Let's plan this news paper idea

[Lord Dick Tim]

Ok, decided to put this topic in the lounge since its not rp, but more like talking about rp out of rp yet acknowledging we need some kind of rp.

So in another thread, which I'm not going to link cause it's a pain to do with the iPad, a fellow forum rat expressed a desire to see more of the news paper articles that appeared in the early days of the game.  Dialogue flowed, people pledge commitments and now I'm here calling it out and saying, well, what are we going to write about?

Obvious targets are the Cogs league and the Bounty boards for starters.  Now Presentation is a big thing, and it really boils down to just how tacky do we want to be?

Another topic, as I ramble along with this disorganized stream of thought, is how to approach the developers as characters in their own world.  For example, an art team member could be interviewed from the perspective of a shipwrights, or an engineer well... Like an engineer.  Their answers could remain largely unaltered because the questions where done from an in character perspective.

Ex.
Q.  What kind of wood did you use in the construction of the Goldfish
A.  We used a pine for the look of the grain, as well as the softer color.

Same goes for questioning crew and captains.

Q.  What went threw your mind Zill, down by 3 points and suddenly your ally looses communication(disconnected) with you on the radio?
A.  Ha, well, I thought that's it, we're dead.  The cloud whaler was bearing down hard and her glorious guns and awesome captain just came right down on us like a vengeful god of the heavens.

So, thoughts, ideas?

[Pickle]

What do people want to read about?

I'd suggest two broad themes, the state of the game and game-related fiction.

State of the game
Match reports - Cogs, events, informal leagues, challenge matches (clan vs. clan, clan vs Muse), duels
Patch notes - bare facts, opinion on direction the game is taking, anticipated effects on established builds
Screenshots - arty, illustrative
Strategy and tactics - ship builds dissected, team builds, map discussion (eastern vs. western routes on Canyon, going over the mountains on Fjords), tutorials (counter-sniping, dealing with fire damage)
Duels - issued and accepted, "Lord Dick Tim, your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries, I challenge you to a duel in Canyons!"

Game-related fiction
Game lore expanded
Fan fiction submissions
Clan fiction


The state of the game stuff is what interests me, but getting regular metagame onservations and collating them could be a chore after a while.  If Muse could be persuaded to provide (non-commercial) game stats could be useful and interesting - ship usage, weapon usage, ammunition usage - if these are collated.  30% of players choose Goldfish, 12% of players choose Spire; global hit percentage on all guns is 30%; 42% of all match outcomes can be predicted by the sum of player levels on the team; Hwacha use is up 30% following last weeks patch whilst Mercurys are down 60%, etc..  A lot of pivot table action to produce snippets of data.

[Lord Dick Tim]

Awesome post pickle, your stream of thought flows better then mine.

Strategy and Tactics
I see this article being done in the arm chair general fashion, old salts writing editorials about past battles or current ones along with observations on general tactical advantages or disadvantages one has by taking that route, useing that weapon.  It would take the form of a short essay, possibly only three paragraphs long.  It would even fit in quite well as just observations on key parts of a battle, or situational responses.  IE, knowing what to do when your opponent opens up Queens Gambit.

Collating data on battles was something the news teams in EVE found rather easier then expected, as battle where frequent and all the various MARS members had to do was follow the forums and kill boards then shoot tells or emails to Corporation leaders for comments on the battle if they hadn't attended themselves.  Point by point accounts where rarely written about, unless it was a tournament or a very large battle, so the reports where generalized to belligerents, losses and accomplishments.

Here I think it would be easy enough to spotlight a random few matches once a week for a "News from the wastes!" article.  Ask the players permission, establish belligerents and create a small fictional story for the conflict.

Game cannon
This is going to be a bit of an odd area for the player end.  Our developer friends in their incredible efforts to get the game out and playable included enough flavor text and lore to allow for a feel of the game.  But right now it's a painting without definable borders, and I hate mucking about with somebody else's creations when they have most of it still in their head, but not shared to the public yet.
Nothing says we can't just plow ahead and ignore/change errors later as more lore is expanded on.  I'm just concerned one of my crazy ideas will catch on again and destroy some private part of the world before it was ever born. 

[Shinkurex]

imo, the above posts represent everything that could essentially be written about. So how do we want to go about doing this? have people volunteer to write in the different "Departments" like a real news room, or just get a hodgepodge of submissions and take lemons and make lemonade to speak. Also, how do we want to format this? do we want to make it a jpg like the originals? or try to make it forum based? if the former, we will need to create a generic template, and will probably have to implement a charater limit or something on submissions...

[Pickle]

I think it needs about six people to act as the editorial group, ideally one should be from Muse.  They need to take a week or two behind the scenes to work out the format and frequency, and then come back with details of what can be submitted and how.

[Yiski]

Well, as much as I'd like to join in this venture, consequently, I've got two RP threads to maintain, but what I can contribute is this nifty world map Zill found from the old forum to help me. Should be useful for you guys as well.

http://i.imgur.com/jVubc.jpg

[Shinkurex]

I think it needs about six people to act as the editorial group, ideally one should be from Muse.  They need to take a week or two behind the scenes to work out the format and frequency, and then come back with details of what can be submitted and how.

I'm all for helping out... though I'm sure from the original post, that Muse would only be able to provide limited assistance on this due to time constraints

[Shinkurex]

Alright, if we are going to do this, then we will have to iron out a couple of things.... First of all, let's go ahead and get an editorial team put together... Would anyone like to volunteer?

[Lord Dick Tim]

I'm in for it.  Matter of fact I was trolling GOI earlier looking for certain people to interview, but I got sucked in to a series of matches where I debated the finer points of the lumberjacks use.  Needless to say, the lumberjack works like a dream again with the correct ammo.

I've also been looking at lead in questions, when addressing balance issues pose the question like this "How do you feel about the new safety feature on Flak Cannon ammo, the loss of close range fire power must have changed your strategy".

[BdrLineAzn]

I'm in for it as well. I could look around the forums and find some treads that look interesting and try to make something out of that. Or anything you guys put me into.

[Squash]

Needs a gossip section that tracks actual gossip, for instance, Is Spasmic Monkey stepping down from head of SMAC?

[Qwerty Kun]

I'll join in on the editorial team

I also think one of the first articles should be on all the different teams/clans that are forming.

From the top of my head, Gentlemen, Murder of Crows, Pastafarians, SMAC, The Ducks, The Dandy Lions

[Shinkurex]

I'll join in on the editorial team

I also think one of the first articles should be on all the different teams/clans that are forming.

From the top of my head, Gentlemen, Murder of Crows, Pastafarians, SMAC, The Ducks, The Dandy Lions

This is a great idea... maybe get a comment from each of the leaders of said clans... So then we need to go over layout, and whatnot... do we want it to be multi-paged, or just one like the anchor is now? IMO, I like the simplicity of the one page documents, but if we do that, our articles will have to have set charater limits. Plus pictures could also affect how much we can write on one page... Mult-pages can give us the freedom, but do the people want to read that much? and how would we present it.... I was thinking of maybe doing a companion site, but it's been so long since I've touched web dev, that I'm not sure if I can do that .... (If you can't tell, I'm just spewing out the ideas that float in my head... sorry for the wall of text )

[Pickle]

Clara hasn't chipped in yet.. Muse needs to give a nod if it's to be official, or unofficially leak some of the brand artwork - which it should be doing anyway to provide support to the community to promote the game.

Producing it as a PDF is quite straight forward if Muse will host, in which case I suggest basing it on two sides of A4 to give us a back page.  Text can be accepted in pretty much any format and the whole assembled in Word, Publisher, Open Office, etc.  I think going with PDF is the easiest route to flexible formatting.  It's also pretty much platform independent (we don't need to worry how it looks on different screens because we're producing it to b printed).


I'm in, once Clara says one way or the other whether or not Muse will support.

[Sgt. Spoon]

Well I'm sure if asking we could get access to the used parts of the Broadside Anchor, but I don't see how MUSE should support more than that.