Rothgar Blogs about User Written Books

Thats another arguement for attune on read imo. Cause you can track that timestamp, and you can audit if/when the accused plagarist read the book to copy it.

Atan@Unrest wrote:

Wouldn't that be easily solvable by reading it on another account or having your friend buy the book and paste the text to you in an email? There is just no way to protect your text content and CS isn't going to get in the middle of disputes. I think their time is best spent on other petitions and not playing Judge Judy to players squabbling over "copyright" issues.

I am trying to understand why people are getting so worked up over copyright. This is for entertainment factor. If you are worried about someone stealing your work, then publish it in a manner that has copyrights. Otherwise publish it to all for there enjoyment. Everyone knows that if someone starts stealing work, a few posts about it will more than make up for it as they will loose all credibility. We have all seen people who have done stupid stuff like that and they do not last long. The comunity does not tolorate peeps like that. Trust in your fellow players and enjoy what is beign offered.

Rothgar wrote:

Ah. This makes sense. I didnt mean multiple editors on a single book but rather a collection of books where each author was responsible for a book so multiple people could contribute to the collection.
But having the book needing to be in inventory to change the text negates this usage all together and thanks for the clarification.
On that note - If a book is written by Joe and placed in a guild bank to which Amy has access rights, can she read it from there or does she have to take it into inventory to read it and then replace it in the bank.
As far as the timestamp issue -
Wouldnt tracking a date and version present a decent solution to the originating author?
Joe writes a book. "WHEN HE COPIES THE BOOK" the date gets set and the version gets set. All books copied from this book receive that date and version. Joe edits and the book. When he makes the first copy of the edited version the date gets reset and the version incremented. All books now copied receive the new date and version.
For the record, I agree that copyright issues have no real relevancy here. I am thinking about versioning and dating being useful in tracking information over time for things like guides, etc.
Finding a good author and realizing they have a updated version to a guide you use makes a potential purchase. Without having a version or the ability to review the material you wont know if the book for sale is the same one you have.

Artemiz@The Bazaar wrote:

This sounds like good stuff Rothgar, cant wait for this to make it to Test and start playing around with it. This is one of those items I am really excited to see come into the game. While not game affecting to many, this is one of those items which may enhance game play for some and definitely incease the RP and questing for others.
Looking forward to it, thanks.

Sooooo looking forward to this! Definitely having a book on me at all times to write notes about what prereqs I need to do in time for guild day, what commissions I need to fulfill, stragies for this week's instance - all the stuff I'm usually tabbing out of game to look up.
I'm also going to copy the TIWIKE into a book (or several, one for each section) and place it in the guild hall for reference. Probably also place a copy on the broker, for a high cost, with the title "Things I Wish I'd Known Earlier (mail [actual item cost] to author for copy)" with the actual cost being based on the fuel cost and how many volumes need to be mailed.

Well I'm not one to beat a dead horse, but for the record I agree that "copyright" issues in a fictional world aren't really a programmer's gravest concern. I just thought I had a good idea, which the experts easily shot down. Ah well, that's why I PLAY the games rather than program them. But this is definitely a cool feature, and I love a lot of the suggestions I'm seeing here in the forums. I can't wait to see what comes of it.

First off it is a neat idea.

I have some concerns though,.
1 All you have to do is watch level 1-9 chat a little while to see how comfortable those who like to abuse the system have become with having their way. We have level 80 players running around with obscene or otherwise disgusting names on their heads [and their pets]due to a little creative spelling. Some of them seem to have been in game for a long time so will the censorship of the books last when enforcement of the other word policies seems to have gone weak?

2 If this is a sage thing then is it to counter some expected negative results to sage value from the incoming auto spell updater npc that will be available to guild halls soon?

3 What about mentioning other players in a book with out their permission? One could say some pretty damaging things with out ever using words that the chat filter would catch.

Will the entire book have to be in the same language or can you switch on the fly?
Say I want the story to be in Common but my character finds some Sathirian runes. Can I switch to Sathirian for a sentence?

This is a cute idea, but I see it getting out of hand, very fast. I hope SoE has the workforce to keep up with it. I wish they'd fix the broken items in the game, before venturing into something so fluff.

I think that it is an interesting idea and the right road for EQ2 and its players. MMO games must evolve to keep their entertainment factor. What was exciting and innovative a decade ago is not necessarily that now, and player created books will be something different for sure.
I have another idea along the same lines as player-created books that may garner a flame war, but here goes: I would like to see some form of player-created or at the least guild-created quests for their members. I realize that something would have to be done in regards to xp to ultimately make it "fair" for all, but something like that would (seemingly) be nice to have something created by players that has never been in the game before. Being a programmer myself, I realize that something like this is potentially a long way off and a difficult addition to the game, but I think it would be important for the continued success of EQ2.
I do have reservations regarding player books though concerning the kinds of documents that will be allowed. What I am afraid is that some players (so inclined) might use these books for political speech. I don't necessarily have anything against using the books for that but I can see that since the real-world players live in other parts of the world, in addition to those that live here in the United States, Sony might become party to EU and/or US hate speech lawsuits and other dictates of foreign governments due to a player-created book that spoke something derogatory (regardless of the truth or veracity) about some dignitary or politician and thereby broke some EU or US law regarding politically correct sanitized speech. Remember, this sounds silly (I almost didn't make this point) but the truth is that this world has become inane in regards to restricting what any one of us can say. The United States is on the same road with that of England and other European countries concerning free unobstructed speech with more and more restrictions subjectively applied based on the whims of a seedy politician.
The only point I have to make is that I don't want this seemingly innocent addition to EQ2 to be its ultimate demise because someone gets a bee in their bonnet over what someone else wrote in a "book."

Snapdragyn wrote:

I have to agree with you on this, though I am not personally homosexual myself, I can see where your concern comes in, though in defense of soe I honestly doubt they would do something like that just for the fact that they could potentially get into a lot of trouble for sensoring a story just because the characters happened to be anything but heterosexual.
I would like to at least think the CS persons of soe would keep this in mind when reviewing the petitions of those for books.

CoLD MeTaL wrote:

Is there anything the devs do that doesn't make you complain? Seriously I only ever see you look at everything like it is something bad try looking at the good that will come from this.
I personally like the ideas that a lot of people have had stating guides and such for new players and raiders alike. I am the type of person that will find that one person that is a total nooblet and take them under my wing and help them become a player even better than myself. So me writing a book to help out those nooblets and just handing them a copy that enables them to have a better understanding of the game is a wonderful thing, imo.
(side note: My lvl 80 Templar has her mythical and I will be the first to say that she still sucks at healing! So it's not hard for someone I help to learn the game to become a better player than me. I'm a much better crafter. )

My last post for now, since this is the third one today, I haven't seen anything about when these are supposed to go to test. Did I miss it or did no one answer that yet, maybe there is no set date for these to be released on test? I just cant wait to start playing with this feature and figure out how it works.

According to Kiara, LU52 is expected to hit test the week of May 18th. SOoooo, IF this makes it to LU52 we will hopefully see it in another week or so /fingers crossed.

sweet thank you so much, I scanned through all the posts maybe I missed it in the 16 pages of posts.

I already got a title for my book. "Truth of Sony". I can put in things like SOE has taught me its cheaper to develop new buggy fluff and not fix older buggy fluffy content.
I can list things in my book about some of the bugs and mob pathing, terrible in zone LD's and quests like "To save a queen" is not able to be turned in unless you petition.
Put in cool stories how the "Play nice policy" takes priority and has a faster response time over in-game zone bug out issues.
Oh well, I can't reveal the whole book, but stay tune I think it my be a best seller.

Lohkei wrote:

I wonder how SOE will react to something like this? I know the person above is (probably) kidding, but you know, I will give it one day, maybe two, before someone posts a book on the broker about why SOE did something wrong, or bashing another player, or their guild drama,etc. Wonder how SOE will respond to the SOE Bashing/harassment thats likely to ensue.

You said May for this to hit TEST ? I thought I saw June ?
According to EQ2Wire ... "These changes will appear on the Test Server on or about June 18th."
I think there is really NO issue about SoE and their possible heavy handed censorship. Remember you are a "guest" here. This is THEIR world and you sign an agreement everytime you enter it, so you agree to all their policies when you agree to play, thus their policy is not censorship, but their effort to shape the world in a way that suits their mold, or the way they see the world.
If you want to make political statements, distribute smut, bash other players or SoE, there are un-censored web site and other means that are much more accessable and chaeper than buying a player made book and then making 400 copies and sending them to people.
I do not see the plat sellers making books and sending them to people through the mail system, that is against the companies business models ... in other words there is a better place to spend their advertising budget more efficiently.
Personally, I am looking forwards to putting some of my stories in pring and passing them along to a few people that like my work ... maybe there will be a contest or two.