In-game Forums/Calendar?

Arremus · February 2006

Anyways I was playing this other MMO (while I wait...), and it got me thinking to the other MMOs or do or have played (while I wait.......), and one of the biggest p.i.t.a elements, especially to running a guild, is co-ordinating events etc.
Firstly, you usually need to get all of your Guild to sign up on the external Guild website. That alone takes a month to 6 months to get everyone to do that simple task. Then, they need to actually check it regularly. It's just such a hassle.

So I was wondering, will HJ have any form of static in-game communication? Through a simple Guild-Alliance forum setup with a calendar or such?
There could be ways to roleplay it or keep it feeling 'in the world' too.
Perhaps a Guild needs to buy a bulletin board which is placed in their Guild Hall or someones apartment etc, and the Guild members need to go 'read' the board to view the Guild forums and calendar?
And there could even be Guild Alliance bulletin boards (usable only by Guild leaders to stop spam etc), Race bulletin boards.
Could be all sorts of uses for it, and I just thought it could add another (very much needed in my opinion) form of planning, communication and management into the game world.

A community bulletin board could also be used as a way to go 'Looking For Work!', 'Looking for Resources' etc - if Crafting in HJ does indeed use resources in this way.

I think there is a lot to be said for the possibilities of using a bulletin board type system in game, esp for forums and calendar (need a calendar!!), but also for the other reasons listed, and for plenty of other reasons I'm sure.
And using a bulletin board would keep the immersion in game, perhaps even improve it more, rather than "Press F key to pop up your in-game forum" etc.

Of course, now I'll go search the Unofficial FAQ and see if it's already been talked about! haha.
Just got to thinking. Thought I'd post my thinkings. Peace out spanner magnets!

Amlaith · February 2006

I think this is a great idea and I suggested it already in the official play.net forum, but unfortunately got no answer.

19/1/2006
I hope this wasn't suggested before in the forum, but I think this suggestions are really common. Netherless I wanted to mention them because I think that these are great ideas. Many of things below were also implemented already in UO.

Bulletin Board in the major Cities:
It would be nice to have a bulletin board in the major cities. So, People could for example write down the announcement for a festivity. Or they could make appointments or for RP Reasons they could write out a bounty.
So these are announcements for everyone. For example: "The Clans "Aequilibrium and Heldenhammer are celebrating their union on 25th in the month of...everyone is invited" It would be cool if the bulletin boards would be installed in the local inn.
Of course they needed to be monitored and the old messages should be deleted after 4 weeks or so.
Or at least for guilds:
If there is an important meeting between the clan leaders.
Of course this type of announcements could be done by a typical outgame forum.

A Calendar for the charakter or a guild calendar:
I often had the problem, sometimes even when I personally announced it , to remember a special appointment (for example: a meeting between other guild leaders). It would also reduce your own paper chaos to remember a special date. You could take a look in your bag, study your calendar and everything would be fine. Hopefully you won't forget the appointment though.
To be a writer like in UO:
Especially for RPer:
It would be great if there would be the possibility to write own books. Or to collect all your letters in a special book.
->Next step of that: The foundation of a library in the major cities.
The library system would work like the auctionary house. There could be genres for adventure books, manuals, love storys, and so on.
You could buy or borrow copies of the book. You could also take a short look a page of that book.

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::Amlaith::
Hero's Journey Mystics

Lord_Paladin · February 2006

I'd love to have a literal "bulletin board" in the guild house, that people come in and double click on, and a bunch of "notes" appear on it. You click on them to read the messages left behind. I think it's an awesome idea.

kaieedge · February 2006

I fully endorse this. I come from a large guild and alliance in Guild Wars. Having people register and post on our forums is a prerequisite for joining our guild though. It can still be a pain and the reason why we don't get some members, but if they are not willing to take the time and be active then I guess we don't need them.

The point is that an in game message/bulletin board would definitely be helpful. Our guild has an alliance calendar and all, but an in game tool would be much more efficient and useful.

Shroom_Mage · February 2006

I think that an in-game forum/board wouldn't be very much needed, and (based on my knowledge of other forums) probably would significantly hurt role-play Maybe not on RP servers, but quite a bit on the others.

There are many, many alternatives to this, like an auction house, for example. Perhaps a bulliten board or calendar to which only GM's can post would be a really nice idea. There would be no spam or nonsense, and we could get a heads-up on GM events, as well. GM's would also be more likely to post in-character, which helps keep it in the context of the setting.

Allowing anyone to post would result in characters crowded around the boards (if they had to actually be there) and would inevitably result in things blatantly out of character, such discussions/complaints/suggestions about game mechanics and other things like "What are the best skills to take?". All of these things work just fine outside the game, which seems to be a more appropriate place for them.

On the other hand, having to register on out-of-game guild websites and forums (and worse, post to them regularly) is something that usually keeps me away from guilds. I was active in an RP guild in UO, and we had regular in-game guild meetings, all of which were roleplayed, and kept us updated on guild news and what not. We also kept one of those books in a building we'd established as our town hall (in that desert island city no one used, whatever it was called), and it was the closest thing we ever needed to a forum.

Of course, we were a small guild. I think something bulliten board-like would be good for guilds, but isn't exactly necessary for anything else. Guild officers would make the rules on what can and can't be posted, and they could set which ranks are even allowed to post. Important is that it looks visually appropriate, as to not break the immersion.

Archaos · February 2006

How would people gathering around a guild bulletin board be in any way detrimental to rp? It makes perfect sense for a guild to communicate to its members this way. I think a bulletin board in-game is probably the MOST roleplay-centric way to have guild communication.

Edit: this is assuming that every guild has its own BB. If there is one giant BB for all guilds, there might be a point where there are too many people gathered around for it to sense.

Shroom_Mage · February 2006

I meant public boards. Private guild boards would be completely different.

But if you've ever seen the WoW auction houses then you know what I mean.

xDivianaDRx · February 2006

I don't think there should be any type of public board. A guild board is a good idea, but a public board is just kinda weird, I mean, I don't go downtown and leave notes for people on bus-stops or anything. Although I should, that would be interesting.

HJ-Stencil · February 2006

Officially I LIKE this idea!! (Although it takes way more than me liking it to get implemented lol)<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

A guild needs a good structure for communication and to project vision to its members a great guild tool set should be put in place!

I am going to whip out the old 80-20 rule again here, might be new to you guys but this thing is amazing it applies to so many things in life. See the link if you dont know what I am talking about.

Pareto's Principle - The 80-20 Rule

What we are pushing hard for, as a team is to get this game done enough so that you can play it and like nay LOVE playing it. There will be MANY things missing from the game when it is released. L I wish we could produce a game thats as refined as it will become in 5 years. Currently I dont know how to do this otherwise Simu would try J. The refinement comes after you play and we can get direct feed back, and data analysis to support our decisions and all those boring numerical things that we crunch re-crunch and do it again just to make sure we are being fair.

So we are focusing on the 20% of the game that will give us 80% of the results so as to achieve a great game to publish. I am not sure if the guild tool System if implemented will be deemed important enough to be in the release. How big and important will the guilds be to a world full of only noob lvl 1 players? Will the game feel uncompleted without it?

So I doubt something this complex will be deemed necessary before we go live, but I am drooling at the thought of this being a nice patch afterwards J

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