Books!

Faramier · Post by **Faramier** » Fri Feb 21, 2003 11:17 pm

I think it would add a nice touch if you were able to get books rather than having someone say. "the book about glassworks says...." so when you go up to a bookcase and use it it comes up with a depot type arrangement with books in that can be taken out and read. (Much like the Baldurs Gate system) I think this would add a nice touch to the game and perhaps there would be a small chance of finding a rune book.

This system would eliminate standing at a bookcase for hours on end constantly clicking use to find one book. Instead you could use a bookcase, see if a book is there if not move on if it is take it out and read it (use it) and then you could take it with you or put it back.

Reading a book would be much like a rune book exept that it could bring up a story, instructions and would not dissapear.

Obviously it would have to be random what books turned up and they would have to appear each time someone looked otherwise all the books would be taken.

Not dissapear you say, that would mean a huge mass of books that wouldnt go anywhere. Well if you put them on the floor they would dissapear and if you put them back in the bookcase they would dissapear. And like all other items there is a danger of a huge influx, but we have not had a problem yet so I do not anticipate a problem with books.

You should not be able to sell books, so no free money.

Also if you are stuck for what to put in books why not put Illarion history, indexes of which runes to cast, descriptions of how to make potions etc perhaps you could ask players to write short stories for the books.

If this all works well it should lead to a more real library and a good pastime for everyone.

Constructive comments only please.

Guingalan,

Iqloo · Post by **Iqloo** » Fri Feb 21, 2003 11:57 pm

There are some pretty intresting books in the libary, but there pretty hard to get find.

Draakon · Post by **Draakon** » Sat Feb 22, 2003 12:53 am

I really like the idea of a player written library, and some books written with the Illarion history by the makers of the game it would give alot to this game RP wise. One of the greatest features about Baldurs Gate for me was that there was so much work put into detail such as all the stories in the numerous books you could find and read, a great deal of fun I really really think we should encourage this alot. Wouldn't it be really awesome if we had alot of player written stories about the lands and legends of Illarion? I sure think so

Elaralith · Post by **Elaralith** » Sat Feb 22, 2003 1:12 am

@Guingalan I don't like this proposal at all. Books area easy enough to obtain already...personally I think they should be harder to get. Quests and more money needed to get a book would be the best. Remember illarion is in the medieval ages and one book in the medieval era could buy a small village. The random system where you never know what will read for books is good I think. It makes sense that one starts out only being able to read the books that are less valuable and easier to understand. Think about it as a reading skill progression. Something that work should be done for is not this, but rather the adding of more books. There are not that many books in illarion and more books on a wider range of topics would be the best. For example, some books about the gods and religions would be good.

Kragmar · Post by **Kragmar** » Sat Feb 22, 2003 7:26 am

Well, I don't think they would buy a small village

but they were really expensive. And besides, noone can "get" them now. It's just that everyone has access to them. I do like the idea of some books that were written by players being in the library. It would be nice to take a break from working to go sit down and read a good story in the library. Maybe they could use some of the stories that people wrote for their applications. They're not character specific, but I bet some of them were pretty darn good (I think mine was, but hey, that's just me

) If you've ever played the Elder Scrolls series, then you know what a big impact books make on the world. The stories are (usually, but not always) entertaining and often they have good hints on how to do things in game. Of course for any lengthy books, a new library system would need to be done. I don't quite like Guingalan's idea for a few reasons. First of all, as Elaralith said, books are expensive. Not quiet worth a village, but definitely a hut or two (unless it's a very, very, very rare book) so I don't think the owner of the library (it's Quain isn't it?) would enjoy having people take his books. I know that you said they would regenerate, but I the idea of infinite items disturbs me somehow. I would much prefer that if a person wanted to get copies of a book for himself he should have to copy it himself (and I don't mean copy/paste, but an actual retyping) or buy a copy from a scribe. I also would like to see racial languages worked into a new library system. I would like to see books written in different languages and if you don't understand the language, you can't read the book. I'm not quite sure how this would work so I'll try to think it through more thoroughly before I post it. Next Point. I also think that the randomness of the books should be dependant on the shelf you search. For instance: each shelf could contain approximately 75 books (the number is negotiable, I'm just throwing this out there). Each time you try to search for a book on that shelf, it gives a selection of 3 - 5 books. You could choose to read one of these, or try to search again (by search I mean "use" the shelf.) Each shelf would have a different 75 books. Some could (and should) overlap, but some books should appear only on very few shelves. I'm not sure how the languages would work, but I'll sleep on it.
Kragmar

treason · Post by **treason** » Sat Feb 22, 2003 9:21 am

just a few explanations:
the libary is a public building we (that means the order of the grey light) builded with the support of other groups and individuals.
the libary is therefor property of "The Order Of The Grey Light". So are the books.
It is a public building that offers wisdom to all beeings ((that are able to read or to find one that reads for them

))
now as you can see, you are only allowed to read the books inside the libary. taking them with you would be taken for thievery and punished by the templars of the order or the knights of the grey rose.

and thats why you should not get the books out of the libary. therefor the system of reading we have really does make sense.

Kragmar · Post by **Kragmar** » Sat Feb 22, 2003 8:40 pm

I knew it was a public building, I just didn't know who built it. Thanks for clearing that up treason. I agree, people shouldn't be allowed to take books out of the library. I wouldn't want to see all the books stolen just because some person wanted to stick it in their depot. I What I would like to see is a way to have longer books in the game. Not real long, but a 2-3 page story would be nice.

I would also like to be able to have books as real objects in the game (other than spell books.) By real objects, I mean something that a person could carry around and read whereever they want. The problem I'm having is coming up with a realistic (there's that word again) system where people could buy some books for themselves, and still not take those from the library. The only thing I can think of is that the bookcases in the library could be said to be protected from magic so that nobody could take them away.

Here's basically what I'm saying:
1. Books should be portable.
2. Books should be longer.
3. Books should be written in different languages (I mean racial languages, not german or english)
4. The books should not be able to be taken from the library.
5. Not all books should be equally available. Some should be rare, some common.
6. A method should be introduced which allows players to put knew books into the game (probably upon GM approval right now)

So what does everyone think? Are these some basic rules that everybody can agree upon? I really don't care about the specifics of how it is done, but I think the above ideas would improve the library/book system a lot.
Kragmar

Niniane · Post by **Niniane** » Sat Feb 22, 2003 9:20 pm

If books were to be longer they may create more lag in the game and especially so if there were many copies of larger coded files flowing through the townspeople. If that were not the case I could see how it would be a good idea to have books for sale yet they would have to be fore an extremely high price. With the current monetary system each book would need to cost over 300 ingots or something similar to keep them rare as they should be. It was not likely that many people could afford a single book in the time frame of illarion. Only the nobles or rich merchants for the most part. This would probably have to be incorporated with a reading skill to insure that it was more realistic and not only for the benefit of the general knowledge of the public, which is basically the case for the state of books now. Books should be extremely rare, as well as expensive among the individual people no matter what their contents. Books containing more valuable content should of course be much more expensive than books with little intellectual content or of any use what so ever aside from enjoyment.

I also agree with Elaralith in that magic books should be far more expensive in the shop than they are now. It's far too easy to aquire them even at the price of 200 gold. I don't so much agree with the fact that they should be rewards for quests because it is information you're after and not something only slayers of monsters (which is the only quest that can be done without the aid of a GM at this time that could result in the acquisition of a new item) should have the opportunity to obtain.

Caranthir the great · Post by **Caranthir the great** » Sat Feb 22, 2003 9:58 pm

I think that 300 ignots is exaggerating, 100 should be enough.
That is very much money, too.

Elaralith · Post by **Elaralith** » Sat Feb 22, 2003 10:53 pm

@Kragmar, actually read up on your medieval history and you will find that one book really would buy a small village with its many farms. I like your idea for having books that are longer in different languages and all. But I think such books would have to be very rare and use up a great price to obtain.
@Caranthir I agree with you. 300 ingots is way too much as 300 ingots can buy a house...
@Niniane I think you misunderstood me. By "quest" I did not necessarily mean a "violent" quest were one would have to slay monsters and the like. A quest could mean anything from taking a test of knowledge to a answering of riddles.

Serpardum · Post by **Serpardum** » Sat Feb 22, 2003 11:26 pm

Books were extrodinarily expensive in the middle ages.

Paper was extrodinarily expensive, and then books were hand written, each and ever copy.

Not until the printing press did they get a little cheaper, and even with the printing press each of the pages had to be carved out to be pressed.

Not until the moveable type printing press did books become a lot cheaper.

treason · Post by **treason** » Sat Feb 22, 2003 11:45 pm

i dont know if we get the point with those examples for the owrth of a single book.. i mean you have too see that a village was also not that worthy too a noble man in those days so you can not really compare it..

and to the ideas above i can only say... ...
i like them !

In the libary we could probally introduce a system similiar to those used in certain rpgs i cant remember: when you use the shelfs a index opens with the titels of the books on it.. then you click on one of those titels and start reading in it.. no prob.. no book stealing, but: the programmers would have some or a lot of work with coding something like that.. and it would probally mean a lot more traffic for the server.. ((maybe implement new books and so on in every new client version? just a thought..)).. so we would have to ask one of the server staff about all that.. they probally already thought about all this and said to themselves: nice.. but no time ..

too bad, as i am writting a book for illarion right now...

Aravan · Post by **Aravan** » Sun Feb 23, 2003 12:14 am

Are there currently blank books in the game? If there are not that would probably be a fairly good idea to put in so that you could copy books (not copy/paste, but handwritten)

Gibt es momentan leere Bücher im Spiel? Wenn es gibt nicht daß wahrscheinlich eine ziemlich gute Idee wäre, in zu stellen, damit Sie Bücher (nicht Kopie Paste, aber handgeschrieben) kopieren könnten

Niniane · Post by **Niniane** » Sun Feb 23, 2003 12:30 am

@Elaralith
I was saying that as it is now the only quests that could be run without the aid of a GM or even many in the game to obtain an item would be to kill monsters. That's what I'm against, having to kill monsters to obtain knowledge. I would like if there were quests of knowledge as you said in order to gain more knowledge but these would require either a GM present to run that quest and this would be tiresome after the 200th attempt for the same book (and this doesn't even include that there would be more than one book and therefore more than one quest), or if a new NPC were to be created and that would take ages to make it's way onto the list of things to do yet. Even so it would require more than one NPC to make up a quest and this does away with much player interaction, as many people would be running from NPC to NPC on quests to gain knowledge. If players were allowed to help, or GMs made up the quests this would be ideal for everyone but the players and GMs forced into more work. That is what I was saying when I said that killing monsters for quests was not a good idea on how to get a book, and how it was the only way right now to get an item on a quest. Because of the reasons mentioned above. I hope this helps.

@Caranthir
300 was just a random figure to express a high price. It should be high and the 'average' person in illarion should not be able to afford one. Even the very wealthy individuals should have to regard their books as valued possessions and not just collector's items because they are so expensive.

Caranthir the great · Sun Feb 23, 2003 12:36 am

@Nin
Still, the price should be lower than 300, so that at least someone would have afford to one.
I re-state my opinion that 100 is 'ok' sum of money, 300 a bit too much.

Elaralith · Post by **Elaralith** » Sun Feb 23, 2003 2:11 am

@Separdum Exactly, why one book could buy a small village with its many farms. I couldn't have said it better myself.
@Niniane Of course, not all the "quests" to get spellbooks would not come from killing a monster and the monster dropping it, though it could if it was the right monster. For example, if there was a "monster" an evil wizard say that you had to kill for a quest the evil wizard could drop a spellbook...As well, you know not everyone is a merchant that works every minute of their life. 100 ingots is still a very high sum of money that most people do not have.
@Caranthir I agree with you, 300 ingots for one book is...too much.

Faramier · Post by **Faramier** » Sun Feb 23, 2003 4:43 pm

How about I propose this then, books in the library are free, however you cannot take them out, you have to read them 'on the shelf' as it were. The only problem with this would be that if you looked back there at a different time it may have gone. Therefore you can also buy books for a certain price, even 100 ingots is a bit steep as magics books are only 200gp, the advantage of buying books would be that you could refer to them whenever you like.

As for quests howabout we get some rich players who have certain rare items, an amulett for example, and they say that if you answer a certain riddle or bring some other object back from a certain place they will reward your efforts with this object. Thus elimintating more work for the GM's and creating more player interaction rather than desttroying it.

Guingalan

Elaralith · Post by **Elaralith** » Mon Feb 24, 2003 2:32 am

Oh and something I would like to bring to everyone's attention that would make the idea of "books able to be taken out of a bookshelf in a library" moot. The medieval ages were dangerous times with thieves abundant. Because of that situation and the value of books, all books in public libraries on shelves were chained to the shelf it was on...This was to prevent the theft of the books which would surely have happenned one time or another.
With this new information, I have taken some thought concerning the future cost of books for people who want them to be private possessions. I now revoke what I said before, and would like to suggest that one book cost around 300 ingots, as Niniane suggested. I say around because certain books have more value and others less value.

Kragmar · Post by **Kragmar** » Mon Feb 24, 2003 5:32 am

I'm not sure that deciding the price right now is that important. After all, it will be a long time before this is implimented and the economy could change a lot before then. Of course, if it were implimented today, I would want it to be closer to 100 silver because the prices right now are pretty out of whack.

@Elaralith - That's interesting about chaining the books to the shelfs. How long were the chains? Did they have to read standing up? Oh and by the way, I don't think the whole discussion about not stealing books was "moot," we were just pretty much agreeing that it shouldn't be allowed.

I really would like to see this implemented (and please make the books in different languages.)

Faramier · Post by **Faramier** » Mon Feb 24, 2003 7:02 pm

books should not be 300 ingots at all, no matter what you say, considering that rune books are only 200gold at this rate I would expect normal books to cost about 20gold.

Niniane · Post by **Niniane** » Mon Feb 24, 2003 8:53 pm

You don't own the magic books. You've paid a fee to read from them. Of course you CAN own them but they're of no use unless you read them and if you do read them they disappear so nobody else can read from them. They're made to impart knowledge onto those who have read from them, not to sit on a shelf as a collector's item. As mentioned before it is felt by many that the price of magic books should increase as they should be harder to obtain than working for a half hour or so to earn 200 gold. They should not be able to be gained in full (all of the runes) in only a few days. I would suggest a price for magic and herb books of 5-10 silver ingots each.

As for the personal books. These would be personal possessions and were extremely rare and valuable in the time frame illarion was set in. There was no printing press to mass-produce books so they were all written by hand. Not many people could read or write so this was done by very few people, mainly monks I believe. If anyone is to own a personal book they should have to have enough money to 1) pay for a house to live in first and 2) have so much money they didn't know what to do with that they could afford to spend it on something of little use in every day life such as a book. I'm not saying they should have to buy a house first before you can buy a book, I'm saying you should have that amount of money to spend. You don't need a book. You don't need books. You need shelter. You would have them as a status symbol and for your own personal enjoyment.

For this reason they should be very very expensive. 300 ingots was a basic figure I proposed to indicate their extreme value. I would say 200 - 300 silver ingots should be their value, whatever 1 gold ingot is worth in silver ingots. Hopefully this will be around 250 silver ingots.

I know this would be very hard to obtain. Magic books as well would be harder to obtain. Especially with the new skills system being 10x harder than in the past but this is the exact point of implementing the new skills system. To add realism. You don't master smithing in a day. You don't do it in a week. In this way it should not be possible to earn money to pay for every magic rune or all of the herbal recipes in a day. Or even a week. As for a personal book, these should certainly not be able to be earned in only a few days or a few weeks. These should be only owned by the upper class of illarion citizens. The elite of the elite. Because this is what realism is for, to be realistic. Realism is the basis of role-playing and this must be kept in mind when decided between fairness to all players and fairness to the entire community, these are two very different things.

Faramier · Post by **Faramier** » Mon Feb 24, 2003 10:01 pm

Why are you all so up in arms about books? There were merly a scenic proposal wich was intended as a way for the common person to enjoy as a pastime.

200-300 ingots is ridiculous, no matter how expensive they were in real life. They were intended to be free peices of entertainment where players could implement thier flares for writing (and there are a few of you) in game.

They are not meant to create jobs, earn money, be useful or prized possesions.

You do this with everything, reading is a relaxing pastime and this suggestion was intended so EVERYONE could enjoy it.

STOP being so up in arms with ridiculous prices.
CEASE being mean and 'realistic' to such an extent.
START enjoying the game and its community.

What is wrong with you people?

Guingalan,

Hermie · Post by **Hermie** » Mon Feb 24, 2003 10:04 pm

I think herb books should be cheaper, not more expensive. They are only recipies.

Elaralith · Post by **Elaralith** » Mon Feb 24, 2003 10:16 pm

@Guingalan It's about Realism.
@Hermie What do you mean just recipes? These are druid secret herb recipes you are talking about! Thanks for bringing this up I almost forgot about the herb recipes. I think the herb recipe book cost should also be increased to around 300 ingots. Even better in the future it could require a highly difficult quest to obtain a recipe plus the monetary cost.
@Kragmar The chains were around arm's length. Long enough that a person could take the book and from the shelf and be able to comfortable flip through it. Yes they had to read standing up. The only people that could read the books without chains were the monks who wrote them, respected nobles, and other people high up in the heirarchy. The common man would consider himself lucky to be able to flip through a book in a library as books and libraries were uncommon in the medieval times.

Niniane · Post by **Niniane** » Mon Feb 24, 2003 10:46 pm

Oh no. This is no good at all. Herb recipes and magic runes should not cost 300 ingots each! Even after months of playing and doing nearly constant work people would only be able to afford one or two runes at the most. This would destroy player interaction as most people make their money now by selling to the NPC because the demand for new items is so low. This would drive all new players away from the game as they would be unable to play the role of a wizard or a druid in illarions terms. They should be difficult things to obtain but not impossible.

I agree that these herbal and magical books should be made more expensive but only to the price of 5- 10 silver ingots each. Not 300.

Personal books that would be implemented later (hopefully) would be the ones worth 300 ingots or better yet, one gold ingot. These are the books that should be status symbols and extremely hard to obtain. Books that teach you nothing of new skills or give extra abilities other than possible in game knowledge such as history or legends, or even fictional stories.

I'm not sure if you misunderstood what I was saying or using your own idea, Elaralith but I wanted to clear up what my proposal or suggestion was in the case that anyone else was confused by what I said.

There should be two seperate classes of the books. Books that are here now that you can purchase and give runes or herbal recipes and these should be 5 - 10 silver ingots and then the books that are not in the game yet, player written or improvised from the history and legend of moonsilver which would be sold for 250 silver ingots or 1 gold ingot if those are of equal value.

Faramier · Post by **Faramier** » Mon Feb 24, 2003 10:48 pm

Elarith, No, It may be a roleplaying game, it may try to be realistic in every way, but it is still a GAME. Its supposed to be a break from real life, some fun, relaxing not a huge struggle that leaves you frustrated, hopeless and feeling worse than before you started playing.

I cannot understand why you always push things to the harder end, why do you always press for such hard realism and push the rest of us into despair? You are a very strong speaker yourself but please absorb some of this. You may have hours upon hours of free time which you are willing to spend slaving away for 1 book, the rest of us want to just take a break, play a realistic game, roleplay a bit, work a little, relax and reading some stories is a good way especially if they are written by the players. WE may discover some very good talent, but you are not happy to let it be and let us have some fun in a good game, you are determined to make everyone work for all eternety and then to little result.

You make a great number of proposals and they all seem to involve making this game harder for everyone, where does it stop?

Please absorb some of this, if you do not then you proove yourself to me as a self-centered, spoilt little brat who cannot realise what others want.

Yes you may want this, but look at others, they may not.

Guingalan

Lennier · Post by **Lennier** » Mon Feb 24, 2003 11:31 pm

I agree with Ninjane..

300 ignots only can be a joke. There are more than 10 magic books and 4-6 druid books to buy.
If you change their prices to 300 ignots, normal new chars never can be a good mage or druid. If you look at the "new" skill gaining rates a newbie will need months and years to buy all books. A new char can not make much money, only if he wants to powergame. Each normal relation between the time for playing and achievements would to be destroyed.

Realism isn`t all. We need some fun too. Newbies haven`t fun, if they never can reach a "little" sub-target like a book.

A change to 5-10 ignots would be more than enough.

Elaralith · Post by **Elaralith** » Tue Feb 25, 2003 2:09 am

@Guingalan Hmmm, actually Guingalan I would never "slave away" in playing illarion just for the purpose of getting the money to buy a book. I would roleplay whatever character I am and of course have a craft and work at it from time to time. And if by and by I accumulate some money I would think about buying myself a personal book as a keepsake.

@To all, I think I was misunderstood. When I proposed that a recipe/magic book have the cost of around 300 ingots I did not mean for that cost to be applied to the recipes/magic books we have now. The recipes/magic books we have now let us learn one single thing and allow us to read around one sentence. The price that I proposed was for future books, personal real books as mentioned earlier, that have many pages and contain A LOT of information to be read slowly. So for a mage it would be a book that was bought after he was very old and wished to study further (almost like a university book course). And the magic book would contain lots of magic information and could be used as reference by the wise old mage. The same would apply for the druid recipe "book". Hope I cleared somethings up.

P.S. As for the current so called books that give one sentence of information I think the current cost is just around right, but a slight increase in price would be O.K. Something like 1-5 ingots for each book depending on the type of book.

Faramier · Post by **Faramier** » Tue Feb 25, 2003 7:25 pm

On the books containing vast amounts of ingame knowledge being expensive I have to agree with you there.

However I am also refering to storybooks, no use in-game, just some short stories written by players for a good pastime.

Thank you,

Guingalan,

Kragmar · Post by **Kragmar** » Wed Feb 26, 2003 9:03 pm

Instead of selling the books for a given price from the NPCs, why not let the players make the books and adjust the price of books through the price of supplies. I have two different versions of my idea. The first would involve many new skills and keep the price very high. The second is just a watered down version of the first (where the price would still be high, just not as high.)
#1. Books are unique and expensive.
New Skills:
-Paper making
-Writing
-Book Binding
New Items:
-Book Cover (part of leather working)
-Engraved Book Cover(part of goldsmithing)
Steps:
-Player buys paper materials from NPC(20-30 gold for each material)
-Player makes paper
-Player writes on paper (a failure just ruins that piece of paper, not all the papers already written)
-Player makes book cover (leatherworking)
-Player engraves book cover (goldsmithing, failure only ruins cover)
-Player binds book (failure ruins all, must start from scratch)

#2
New Skills:
-Book binding
-Writing
New Items:
-Book cover
Steps:
-Player buys paper from NPC
-Player writes on paper (failure only ruins that paper, not all)
-Player binds paper into book

After thinking about this subject, I believe that the price of a book isn't incredibly important. The uniqueness of the books matters more. Because of this, I prefer the second method. Too many skills just complicate the game, and cause people to concentrate on skills, instead of talking with each other. I think books are an exception to this for two reasons:
1. Each book will be player written (and therefore unique)
2. Books will be hard to obtain under either method, and remain somewhat rare. Maybe not as rare as in the middle ages, but still rarer than any player made item currently in the game.

If a minimum number of pages (~10) is required to make a book, then the minimum cost of a book is 200-300 gold. That's not counting any money that the person wants to make and any money they want to recoup from the money they spent training. Also, book a book cover must be bought or made and (if the first system is used) the book cover must be engraved using the goldsmithing skill (and gold nuggets.) I don't think that there is any way that the first (good) books will sell for under 20 ingots. Expensive, but not out of reach.

Of course, I don't know if any of this is possible. I'd appreciate it if a GM could tell us if a reading/writing system can/will be implemented. If so, will there be any way for players to write their own book? Will involve skills (like the above system I mentioned) or will it be upon GM approval (which I suspect will be the case in order to save server space.)
Any input is appreciated.
Kragmar

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