The library changes make no sense to me from a 'realism' standpoint.

Books don't magically stop being worth anything when they're over 50 years old; we have libraries with huge quantities of old books, which add to their prestige and worth.

Making books simply not count after a certain amount of time seems to just throw away piles of older works and say it doesn't count any more-- though the books are still there, and though they are prestige winners / scholarly works that have been accepted and shape the course of the Basin and its history / etc, they just... aren't worth anything? This feels weird.

Wouldn't it make more sense to do something where you have books older than a certain date (sure, keep using 50 years) have the 'normal' weighting, whereas more recent books get a bonus (heck, it could even be a 2x bonus; that would probably still keep Hallifax in the lead and not actually change the current CULTURE / LIBRARY rankings at all, while not just summarily dismissing previous works).

The current situation is kind of like declaring that the works of Voltaire, Aristotle, etc. 'have no weight' and are 'worthless'.

It's possible to amend the system to give more preference to libraries that are more active in the modern era without completely tossing away the value of all their older works... and having libraries that publish less watch their totals continue to dwindle (like Serenwilde's just went to pretty much nil).

Aristotle and Voltaire aren't going to win the pulitzer prize but they still hold value. This is a question about winning an award for the most publishing, and to allow old books to remain is overly rewarding Serenwilde, Glomdoring, Magnagora, and Celest for having been made cities first.

Furthermore, in the majority of cities the librarian position has been one of significant turn over. This is, having spoken to several older librarians, partly because the job was largely an uphill battle the rewards for which were very minor for the vast amount of work it took to publish quality works. This gives a city a better way to measure the librarian position and for librarians themselves to see the fruits of their labours directly contributing to their city which is important for an in game administrative position.

That said, I am not wholesale against Xenthos' idea of making new books have bonuses over older books, as this is still a better system than the previous one, but I do not believe a better system to the one right now. I believe the question should be, Are we interested in rewarding an organization for everything they've ever contributed to the library system, or create a system that more heavily encourages the publishing of new books and activity within a previously thankless system? After all, there are hardly any other part of the game where doing something will give an organization permanent benefit for that action.

Morbo:

Aristotle and Voltaire aren't going to win the pulitzer prize but they still hold value. This is a question about winning an award for the most publishing, and to allow old books to remain is overly rewarding Serenwilde, Glomdoring, Magnagora, and Celest for having been made cities first.

Furthermore, in the majority of cities the librarian position has been one of significant turn over. This is, having spoken to several older librarians, partly because the job was largely an uphill battle the rewards for which were very minor for the vast amount of work it took to publish quality works. This gives a city a better way to measure the librarian position and for librarians themselves to see the fruits of their labours directly contributing to their city which is important for an in game administrative position.

That said, I am not wholesale against Xenthos' idea of making new books have bonuses over older books, as this is still a better system than the previous one, but I do not believe a better system to the one right now. I believe the question should be, Are we interested in rewarding an organization for everything they've ever contributed to the library system, or create a system that more heavily encourages the publishing of new books and activity within a previously thankless system? After all, there are hardly any other part of the game where doing something will give an organization permanent benefit for that action.

Aristotle / Voltaire hold value, yes. Unfortunately, under the current system older works now no longer hold any value at all. They just take up space, but as far as a library's worth goes, they might as well just be thrown out.

I see no reason why it has to be either-or, in regards to your last question; it should be possible to more heavily encourage the publishing of new books and activity without completely voiding the work that has come before. That's what I would like to see done here. I'm fine with a library that is spending more time on growth during 'modern times' having more sway and influence, it just doesn't make sense that older works don't count at all. Sure it favours organizations that came first, but that's why you weight newer books higher. At this point I feel like both Hallifax and Gaudiguch have been around long enough to be able to compete with that added emphasis on newer books (and Hallifax has made good use of that time).

Xenthos:

Aristotle / Voltaire hold value, yes. Unfortunately, under the current system older works now no longer hold any value at all. They just take up space, but as far as a library's worth goes, they might as well just be thrown out.

Except, for you know, The knowledge or entertainment gained from reading them.

This change isn't about realism. It's purely a "for the good of the game" sort of change. Before, there was very little chance for the Most Scholarly/Most Literary/Biggest library bonuses to change hands, as the up-and-coming smaller libraries would not only need to outpace the bigger libraries, but maintain that improved pace for long enough to overcome a several thousand point head start. If, for example, Gaudiguch wanted to try to outdo Glomdoring, they'd need to publish 7701 weight in books (ie. 1.55 million words at the very least) while also matching Glomdoring's own writers one for one.

Honestly, this seems like 100% sour grapes at having lost culture centre due to the changes and 0% asking, "Is this for the good of the game?"

Now that I have access to the old totals again, here are some numbers:

(These are for total book ratings, not for subcategories)


----- |Glomdoring | Serenwilde | Magnagora | Celest | Hallifax | Gaudiguch |
Old | --- 7,847 | ---- 6,172 | --- 8,206 | - 6,148 | -- 2,416 | ----- 230 |
New | --- 3,008 | ------- 50 | --- 1,546 | --- 262 | -- 5,132 | --- 2,840 |
Total | -- 10,855 | ---- 6,222 | --- 9,752 | - 6,410 | -- 7,548 | --- 3,070 |


Note that this is only if new books are x2; an argument could even be made for x3 for another while, dropping to x2 once the newer orgs have had a bit more of a reasonable time to build up archives.

Even at x2 though, it drastically lowers the difference between older organizations and newer ones (it puts Hallifax firmly at position #3 in the library rankings, ahead of two of the 'established organizations' with their archives).

To Morbo: Mechanically, they don't count or matter at all. They might as well not exist, and not be taking up that space in the archives.

To Iytha: It seems like you didn't bother to read the original post, because I stated that I'm fine with it being tweaked in such a way that it gives newer orgs (which can encourage profligacy simply due to having tons of new lore to write and put out that the other orgs have already done) the edge / cultural center. Thus, I don't see how you can claim sour grapes.

Seriously, have you even looked at Serenwilde's library count? Celest's isn't much better, either.

I'm all for making things more dynamic rather than heavily favoring old established footholds. Seems like a good change to me.

Turnus:

I'm all for making things more dynamic rather than heavily favoring old established footholds. Seems like a good change to me.

The ideal would, to me, be to make it more dynamic by favouring newer works more highly while still giving some benefit for the archived work. It's more realistic, it makes more sense, and it allows organizations to press for 'glory' by focusing on new works as they know that those will give the added benefit, making it possible to compete with much less of a disadvantage.

It also doesn't just discard years of work and effort out-of-hand.

Doing the numbers a bit further, it looks like a 3x rating (or more) for new books would probably be needed; but that just makes it more dynamic so that's not really an issue to me. My objection is to making old books not count at all, not to shaking up the top library positions and letting organizations compete for it with greater ease.

Xenthos:

Seriously, have you even looked at Serenwilde's library count? Celest's isn't much better, either.

Yet, these organizations under the old system still were gaining extra culture due to the previous work and obviously publishing very little new material . I think the current change does a lot more to motivate these organizations to actually contribute new works to the library systems and this is a good way for people coming into the game to see some rewards from their creative talents beyond just individual rewards such as the bardics or prestige. I think counting the older works will mean that newer organizations will always be at a core disadvantage.

A compromise would be providing new orgs with an average of their last 50 years over the periods in which they did not exist to even the playing field.

Morbo:

Yet, these organizations under the old system still were gaining extra culture due to the previous work and obviously publishing very little new material . I think the current change does a lot more to motivate these organizations to actually contribute new works to the library systems and this is a good way for people coming into the game to see some rewards from their creative talents beyond just individual rewards such as the bardics or prestige. I think counting the older works will mean that newer organizations will always be at a core disadvantage.

A compromise would be providing new orgs with an average of their last 50 years over the periods in which they did not exist to even the playing field.

I don't see how 'organizations under the old system were still gaining extra culture'; Serenwilde was gaining, what, 75 power from having #3 literary and that was it. 75 power points really is pretty minimal as such things go. Their not publishing is a reflection on something else, not a symptom of 'coasting'. They weren't really getting any rewards for their current level anyways.

That said, I don't disagree with wanting to push new works! Hence, my proposal. How does my suggestion not encourage the same thing that you are saying you would like to see, while not completely dropping existing works and effort?

Edit: Sorry, I missed the 'always be at a core disadvantage' line; that argument was used way back when Glomdoring had a massive lead, and 'nobody could ever catch up'. Magnagora managed to not only catch up but completely outstrip Glomdoring for ages and it was only recently that that lead was passed once more. Organizations can always, with enough concerted effort, shake things up; and there will be much more incentive to keep pushing that when new works are worth so much more.

I don't really see it as being a system-breaking issue if new books are given enough weighting to outstrip most of the archived values (for example, a x3 weighting).

I love the new changes.

And yeah. Old works aren't 'useless' or 'worthless', but it's not impressive that your library has old books.

Also, lawl. The old 'but it's possible to catch up, so nothing should ever change, you guys have it easier than we did, boo"

Enyalida:

I love the new changes.

And yeah. Old works aren't 'useless' or 'worthless', but it's not impressive that your library has old books.

Also, lawl. The old 'but it's possible to catch up, so nothing should ever change, you guys have it easier than we did, boo"

Wait, what?

Who said nothing should ever change?

Isn't this entire thread suggesting and discussing a potential change? Even the post you are responding to? :P Or is this just a strawman response?

PS: The statement that it's "not impressive your library has old books" is rather counterintuitive; old books are generally rather more treasured than new ones, though from a game balance perspective it would be really unfair to make old books worth more.

It's not really fair to make old ones worth nothing though.

Edit: So, again, ideally you'd make new ones worth enough to be the bulk of the points, leaving the old ones worth something (but easily beatable by new ones if you're working at it).

I don't know, it doesn't seem unfair to me. Any combat/domoth/revolt/etc progress is effectively lost the next revolt/domoth/aetherflare. Meanwhile the effects of a book lasts 50 IC years now (as opposed to forever), that's what roughly 2 real life years of impact from that book. As compared to a combat win having an impact of at most a month. I'm sure nothing will sway your opinion, but it doesn't seem unfair to old works at all.

Turnus:

I don't know, it doesn't seem unfair to me. Any combat/domoth/revolt/etc progress is effectively lost the next revolt/domoth/aetherflare. Meanwhile the effects of a book lasts 50 IC years now (as opposed to forever), that's what roughly 2 real life years of impact from that book. As compared to a combat win having an impact of at most a month. I'm sure nothing will sway your opinion, but it doesn't seem unfair to old works at all.

At the same time, things gained from them last forever; commodities do not magically vanish, power gained from them stays in the nexus, power in the Conquest pool doesn't go away when you lose the village that generated it.

The rewards / benefits stick around, you just don't get the benefit of adding to it unless you keep winning (or, in the case of libraries, keep publishing to add on more points). Losing these things does not take away from what you're stockpiled / achieved.

However, the new library system does do that.

Further, a heck of a lot more time and effort was put into those works than were put into a combat (sorry Sojiro, but it's true). I spent a couple of weeks writing my Prestige winner, for example, and now it's basically on the same level as a trash pamphlet of a couple hundred words published by Serenwilde. It feels pretty unfair to me.

Greleag:

Honestly, this seems like 100% sour grapes at having lost culture centre due to the changes and 0% asking, "Is this for the good of the game?"

Glomdoring did not have Cultural Centre before or after the change went through.

I agree to not completely making old works worthless. Having them worth only half as much as recent works (50 years) would be swell.

Also, if we're going to go the 'omg your org was here first', then it's Serenwilde = Celest = Magnagora > Glomdoring > Hallifax = Gaudiguch. It's good to note that, when Glomdoring came out and found (relatively) its footing, it managed to out-library and out-culture the three older orgs. So yes, it's possible and it's definitely happened before that a newer org won over old orgs.

Perhaps this change to Library system should be considered as reward to the -authors-, not trying to ascribe value to the books themselves through a realism argument.

"There were more valued contributions from X org's authors to the advancement of literary/scholarly culture over the past 50 years." Assign rewards accordingly.

Ushaara:

Perhaps this change to Library system should be considered as reward to the -authors-, not trying to ascribe value to the books themselves through a realism argument.

"There were more valued contributions from X org's authors to the advancement of literary/scholarly culture over the past 50 years." Assign rewards accordingly.

That doesn't really seem like it works, though. It's measuring the cultural impact of a library, and such an impact should include historical works as well as modern ones (after all, some of the posts here are 'but you can still read them!'-- if you can still read them and are using them, shouldn't they have at least some effect on the strength of the library?).

A prestige winner especially should never be 'worthless'-- it should add something to the overall value of the library. It is, after all, prestigious! It definitely shouldn't be relegated to the 0-point-void equivalent of a book of poems that is a few hundred words long-- in fact, a book of poems less than 50 years old is now worth more points than a prestige winner, which is also kind of silly.

The best solution is still to take a mix of the two systems; heavily reward new books to encourage growth, and reduce the impact of old books on the system. You're not declaring them worthless, though, and good books will still be worth more than a really junky new work (though that new work will of course be worth more than its equivalent published 50+ years back).

Such a result feels much more fair to me, in that it's not voiding out what players have spent absurd quantities of time adding in to Lusternia, while still making it more dynamic / competitive and with less need of an archive to achieve library greatness.

Doesn't your argument about the results of owning a village apply to the prestige work and other similar things? You still have the power, it doesn't magically disappear.

Other notes, Glomdoring had cultural centre at the beginning of every month, but lost it at the end of every month due to Hallifax generating at least 300 power from bards and scholars every month since the new year.

Also, regarding this realism argument. Greece doesn't have some benefit over other nations because Aristotle happened to live there when he wrote books. The printing press and age of the book means that the philosophical precepts that he presented are freely available in just about every nation. In this sense, the age of the book in fact moved it away from just belonging to greece and then belonging to the entire world of academia. In this same sense, older books still hold value based on the inherent quality of the information contained within. Similarly, Phil the Aristocrat from Athens who wrote about the benefits of rubbing oil all over your body and scraping it off instead of bathing has a very old book as well, that doesn't contribute to the culture of Greece.

What do you mean, Greece doesn't have a benefit over other nations?

I certainly remember learning about this in school; not just Greece, but also some smattering bits of philosophy from China and other areas as well. These add to the historical weight of these places, far more so than other countries in, say, South America (which are discussed to a far lesser degree). That may not give it weight or power in the economical realm, but as far as culture goes... that's a different story. The works are not taught just by themselves, but also in the context of their time and location.

Phil the Aristocrat's works should (theoretically) be valued as a much lesser contribution, which under our library system is done as a lower weighting for a less lengthy volume (as well as not winning Prestige, because I really hope a book about the merits of rubbing body oil does not win prestige). With both of these hits against it, and a reduced weighting in comparison to more recently published books, it would indeed add very little-- however, what it does not do is detract from the merit of other tomes published by that culture that are still taught / read today.

PS: Power, commodities, total book value-- they're all numbers that you build up over time. Now that book value has, indeed, magically disappeared.