More Than Books - Publishing Formats & Options

All I can say is if the coucil of scribes is too strict, then the creative types will not bother to write books at all. All you will get is the same old stories about farmers and wolves, trolls and bridges, dungeons are dangerous... all that stuff. Nothing unique and read-worthy will be written. So why even have books?

 

That's good to hear. I hope so.

 

Oh dear me. How did it come to this?

Well ok.. I'm not sure if the council membership has been made public yet but for the record.. I am one of the Lore Keepers of the council so perhaps I can clear up a few concerns here.

Right now, our primary job is assisting authors and helping to maintain consistency of lore in "official" books that will be put in-game up until launch.

It is NOT our job to censor content beyond the guidelines Portalarium has given us and we certainly will not be censoring player written content created after launch. There is no way any group could possibly keep up with the volume of content created by hundreds (or more) of authors. However, we MAY continue to assist authors in a similar manner as we are now. Our post-launch role is not something we're currently focused on right now so I can't really say for sure.

People should also understand that the council does NOT have the final say in which content is approved to be in-game prior to launch. That decision lays in the capable hands of Richard Garriott. We are primarily facilitators in the process as well as record keepers.

My personal policy is I am hands off of the editing process. As a Lore Keeper I will check for accuracy of fact. Meaning if you write something like "an old man told me".. well whatever the old man said becomes hearsay.. not necessarily fact. If you said "A moose once bit my sister" I would say ok wait a minute.. do moose exist in New Britannia? we would confirm this with the dev team. If they do.. fine.. if not I might suggest using an animal we know will be in the world.. ie a wolf or an elephant. If you said "then a jet plane flew over Britanny" then we'd have issues.. FOR content submitted for consideration for pre-launch publication (official game content).

Now you could write any of that on your own after launch and bypass the council entirely. If anything I think there should be a way to report game-published content but I can't imagine any active censorship.

Now understand also when I say published.. I don't mean you just wrote a book or two and copied them yourself. I mean you used a publishing machine or service to have a book copied and distributed by the game.

All that said.. I wanted to comment on Robby's post regarding the suggested publishing numbers. The idea is those numbers would only be added to books that go through a publishing/distribution process. They would not be added to books written or copied manually.

The idea originally came up as a fun idea for writings that go through the council for a bit of transparency. A possibly code would indicate the lead scribe and lore keeper (among other info) who worked on that particular submission. So then I came up with the idea of a publishing number as something that might be common in New Britannia for the reasons previously stated and for consistency. Publishers would have adopted the publishing code where the publisher ID takes the place of the council's scribe and lore keeper ID code.

 

So there will be no throwing out books that claim it has new spells in the book, but they aren't really real spells. So it says to mix certain reagents together with a few words of power from the list of words of power in the game, but it's all fake... it produces no spells at all. Would that book still be published?

All that stuff is in SotA. So if I understand this correctly, as long as the book doesn't violate that realm's truths by saying an airplane was flying over Britney, then it should be okay? So we can have flying elephants? Can we write about flying elephants? (or the nearest breed of animal that appears like an elephant in game flying or doing something that is not normal for that animal type?)

 

That could depend on how the spell is portrayed. If you're claiming it's a combat spell for example then it probably wouldn't get past the lore check. On the other hand.. you may recall in past Ultimas descriptions of rituals that are obviously not intended to be possible in-game. Such as Mondain's ritual involving needing the blood for like.. 10 newborn babies or something like that. In this case it we would probably let it slide as it's pretty obviously not going to be in-game and Richard can decide if it's fits his vision.

There has been plenty of magic in the Ultimas that were not available to the player. So again it depends on how its portrayed. We would rather work with you to make it work than reject it.

Again though we are talking in context of pre-launch publication. That is books that you would see in single-player offline mode.

On flying elephants. I'd love to see a few children's books. We've done a list of possible genres and once we have a better idea of what capacity we can process at one time and our processes are finalized etc I hope we'll start putting out our own calls for content. Not everything has to be personal accounts and non-fiction. It just needs to fit within the realm.

Now to my understanding.. there are elephants. So if you want to write a fiction with flying elephants like a children's story. That's fine by me. Not all that original though. No promises.

 

Let's say I portay it as, "anybody who uses these reagents and use these words of power can cast this super spell". However it just isn't true. It is a wild goose chase. Would that book be censored and why?

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Also I want my flying elephant to be an adult book. A very serious story, about an elephant that flies. I think it is possible to write a story like that and write it in a serious tone. Whether people take it seriously or not is up to them.

I think another big problem is some people expect that everything written in a serious tone must be true. Nobody would dare publish a book in a serious tone and actually lie. right?

 

FYI-- I'm not trying to harass you or anybody else. I just have a little problem regarding regulations governing the writing of books. I have no problem with editors, fixing grammar and spelling errors, but when it comes to rules "DON'T LAWYER ME BRO!"

 

There is one thing you really have to keep in mind here. If you want it as part of the official lore such that it appears in the offline game.. it has to get past Richard. Also there is nothing that would prevent you from publishing such stories in-game on your own.

The wild goose chase it's hard to tell. Assuming we don't have specific priorities (as we do now focusing on Tales from the Vale) it might get past the lore check on the basis of there being more magic in the world than is available to players. Since there is precedence for it. Or if you establish yourself as an author who's simply "full of it" and liked to publish misleading content for kicks we could claim it was a joke or something.

Honestly if you're seriously trying to come up with stuff that could be rejected I can't imagine it would be that hard but we're not setting out here looking to censor folks on our whims or stifle your creativity. If we can make it work, we'll make it work. But this is Richard's game and Richard's vision. We have our guidelines from Portalarium.

I think there's a lot more freedom than people realize here. Probably the most limiting factor right now is the lack of known lore. While at the same time you have the opportunity to influence or create lore that does not yet exist. Again that will have to be approved by Richard but to give an example.. if you write a story about say.. a famous pirate and a famous ship that fought during the Obsidian war.. that is lore that #1 does not exist.. but #2 does not conflict with any established lore.

That pirate story would pass the lore check and if Richard approves it... it'll be become established lore. There's a LOT of room for stuff like that.

 

Sounds fair enough.

 

Can we resurrect this thread and talk about book publishing now that the scholars will not have an official role?

 

Technically there isn't really that much that's changed. There were a lot of problems it seems with people's perceptions of what our role was supposed to be. Hopefully that will get cleared up soon. There will be an announcement in the next couple of days.

 

I think more people were confused over the lack of a compensation outlet like every other crowd sourced aspect of the game.

The role of "moderators" is pretty well understood.

 

Well I for one want to hear more about the opportunities to make books part of the economy not just curiosities. If they are crafted products in-game, they should be tied into the regular crafting system. I also want to know what the approval process is going to be.

 

On the subject of a player group doing "moderation", I would prefer that it remain Portalarium's responsibility. I wouldn't think it would be right for any group to have a gateway function post-release.

I think it should be economics based. If authors care about providing lore-appropriate books, they should have editors and publishers like in real life. Likewise, publishers could offer their services in this regard. Publishers and editors earn their reputation based on the quality of the works they sponsor. Post-release, everyone should enjoy the same access to the lore of the game.

If the "scholars" want to operate as a volunteer or pay service who provide their lore expertise, that would be fine. I would bristle though if the scholars are the one group that get to judge and edit for "official" lore. It would also diminish what could be another are of dynamism the economy and world could have.

 

Portalarium always had the final say in what books they seed the game with. Whether you went through the scribe council's process or not. This will be more evident with the 'new process' as Portalarium is basically unable to solicit material from the community. Anything author's post here on the forums is fair game for them, whether the scholar's have a hand in it or not.

"Lore expertise" is a good way to look at what we're doing. It has always been (and will always be) the author who has the final say in their work. Speaking for myself, all I ever did was check for consistency against canon and other lore and point out where there might be conflict. It is up to the author whether or not they want to take my advice or not.

Any authors who go through our process (or not) will still need to submit their final work on the forum. At that point it's up to Portalarium to go through it and decide what they want to use to seed the game.

We're getting things much more defined and cleared up so there will hopefully be less confusion in the future.

As for books in the economy. I think there's potential for some interesting options. I would like to see the ability to actually craft books. Obviously, this doesn't come into play for mass printings but could be used to introduce limited special editions, folio or other unique variations of a book. You're basically creating rare versions this way.

An interesting option would be if the printing press allowed you to choose either a predefined book/format or to actually copy a hand made book.

Another option would be whether to publish to the world or give all the books made to the author for self distribution.

 

Give us incredibally strict and up-front guidelines on what is acceptable to submit and assure us that some random group of people aren't going to filter works before they even get to Portalarium, toss out the notion of fan fiction being paid for by any direct means from Portalarium to writers and then you'll see how good this can get.

If Portalarium is having trouble parsing these works, then get more specific, say you want a story about a man with a candlestick who killed a tub of butter by melting it in whatever location. Hold contests. Whatever, this isn't rocket surgery.

 

It's not possible for any group to filter anything before it gets to Portalarium. All people have to do is post their work on the forum. Portalarium is free to use anything posted on the forum (see forum terms of use). Apparently it only gets sticky if they solicit for content, which they aren't going to do.

 

That is not true Bowen, not at all. But Captain Jack not getting into it here because this thread will get locked.

 

Think what you want but unless you're a copywrite lawyer or something I suggest you wait for the official announcement in the next couple of days.

 

I hope so, cause I am now re-confused.

We were told there was no "scribes" anymore because of the consternation it was seeming to cause when it came to people getting compensated for work being brought into the game as "cannon".

But your statements make it seem like that is not the case and there is still a group, even if they are not "globally" seeking submission, that may directly ask people with submissions here, or potentially be given submissions, that will perform that same service from a few weeks back that was canned?

So what? This just went underground to stop us from asking anything?

I hope that is not the case, really. If you want to play "let me read your stuff and give helpful suggestions" great.

If there is still a service that plans to take people's work and put it in game as cannon, then I am going to start asking about compensation again. People are free to ask for nothing in return, but I am sure there are those who would like the same level treatment other content contributors receive for work being done.