In-Game News Correspondents: What do you think?

Stardouser · 2012-03-29, 10:34 AM

I would wager that there are people in the PS community interested in performing in-game journalism AND capable of doing the same(don't look at me, I'm just daydreaming here).

What would you guys think if SOE allowed a certain number of people to have the ability to ghost any facility, player, vehicle, commander, etc, with an eye towards allowing these people to write up in-game news stories, etc, and if these people had the proper hard drive space and other equipment and know-how, they could even take highlight screenshots and videos. These people would be able to eavesdrop on certain channels or get an omniscient view of the server's activity so they know where to go. No one would be able to create a character on a server where they have been granted ghosting journalism privileges and these people would of course be vetted and approved by SOE.

Naturally, such people might already have, or should develop, relationships with websites like...I don't know...Planetside Universe, who could host their videos and such.

Vash02 · 2012-03-29, 10:40 AM

I believe Morto has got something going for this kind of thing.

Bazilx · 2012-03-29, 10:41 AM

I like the basic premise, though the 'listening in to voice chat' thing could be a bit uncomfortable unless their presence is very well announced.

I'd hate for them to write a news article on my outfits' weekly Cyber-sex Orgy Event.

Stardouser · 2012-03-29, 10:43 AM

Originally Posted by Bazilx

I like the basic premise, though the 'listening in to voice chat' thing could be a bit uncomfortable unless their presence is very well announced.

I'd hate for them to write a newspiece on my outfits weekly Cyber-sex Orgy Event.

I meant text chats...I hadn't even thought of voice chats...but yea, probably no need to listen in on voice chat unless you show up and announce yourself.

TheDrone · 2012-03-29, 10:43 AM

If PlanetSide 2 gets big you'll have more than enough sites willing to do stuff like this.

It could in fact be quite an important tool to "frame" events and make them feel even more important.

After all, in a never-ending game like PlanetSide things like "victory conditions" are decided upon the community and not necessarily a game-mechanic.

Stardouser · 2012-03-29, 10:56 AM

Originally Posted by TheDrone

If PlanetSide 2 gets big you'll have more than enough sites willing to do stuff like this.

It could in fact be quite an important tool to "frame" events and make them feel even more important.

After all, in a never-ending game like PlanetSide things like "victory conditions" are decided upon the community and not necessarily a game-mechanic.

Right! But if they don't have the tools to do the job, they will be constantly dying while trying to do it as a normal player.

And I have to say, you know, a lot of players in a lot of games are constantly pursuing that super KDR and not much more...so you ask, why should they play Planetside where, while you can pursue KDR, there's a lot more focus on teamwork? Glory. For glory. While SOMETIMES in-game news might feature people with uber stats, on the whole they'll be following battles and touching on the teamwork aspects. KDR is vanity, so too is making the news, can't you imagine how people might flock to the game and embrace the teamwork/outfit thing in hopes of gloriously appearing on the next morning's PSU Newsreel? In other words, this would be a selling point for the game. All SOE has to do is enhance their relationships with community sites and give people the tools to do the job for free.

That said, I suppose lone wolves or non-outfit affiliated squads could be heroes too. 10 guys holding 50 off of a base long enough for reinforcements to arrive, that's the kind of thing that goes on the news too.

acosmo · 2012-03-29, 10:59 AM

theres already a dude who does this with multiplayer games. i bet there's plenty more too

Stardouser · 2012-03-29, 11:06 AM

Originally Posted by Vash02

I believe Morto has got something going for this kind of thing.

Something formal with the devs you mean?

Skitrel · 2012-03-29, 11:22 AM

Reposting what I said in the other thread.

You know, I really like this idea. Kind of like an Auraxis News Network kind of deal, cataloguing the events and happenings of Planetside 2 on a day to day basis, you should make it a suggestion thread, I can see it accompanying the new website alongside the online realtime map in browser and the like.

What it needs however are actual writers, not just crappy people Morto has pulled together from whomever he can find in the community to do it. Much like Bungie have their community liasons that do all kinds of daily and weekly posts on their site it needs to have an official person that does it, a real fake journalist of sorts, giving correspondence and story to our conflict and world.

Mix this all together with this idea for special events and the like that factions would have their own goals that lead to immense showdowns as they all cross paths and something like this could be REALLY special: http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=39924

Vancha · 2012-03-29, 12:33 PM

http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/ISD_IC

CCP has done this with their ISD program. I've already expressed my wish for SOE to have ISD STARs, but ICs would be cool too.

**Malorn** · 2012-03-29, 12:36 PM

Seems like potential abuse to me.

I don't see why people can't "cover" the story from each side's perspective. It's more immersive that way anyway. We won't have bias-free journalism so we may as well embrace it and let it run as ongoing propaganda.

You don't need any special powers to be a journalist. Just write what you see like an embedded journalist does in the military today.

Stardouser · 2012-03-29, 01:10 PM

Originally Posted by Malorn

Seems like potential abuse to me.

I don't see why people can't "cover" the story from each side's perspective. It's more immersive that way anyway. We won't have bias-free journalism so we may as well embrace it and let it run as ongoing propaganda.

You don't need any special powers to be a journalist. Just write what you see like an embedded journalist does in the military today.

It's not about bias-free, it's about giving them the tools to do their job. If they're unable to follow the battles without dying, they can't do it effectively. It may be more immersive for the person doing the journalism to do it as a live player, but it's not about HIM, it's about the people who are going to view it on the community sites later.

And I completely disagree about immersion. Immersion is enhanced by giving the ability to get more videos and photos out of the combat areas. Being interrupted by dying because you could only do it as a live killable player is inefficient at best.

As for abuse, I covered that. The players cannot create a character on the same server as their journalist account, and indeed, they could back that up with an IP block preventing secondary accounts from that household logging into the same server. And also, I said that SOE would firm up their relationships with community sites and vette the applicants. They could also be rotated monthly or something.

No, I think the uniqueness of being able to have a fully-featured news service could do a lot to attract players to the game.

Lonehunter · 2012-03-29, 01:12 PM

It does scream potential abuse, so it would have to be very, very limited. I'm talking like 1 "Reporter" per fan site, and right now there's less then 5 lol. Even with these people they would have to be monitored to prevent abuse/exploitation.

But something like a daily battle report would be great so you get an idea of what's happened the past several hours before you play. This would be really great to have around events.

Originally Posted by Stardouser

The players cannot create a character on the same server as their journalist account, and indeed, they could back that up with an IP block preventing secondary accounts from that household logging into the same server. And also, I said that SOE would firm up their relationships with community sites and vette the applicants. They could also be rotated monthly or something.

They can still get around almost any blocking SOE tries to do, that's not the issue though. Said reporter could be buds with a certain outfit and relay them vital intel.

Every spy dreams to have the cover of a reporter working all sides, gives them an excuse to work in the open. They may not be a prominent member of said outfit, it may not even be very big. But if he/she knows 5 people in one outfit and relays to them he saw 5 Galaxies of zerg bypassing the front line, 5 Reavers with AA could ruin their plan.

Or said reporter could have a secret long time grudge for an outfit, and gives small but repetitive intel against them

These may sound like paranoia, over reacting, and exaggerating, but in Planetside it's not. Information is more important here then other FPSs

noxious · 2012-03-29, 01:24 PM

Real war correspondents are either embedded with a unit on a particular side of a conflict, or they observe as best they can as a third party. I think that in PlanetSide 2, a similar setup will work just fine.

I remember once in EVE Online, back when I was a newbie and on a PvP roam with other newbies in EVE University (a teaching corporation/guild), some random guy followed us around while we were engaging an enemy fleet and, in real time, he narrated the encounter as if it were a nature documentary on National Geographic. He was quite good, and it was really humorous/entertaining. As an offshoot to serious reporting, something like this could be fun too.

Stardouser · 2012-03-29, 01:29 PM

Alrighty, I guess I need to put more thought into this instead of just assuming we would trust the devs to figure it out. To that end, then:
Has a physical avatar that is visible to all nearby, and cannot be killed, but is attached to a specific empire. Cannot go anywhere where that empire does not have at least 1 player. Thus, they cannot ghost the enemy. Only their assigned empire.
This, by the way, would mean that there would be 3 assigned reporters per server, one per empire.

Originally Posted by noxious

Real war correspondents are either embedded with a unit on a particular side of a conflict, or they observe as best they can as a third party. I think that in PlanetSide 2, a similar setup will work just fine.

I remember once in EVE Online, back when I was a newbie and on a PvP roam with other newbies in EVE University (a teaching corporation/guild), some random guy followed us around while we were engaging an enemy fleet and, in real time, he narrated the encounter as if it were a nature documentary on National Geographic. He was quite good, and it was really humorous/entertaining. As an offshoot to serious reporting, something like this could be fun too.

Ah, you ninja'd me. Basically, that's what I mean by my above post, limiting the correspondent to one empire. The only extra advantage they get is invulnerability.