Why aren't books identified?

[danr]

My apologies if this discussion has happened before, but:

What is the rationale for spellbooks all being unique, i.e., unlike wands, where once you know what one type looks like, you instantly recognize all others of that type, but with spellbooks, every new book is unknown until you pick it up and read it.

I only ask because it becomes somewhat of a chore looking at books and then dropping them. It would be nice to not auto-pickup books that I've already got in my library.

[BlackSheep]

It has. There seemed to be consensus that books should auto-id once you've found one, but it never went anywhere.

[dpeg]

The point, I believe, is that books are typical loot (prize in a vault) and we don't want to give away that before actually getting there. Compare to how you don't know the enchantment and ego of mundane armour and weapons. A pure interface fix would be to identify books (new or not) when stepping on them.

[BlackSheep]

That's not a compelling argument for why books should be treated differently from potions, wands or scrolls. Those are also typical loot, and are identified on sight.

[Stormfox]

Don't judge a book by its cover?

In all seriousness, there isn't a one-to-one mapping between the un-ID'd description of books and their identities, the way there is with potions / scrolls / wands / jewelry. Once you find a hardcover book of Ice, that doesn't mean that all hardcover books are Ice. If there were a one-to-one mapping, then there would be justification for auto-ID.

[snow]

... which is a good argument for there to be a mapping.

In all honesty I think this is just one of those things that the devs haven't gotten around to.

[galehar]

In all honesty I think this is just one of those things that the devs haven't gotten around to.

Actually, I don't think there's consensus on that. I'm pretty sure elliptic was against it last time it was brought up. A books is usually a very tempting loot, if you can see on sight that it's a duplicate, you wouldn't bother taking risks or spending resource trying to get it.
Books are much more comparable to weapons than to scrolls/potions/wands.

[Pereza0]

The point, I believe, is that books are typical loot (prize in a vault) and we don't want to give away that before actually getting there. Compare to how you don't know the enchantment and ego of mundane armour and weapons. A pure interface fix would be to identify books (new or not) when stepping on them.

Totally agree on this.

It keeps the whole "tempting loot" thing and gets rid of the inconvenient "pick up and use just to realize you already have it" thing

[Galefury]

I'm pretty sure elliptic was against it last time it was brought up.

IIRC elliptic was okay with identifying books when you step on them the last time I brought it up. Identifying books on sight may not be a good idea, and a lot of people are against it. But identifying books when you step on them is not controversial as far as I know.

[galehar]

But identifying books when you step on them is not controversial as far as I know.

Indeed. It's a small interface improvement and the balance change is negligible. I agree to it too. But that's not what snow was talking about.

[TwilightPhoenix]

What about Ash identifying books on sight, providing piety and curses are all at the right levels?

Assuming he doesn't already, I've not played with him in a few versions.