I am thinking that Forums for me are my most preferred method for communicating and announcing fun event ideas. However, I wonder if new players take advantage of the forums as much as they should or could. There's a ton of content on there, so I think some of them might be overwhelmed by how much content there is. With that as an introduction, I'm wondering if there is anything we can do as vets and as a community to help encourage new players to visit the most useful threads (i.e. Guides, Guild posts, Stories, PlayerRun events, etc). Is there already an NPC counselor in Occlo that gives players information on how to best navigate the forums, encourage them to make a forum account? If not, could there be an NPC counselor that gives useful information on forum navigation? My second reason for posting this thread, is wondering if there is a better way to communicate player run events ingame? I usually only use the town crier if there is a shardwide event, but if there is an event that is targeted towards a difference audience or as a sign up only (like Quaddafi's new player shopping spree). What if a player could pay X gold to notify a specific group of people ranging from "entire shard", "home owners only", "New Players (Accounts under 30 days old)", "Vets Only (Accounts over 500 days old"), etc. For example for 500 gold per person, you could send out the notice? You would not be able to target players directly but you could target demographics. The players would receive an ingame message reading "A carrier pigeon from Jupiter has delivered a message to you. To view this message, open your character profile" This system could not be used to send or receive actual items, just as a way to send out communication ingame. Thoughts?
Pro's for ingame player initiated alerts: A guild could announce to all friendly guilds "VoP is organizing a militia to fight against pk's. Come to Paws if you wish to join" A player could organize more targeted impromptu events ingame: "Attention to all new players in game right now. Come to Occlo mage shop for a chance to enter Quaddafi's new player shopping spree!" "A dungeon crawl is being organized by TKB, come to <location> to join." Con's: People could potentially use this to try and 'lure' people into a trap.
Jupiter, I think you're on to something here. A a new player to the shard it's a tad intimidating. There have been some very helpful people along the way but there comes a point when you're looking for a little something more. Reading here is helpful on somethings but it leaves a lot if gaps. A more open line of communication is always a key to success. Especially with events. A rough schedule of timing what's to be expected. That's would be great.
Love this idea. Nice little gold sink and seems like the type of UO wizardry that Chris whips up all the time. Maybe could be triggered via command to an existing Town Crier NPC.
Just make those messages part of the "No scamming/luring" policy that covers official forums and IRC channels. I love that idea. Paying 500gp/each for a one-time broadcast would be quite a lot thought. Maybe the message can be repeated after the next 4 server saves to make sure you catch a larger audience ? Or create a message like the answer you get when paging GMs where you have a little round message diamond in the top left corner of your screen.
Awesome Wodan. Yeah I think there is as much risk for young players as well as scammers abusing a system like this. For instance, I don't want a new player to be able to spam all vets "I r new plz give me goldz" Don't get me wrong, I love our new players and want to help them out, but if a few bad apples spoil a tool like this it could become something that people just ignore and/or become annoyed by. Maybe it is a platinum reward and/or anniversary thing? I dunno. I mean I want it to be something that people don't learn to ignore
Good point, that should be the main priority. Using such a tool should be expensive enough to prevent misuse. The charge should be depending on the target group with "All Players" being the most expensive. Chars logged in will collect all messages sent while they are online and if an account logs in for the first time, all messages of the last 24h will pop up. On the other hand I wouldn't mind seeing a few messages per week. That's a great way of involving more players in community events and pulling them into action. Any input in what would be reasonable price tags for this ? All Players - 50k Vets (>6m) - 25k Noobs (<2m) - 20k Factioners - 10k
^ bump because so many other threads recently have climbed to 1k+ views over dramatic events, and this is a solid gold nugget of awesomeness that needs to be admired and discussed!
I agree Jupiter. Ive been on this shard for about 4 months, and it has definitely felt like a home. Feel just like I did back in 99 when I first started playing UO. Props to the staff and the vets who helped me start out in this world.
