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Etaren

Writing books and printing

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Hello!

 

Long time lurker, had to take the step and register now though before I forgot my flash of inspiration. :)

 

Being inspired by Brash_Endeavors idea for an "Artist" skill,
(http://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/topic/113655-change-bayeux-tapestries/?p=1161526)

 

and rosedragon's christmas gift idea,

(http://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/topic/113568-christmas-presents-ideas-for-the-devs/page-3)

 

And as I'm a huge sucker for "useless" things, I am thrilled about the whole concept of having player-written lore, history, fiction and more available in-game. Like rosedragon suggests, books to store papyrus pages in would be great. Although I think they should be craftable. Could be with leatherworking and/or maybe fine carpentry? Anyway, books can then be named and signed, when it's completed and you examine it, the title of the book and the name of it's writer/compiler (not the crafter) will show (maybe QL-dependent like other items?). Players can then create their own works of art to exist in the world, you can travel the world and compile information about habitats and properties of beasts and animals, the collected canon of Vynora's doings or simply the story of your choice. It should also be possible to have sketches and paintings in books, per the "Artist" skill suggestion by Brash_Endeavors. (See http://www.piruett.se/blogg/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/lomed1a.jpg and http://i.imgur.com/QhLvN.jpg for inspiration, picture from "Jorges Bestiarium", or "Jorge's Bestiary" in english)

 

This leads me to point two, the Printing skill. This skill is used both in the finalization of books and the copying of books and pages. A low skill could mean that the book or page is damaged on finalization failure. On a finalization success, the QL averages out between all the pages and the book itself, making one final QL for the completed book. The finalization can be done by anyone and should not affect "the name of the creator", which is the name used to sign the book before finalization. Copying should not put the original at risk, but could be time-consuming. Maybe one copy-action per page in the book? Failure means damaging the page you're writing on and success means the page is copied. This opens up possibilities to "mass"-produce books and also have rare (not shiny rare) first-edition originals. You can create a library and collect the works of the writers and artists of Wurm, it would be fantastic to see writers become famous, "everybody knows X and her writings on trolls, she writes the best pieces of troll-lore available!".

 

If we take this one step further, we could also give certain books some kind of quasi-enchantment mechanic. Could work a bit like "Heritage" sites, but instead of being GM-protected sites, the books are imbued with knowledge that gives you certain bonuses, nothing magical, simply a bonus to something when you carry the book with you. Let's say the book X wrote on trolls becomes so widely known it's deemed a "Knowledge book", when you keep that book with you, you can a small plus in perhaps combat rating when you face trolls and trollkin. Y on the other hand wrote a "Knowledge book" on fruit trees, keeping that with you when you tend and harvest your orchard could perhaps give you a higher effective skill in the relevant skills, or it could increase the QL-cap on sprouts and harvests. Have I managed to explain how I mean in a satisfactory way?

 

This is all quite rough in the idea stage, but I would love some input and thoughts on this, constructive if you will.

 

-Edit-

TLDR: Make books, copy books, collect/buy/sell books, potentially get buffs from "heritage" books.

Edited by Etaren
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+1 I get the idea but most players are gonna pass this up because how lengthy the post is unfortunatley. Maybe the books books that are really good and give some bonus could be found by digging in random spots if dropped by previous player too so that the legacy never really dies.

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I really like this idea, sounds like a great way to implement books. +1

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