Geas

Now with the new book thingies it is impossible to learn a completely new skill from a book?

If it is so, it would be nice to know what skills can be learned by watching. Atleast, are the martial arts moves still learnable by watching as they were.

I understand the need to control the "leak" of certain skills, but I do think there should be a way to acquire skills other than NPC trainers. Perhaps if a person has both studied from a learnbook and is being trained by a player, it should be possible to get a good bonus to learn-by-watching.

Certain skills can be learned by watching, such as backstab and most Shaolin skills, and some require a trainer, such as iron will. Which category a skill belongs to depends basically on how common we want it to be and is mostly the decision of the wizard who introduces it.

The book change became necessary because adding a skill exclusively for certain guilds was virtually impossible, and books were either written secretly for friends, or people left guilds and then wrote books. We eventually realized that allowing to learn physical skills through books was one of the bigger conceptual mistakes we committed, and most of the supposed hard to acquire skills are now pretty much common knowledge. This was never intended to happen, but we failed to anticipate it, and then we ignored it for too long.

There will not be any other way to teach someone such a restricted skill other than through trainers, because even the methods mentioned by Naga would not add enough restrictions to prevent a quite fast spread of delicate knowledge.

Very satisfying answer. I'm glad such measures are being taken.

For some reason I am unclear on one part of the book change. Is it still possible to learn a language skill directly from a book. For instance, if I read a book written in Boreal, can I still get an improvement in Boreal, or must I first read/study a book and then actually speak/hear Boreal to improve that skill?

In the past I could read a book written in several languages and improve my knowledge of all of them. Is this still possible in the new version of books?

You must differ learnbooks from normal books.
Reading normal books can improve the language and font skill which are used in this book.
Learnbooks contrains knowledge about a skill. These books can be studied and then you get a bonus to increase this skill.

Ok that clears it up, thanks