Before the Galnet News were implemented in the game, back during early beta, I had high hopes for them. I have to admit that so far, the whole system hasn't lived up to my expectations. Right now, this is basically how Glanet works : each station has game-generated news entries listing the player ships that passed through the local system in the last 24h, listing the top player bounties, and listing the current most wanted commodities. Aside from that, there are the daily handmade news entries, which are well written and provide some background to the game. But there could be so much more.
Now, here are some ideas I've been thinking about, that could make Galnet much more interesting to use. They mainly rely on pre-written sentences that could be completed and put together intelligently by the game, without any human intervention. Some of these ideas imply minor changes to other areas of the game that could greatly benefit from a more useful Galnet board. These ideas put together would allow users to have a much larger amount of news items to read, with relevant information for their career activity, all this requiring little to no work from the writing team beyond creating the base content ; the game would dynamically generate its own news items. Here are my suggestions :
- Galnet could inform players of the nearest conflict zones outside the current system. Each sentence in the following example would be independently selected from a pre-written database, pieced together to form a news entry, and completed with relevant names and numbers from the server's database :
- Within a system with conflict zones, local news entries could detail where exactly the conflict zones are located, and give them a little background. Example :
- Galnet news could be a source of info for bounty hunters, pointing them towards a system where they could find more abundant wanted targets. Once again, each sentence would be selected independently from a database to create a unique entry. Examples :
- Within a system with intense pirate activity, instead of randomly generating instances every time a player jumps into the same area, each nav beacon and RES could have a constistent and predetermined level of piracy, resulting from factors that could be presented in a news item. Example :
- The latest changes in local factions influence could also be reflected in Galnet news bulletins. Considering various statistics, such as how many % influence factions have gained or lost in a certain amount of days, and taking into account the factions types (dictatorship, mob, democracy, etc.), news items could be generated to present those changes in an immersive and interesting fashion. Examples :
- Frontier gathers a lot of personal stats on players, which could be used in news bulletins, either as examples on a certain topic, or as a news item in and of themselves. Examples :
- Certain missions given by a station could be advertised in local news, possibly with a link to the mission page. This could also be a great way to advertise community goals in a neighbouring system. Examples :
- Holidays like Christmas, and other religious holidays could be celebrated through news bulletins specific to each system, with a local flavour depending on the leading faction. Examples :
- Given the number of news items that could possibly be generated by such a system, an update to the galnet interface would be welcome, with news categories to pick from, like "Political", "Military", "short news items"... Also, some of the shorter news items could simply slide on a news ticker at the bottom of the galnet interface, to make for a more dynamic and "live" experience.
I believe these ideas could contribute to greatly improve the Galnet experience. With such automatically generated news, each system (and possibly even each station within a system, given they're controlled by different factions) would have more background, more flavor. Upon entering a system, you'd be enticed to dock at the nearest station and immerse yourself in the local atmosphere, reading about the power struggles, hearing the latest prowess of some commander, or browsing the news for info on where to hunt the juiciest bounties. It would give more identity to each system, without requiring an army of writers.
Basically, the developpers would create a large enough database containing individual sentences, that the game would intelligently piece together to create varied news items. There would also be several different phrases with identical meaning, that would be picked randomly, so that each news item in each system would be truly unique even if the message is technically the same. These pre-written bits of text, completed with dynamic data from the servers stats, commander names, etc, would make relevant and genuinely interesting news. Coupled with the handwritten items the writing team is already providing, this would make a very nice reading experience. It would be a nice way to relax between missions or trade runs, or to immerse yourself in the recent events when you log in to the game.
If you have any other suggestions, please go ahead, and if you find these ideas interesting, don't let this thread get buried, maybe someone at Frontier will read it and get something out of it.
Now, here are some ideas I've been thinking about, that could make Galnet much more interesting to use. They mainly rely on pre-written sentences that could be completed and put together intelligently by the game, without any human intervention. Some of these ideas imply minor changes to other areas of the game that could greatly benefit from a more useful Galnet board. These ideas put together would allow users to have a much larger amount of news items to read, with relevant information for their career activity, all this requiring little to no work from the writing team beyond creating the base content ; the game would dynamically generate its own news items. Here are my suggestions :
- Galnet could inform players of the nearest conflict zones outside the current system. Each sentence in the following example would be independently selected from a pre-written database, pieced together to form a news entry, and completed with relevant names and numbers from the server's database :
- Within a system with conflict zones, local news entries could detail where exactly the conflict zones are located, and give them a little background. Example :
- Galnet news could be a source of info for bounty hunters, pointing them towards a system where they could find more abundant wanted targets. Once again, each sentence would be selected independently from a database to create a unique entry. Examples :
- Within a system with intense pirate activity, instead of randomly generating instances every time a player jumps into the same area, each nav beacon and RES could have a constistent and predetermined level of piracy, resulting from factors that could be presented in a news item. Example :
- The latest changes in local factions influence could also be reflected in Galnet news bulletins. Considering various statistics, such as how many % influence factions have gained or lost in a certain amount of days, and taking into account the factions types (dictatorship, mob, democracy, etc.), news items could be generated to present those changes in an immersive and interesting fashion. Examples :
- Frontier gathers a lot of personal stats on players, which could be used in news bulletins, either as examples on a certain topic, or as a news item in and of themselves. Examples :
- Certain missions given by a station could be advertised in local news, possibly with a link to the mission page. This could also be a great way to advertise community goals in a neighbouring system. Examples :
- Holidays like Christmas, and other religious holidays could be celebrated through news bulletins specific to each system, with a local flavour depending on the leading faction. Examples :
- Given the number of news items that could possibly be generated by such a system, an update to the galnet interface would be welcome, with news categories to pick from, like "Political", "Military", "short news items"... Also, some of the shorter news items could simply slide on a news ticker at the bottom of the galnet interface, to make for a more dynamic and "live" experience.
I believe these ideas could contribute to greatly improve the Galnet experience. With such automatically generated news, each system (and possibly even each station within a system, given they're controlled by different factions) would have more background, more flavor. Upon entering a system, you'd be enticed to dock at the nearest station and immerse yourself in the local atmosphere, reading about the power struggles, hearing the latest prowess of some commander, or browsing the news for info on where to hunt the juiciest bounties. It would give more identity to each system, without requiring an army of writers.
Basically, the developpers would create a large enough database containing individual sentences, that the game would intelligently piece together to create varied news items. There would also be several different phrases with identical meaning, that would be picked randomly, so that each news item in each system would be truly unique even if the message is technically the same. These pre-written bits of text, completed with dynamic data from the servers stats, commander names, etc, would make relevant and genuinely interesting news. Coupled with the handwritten items the writing team is already providing, this would make a very nice reading experience. It would be a nice way to relax between missions or trade runs, or to immerse yourself in the recent events when you log in to the game.
If you have any other suggestions, please go ahead, and if you find these ideas interesting, don't let this thread get buried, maybe someone at Frontier will read it and get something out of it.
