Readables Database

[NeonsStyle]

Was thinking on Readables, and so many FM's have made books within the universe, and in this universe, those books would

be shared, sold, bought etc. So it should be reasonable that any book from an FM could be seen in any other FM, since

it could've been bought by whatever character in the game.

 

So it seems we need a Readables book database, that we can use the best books written by mappers, that can be

used and shared easily within the community (which means books in game should have an author somehow).

 

Since some of us are better writers than others, it makes sense to have completed works to use and share. Or maybe

the best of them should be included in the TDM!

 

Neon

[ERH+]

"Books". Rather grocery lists, threats, love letters and secret diaries. It should be designed in the image of Facebook police or detective files. That would consist also of maps and additional daguerreotypes of place where a book was found, like on scene of crime.

[Destined]

I am actually not sure how many books, that are not relevant for a specific story, there are. But your project basically consists of reading out xdata files and sort the entries by document type (I think that the document type is defined in the xdata, but am not 100% sure). Someone with a bit of scripting experience could probably automate that process. I have a script by SteveL that can search different file types inside of pk4s for specific terms and also a script that can read out spawnargs fom def files, but I am not able to change the scripts, so that it would read out and sort the contents. Manually it would be a tiresome work, I think...

Edited June 23, 2016 by Destined

[NeonsStyle]

`Most of the books I think that could be universal (Universe) are those that talk of myths, histories, builder dogma/legends. Stuff like that in the universe would be sold, and

could probably be found in just about any nobles home. It seems a waste that they are only used once. I think it could be very useful for FM makers that there is a resource of lore books that the community has written for all to use. It can only add to the lore in my view, and also make it more widely read, rather than just the original map.

 

I think the lore books should be in TDM by default ready to use (text file maybe?) (with credit of course so the author can be credited.)

Edited June 23, 2016 by NeonsStyle

[stumpy]

Don't include any of my readable texts, as they are not set in the the dark mod official universe.

[Destined]

Don't include any of my readable texts, as they are not set in the the dark mod official universe.

 

Good point. Apart from collecting we have to decide which readables are canon and which are not...

[NeonsStyle]

Who are the orginal lore makers in TDM? Another thing is you could make a thread (stickied) where they are all collected in text, so they can just be copy/pasted

into a readable document. I'd be happy to contribute anything I write if it's lore. My current map won't use any, but the next one will.

[Spooks]

The only book titles I can think of are the ones from the Thomas Porter FMs (spec. the Transaction). Not a lot of FM authors write fake books for flavor, I suppose, when the player can spend their time reading something mission relevant. Considering how many bookshelves lining walls for decor there are in FMs though, I'd say the book-printing business in TDM is blooming.

 

I wrote The History of Horses in Bridgeport book for my KoD as an example of what an average book within a society that can apparently produce a lot of printed works would be like - oddly specific to a niche field of study, full of biased data and not rigorously copy edited. Sure there probably would be some seminal texts that reside in every person's home, kind of like all those reproduced paintings, but 1) if they were codified it would give FM writers a lot less wiggle room since they'd feel they need to fit in preconceived notions of what their story should be, and 2) putting them in would serve little purpose besides consistency. If a player's already read the thing in another FM they'll just see it and skip. I really like the idea at face value, but I'm not certain of its implications.

[NeonsStyle]

That's a very fair point there Spooks. I think you're right that players would skip a book they've already read (if they can remember it). I think it would 1. Depend on the book,

and 2. Depend on how engaged they are with the level, and how immersed. Like William Steele series, I was fully engaged and read every single item to read in the

game. I've played it again several times, and again I've read them all again, because I've got a shit memory. lol

 

I still think it'd be a good resource.

[Spooks]

I think the nicest thing to do would be to just pick some events or names of lords, or books from other FMs and cross reference them in yours. That's what I certainly plan on doing when it comes to consistency. You can ask the authors' permission if you want, but I'd bet most would be cool with it. Of course that requires you to play and jolt down important stuff from other FMs (and that's what a database would be good for), but at least for readables, it really is easy enough as opening the pk4, extracting the readables xdata file, and copying/reading from there.

 

What a lot of people don't think about is that not only does each Bridgeport-set FM show a different part of the city, it may very well show a different time in its history. Not only are the locations muddy, but so is the timeframe, so if something seems amiss, my first excuse would be "it's set 100 years in the future of whatever period of Bridgeport history you're thinking" and I advise everyone to use the same excuse as well.

Edited June 25, 2016 by Spooks

[NeonsStyle]

Mostly I think it would be lore stuff. Books that are in game which either talk about history (such as the history of horses), or builder lore. ie works of

different builders of the past. The sort of stuff that would be sold within the game universe. There are some amazing pieces, that go

on for 10 pages or more. Those sort of works would be awesome to be able to referrence, or quote, or even use in it's entirety with permisson

from the author. I think the best way is a thread, but to do it, it needs pretty much all the editors to give their permission. Then it's just down

to ppl posting what they think would be a worthy tome.