IDEAS FOR RYZOM

What is a Town Crier?
A person employed to make public announcements in the streets or marketplace of a town.

Who do they work for?
Town Criers will work for the Events team and be representatives of each Nation.

What do we call them?
We can call them Oyez.

Where do we put them?
Oyez will stand in every town, preferably on a pedestal in the center of the marketplace, where they can be easily found.

What will a Town Crier do?
Oyez will work as an anchorman for weekly news: a source of information and entertainment, a historical news broadcaster, where players can interact with Oyez to read of current events in game.

Each event is different, each cry is different; a cry that best suits the purpose of a gathering and truly welcomes those attending. A good cry is no more than 125 words in length, a good cry contains points of history or background that is not generally known, a good cry contains elements of humour - it is a bit of humour that everyone hearing the cry will appreciate. A good cry contains the correct phrases.

Every Oyez needs a signaling device. Generally a bell is used to begin a gathering call and greeting, but for this purpose, a crier will be a permanent presence where they stand, and only a player's approximation to the NPC should trigger the criers gathering call, a written announcement that gets a player's attention and encourages interaction with the NPC.

Each crier ends with a final line in relations to their official representation of the Nation such as "...and may Ma-Duk Bless the Dynasty!." or "...Jena Save the King!" etc...

Now, a crier won't only announce upcoming events, but also provide information on what happened at events, so that players are well informed on what is happening with events in their town/nations.

This is just something I've been thinking about, it doesn't hurt to put the idea out to encourage discussion, and possibly generate even better ideas that will improve how events can be communicated to players. Mainly because I think the current method is not fully working, while we can find information when events are being held, there is very little follow up regarding the outcome of events.

Another I idea I've been mulling over is gathering volunteers to start our very own Ryzom Town Crier News, one that will work with the events team and help spread the news regarding events. The one obstacle I find is that while we may very well post information on the forums, not everyone bothers to read the forums, so I toss in the idea of a permanent Town Crier NPC as a much better option.

I'm not against it but do wanna warn you (not exactly the same) the zora gouverment has been trying to get an information board up for 2 years. After they had the longest debates ever about design and such it ever got placed but then they could not decide what to put on them and in the end event team actually removed the information board with 0 information on it.
Just saying this is possible kind off but who decides what goes where will mean event team gets extra work and meetings about them and such wich can when some ppl arn't really close friends end in long non ending debates.

Humm...well I can't say anything about the information board since I know nothing about it. But it bothers me to hear that such a simple thing as adding an information board can generate such poor results.

There would be no need for meetings with players regarding what information the Town Crier will be saying, because what they are sharing is world news, political news, event news, etc...granted each will have their own personality and style in the way they entice the crowd and tell of current events.

One good example is the event held with the Matis Kitinologist; they captured a Kitin, trapped him like a monkey in a cage, and are going to start studying it and more likely, since it is in Matis hand, experiment with it. Now this should be alarming news! If we had a TC he can easily relate this information to the masses in game.

I didn't know that. :)

Original idea I think is brilliant, but lets refine it. If you run into Yrks for example, will the TC constantly be yelling out information the same way the Rangers do in Kitins Lair and Alamati camp? I find that a little annoying, unless it is very short.

Maybe a message: "Here Ye, 'News posted on information board at such and such location.'" then you go to a specific forum or read the info board. Or, he can just shout out the message if its short like the Rangers do? Hopefully it won't be every 5 seconds, maybe space it out time-wise so it doesn't mess up your chat window?

You could make it so it's like the Aggro guards. If you click on them they say something.

make it so what they say doesn't show up in a chat box at all, but only in a chat bubble seen by all players, then how often he says something or how much he says won't matter, you can still chat via txt in game and not have a flood of npc chatter, and if you want to read what the town crier is saying, you look at his chat bubble.

Do not missunderstand me I liked the information board idea in the past and still think it would bring some extra news to new players like basic info who rules, who are the asembly, who to contact for info, upcoming events, some small lore (no dates or impossible names), political news, .... 
The thing is adding something to towns will have to go trough the assembly's is my guess and getting all 4 lands and all 12 asembly's (my guess) to agree on is gonna be alot of work.

We do have city welcomers so why give the town  crier a whole new name? In the end it would lead to confusion, I would go for something simple as City Crier or something so new players now what to expect.

About him shouting, wel if he does that stables like the ones at FH will never have ppl sitting there and chatting. Last night somebody was playing piano with FH guards at the stables and I actually ported someplace else since it is anoying and interupting when you are chatting with somebody. And well if he can't yell in around he's gonna be hard to notice to ppl in the end so I would then again go for a big information board.

i think you missed what i was saying sub, i'm saying that while he would have a chat bubble like any homin or npc, the words in his chat bubble would not show up in "around" "region" "team" "guild" "universe" ect.

you would have to read the chat as the bubbles over his head change, and only by looking at the npc, if you turned your back (moved your camera view) to him, you would miss his msg, but if your looking at the npc, you would see his chat bubbles. (this would also keep his msg's from showing up in the chat log as well)

anywho, next time ur on ts i'll try to explain what i'm saying, lolx. (if that is you aren't understanding what i mean)

understand perfectly what you are saying. No idea if it's doable since all those not using around chat you need to click the next arrow on. Still having an pc there standing repeating text in a chatbubble seems something anoying to read I rather open a AARC page to read then just waiting there for chat bubbles to change.