[Request]: Galactic News

[Gigaflux]

Hi there!

Just this morning I realized what misses in X4 (also): Some kind of a galactic news system! With such a system the immersion into the game world would certainly increase, I would think. Of course, messages should be of importance and not just spam: I suggest messages regarding xenon activity outside of their sectors for example. Also, depending on the status of a player, messages about enemy races (ARG, MIN, ... whoever you are an enemy of). Now and then a fake news message (false alert) also ....

Players in the late middle or end game probably don't need such news system, but all other players would notice that there's something big happening in the vast space around them. We're playing in a time of war, aren't we?

[CBJ]

To save time, I'll quote what I wrote the last time this was requested.

It was done in X2 because it was one of those things that came up frequently on the forums as a requested feature, and there was a groundswell of volunteer support offering to provide ideas for the news articles. We took up that offer, and players submitted a huge number of articles.

What we underestimated was the amount of work involved in sorting through those articles, correcting them and ensuring that they fitted the available space, checking that they didn't cause problems with the lore, formatting them correctly, and then translating them and doing several of those same things all over again in the translated languages. Some of the work was done by volunteers, but volunteers' time is limited too, and we had plenty of other things that they could have been helping us with. But having committed to it, we saw it through.

Ironically, when it was all done, there was mixed feedback from the very people who had requested the feature, with the predominant refrain being that, despite there being literally hundreds of these news articles, they were boring and repetitive. The practical result was that any given player usually read a handful of them in the first hour of playing the game, and then ignored them.

Some people suggested, quite reasonably, that the news would be more interesting if it was "relevant", but that would have required an even more vast amount of work, determining the events that should be reported as news, developing the ways to detect those events and trigger the corresponding news articles with the right names and locations in them, then sourcing (and filtering and translating) corresponding articles to ensure there were enough of a range of reports for each case to stop it from getting repetitive again.

So yes, we saw value in it, but we learned from experience that in a game that people play for 100s of hours, generating enough material to make a news system interesting, let alone both interesting and relevant, provided poor value (to players and to us) for the amount of work required.

[EmperorDragon]

Instead of galactic news, maybe war updates can be displayed on the dock platform billboards? Like on the "Holy Order Strikes Again" rolling billboard for example?

An info screen where all war updates are recorded would also be nice.

[consiefe]

Yes, galactic news might be boing because if not all most of it is not functional. But definately +1 for war updates. They can be determined by destroyed station modules and built defence platforms. They surely immerse the gameplay by letting the player know about the events organically to help him/her decide what action to take.

[Artean]

Yes, galactic news might be boing because if not all most of it is not functional. But definately +1 for war updates. They can be determined by destroyed station modules and built defence platforms. They surely immerse the gameplay by letting the player know about the events organically to help him/her decide what action to take.

Yes.

[reanor]

So we have 4 people who would read the news... they'll never add anything like that. People don't care.

[EmperorDragon]

So we have 4 people who would read the news... they'll never add anything like that. People don't care.

I don't really care about news either, just some way to check up on war updates I may have missed.

[consiefe]

So we have 4 people who would read the news... they'll never add anything like that. People don't care.

Eventhough the think aspect was the core part of the X4 and to think, information is vital, nobody seems interested with this part too much. That's one of the main reasons which made me stop playing. I know a lot of bugs and balance issues being looked at atm but at least it would be nice to know that kind of dynamic is in the pipes. X series earned this reputation and its player base for not being a mindless shoot on sight simulator until these days.

Edit:

Yes, being able to know which faction preparing an invasion armada to invade which sector and even somehow invest in to get that kind of information would be excellent. I remember someone mentioned about some kind of agent/diplomats of player faction which can easily provide this information at some kind of cost.

[Bozz11]

In moded x3 I never read a single article lol I just don't give a **** xD
But I liked the articles notifying you about skirmishes and where they take place and also articles about Xenon or other factions invasion of a sector, it was usefull so you see what is going on and where to go to get some action, that makes the universe feel more alive.

I don't even understand how you guys thought it was a good idea to make faction wars but no kind of news systeme to notify the player of what is going on...

[XTC0R]

-1 for news articles

+1 for war / invasion / defence station build / defence station destroyed / succesful invasion infos / Shipyard lost etc.
So maybe 10-20 Events without any text. Just that the player gets the info who is involved, what, where, when.

If you are cool you link it to a mission.
e.g. Info PAR is invading HOP. HOP offers mission to defend sector. Player gets 100Mio Cr

[Artean]

I'm not interested in fictional news, I want updates on happenings in the universe based on factional warfare.

[Falcrack]

To save time, I'll quote what I wrote the last time this was requested.

It was done in X2 because it was one of those things that came up frequently on the forums as a requested feature, and there was a groundswell of volunteer support offering to provide ideas for the news articles. We took up that offer, and players submitted a huge number of articles.

What we underestimated was the amount of work involved in sorting through those articles, correcting them and ensuring that they fitted the available space, checking that they didn't cause problems with the lore, formatting them correctly, and then translating them and doing several of those same things all over again in the translated languages. Some of the work was done by volunteers, but volunteers' time is limited too, and we had plenty of other things that they could have been helping us with. But having committed to it, we saw it through.

Ironically, when it was all done, there was mixed feedback from the very people who had requested the feature, with the predominant refrain being that, despite there being literally hundreds of these news articles, they were boring and repetitive. The practical result was that any given player usually read a handful of them in the first hour of playing the game, and then ignored them.

Some people suggested, quite reasonably, that the news would be more interesting if it was "relevant", but that would have required an even more vast amount of work, determining the events that should be reported as news, developing the ways to detect those events and trigger the corresponding news articles with the right names and locations in them, then sourcing (and filtering and translating) corresponding articles to ensure there were enough of a range of reports for each case to stop it from getting repetitive again.

So yes, we saw value in it, but we learned from experience that in a game that people play for 100s of hours, generating enough material to make a news system interesting, let alone both interesting and relevant, provided poor value (to players and to us) for the amount of work required.

No. He's not talking about fluff lore. He's talking about actual events that are taking place in the game. Things which would have an actual impact on our decision making in the game.

As to having a hard time finding out what is "relevant" to decide what to report as news, here is a small list. Invasions. New station constructions. Sector ownership changes. So we know where the action is.

[Gigaflux]

No. He's not talking about fluff lore. He's talking about actual events that are taking place in the game. Things which would have an actual impact on our decision making in the game.

Thanks for pointing this out, yes, I exactly meant news about real in-game events, like you explained.

[Tomonor]

To be fair, war status reports already exist (although I have only seen them once or twice since release).

If Egosoft was to fix up and extend that feature a bit and slap it with the in-sector available missions list, it could have its very own X2-style BBS menu/interactive panel on stations.



Also, about the fluf BBS lore - it might not have served much purpose (and was ultimately cheesy), but that's one of the reasons it gave the earlier X games their charm. I could easily compare it to the NPC chatter we have currently: doesn't serve much purpose, it's also repetitive but it's there for immersion and it works great.

[Buzz2005]

To be fair, war status reports already exist (although I have only seen them once or twice since release).

If Egosoft was to fix up and extend that feature a bit and slap it with the in-sector available missions list, it could have its very own X2-style BBS menu/interactive panel on stations.



Also, about the fluf BBS lore - it might not have served much purpose (and was ultimately cheesy), but that's one of the reasons it gave the earlier X games their charm. I could easily compare it to the NPC chatter we have currently: doesn't serve much purpose, it's also repetitive but it's there for immersion and it works great.

where are those reports??? you get them on the lower left panel if you happen to look at it, or hear that little sound and go look
If you miss all that as you would 90% of the time you dont have any logs about it

[CBJ]

No. He's not talking about fluff lore. He's talking about actual events that are taking place in the game. Things which would have an actual impact on our decision making in the game.

Read the whole post. The penultimate paragraph explains why news about actual events suffers all the same issues and others.

[Tomonor]

where are those reports??? you get them on the lower left panel if you happen to look at it, or hear that little sound and go look
If you miss all that as you would 90% of the time you dont have any logs about it

You've just answered your own question.

[Buzz2005]

where are those reports??? you get them on the lower left panel if you happen to look at it, or hear that little sound and go look
If you miss all that as you would 90% of the time you dont have any logs about it

You've just answered your own question.

I would not call that reports or anything , not even a notification since you can read those later

[pref]

Don't you get some info on event monitor?
Really remember seeing that, like xen SY built in XY sector and similar things.
Maybe it was just a vivid dream..

[Tomonor]

Don't you get some info on event monitor?
Really remember seeing that, like xen SY built in XY sector and similar things.
Maybe it was just a vivid dream..

That's what I'm talking about, just needs a separate "Bulletin" panel.