Writing Questions

I've been having some issues writing onto a parchment.

First, do some quills have a higher ink capacity than others?

Second, I found a "slip" has a capacity of 250 characters. What are the capacities of some other materials?

Third, Is there an "escape" character to force a carriage return while continuing with a paragraph, or escape characters to change the color?

I just discovered the standard parenthesis "(" doesn't register. Is it some kind of escape key?

(Ideally I'd like to prepare a page in a text document, format it just as I want, and then drop it into the client all at once.)

1) AFAIK all quills will write 4 lines before they need re-dipping.

2) Small sheets of paper/parchment are 250, medium 900, large 1500 IIRC. These are per side, you CAN turn loose paper/parchment over to write on the other side. Does not apply to book pages.

3) You can force a carriage return with |/, but be warned this will cause odd line wrapping with long paragraphs, so I don't recommend it. Better to accept a new paragraph.

4) Can't change color; you're limited to the actual ink's color ICly anyway.

5) The parenthesis is used in the game to tag on descriptors to various actions, so it won't work in writing. You might be able to escape it with |( or something similar; I usually just give in and use < and > instead out of laziness.

6) You CAN do what you're saying, but you'd need to connect via a separate client with a command separator enabled. Can say more if you want to do that vs. use the webclient!

As far as the final comment goes: Right now I make my ASCII drawing, then I add "write parchment." to the beginning of every line (sometimes I just want a blank line, hence the period at the end) after that-- as you noted with the quill capacity-- I put a "dip quill in inkwell" after every four instances of "write parchment.". Then I log in through zmud and submit that whole file into the game with one big go.  All that successfully converts the ASCII art I wanted into something that comes out just as I intended on the parchment. Also, the game software telescopes all beginning spaces into one, so the period is necessary at the beginning of every line that may start with two or more spaces, as it does not telescope down all multiple spaces, just multiple spaces at the beginning of a line.

You can also use |_ to put in a space, as a special escape character, but you have to put one in for each space. Still, it helps!

I don't think they are available in current stocks, but pens write up to seven lines before needing to be dipped again. Painting is implemented with the skill, and can add colors to specific words in a drawing. Basically all of the writing is 'painted' first then a paintbrush with specific colors can then target sections of sentences, individual letters, or words. Recoloring after applying can be a lot more tricky and individual, so if you color all 'a' if a word has one like 'make' you can no longer paint the whole word of 'make.' Just partial combos of letters, or single letters.

 I think the arena spawn list does not currently have paintbrushes but has paint/palette 'ARENA LOAD OPTIONS' will show what you can load, so I maay just not be reading it. The arena could be good for testing stuff tho without needing to buy in character with several types of paper that can be spawned in.

Some additional materials. Not all in stock in the city but seems to be the general ranges. I may have others to test floating around.

Pages (torn from books etc) -1500 characters, which is a little weird with them described as a small note of parchment, thinking on it now.

Poster-1500 characters

Vellum scroll-1500 characters

A piece of pale parchment, fine vellum, sheet of transclucent vellum -900 characters

I am having SO MUCH early-alpha envy right now at your post, Ighlaf. (I would kill someone for a pen. Not you though <3)

Odd that pages torn as books are 1500 characters - I'm pretty sure pages IN books are 900 characters, at least the books in Omrazir.

To be clear for Hassan - you can't get paint/palettes in Omrazir either, so atm it's kind of "quasi-implemented". But I would expect at some stage in the future this stuff will be stocked in stores!

I'm rather intimidated by the whole "art" option. I'm good with monotone for the moment. I also want to consider those who might be color blind. 

I don't want to neglect those who use screen readers. An ASCII map would of course come out as jibberish for any screen reader, but if there is any demand, I wouldn't mind creating an entirely written alternative description to help as much as possible get people to the shops they desire to visit. Is there some flag for those using screen readers that can "switch over" an ASCII art file to a purely descriptive alternative? 

I'm not sure re: screenreaders, but I actually think across the board a descriptive guide would work WAY better. Between the maps posted on the forums already and the map command in-game, the visual side of mapping is a lot better represented than any ASCII art map done with the writing system could do. But to have a list of where actual places are would be legitimately helpful alongside.

I play now on a standalone client to avoid ever getting caught zoned out/IAW (oh, to have a blinking icon in your taskbar...) and with the map radius turned way up and map view on, I get a pretty dang good slice of the grid visible as I walk around:

This is honestly as good an ASCII map as you tend to need! But ASCII just ain't great at incorporating labels. So a written description-style-map alongside this would be choice.

I just don't agree that the above ASCII map is as good as one would tend to need, because (1) it doesn't mark places where one might want to go (imagine a google map but with absolutely no locations or labels, just a grid of streets) and (2) Many important places are not on that auto-ASCII map at all-- even in unlabeled form. For example the location of the potter's kiln, which is at the end of a footpath that is not marked on that ASCII map, or the Outfitters, which is only accessable once you enter the Farrier's shop. The auto-generated ASCII map gives one no hint how to find the Outfitters or the Kiln-- it doesn't even represent a physical space where they could exist. .

a parchment slip, a small sheet of paper:  250 Characters, width 44 Characters.

a medium sheet of paper/parchment, paper notice:   900 Characters, width 59 Characters.

a large sheet of parchment/paper: 1500 characters, and a width of 79 characters.

(All the above have two sides to write upon.)

a dark red clothbound book, a leather-bound tome: 100 pages, page capacity: 900 Characters, width 59 characters.

a green clothbound notebook:  75 pages, page capacity 900 characters, width 59 characters.

write packet 'That's not something with pages to write on.'