Shalidor's Library - Biggest Housing Disappointment

Oreyn_Bearclaw · February 2017

I was very much looking forward to displaying all the lore books in my home. I even built a library to display them. All I can say is, holy molag bal, they dropped the ball hard on this. I am really glad I only bought one set of books to start. I will NOT be buying another. Let's start with the 3 huge issues i found so far.

1. First, there are 297 of them by my count. That is nearly half of the allotted inventory for a manor if you have ESO plus, 99% of you inventory if you dont. I assumed, obviously incorrectly, that since they were sold in sets, they would display as a set. Not true. Basically, if you dont have eso plus and a large home or manor, you cant display them all, even if you wanted to. These should come in sets of 10 to cut down on the required space. News flash, people are completionests and want the whole set.

2. You can't bank the containers once you buy them. I was so close to buying them all at once, and thank god a guildie warned me to test it first (thanks Mix). I would have had to destroy them if I did, because I wouldnt be able to deal with that in my inventory.

3. Actually placing these on a bookshelf is next to impossible. If you put them to far in or they clip anything in the slightest, they become unreadable and you have to go into the retrieval tab to get them back because you lose the ability to move them. Then you get to start over. I spent a solid 20 minutes trying to get 3 of them on a shelf.

This could be such an amazing aspect of housing, but it is essentially unusable in its current state. Bookshelves need to be redesigned (been done in other TES games) so you can simply add them to the shelf like putting something in the bank, and then they should just automatically display. Then the inventory needs sorted out. Your library should not take up all of the space in your home, especially a freaking manor.

goatlyonesub17_ESO · February 2017

I bought Gorinir Estate in Grahtwood. And then I bought every single one of the book set containers. I've chosen four shelves' worth of books to hold in that property, and I'll be spreading out the others in other properties. Even the tiny apartment you get in the Rosy Loin (or is it the Roasted Lion?) can hold maybe 16 books.

On the positive side, I've discovered that you can make perfectly good walk ways from clothes line poles placed end-to-end, and they can be tilted to go up to the cliff tops on either side of the pod manor. I've got a number of death-defying walkabouts and I'm planning more.

runagate · February 2017

goatlyonesub17_ESO wrote: »

I bought Gorinir Estate in Grahtwood. And then I bought every single one of the book set containers. I've chosen four shelves' worth of books to hold in that property, and I'll be spreading out the others in other properties. Even the tiny apartment you get in the Rosy Loin (or is it the Roasted Lion?) can hold maybe 16 books.

On the positive side, I've discovered that you can make perfectly good walk ways from clothes line poles placed end-to-end, and they can be tilted to go up to the cliff tops on either side of the pod manor. I've got a number of death-defying walkabouts and I'm planning more.

A friend of mine made a staircase of books out over the ocean It was brilliant though strangely she took it down.

Can't believe I'm tagging someone like this but hey @ZOS_GinaBruno who at ZOS places books on shelves in Clickyville?

Perhaps they could come give some advice on how they themselves have done this a billion times all over Tamriel? There's so many threads about this topic. Note that I myself have not attempted this and have no advice to give except that for people who have gaming controllers I imagine that using an analog joystick in lieu of the scrollwheel on a mouse for the push/pull would help. But I can't see how you'd position the camera well to see in the case while doing this.

SydneyGrey · February 2017

I bought one set (thank God it was only one!) and was disappointed as well.

I tried placing them in my tall Breton bookcase that I built. The bookcase ... which is supposed to hold books ... has shelves that are too close together to set the books upright on their ends.

So I opted to lay them flat. It was a giant pain, and most of the books are not readable like they're supposed to be. On top of that, every single book was the same boring brown color. I'll never buy another set again, either. Yegads.

At least I only spent in-game gold, and not real money.

Ryuuhime · February 2017

I bought them all at once, thinking they would be a set. As soon as I entered my house (Ebonheart Chateau) to place a few of the sets... not only did I get a nasty surprise with seeing I'd have to display them individually, they are a pain to align! With a barely started house and an item count of almost 400 already, I can kiss my underground library dream goodbye. :'(

Linaleah · February 2017

everything that everyone said. and it doesn't help that align function is wonky as hell when it comes to books and weirdly - sconces. I still have one unopened collection in my bags (I only bought a couple, thank goodness), but mother of god. placing books took me almost as long as decorating the rest of the house O_O

Lore_lai · February 2017

On that note - if we ever want to make a big-ish library with many bookshelves, can we decorate them with purely-decorative books by buying them with in-game gold?

We have searched many stores and have not found a single recipe/item in-game like the ones you can purchase on the CROWN STORE to just decorate your bookshelves. i.e. rows of books.

If the only option is Shalidor's Library books then it's next to impossible to have a decent library in your house and still decorate it with other things, because you will reach the item limit, even with ESO+.
Not to mention all the clipping issues and unreadable books.

Are decorative books a crown store exclusive, like other items? Are we going to see more and more things become crown store exclusive?
@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Oreyn_Bearclaw · February 2017

Ryuuhime wrote: »

I bought them all at once, thinking they would be a set. As soon as I entered my house (Ebonheart Chateau) to place a few of the sets... not only did I get a nasty surprise with seeing I'd have to display them individually, they are a pain to align! With a barely started house and an item count of almost 400 already, I can kiss my underground library dream goodbye. :'(

I am sorry, bud. The system is broken.

Ermiq · February 2017

Completely agree, the library has to be redesigned.
As an option, maybe the books should be placed in a bookshelf as a set and then player could press E and choose the book from a set he wants to read. It could solve an items limit issue in houses. Seriously ZOS, it's quite unadequate that books consume a limited house slots so much. Something has to be done with it.
And of course we need a smaller model of the books to place them in a shelf correctly.

Nova Sky · February 2017

Thank the gods and goddesses for the PC beta testers!

ItsGlaive · February 2017

Absolutely agree.

Between the lack of interactable bookshelves to store and auto-align books, the lack of in-house storage, and the lack of weapon racks/mannequins, I wonder if the design team even looked at past Elder Scrolls iterations of housing?

Once again with ESO we're left waiting for the addition of features that should have been in from the outset - this time basic housing functionality.

Jitterbug · February 2017

I don't want to hijack the thread so please just ignore me if you feel like I am, but how many trophies are we able to place down in the various sized houses?

OT: this obviously needs to be fixed. The one appealing thing about eso housing is the ability to display your achievements visually. If you can't do that, what's the point?

Ghanima_Atreides · February 2017

I agree with everything as well. I bought one set and ended up stacking most of it because attempting to line them up on a shelf proved impossible. I won't even bother with an actual bookshelf under these circumstances.

adriant1978 · February 2017

runagate wrote: »

Can't believe I'm tagging someone like this but hey @ZOS_GinaBruno who at ZOS places books on shelves in Clickyville?

Perhaps they could come give some advice on how they themselves have done this a billion times all over Tamriel?

The devs don't use the in-game interface for this. They will be using the game's equivalent of the Creation Kit which will have features way beyond what is made available to us, probably including fine placement of items a pixel at a time on the XYZ axes.

agegarton · February 2017

Ouch.

I was going to buy some books myself. Think I'll leave that until they fix the issues. Sounds horrific!

I must admit, while I generally quite like the housing editor interface, you'd have thought that some items would "click" into place - e.g. Books on a bookshelf? Maybe it's just me.

Rohamad_Ali · February 2017

I organized like 20 of the books in my large house . It took an hour . A better system is needed . I love that all the books can be read but organizing them is insane .

mariskaas · February 2017

Good to read this, not even gonna waste stuff on crafting a bookcase now xD

SickDuck · February 2017

My first item bought for housing was a set of books. Spent 10 minutes trying to arrange 3 next to each other then gave up on decorating.

magnusthorek · February 2017

I'm quite sure I posted here these limits for non-ESO+ are too little. Money is good but ZOS is extrapolating a bit.

SydneyGrey · February 2017

Nova Sky wrote: »

Thank the gods and goddesses for the PC beta testers!

Beta testers did comment on the PTS forums that the books were ridiculously difficult to use. They were released this way any way.

Arrchangell · February 2017

Im not a ESO+ member, and this thing is just the most lame thing ever. Why the hell does it count as an item for each book if im buying a stack. Oh yeah btw, best thing ever, bought small imperial house default, half of the limit was already filled up 47/100. Wish there was a upgrade system to get more slots with gold. I have gold for large house but i just like the look of small ones.

cyberjanet · February 2017

One word for putting books in bookshelves: impossible!

Runefell · February 2017

I made the mistake of buying as many sets as I could without trying one first. After thirty minutes of trying to get them just right on the shelf, I gave up and found out that I could wallpaper my walls with them. This way, I can still read them, and they're not clogging up my inventory. Thank Alkosh that I was still rather broke and only managed to buy twelve sets. If I had bought them all, I would've had to empty my house of a lot of the decorations in it already.

NewBlacksmurf · February 2017

Here's the issue.

Books are seperate items in terms of the lore but book shelves are nothing more than one book on a big fixture. The devs started out one way and for housing, they didn't develop books to go on shelves. They seem to only extend what exists so bookshelves in housing have no purpose other than decoration but not by design for lorebooks

Tabbycat · February 2017

They should have just hijacked Skyrim's system of bookshelves. It would have been so much easier to make a functioning bookcase instead of attempting to put them on the shelves. I have books aligned on top of the bookcase because they don't fit properly in the shelves.

NewBlacksmurf · February 2017

Tabbycat wrote: »

They should have just hijacked Skyrim's system of bookshelves. It would have been so much easier to make a functioning bookcase instead of attempting to put them on the shelves. I have books aligned on top of the bookcase because they don't fit properly in the shelves.

It's the whole game engine and all. We've all had the books which load into the ground, floor, etc but we see the glow and can't interact before housing.

Rev Rielle · February 2017

Yes, it's a fairly clumsy mechanic. Those words they said two years ago are starting to ring more in the back of my head as fundamental problems with housing are discovered:

"We're taking our time with housing because we want to get it right"

They said themselves that they looked at a lot of other MMOs, all the ones with flagship housing in them. They said themselves they are fans of housing in those games and enjoy it. So, they know what works and what doesn't. Placing books and making libraries/etc is a foundation in MMO housing. There is no excuse for this, they simply need to do better.

A lot of players were waiting for Homestead to come because a lot of players enjoy a robust housing system. Sadly with such competition out there in the MMO world already, they were better off leaving housing completely alone rather than doing something that is not up to standard. But, I'm sure they realise this (I really hope!). Like always, time will tell if they're keen on housing and determined to make it into a memorable mechanic in the genre. And if they are, this book placing/library system is certainly one that needs to be looked at again.

Glaiceana · February 2017

Yeah I agree, something really has to be done about books.
I'm one of the "lucky" ones who only wanted 6 different books from the collections, for my werewolf library sort of thing, but still this took ages to place and now I'm stuck with 5 collections of books, I can't even give them to friends. I don't really want to delete them either because they cost a lot of gold.

Artemiisia · February 2017

dispointed as well

I had hoped for making a library as well, with a rocking char, lamb and a small table....

I totally gave up on it

wenchmore420b14_ESO · February 2017

Well, I'm a bigger dummy than the Test Skeleton.
I knew this was messed up as I played PTS.
279 total books in Shalidors Library. 19 bookcases to hold them all.
316 total tem slots! This is just insane!!

In PTS, placing books on shelves was SUCH A PAIN! And yes, i FINALLY got them, about 80%, on shelves, kinda straight, and they were intractable. For the most part. So.....Fast Forward to live~
I acquired the Chateau, furnished, for our Guild Hall. (Yes I fed the "Cash Cow").
Well, The Books Are Too Big For The Shelves!! WTF! I got them to fit in PTS, why did they make them bigger?
And they are impossible to read after they are on shelves as they clip into the book case. WHY is it even worse than it was in PTS? We made lots of feed back about this.
Why I'm a "Dummy", I actually thought it would be ok when it went live.
So now we have a "Really Expensive, Furnished Guild Hall, with books all over the floors and lots of empty book cases with no purpose.
Please! @ZOS_GinaBruno , @ZOS_JessicaFolsom , please ask that this get's looked at. Thank You!
Huzzah!!!

alephthiago · February 2017

This needs to be looked at!!!!
Grrrrrr!!!!!