatility of Bookbinding to balance out the fact that it is worthless for Combat, Profitability, and Convenience. We don't even get a bonus to healing scrolls when we wrote them (unless you count the Magic Tome which I can't use).

I posted a revised skillset idea earlier that attempted to address some of the problems (such as combining org/personal books) and add a little more flavor, and Elryn posted a number of good ideas as well. But this is a good breakdown of the usefulness of the skill itself, so thanks.

Have you seen Avaer's thread with ideas for fixing bookbinding? I particularly liked his idea of bookbinders making aetherspace maps that give non-commanders some of the benefit of flashpoints, thus boosting Bookbinding and Empath/Combateer at the same time and addressing two problems at once.

I did look at both threads, and loved many of the ideas raised. However, like I linked above, Fain suggests that Bookbinding is fine due to the other aspects of the tradeskill. My post is to show why Bookbinding is not fine on many aspects, and needs working on.

I want fancy stationary added to bookbinding (it would be so fun to be able to design and sell unique letters and maybe envelopes in shops and folks/groups could have their own personal stationary if they find a bookbinder willing to sell them a design slot and stuff) and gold outlay removed/drastically lowered.

I've looked at the Ideas forum for quite a while. I've looked through almost all the threads on Bookbinding, and anything related to that. Almost everyone mentions Stationary, and for a long time. And yet, still no Stationary. This is the reason why I suspect that the Admin feels that Bookbinding do not need working on. (Not because of what Fain posted. I know his post was personal opinion)

Edit: Oh, and the gold outlay thing. In the past, it was reduced from very ridiculous to ridiculous. Still ridiculous.

Instead of having the Post Office sell letters and whatnot, you have to get them from a Bookbinder.

Who would be raking in the dough then?

I know, right! Herbalist smerbalist! Go Bookbinder to make the golds!

Haha, right and then within a week nobody would use letters anymore because it would be such a hassle to get a hold of the stationary.

You can handle that transition like this. Stationary designs cost wood 1 leather 1 or something along those lines, but the post offices now charge 500gp for blank letters. Bookbinders can now undersell mob post offices while still making a profit. This combined with a few other improvements like the aetherspace cartography one would make bookbinders tend to increase in number a bit. When there's enough of them, remove letters from post offices entirely, and make Trader Bob start selling "From the desk of Trader Bob" stationary for 1000gp. (Or for more flavor, generic stationary for 1000gp, and "From the desk of Trader Bob" stationary for 750gp, but with an ad for the Last Chance Trading Shop on the bottom of every sheet.)

Or, you can sell stationary in shops. No more hassle.

Yes, I'd rather have the stationary in shops. Actually yeah, that's a very good idea since it helps fix one of the problems with Bookbinding, that they can hardly sell anything in shops.

If stationary only replaces letters and isn't part of the library system that's probably possible. There's probably some mechanical reason why books that can be in the library system can't be sold in shops, or it would have been done that way in the first place. Maybe.

Well the main reason is because it has to list the author. When the binders make a book/scroll they have to specify who it's being made for so that the administrative aspect of the library system is squared away right off the bat. The following scenario would create a problem:

Fania goes to a shop and sees a book she likes. She buys the book. The book, previously having no author, has to have the author set as Fania on purchase. Fania realizes that she doesn't want the book anymore because it was the wrong color. Now the book has an author, and she can't sell it back in her shop.

Plus, having to distinguish which pieces of merchandise are books and then setting the buyer as the author to these would also be a hassle.

I hope that makes sense in here. It makes sense in my head

No, you made sense and are prolly right. But stationary wouldn't need a specific author and so should be able to be sold in shops!

Three cheers for stationary! And while we're at it, why not have envelopes/envelope-designs to help spice up the Post system?

I've never been a fan of the stationary idea really. I just think it's goofy. Plus, if you are using the argument that it will increase the profitability of bookbinders, can you pretty much forget about it-- like the first post in this thread says, bookbinding has not been designed for money, and will not be tweaked for it.

But shouldn't Bookbinders be the ones making the paper that we all write on? Logically, somebody has to make it. So why not Bookbinders?

Oh, I agree with that. Even I suggested that bookbinders be allowed to make letters. But something about the different stationery ideas throws me off. And if you want it considered, you need to find a different reason besides "It will help us make money", because that doesn't seem to be acceptable.

It'll be fun and and encourage interaction and creativity and help foster a unique atmosphere as people start designing personalized stationary for official uses as well as just interesting designs for personal use.

Plus I want it!