Do we get compensated for writing?

The thing is, a person can do a lot with only 500 words. What good is a 500 word or less book... not much if it is a boring story, BUT if it is a quick little story that is creative, quirky, and maybe even a bit silly or funny in some way, people might really enjoy reading these books. If the books have content worth reading then people might collect libraries of books for their houses. This might become a neat feature of the game.

However if these books are bland and useless then who would want to gather a bunch of boring books for their house library? Wouldn't you rather gather a library of books that will entertain your guests? Some people might be willing to do this.

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ONE COMMUNITY:

It is a shame that some people think their contributions are far more important than other people's contributions. We all contribute in many ways. Yep the poet's circle is really important. Great job folks, but what about some of the brilliant ideas that came from the community as a whole that will be incorporated into this game? A collaborative effort from people just posting ideas in these forums that helped form concepts that Portalarium liked, and will yield a great return financially and make the game more fun for all of us. Some of those ideas might even be worth more cash to Portalarium than writing books and writing music. Just sayin.

So if any member of this community thinks they are superior to others, maybe you have an unrealistic view of your importance. Truth is the creative stuff is going on inside Portalarium, and the collaborative efforts of the "community as a whole" are being evaluated by Lord British and team to make a great game. THINK COMMUNITY EFFORT, not My team is more important than the other team. Please! It only creates divisions.

 

Sure, Time Lord You only look 56 years old , but everyone knows you're really 5600 years old


I agree with Isaiah This is indeed a community effort. No one person or group is more important than any other

 

Completely sidestepping the event that inspired this question, it seems to me that writing could be divided into three groups.

If Portalarium commissions an author to write a story to fulfill a particular need, following strict guidelines, compensation is probably warranted.
An example might be that Portalarium wants to expose some piece of lore or a story that will lead the player to a particular quest.

Unsolicited submissions to Portalarium for consideration to be officially included in the game might be considered for some sort of reward.
A player might create a well written story that fleshes out some bit of lore that Portalarium had not planned to delve into.

Player published books, not officially included in the game, having very little oversight, probably do not warrant compensation from Portalarium.
These works might be sold player to player for whatever price they bring.

 

I do like your attempt to classify but where do you place the Tales from the Vale? They don't exactly fit the last two categories. First, they are solicited. Second, they are ultimately just like player published books but are included officially in the game?

 

That's why I sidestepped the issue.
I don't know where I would classify them.

 

Tales from the Vale is a one-off. I would not place it into any of the above categories.
Stories were solicited, so perhaps some sort of reward would be nice.

In my mind, this particular call for stories does not rise any higher than the creation of the Fire Lotus Tavern as a place to post stories and discuss lore.

 

There are important distinctions, though. The Fire Lotus Tavern doesn't exist as a solicitation for submissions for writing to be included in-game. Those posts aren't reviewed in that sense; they're not criticized or vetted by anyone with any authority on such matters. And people who post in FLT do not do so under a reasonable expectation that their work might be used in a commercial product, for the profitable gain of other individuals (nor do they surrender or transfer copyright in so doing).

 

Not specifically; Tales from the Vale is an open call for players wanting to submit their stories for free publication. The "compensation" is that they are being published for free, while everyone else needs to pay in-game gold to have their stories published. However, because these stories will be used for testing the book system, and thus exposed to everyone who is testing, the stories need to meet some level of content. Thus the Council of Scribes is born, who volunteer to help with this area. They can continue to help, even after launch, if Portalarium wants to pull popular stories and distribute them more widely; again, editing is provided due to the scale of who will encounter the work.

I agree with many others, however; for a longer book in a specific genre, format and subject matter, or one that is used for a quest and thus exposes in-game "spoilers", when those are needed they should be solicited individually, and thus are subject to recompense. Even $0.01-.02 per word, while far below the rate of any standard publisher, would give an aspiring writer something to put on their resume. However, this type of solicited work would probably not go through the Council of Scribes (or possibly directly to the Masters), since it is spoilery and would require a lot of give and take with the developers to get the Lore exactly right. I hope to see those types of requests at some point.

As far as what is Lore and what isn't, and the place of player-created Lore in the game, I'm kind of confused and hope to see some clarification.

 

I agree. And if anyone would have a hope of contributing well to any story, lore, world descriptions in game of whatever sort, I think they'd have to know more than Portalarium is willing to release ahead of time. Even if we stick to the confines of our own stories, we don't know how avatars arrive, why they arrive, what it means to arrive, and how we're perceived when we arrive except in a very general form. Beyond player published books, I think it's going to end up being all done by employees...

 

It's all lore. That will be one of the criteria on which the Council will be judging appropriateness. We might be left unfamiliar with many details, but the Council (or, at least, FireLotus) will know enough to only approve submissions that are well enough in line with main events in the world's history. Portalarium isn't looking for anyone to write a main story arc, that's true. But they are looking for people to supply personal accounts, fancies, and musings of in-game characters. Those publications help form the backbone of a game world's culture. They represent a valuable product.

It's odd, too. All player characters will be avatars, yet players are being asked to contribute fiction without knowing really any of the recent history of the region, including how they got to the region? It's unfortunately difficult to write a fantasy story that focuses on small and mundane aspects of daily living, unless the goal is to supply a world with menial content (like business contracts, instructional texts, framed fiction, and so on), which is a job in-house employees are usually paid to do (in order to keep story arcs as told by different "sources" cohesive and consistent). It takes a concerted effort to build that base of lore. I worry that the quality of that base will be rather low because the bar for what will be used to form it is set low.

 

Hence what inspired Mark's Tales of the Unremarkable! Shameless plug!

 

There is a big difference there.

In game books will most likely be sold for "ingame" money. AKA compensation. This ingame money reduces me farming gold or goods from mobs, even if it is virtual. It also allows me to "pay" for things that may, or may not, be virtual.

The "zero" cost effect is not really a compensation for doing "core" work like any graphic artist, modeller, texture artist, sound engineer, or musician, just because they dont "charge" to create that virtual content in-game.

Again, why is writing, the craft of writing, less regarded when that is a major element as to why this type of game is being sought - story?

Your analogy is functionally equivalent to asking why they even bothered to pay anyone, anything, since models with textures are going to be "crafted" as in-game results. So why pay that modeler, when we can just give him "free" craft cost in-game for his own models.

 

Exactly why they should be "paid for" stories, poems, materials.

Just like any other aspect that has "solicited" content creation, they have been paid. There is still a running sheet of models and music being sought.

Exactly the same solicitation is happening here. Give us content, based around XYZ theme.

 

Honestly need this explained... how will people be creating models while playing the game? As far as I understand it, people will be able to create new content through books. The only thing you will be able to do with models is instantiate ones off existing patterns. Let's say you could create an entirely new furniture item in game, like an entirely new type of fountain. Well then to me it would lessen the reason to pay for player-created furniture items before the game starts. You could still say that if they wanted a stock of them to start they could pay for them, but my opinion is I'm fine with just having them get a special status.

But I may be misunderstanding you.

 

"We need to sell a game and Portalarium needs to sell the exact same game"
Portalarium needs to sell a game, thus the game needs to be ever more attractive no matter how attractive it already is in other ways. More quality writing would create more quality within the game. The first place any prospective buyer comes to to learn about the game and to see the community involvement is our SotA Forums. If there is incentive for the prospective player to seek buying the game right now beyond that which is our scheduled limited releases, then that purchaser needs to have incentive that there is in fact some gainful way of becoming involved and having something to show for their efforts through achievement. Yes, having a book in game written by them is an incentive, yet that incentive is not something others would know of, or have an ever increasing value to it.

Other events and challenges will also need some form of recognition. It costs nothing for Portalarium to provide such an incentive in the form of wearable memento. Those mementos that could be produced would fill every event and challenge with a valuable asset to the player because they would be a wearable rare.

We need to beef up our player involvement to become enticing for those of a creative mind. Filling the world up with marginal literary efforts to be placed on our in game book shelves forever, needs to be of a quality to become such a wanted and well read classic.

Richard Garriott has spoken in video of awarding thing just as I have described above, and maybe it's time to engage such a digital award system, "for everything".
Good public relations is a matter of two hands shaking in the acknowledgement of their partnership.
And we need to fill two needs, one is better books and the other is how to attract more players to buy the game.
~Time Lord~

 

Not making it as a physical making it i.e. the generalistic idea you presented. That content, from outside the game, since it is "replicated" via some mechanism "ingame" should/could be non-payable outside the game, and just deferred to some other mechanism, at some point, someplace, sometime, inside the game.

IOW, here is the idea/suggestion that the people who contribute now, upfront for core game story content via writing, should just get backend compensation after the fact, taken to its hyperbolic conclusion with something as ludicrous as a modeller being given this consideration:

Someone is going to take 2 boards, 4 nails, 2 rods and some wire, run it through some craft tables and tools and make *zomg* a Chair!! Well, the person who modelled that actual chair, that is represented at the end of the "content creation" in game, why should we pay them at all? They can just get reduced costs on making chairs (their model of a chair) in game whenever they decide to make one!!! Deferred cost!

Its even better because it is a "credit" payment that may never be used.

That is not compensation. You are giving a "discount" AFTER they already created content. What if they never make any ingame content via the "printing press" but wrote 10s of stories outside the game prior?

They will never reap the whirlwind payment because they may never use the mechanism ingame. Just give them something more abstract and generic, like EVERY OTHER CONTENT CREATOR TO DATE A.K.A. CREDIT

Why do we need yet another mechanism of "payment"? Content IS content.

 

It is up to Port if they want to pay for books/assets/music/etc...

If they choose to pay, good
If they choose to not pay, good

They have their reasons to do the way they are doing (that could change in the future) but both options are ok on my book.

What are our choices

I like the lore of SOTA and want to contribute to the game for free. good
I need to be remunerated to write about SOTA but they didn't gave us that option yet so i will not write anything. good

Would be adequate to bring something for the people that want a reward for their efforts? It sounds reasonable, but i think it is not an obligation and Port should not be blamed if they dont do it that way.

 

Shouldn't most of the books be from the POV of long time inhabitants of the Vale? Outlanders seem to have been fairly rare until late and I wouldn't imagine the ones that just arrived wouldn't have sat down to pen their memoirs right away.

 

Unless they set up a formal contract, they might end up in hot water. There's a reason companies like Bioware are scrupulously careful when dealing with fan-submitted content: they don't want to be sued.