In Rulers of the Sea it is possible to write books, make paintings and play music, and share it with other gamers. If you are good enough to sell your work you might be able to create an alternative career.
To become a Writer, Painter or Musician, you need to follow a course at the University. To become a musician there are courses in basic and advanced level for each type of instrument, but writing and painting only require one course.
After the Writing Course you can create your own book with a book editor. You can choose fonts, paper and cover, choose illustrations, create your content and publish your book. Once published, your book is a unique original copy. The original can be placed on personal or public bookshelves to be read.
Paintings work much the same. After the Painter Course you can create a screen shot in the game. In an editor the image can be cropped, brightness, colour and contrast can be adjusted, and finally a layer will be applied that gives the image oil painting effects. Interiors of buildings and ships have frames that contain pictures. If you own the interior you can replace paintings in the frames and decorate your spaces with your own work, such as family portraits, your ships, landscapes, city streets or a nice still-life.
If you feel your work is good enough, you can share it or put it up for sale at the Print Market. You can even make a career of printing, publishing and selling other people’s work. Every city has a Print Shop. Its owner can copy books from the original for a fee. They can even buy the original, and that way own the rights to copy and sell it as a publisher. Only book copies can be sold on the Print Market and only an original book can be copied. Paintings cannot be copied, but the original can be sold on the print market too.
The music career works differently. Gamers can study different historical and cultural instruments at Universities. Once they have the skill they can play their instrument where-ever that is appropriate in the game. They can play the musical pieces of which they own the sheet music, which is for sale on the Print Market. There are also pieces that can be played together, as long as all Musicians have the right instruments and sheet music. All music is from the 18th century period.
Every gamer character that has mastery of at least 5 musical instruments can study as a Composer. Composers can apply for the position of Court Composer. They hold office at a Nation’s Concert Hall in the Capital and manage its venue. Additionally they can produce sheet music for other gamers to buy and play.
Composers get access to a module that allows them to submit recorded musical pieces that have to meet specific criteria. If the pieces are approved they will be set to animations, coupled to sheet music and published in-game by the game administrator. The Composer can then put the original of the sheet music up for printing and sale, identical to a book. Gamers that are Court Composers are preferably musicians in real life with the capacity to make good quality music recordings that match the 18th century.
