Well I brainstormed for a sec and....

[Harwen]

If there is going to be any type of newspaper, it should be a Stagmalite(sp)-wide or level-wide serious peice of journalism.

For example, a newb comes into the starting city and an NPC is set to shout at preset intervals:

\"Come get your FREE copy of the \'Ylaikum Newcomer\'!\"

And the poor-confused noob would walk up to the man and say \"Hello/Hi/(not wuzup)/Hey there/ /greet\" and the NPC would quickly respond with something like:

Don Quixote Tells You: \"Here is a free copy of the Ylaikum Newcomer, it gives you a few tips on roaming the first level, as well as the latest general news about happenings and events in the First Level.\"

This would be the \'noob sheets\' which would kinda update the newbs on the city, the major locations in the first level, the best place to start, general area of the shops, e.t.c.

This would change every week, but mostly just the recent news part. Not very in depth, but at least it is a start.

The fun part is the actual newspaper, What I call the \"Second Level Times\" (or Second Level Chronice, whatever) which would be written by a player as a job, or by a Dev who actually plays the game regularly (paradox?) maybe a job is better....anyways this player works like reporter and records the general events into an in-game article (or heck maybe in the News Section of the Planeshift Home page) which the players can quickly read before playing or heading off to a party. This would be useful because then the player may get a tip on how to beat certain types of monsters, or the economy or the avalibility of transportation in the level.

Basically one person to a level (with a maximum of the 5th level?)

On the subject of a classifieds section, There should just be a Moderately-sized board at the tavern, maybe outside that when examined, showed some short messages that players can leave from time to time. Profanity will be automatically filtered, but I think an admin can take care of most at once so automation shouldn\'t be too hard. And another thing, the messages get deleted after about 4-6 hours, meaning that the board isn\'t too flooded. Another thing, a player is able to delete a message anytime, because only one message may be posted at a time by any given player.

One more thing, is this off topic?

[Xandria]

Originally posted by Harwen

On the subject of a classifieds section, There should just be a Moderately-sized board at the tavern, maybe outside that when examined, showed some short messages that players can leave from time to time. Profanity will be automatically filtered, but I think an admin can take care of most at once so automation shouldn\'t be too hard. And another thing, the messages get deleted after about 4-6 hours, meaning that the board isn\'t too flooded. Another thing, a player is able to delete a message anytime, because only one message may be posted at a time by any given player.

Yes, I agree that this would be a much more realistic solution than putting this in a newspaper somewhere.  And the tavern is already a great meeting place for people, so it\'s just as well.  

Good thinking Harwen!  

[Kixie]

hmm thats a good idea with the tavern thing but i think still think there should be a classifieds section, both at the least..

[rhyder]

why don\'t we take the newspaper idea a step further. as i see different people have different views on what a paper should look like, or even what it should be used for.

since editing an in-game newspaper would need a small, easy to use text editing tool anyway, why not make this tool available to every player of a certain profession (e.g. a scribe). that way a couple of devoted people could run their own newspaper, sell space in it for advertising player-run shops, guilds, whatever and also sell it in the streets for some money. everyone could try to bring their idea of what a paper should look like to life and there\'d be some diversity on the newspaper-market.

the better the paper would be, the more people would read it and the more money could be taken in for ads. this would create some competition, and a well known paper with lots oif readers would as well be a small instrument of political power.

also this small text-editing/writing tool could be used for all kinds of creative use by the people who are able to work with it (probably really job-dependent). like:
storytellers writing in-game books (probably also selling them), guilds sending out memos, flyers, advertising leaflets, .....

does this idea appeal to anyone else besides me?

[Nihil]

yes, sounds really nice, rhyder :-)

[Axsyrus]

yeah, it would be great to see new things that are made by the players without any(or almost any) interverence of the devs, this way the world would really be \"evolving\" as they say.

[Arthureloi]

hi

[rhyder]

errr... so what about that useless spamming of yours, arthur?