In fact, this idea sounds so simple and so great, it's the best thing since Acquisitio. No need to provide a new system to make letters, we'd just modify what was already there. Alternatively, if there is something very complex in the mailing code, perhaps blank magic scrolls could be used to sorcelglass into letters instead? I believe those are very cheap to make and this would give them and Bookbinders more uses!

Sorcelglass specifically took a hit for this. When sorcelglass took four comms, the gold, comm, and ink outlay already made the average sorcelled vial cost more than double a regular vial, when the biggest mechanical perk was double decay time. Now that sorcelglass takes eight comms, plus all of the old costs, it's harder to justify the cost.

I don't count sorcelglass-- I forget it's there, because only twice have I ever been asked for one, and at least once the cost was so outrageous the person decided just to keep their vials. It's an ability that doesn't fit in Bookbinding at all in my mind, so when I think of Bookbinding, I tend to forget about it .

And I pretty much ignore bookbinders when I don't need sorcelglass. Different perspectives!

All stems of the same root problems

Letters decay in transit, so I assume they're real items.

I'm pretty sure gold outlay for Bookbinding items is because they don't decay and Estarra has already expressed an interest in not making a lot of items, especially non-decay ones. If this changed for scrolls, then of course the outlay should be removed.

It would be VERY nice if books decayed. Not only would it keep database bloat down, but it would make bookshelves more important and give bookbinders more business.

Still no pagelength wrap yet.

Still no way to sell properly from shops.

Proposed Solution? Remove the part of creation.

Replace with the general command AUTHOR

Which would make said person the author of any book without an author, allowing for easier sale by shops.

Would it also be possible to add a mechanic so that when an already written book (not blank) is sold from a shop, part of the sale price (The % listed under royalties) is transferred to the author?

I am very much against having the original of a book decay. Books are way too much work for it to just go "poof". I'd also be against requiring the purchase of a special rune to make a book non-decay, for other reasons, if that were proposed as a solution.

I don't see how having books decay will help if bookshelves mitigate the decaying. The vast majority of books are kept in bookshelves already anyway.

Books not decaying is sort of the entire point of libraries.

You make bookshelves work like picnic baskets or jewelry boxes. rather than completely stopping the decay, slowing it significantly.

By having books decay you make bookcopy far more useful as people with old books have them copied over.

As far as Libraries go, that's one thing I could see circumventing the decay process.

I'm going to be a fuddy duddy and say I like bookbinding as it is: a pitiful little trade that makes little money but gives you fancy languages. I do it for fun. Some ideas are cool here but I don't want a huge overhaul of my precious useless skillz. My unimportant opinions on the proposed changes:

Wrapping a page to being only a certain amount of text would screw me over. I write scrolls for the library and sometimes I just want one quick page. Just one essay. Nihmriel likes to have things over 1000 words, I oblige her because she's awesome. If it were cut off at 600 words, I'd have to cut a lot of works I've already done in half, and I am not the sort of person to enjoy my pretty paragraph format being killed for profit.

Not a fan of decay. Takes a ridiculously long time to get the right text format in a book sometimes, and unlike tailors, I doubt we could "mend" a decaying book. How would you even go about that? Bookcopy is the answer I guess but that means a lot of bookbinders will have to hire other bookbinders, cuz I sure as Nil am not at Mythical and I have other places to put my lessons. And that's a lot of existing library books we'd have to copy. Personally, don't like it.

Gold outlay changed to more commodities would be cool. Gold outlay is kind of a jerk. It enjoys making it harder to buy a book than a pair of shoes.

I'd be cool with having books for sale that you have to manually author yourself. It'd be fun to stock shops with things besides sorcelglass scrolls and magic scrolls. Also, people might buy fancy cartel designs.

Stationary? Knock yourself out, making letters could be fun. Also, it'd be awesome if you could design letter types.

The problem is that while books themselves are designs that are submitted and approved and stored on the server, able to be remade if they decay, what is in the books themselves, the part that takes a lot of hard work, is lost forever. When a player who designed a design goes inactive, the design stays and can be made by others. If an author goes inactive and a book decays, that's it. It will be gone.

Books need to stay nondecay because they preserve something that is otherwise preserved nowhere else.

Books decaying is not cool. Theoretically, everyone has the opportunity to have his or her work stored in one of the main libraries, but what about guild bookshelves? Private bookshelves? Would they function as libraries or as slow decaying storage facilities like baskets?

Books decaying is just an awful concept that should never, ever be implemented. People spend days writing secret texts for their guilds, for their orders, and for their own families, and they do not deserve to have their work be limited to one of the main libraries. Librarians (caveat: good librarians) already have enough to do.

Book decaying would also just force people to move more stuff into projects and GHELPs and such.

Bookbinding needs new consumable skills, like the manila envelope newbie starter kit thing I suggested, and origami.

Furthermore, languages need to stop being its perk; we've got a language system that makes less than no sense but which is justified only because it's the sole perk of Bookbinding. Bookbinding needs to be viable in such a way that it doesn't need languages as its perk, so we can make languages make sense. (Though, Bookbinding can certainly keep the Divine Language as one of its perks.)

No, you go to and quit trying to nerf my skills.

On decay: You're right about losing that original content being a horrible thing. I fully agree. But Sylandra was onto something when the lack of 'mending' was mentioned. How do you think very old texts keep from falling apart? (Beyond producing new copies, since we already have Bookcopy, but it only works to make copies from the original)

So yes, a skill to restore old books is very important. (Even though it's quite easy to transfer contents over to a new book, it sometimes screws up intricate formatting when it's done.) However, it just strikes me as wrong that books are the only trade object that you buy once and have forever.


On languages: Gotta agree with Lendren here.


On pagewrap: So essentially the reason you're against it is because you want to put as much text as you want in a scroll so that you don't have to pay for something more expensive? (By the way, scrolls are 2 pages long, at 600 words each, that's 1200 words per scroll.)

@Shaddus: Pipe down there, go bang the artisan drum elsewhere. Sure your trade is prohibitively expensive, but at least they have a use!

Books are also the only trade items that contain something that is 100% unique that will be 100% lost forever if it decays. The desk that is your pride and joy design, if it decays, can be made again exactly the same. A book that decays can have an identically designed book remade, but the writing itself (the important part of the book) cannot be recalled and written again.

No you totally missed my point. The aesthetics of the proposed limit bug me. I'm willing to pay for big books when necessary.

Also: What Everiine said about decay? Truth.

I would be on board with books decaying only if all bookshelves preserved them. That way, no one's carrying around tons of non-decay items (I'm looking at you, Casilu, and uh... Daraius), and anything worth preserving can be easily preserved.

But yes, moar perx plz.