More Than Books - Publishing Formats & Options

You see. This is exactly the type of discourse which doesn't lead to anything productive Bowen. Captain Jack talks to people here. People talk to Captain Jack. Captain Jack understands what has happened to some people who have submitted works through the Scribes. Maybe you dont?

Captain Jack doesn't doesn't have an opinion on this so it isn't a "think what you want" but what is really offensive is that you indicate that Captain Jack must be a copywrite lawyer in order to clearly see what has happened to some in the community who have submitted their work? If you've got nothing better to say than that I guess I understand. Know your facts Bowen, before you look THAT darn silly.

 

Why did my thesis on Jelly and the Human Response get knocked back?

 

First of all.. nothing was "canned". We announced we were putting things "on hold" while we figured out what we were going to do. The results of which, as I've eluded to will be announced shortly. Part of that includes that Portalarium cannot solicit for content. That does not mean however that they can't use content posted on the forum.

I saw no statement by Portalarium about 'no more scribes'.

In addition, only Portalarium employees can write "canon". This is not the same thing as lore. If it happens that Portalarium decides not to use any player material to seed the game for EP1 that's up to them but my understanding that according to the forum terms of use, Portalarium is free to use any content posted on the forum provided they didn't solicit said content.

Nothing went underground. As was posted very publically on the forum, everything was put on hold. You guys just simply stopped talking about it.

Our goal is not to make canon or get player lore seeded. As I've said only Portalarium can write canon. Portalarium will not be soliciting content to the best of my knowledge. If they select a story posted on the forum to put in-game prior to launch that is entirely up them and always has been. We do not, nor have we ever had any authority in that matter and I will say this again, our process is completely optional.

Now.. can we get on topic?

 

Perhaps Captain Jack should actually explain what Captain Jack is actually talking about before instead of making obscure comments and assuming people can read Captain Jack's mind?

Having been part of the process I'm well aware better than yourself most likely of what happened with the stories that went through our process. That is not however, what we were talking about. At least not when you simple said "that's not true".. not suddenly you were referring to this with no indication that you were doing so and coming back with this isn't productive.

If you think a subject isn't going to be productive.. don't bring it up.. and then complain about it not being productive. As that.. isn't productive.

 

Uhhh.

I'd check copyright law before assuming that can == legal. No matter what the Terms and Conditions of a forum states, they can't trump the law.

 

I am happy to start a whole new thread all about this topic, off this one, seeing as we didnt stop talking about it, but those threads were closed.

https://shroudoftheavatar.com/forum...pensated-for-writing.13764/page-5#post-233136

https://shroudoftheavatar.com/forum...e-council-of-scribes.13488/page-6#post-233509

And while that may not say "no more scribes" it certainly implied that the original idea of the scribes, as proof-readers for submitted content to be used in game, is no longer going to be the case.

Happy to get back to the regular scheduled program.

 

This is just my current understanding but I know others have checked up on this and it was asked about at DragonCon. In either case, it is an issue for Portalarium, not the Scholars. If the end result is Portalarium doesn't use player material to seed the game it still has no direct impact on our work. I'm sure Portalarium has this figured out by now.

For the moment people should take my comments as "my current understanding".

 

While it's true the original intent included helping with initial seeded content that was only a small part of it. Really (and this is just personal opinion) I think the whole thing was a little rushed and probably not explained well enough. I suspect it will still take some effort to get past all that. We've changed the name, worked some things out.. have some clearer definitions etc etc.

Hopefully you guys will be happy with the upcoming announcement. I'm looking forward to getting back to work.

------------------------

So we were starting to talk publishing and economy. That has some interesting challenges. Since if books are published to the world it's out of the authors control. I think the potential in the economy will come with limited editions, rares etc.

Which reminds me I don't remember if I mentioned it or not but there was an idea about being able to sign books..

 

Which brings up another interesting thought about pictures/illustrations.

This would be an excellent place to do some cross-over of disciplines, just like real life books.

Sketches, drawings, charts, tables, graphs, illustrations for children's tales, the book cover itself -- lots of potential.

Of course, much like the picture taking idea, the paintings, heraldry, there is an incurred cost to artwork being used; however, perhaps at least some thoughts about tables, charts and graphs, since a lot of that can be vector driven, especially if something like LATEX is used to render the content.

Though I am sure that ship has sailed for Episode 1.

 

I hate to say it but I don't we'll be seeing out-of-game artwork outside of official submissions.. that is assuming they accept any.. they would probably be considered as textures with the same options as we get for submitting meshes.. but like meshes those would be limited to need.

I'd still love to be able to see in-game images usable in books though.. ie maps. I think it was earlier in this thread someone suggested books be written with a mark up language like HTML in part for that purpose.

I'm thinking at some point someone might compile ideas into a doc and send it in for review. There's been a lot of good ideas and good discussion over the past year and a half and I don't think they've gotten around to writing the initial design docs for books or publishing yet.

 

I can agree that it wasn't explained well enough. Captian Jack would appreciate actually knowing how the devs came to create the idea of the scribes, why and how they picked who they did initially to start the project and then kick it off with the rest of the community.

Captain Jack is looking forward tot he upcoming announcement. Captain Jack will put his reservations on hold until then, to be continued.

 

I wasn't directly involved in any of that so at best I could only speculate. I'm sure Winfield would be happy to answer those questions in an appropriate thread. I'm hoping we'll have a FAQ up at some point. What I can say is they posted a call for volunteers to PM Winfield and cc FL. Winfield interviewed a number of those volunteers. I'm unaware of FL's level of involvement but I'm relatively sure Winfield did most of the choosing who got on the team.

I am sure that personal interest in book publishing and lore was a requirement. Something which I've had interest in in many areas. Plus I've had dealings with both Winfield and FL in the past. So put all that together and that's probably why I got picked.

 

I didn't have the opportunity to participate as the questions developed last night, so pardon me for returning to this. A lot of this has been going on behind the scenes it sounds like, which seems to create communities within the community which feels off.

One of the questions I have is what the role of the Scholars will be pre- and post-release. If the group has special privileges pre-release I'm uncomfortable but ok with that, post- I think would be a real problem.

I will be most interested to see if there's room to operate outside the scholars, as you've mentioned. If Port does use forum posts, but only the ones that have been run through the scholars, it's the same deal.

I would also be interested to see whether any "special access" to lore could be shared with others so that everyone is on a level playing field. Post-release this is not a problem assuming all lore is baked into the game and publicly available docs.

Since we're ultimately talking about player created content, it would be like having a player run council for unity art submissions. A group that checks to make sure the look and feel of items "fits" within the world. Why is that ok for books and not for other content?

This does bear on items post-release, because I don't think there's been any mention of how things will be reviewed for publishing there and I hope it's not just an open door.

If this is in Winfield's statement, then I will wait, but I don't think it's going to answer all my questions.

 

If Portalarium uses anything submitted it doesn't have to go through us. That said though, we will try to help authors who want it to be consistent with both canon and lore created by other players. I would like to think that would give them an edge pre-release in possibly being used to seed EP1 but there is no guarantee of that.

The upcoming announcement should make our pre-release role apparent. That should be coming today or Monday. I don't think it touches on post release but (and don't lawyer me here it's still several months out) we will likely continue to offer review and feedback services but might also act as a publishing house as well as collecting and preserving as much player written material as we can whether it goes through our review or not. A lot will depend on what actual features make it in-game.

Again, going through us is completely optional. Especially in-game. Everyone should be able to publish their own material whether it's considered "official" or not.

At this time I'm unsure what kind of access we might have to lore. I do know that if we do there will be limits. Originally we have access to FL to ask specific questions and get clarification so that we can be as consistent as possible.

 

If we need to turn it into a moneymaker so it gets some attention, sell publishing licenses in the add-on store. (Half-joking) Last I heard this was scheduled for Release 13 so I hope it gets some love soon.

I think there are three phases of book production that should be addressed.

First, blank book creation. Maybe the "printing press" should have recipes to create blank books. (This would make it more than a printing press, but why create a whole new crafting table?) It could require no skill so it doesn't break the graphic they've already created for crafting. I would suggest the recipe be material for paper (maybe wood, easy), material for binding (maybe hide, easy), and dye for color of binding as a good basic start.

Second, draft book creation. This is the process whereby a player gets their content into a book. It would be like typesetting or creating the "mold" for the book. These would have either a pre-approved non-reproducible status or be approved and able to be recreated. The pre-approved books could only be read by the author who created it. Here's where the big black box is regarding the approval process.

Third, printed book creation. The recipe in the printing press would be a blank book and an approved book draft. I'm hoping the output would include a title page with the author's name and copyright page with a publisher and maybe even a game date (indicating when book was approved or "copyrighted").

It can be as simple and easy to implement as this. Much more could hang off these three basic steps.

 

Shouldn't Portalarium be saying something on this? Based on the information that's publicly available (things are on hold), the scholars work would only be from a pure fan fiction creation perspective, and maybe hint at things post-release. But then other groups could do this as well alongside. The last thing you want to do with this announcement is make it look like you guys are speaking for Port on this topic now.

Edit: Only saying this to foresee any potential problems you guys may encounter... not to be snarky.

 

It wouldn't hurt for Portalarium to clarify their position I don't think. Honestly it's late and I can't think of anything specific they should address off the top of my head.

It is true other groups can do what we're attempting. Bring it on I say. I don't think we'll see any for a good while though.

I like your 3 phases.

I think materials for book creation could vary. Different types of paper or parchment. Different covers.. might use wood with cloth, paper or leather. You would probably need a binding agent so there would be need a recipe for glue. A caveat though is that we're limited to the book styles already in-game but I'm hoping a few others get added for leather bound books.. especially notebooks.

 

There have been been a few suggestions for books as craft items so authors can actually make ingame money out of them, and most of the ones I've liked have been a variation of that three step process...

1. Actually making the blank book/scroll
2. Putting written content into the (draft) book
3. Updating the book from Draft status to Published status

Step one doesn't even have to be done by the author, of course. They could buy the blank from a character or vendor.

Step two, obviously, is the writing process. I don't think I agree with the idea of making a Draft book unreadable by anyone else, as that's going a bit far. The point of Publishing is really to change a book from a dynamic object to a static one (no one can edit it), or that's how I understand it. Consider a guest book at an inn or event. Any player who comes along should be able to sign their name in it! Ideally I'd see draft books as they were in UO -- anyone can edit them.

Step three turns the book into something that can re-sold by the player, or displayed without fear of it being edited. There are heaps of things Portalarium could do at this point, including adding tags for where a book was published, the date, notations for First (Second, Third...) Editions, Collector's Editions, Collaborations/Compilations (if the publisher wants to note multiple authors).

 

How do you get around the TTP problem then?

 

You'll have to explain that acronym, I think I missed it.

(Going to bed, so will reply later if you respond.)