Ideas for in game player books

In the latest dev hangout RG was talking about the idea of players writing books in game and then publishing them, so they appeared throughout the game world and could possibly be sold to other players for profit.

I liked the idea, and just wondered what people would be interested in both writing and reading?

Things off the top of my head that might be useful/cool:

Various works of reference, for example crafting guides or spell books listing reagents etc. (written in keeping with being real books in the game world)

Works of fiction, perhaps telling of your characters adventures, or funny anecdotes about some misfortune that befell you, or the odd people you have encountered.

 

I'd love to read about ancient history and legends, that sort of thing. Perhaps a book along the lines of Nostradamus' prophecies would be fun; players could try to puzzle out if they were completely meaningless predictions written by a madman/woman, or if perhaps they may have been written by a real seer - or a mix of both!

I'd probably enjoy reading most things, but due to lack of knowledge about the lore my own writing will most likely be limited to my Avatar's journal or something similar.

 

They've also suggested people contributing these as assets pre-launch in the same way others are contributing music, models, textures, etc.

I plan on contributing books, but I need to know a bit more about the current in game lore and setting, and we need a way to submit those for approval.

 

That's cool, I hope enough people get into this kind of thing since it will really help with making the game stand out from everything else out there. Having so many community created assets will be a big strength I think because it will mean everything in the game will have a lot of variety and detail.

I like your idea of writing books based around the game lore, could help people get into the mindset to role-play better if they understand the world they are living in.

I guess people could also write fiction based around any setting, if they had something interesting to say. No reason someone could not publish a sci-fi novel for instance

 

There might be books that avatars had brought with them from our world, and left lying around? I don't know if it would ruin the immersion to stumble across a book about spaceships and aliens, but I suppose it's not much different to reading a fantasy novel here. With the Tesla towers and that sort of thing in New Britannia, I could imagine the locals writing some kind of steampunk fantasy...

 

Very true. I hadn't thought about that, but I'd still prefer to write books that fit the lore of the setting.

 

Perhaps an similar organization to the College of Arms can take it upon themselves to vet individual submissions for books that are to populate the game world.

 

I'd be happy to offer assistance to anyone who wanted to start such an organisation... I don't know much about the lore yet, but I'm a pretty good proof reader!

 

I was planning on starting something similar to that; it wasn't going to be an official org but an independent guild to support scribe characters.

I've just been lagging on getting the website up.

 

I'd imagine that an author would submit their work along with an abstract that outlines themes and such that can be checked for continuity. I wouldn't want this to turn into something like creating editors for a journal, but something basic maybe?

 

True, it could turn into a full-time job if people were submitting novella-length manuscripts... The devs might want to keep the size of the in-game books down to a few pages, perhaps more like extracts or short stories than 'full length' books, but I presume not much has been said on that so far?

Continuity errors are something I seem to have a knack for spotting in a single novel, and it really irritates me when I notice them - didn't the author know their own characters, or remember what they wrote two chapters back? I've seen an author change the name of a single street his character was on three times in the space of a mere two pages - his editor must have been sleeping! Across multiple stories written in differing styles and proofed/edited over a long period of time, though, inconsistencies would no doubt be harder to notice unless they were really glaring ones.

But anyway - Redfish, if you'd like me to help with anything, just let me know and I'll do what I can!

 

I'm planning on writing as much as I can to submit, but I'd also be willing to help review and edit other submissions.

 

Yeah I too would like to get involved and help out where I can. It would be cool if we had a guild or organisation that was in communication with the devs as people have suggested. I would definitely be able to help with proof reading and the like.