In-Game News Correspondents: What do you think?

[CutterJohn]

Originally Posted by Malorn

In PS1 15 seconds of intel could mean the difference between a successful gal drop & resecure vs a killfarm.

Right. Thats what I said.. It makes little difference.


This is not a game with far reaching strategic objectives. Even if they are giving information away, there are few of them, and they can't give much more than localized info. And if they are scouting rather than casting, it will become apparent in a very short amount of time.

[ThirdCross]

Stardouser your making this way more complicated than it should be. Just allow people who are designated war correspondents the ability to spectate people who volunteer to be spectated. Think of the spectate mechanic that's in most FPSs.

[The Desert Fox]

War correspondents aren't invulnerable and don't "Spectate" people IRL. You have a camera man follow around a News guy, and they are attached to military units. Make it as real as possible, just do your best not to die.

[basti]

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

Right. Thats what I said.. It makes little difference.


This is not a game with far reaching strategic objectives. Even if they are giving information away, there are few of them, and they can't give much more than localized info. And if they are scouting rather than casting, it will become apparent in a very short amount of time.

This actually happend, multiple times, on all 3 servers:

Kusag/Dagda/Azeban/whatever base linked to a warpgate.

Enemy hack, a few minutes left. Outfit on the way to resecure. Enemy knows that something is coming for the resecure, but dont know who, from where and with what.
5-20 seconds before the Galdrop, someone spotted them, relayed their attempt to a CR5, and he globalled and maybe even prepared OSes.

Drop. Right into the enemy. Infantary inside, cant go forward. Vehicles behind, cant stay. No where to go.
Drop failed, no resecure. Base goes to the enemy. Populations shift.
And for the rest of the night, you are on that continent. Just because that one galdrop didnt make it.


This happend a lot. And adding the ability for someone to freely roam around isnt a good idea, as it promotes easy intel.


Besides, war reporting should be made from the frontlines, with your face in the dirt. Not from a save position high above, floating around. This way the whole thing becomes a lot more epic.

[Stardouser]

Originally Posted by ThirdCross

Stardouser your making this way more complicated than it should be. Just allow people who are designated war correspondents the ability to spectate people who volunteer to be spectated. Think of the spectate mechanic that's in most FPSs.

That's what I said in the first place, to spectate, minus the volunteer thing,which I never heard of . Then, after the doomsayers said 1 guy able to ghost all 3 teams would obviously then cheat, I changed it to a journalist that can only see one empire at a time(making you need 3 per server) and he has a physical presence so that people can see him, this was for the purpose of keeping him honest(ie, people could tell if he was doing something he shouldn't). People kept getting caught up the invulnerable thing, of course he would be invulnerable, spectating ghosts can't be killed either, can they? But you also can't see people who are spectating and THAT was the purpose of giving them a physical body.

Originally Posted by The Desert Fox

War correspondents aren't invulnerable and don't "Spectate" people IRL. You have a camera man follow around a News guy, and they are attached to military units. Make it as real as possible, just do your best not to die.

This was all about allowing them the tools to do the job. This isn't about realism. This is a video game, suddenly making it a realistic for the guy documenting stuff makes zero sense. You also don't want to make it frustrating for the people trying to do it, or you'll find the list of people willing to do it quite thin.

[ThirdCross]

Originally Posted by Stardouser

That's what I said in the first place, to spectate, minus the volunteer thing,which I never heard of . Then, after the doomsayers said 1 guy able to ghost all 3 teams would obviously then cheat, I changed it to a journalist that can only see one empire at a time(making you need 3 per server) and he has a physical presence so that people can see him, this was for the purpose of keeping him honest(ie, people could tell if he was doing something he shouldn't). People kept getting caught up the invulnerable thing, of course he would be invulnerable, spectating ghosts can't be killed either, can they? But you also can't see people who are spectating and THAT was the purpose of giving them a physical body.

I guess I should clarify what I mean by spectate. The correspondent would only be able to see what those who volunteer to be spectated see, i.e., you look through the eyes of their character. For benefit of preventing spying you could have a camera symbol appear next to their name when the correspondent is spectating them.

Here's a good video showing the character being spectated on the left and what spectating looks like on the right.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

Right. Thats what I said.. It makes little difference.

You're either misunderstanding or misrepresenting what I said. There is a huge difference between successfully resecuring a base and becoming someone else's kill farm. In one, you've achieved your objective and in the other you did not.

This is not a game with far reaching strategic objectives. Even if they are giving information away, there are few of them, and they can't give much more than localized info. And if they are scouting rather than casting, it will become apparent in a very short amount of time.

And why would they waste their time building a spectator feature when the game already has one called the Infiltrator class?

Any good journalism I've ever seen involved getting in and interviewing people who were there, or better yet actually being there with them. Embedded journalism leads to good stories and the people telling the tale capture what it was like to be in that situation, what others were thinking, the emotions of the crew, whether they thought they were going to win, why they made the calls they did. You naturally get a lot of that when you have an embedded journalist. And fortunately for the game, they have a way you can be an embedded journalist and not die a lot - be an infiltrator that never de-cloaks and for the most part stays out of combat, but is still on a team's teamspeak/ventrilo/squad and moving around with them. And best of all, you get one empire's side of the story which makes for great propaganda pieces.

I really don't see why that is insufficient for news reporting for PS2. It doesn't threaten the game in any way and uses existing game mechanics to get the job done.

[Vancha]

Originally Posted by Malorn

You're either misunderstanding or misrepresenting what I said. There is a huge difference between successfully resecuring a base and becoming someone else's kill farm. In one, you've achieved your objective and in the other you did not.

I think his point is that a day later, it probably won't matter. A week later, it certainly won't.

Though that's more about the lack of persistent progression than IGNCs.

[Stardouser]

Infiltrator class is not a spectator feature. You're obviously attempting to impart that description to it, but the obvious difference is that a spectator isn't taking part in the game, and can't be interrupted from getting the coverage he needs, while an infiltrator can be killed and spend the next 10 minutes trying to get back to the fight.

And as far as getting one empire's story, that's been covered, the spectator would be attached to one empire.

You're still trying to make this about realistic journalism, a real journalist probably isn't going to attempt to get footage of the battle right between the tanks at the spear point of the battle, and yet that's what this idea needs the power to do more than anything else, and also, you're still trying to emphasize the risk of cheating. But think about it, one guy can't be in all places at once, can't communicate the info to more than a few people that fast, the more people he tried to communicate it to the greater chance of being caught, and get this - since there's only going to be 1 or 2 guys per server doing this, it would be a full time job cheating. Makes it seem quite ridiculous when you think about it.

And you know, it's not like SOE has never used player volunteers in positions of some power before. Everquest guide program for example.

[Malorn]

When you add a spectator mode you are giving access to information that cannot be obtained by any other means in-game.

Intelligence can and will change the course of battles. Having an intelligence agent that is invulnerable and/or undetectable compromises the battlefield by introducing competitive elements that cannot be influenced or prevented through in-game means. It will be abused.

[Stardouser]

It would take full-time leaking of information to make a big difference...so, the one guy who is priviliged and able to do this, is going to get himself banned by constantly slipping info to the other teams? Someone is going to spend hours per day editing videos and writing articles just to also spend hours a day cheating and not even playing?

There are ways to make this work and there are ways it will be obvious if inappropriate activity is going on.

Also, the use of spectator "mode" is misleading. Having 2-3 guys in the entire PS2 game community that have spectator privileges isn't spectator "mode".

[SuperMorto]

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.

How rude!

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by Stardouser

It would take full-time leaking of information to make a big difference...so, the one guy who is priviliged and able to do this, is going to get himself banned by constantly slipping info to the other teams? Someone is going to spend hours per day editing videos and writing articles just to also spend hours a day cheating and not even playing?

There are ways to make this work and there are ways it will be obvious if inappropriate activity is going on.

Also, the use of spectator "mode" is misleading. Having 2-3 guys in the entire PS2 game community that have spectator privileges isn't spectator "mode".

You can be a perfectly capable reporter giving great stories from the perspective of the people on the ground.

There's no need to introduce this crap. It's all risk and cost with no real reward.

[stordito]

i really would love (and i think it could be an amazing feature) having a small automated recap of what happened in the last hours before i drop in the battlefield,like a little, 20 seconds briefieng during the loading screen.
it's fairly simple to implement a sentence constructor...

another cool thing , but fan based, would be a 30 seconds news broadcast over global radio chat every hour or so in the style of WW2 war bulletins, with some propaganda and frontline updates...

[SuperMorto]

Originally Posted by stordito

i really would love (and i think it could be an amazing feature) having a small automated recap of what happened in the last hours before i drop in the battlefield,like a little, 20 seconds briefieng during the loading screen.
it's fairly simple to implement a sentence constructor...

another cool thing , but fan based, would be a 30 seconds news broadcast over global radio chat every hour or so in the style of WW2 war bulletins, with some propaganda and frontline updates...

you just gave me an idea!