Added

Not a bad idea in base concept, but a little hard to implement, mostly since the posting of the signs would have to be in at least three (more likely five) languages, and would probably have to be manually spawned by the CSR's after each reboot.

I think that such a thing might be used in a more static form to encourage people to use the Forums. Put in hard links to the Guild List, the Events Announcements and the Forums in general. That ought to be not too difficult.

Anything that gets the information out is good.

While I do not yet really get the purpose, technically it may be easier - and already achieveable - to implement if we have fixed signs that are permanent. Instead of buying and setting up a new sign, one buys "a place on the sign", like a notice on a typical overcrowded blackboard. Someone would have to write a rather complex ARCC/WebIg script to work with that, and I don't know about persistence of variable data on those signs. ...Just some brainstorming on the technicalities...

The purpose that I see, Irfidel, is to set up a way to get information out to the players and to do it in game.

The problem is that many players don't seem to use the forums and that the forums are not set up to easily communicate things of passing or time-dependent interest. That's actually two different problems, but the second is inherent in the structure of all forum-based communication.

Many people don't know that the Forums are available in game, or they prefer not to access them in game (and I don't blame them for the latter). Many people are not aware that they can get to the Forums outside of the game by tuning their web-browser to http://app.ryzom.com/index.php and selecting Forums.

The Signs could also be used for messages about in-game competitions, events such as the recent kidnapping of a poor Zorai girl, and the like.

As I said, the main problem I see is the one of CSR/Event Team monitoring, coding the signs to work with ARCC and the necessity (for important stuff) of three(or five)-language translation.

Thanks for clearing up my sometimes foggy mind, Bitty :-)

I think I agree with the problem assessment. Quite possibly signs would be an improvement of the situation but maybe not as effective as hoped for. Signs are still passive: Homins must actively go to them and read them.

I have an idea of which I am not convinced of myself. But I still would like to add it to Razrah's thread here, if I may.

We could try to have a city "barker". Essentially an NPC that walks around the city and announces news. The news should have two section. One to be filled in by devs/game masters, and the other by members of the event team.

The barker would occasionally just announce (=/shout) a brief headline, e.g.
"Rangers looking for seasoned diggers!!!"
When you right click, she would have an "enquire" entry in the menu where you could enter a dialog to list all topics she has to announce, and providing more details/backgrounds/timelines/contact info.

While I think this could propagate news better than a passive sign, this should not be overdone in order to avoid being a nuisance.

Various options:
- This function could be given to all the city welcomers versus a meandering barker
- The announcements could be triggered by approaching homins or just happen from time to time (like the two guys on Silan constantly fighting each other in the ranger camp)
- The announcements itself could be chosen randomly from the currently active list, or randomly with a preference for events happening in the near future, or (slightly overengineered) the barker keeps track of which announcements have been given to which homin and selects those missing

This is all without knowing what's possible with this new arcc system...

Thanks Bittty and Irfidel for the comments.
I knew it was a half-backed idea, but somehow I found it worthwhile posting, mainly for the sake of getting the ball rolling. And I am glad that I did.

Reading through Irfidels post I quite fancy the idea of a NPC walking around and shouting out news. I makes the game more alive and may capture the attention of new/old players who do not use other means of obtaining information.

As the NPC wanders around I would think it wouldn't be a nuisance to read the info in the "around channel", except a player happens to follow the NPC around for some time, by accident from stable to market to GH to app back to market to stable times 2-3.

Otherwise the implemetation of signs as Bittty suggests for events is still valid and I think the maintenance shouldn't too difficult as essentially the text is written for the forum anyway, so copy and paste would do.

I take the point of being able to one-click for the ingame forum, but for "feeling" the game and for non-forum users an ingame option would be good.

The idea about a static sign that announces upcoming events and points people towards the Forums for more information will be studied.

The idea about a wandering NPC (Town Crier) who announces upcoming and ongoing events either at random as the wandering NPC's in Silan do, or on trigger as the wandering guards in the city do now will be studied.

Events are now displayed in map.
Signs can be added later but not a work in progress.