Current Events Feed

[HavokBlue]

I don't like this. I think it artificially shrinks the world. It's interesting as a player to walk into the bar in another part of the world and hear about new gossip. It's interesting to play a desert elf with no knowledge of what is happening in a city. The organic transfer of knowledge (I'm not going to bother accounting for people who spread it OOC) is interesting and relatively unique to this game.

You can always separate what your character knows and what you know...

It's not about separating knowledge. It's about my experience as a player. Ostensibly, we play a game for the fulfilling experience the gameplay provides. Part of that fulfillment, for me, is the way information organically circulates in the game world. Putting things on a board removes a lot of that.

I can and do separate what I know from what my character knows, but not everybody will, and entirely aside from that, I don't want to know OOCly. If I'm playing a city character, I don't want an OOC feed telling me what's happening in the Tablelands. If that information comes to me, I want it to be in-game, naturally, as part of the game. Not on an artificial OOC construct.

[Delirium]

What if the current events feed was taken IC? What if staff regularly posted rumors about what is going on in the world?

Realistically, information would make it through traders, explorers, etc that doesn't always make it due to lack of player availability.

So, to help bring the gameworld more to life - why not post those rumors in the taverns?

That solves the "find out IC" question while addressing the root cause and reason for suggesting the idea.

[MeTekillot]

I fucked up every board post I ever made.

[Riev]

What if the current events feed was taken IC? What if staff regularly posted rumors about what is going on in the world?

Realistically, information would make it through traders, explorers, etc that doesn't always make it due to lack of player availability.

So, to help bring the gameworld more to life - why not post those rumors in the taverns?

That solves the "find out IC" question while addressing the root cause and reason for suggesting the idea.

This might mean a shift in policy on what is "newsworthy" for staff to post, and require a bit more effort put forth from them, but I'd be down for this idea. Its a better way of slowly leaking "railroad" plots that people can take part in, it can announce better RPTs in certain areas.

They already do this with SOME things, but it certainly is more rare than I'd like. Even the occasional "You hear about that gemmed they found in an alley? Wasn't just stabbed once, looked like some ritual thing!" and it leads nowhere, but it sets a tone.

[HavokBlue]

I think a healthy middle ground would be more staff posts to rumor boards in-game. You can roll a Tablelands PC, for example, and have no clue what's happening if there are no board posts and you play off peak. This still allows information to propagate organically in-game, but people can find out what's going on if they're in a given area.

[number13]

>I think a healthy middle ground would be more staff posts to rumor boards in-game.

Can't do that without a character. Besides, it's already possible to to glean a bit of what's going on in-game through player announcements and role calls. A compromise might be to make Allanak the hub and focus of news shared outside of the game. Happenings in center of civilization promulgate forward, but if you want news about Red Storm, you have to actually go there.

Knowing that stuff is actually happening has traditionally inspired me to play; HRPTs and their lead ups. What if you could get that level of anticipation for the continuing story?

Stuff I'd entertained by and happy to see:

"Notorious criminal Amos was publicly and gruesomely executed by the hand of Lord Templar Malik.

Lord Fancypants Fale introduced himself to society, and is now one of the public faces of his house.

The Byn returned from a successful contract, hunting down the albino kank on behest of House Kadius.

In a highly anticipated bout, Gladiator Bob defeated his rival, Gladiator Susan. Lord Templar Malik praised both combatants for a match well fought."

[Feco]

I agree with number13

[tapas]

You could solve 90% of this problem by opening up The Way.

Why do we have a super-secret-unencryptable messaging service again? In which players can plot to murder right in front of their victim with zero risk of discovery?

Allowing for way messages to be intercepted by mundane means would allow players to become aware of and jump into plots. Not to mention solve a bunch of other problems.

[maxid]

What if Armageddon operated like any number of other text-based heavily-RP-intensive online games and trusted their players enough to have OOC channels for timing, or generally available plots, etc.?

Like, not trying to be rude at all, but what reason is there - aside from inertia and the grumblings of a few oldtimers that almost certainly have a clique of people that they communicate with OOCly about the game -  to not have this be allowed at this stage in the game's lifecycle?

[nauta]

What if Armageddon [had] OOC channels for timing, or generally available plots, etc.?

You mean inside the game, as an 'ooc' channel?  Because we already can schedule RPTs and availability via the clan section of the gdb and also outside the clan section on the regular gdb.  (I do find organizing an RPT tedious, but I don't know what software solution there is to this.)

[Lizzie]

An idea, regarding multi-clan RPT scheduling (and I have no idea if this is possible, just throwing it out here):
Have a multi-clan temporary RPT forum subcategory. If it involves, for instance, Kurac, Borsail, and the SLK, then everyone clanned by those three clans have access to the one thread in that one category. If it also involves independent Amos, independent Malik, and ONLY the Fale aide, then they can be added individually by the leader of the RPT or any staff member.

Once the RPT's scheduling is complete and the RPT has begun, the thread becomes automatically deleted (or archived in the staff's discussion board).

[tapas]

I don't know why we're looking for ooc solution whens we should be finding ingame ways to let information slip outside of the tight fists of a select few pc's.

Spycraft should be endemic to Zalanthas. But there feels like there no point because any secret information can easily be funneled through The Way.

[Melkor]

I don't like this. I think it artificially shrinks the world. It's interesting as a player to walk into the bar in another part of the world and hear about new gossip. It's interesting to play a desert elf with no knowledge of what is happening in a city. The organic transfer of knowledge (I'm not going to bother accounting for people who spread it OOC) is interesting and relatively unique to this game.

I think a healthy middle ground would be more staff posts to rumor boards in-game. You can roll a Tablelands PC, for example, and have no clue what's happening if there are no board posts and you play off peak. This still allows information to propagate organically in-game, but people can find out what's going on if they're in a given area.

Agreed on both counts.

[perfecto]

I don't know why we're looking for ooc solution whens we should be finding ingame ways to let information slip outside of the tight fists of a select few pc's.

Spycraft should be endemic to Zalanthas. But there feels like there no point because any secret information can easily be funneled through The Way.

Honestly and openly admitting I didn't read any further that this on the thread, but from the title alone I AGREE
I think "contact" and "barrier" should be some of the hardest to skill up in the whole game, knowing the privacy they hold and what secrets you might learn?

Yes its convienient for everyone to get ahold of one another but when has life in Armageddon ever been easy?   After seeing hundred of simple questions getting the answer of "find out in game" I think this one should take the cake.  I'm all for the calendar updates of  upcoming events and whats going on, but for the rest.. NOPE! 

~end rant, sorry to anyone who was deeply invested in this thread, also this whole thing should be spoken in the voice of H. Jon. Benjamin (sarcasm we're saying it now)