Graal Forums - Era News.

I've been thinking about it a bit and I think some kind of era newspaper needs to be brought back after the reset. It should be brought back because an original one of a kind business would help to make era more in depth and Interesting. It would also serve a purpose by informing the players and providing an entertaining read. It's most important function however would be to inform the players on what development staff are working on, what has been completed recently and what is being planed for the future.

This business needs to be given to a normal player. (Who has obviously proven himself in his writing ability). But because it would be run by a player the business system needs to be pretty user friendly. I'm not sure how it worked before but the whole creation of each newspaper needs to be done completely in game. I suggest making a format/layout GUI of a newspaper page. The Era News writers would be able to access this layout GUI in game and simply put an article in the designated text column section, and pictures in picture designated sections.

You could use the old Format/GUI as an example:
This will help you understand what I mean...

http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/1...wspaperjd1.png
http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/n...png/1/w587.png
So the Era news people would be able to access this GUI by grabbing a typewriter in the era news office. The GUI would be blank (no text or pictures in it). And the era news people would simply type an article in the text columns and put pictures in the boxes for pictures... Very Simple and easy to use.

Photographers
Now I was thinking for the pictures in the newspaper it should be done by Era News "photographers", in game. Photographers would have a camera item. And basically when you have the camera equipped a little red box will appear in the center of your screen, about 3'' long by 2'' hight. when you press D anything within this box will be captured in your screen shot/picture. The size of screen shots the camera takes should be in accordance with how big the picture boxes are in the newspaper GUI. Era News workers would be able to access these pictures in their office, and easily be able to pick which pictures go in which boxes in the GUI.

The newspapers would have to be stocked somehow to actually create the item. Some kind of printing press that involves a conveyor belt would be preferable but it doesn't really matter. Then after stocking I think they should be sold in a few newspaper vending machines around the city.

There should also be a system setup to make sure the newspaper owner keeps putting out quality papers, and doesn't go idle. My idea is to heavily tax the owner of the business once every 2 weeks or so. To insure that if he's not making any money, he wouldn't be able to pay his business tax and would be forced to sell the business. The idea is that if he's doing his job properly and writing quality papers he should be making enough money to pay for his taxes. I would also put a script in place that automatically puts the business up for sale if there hasn't been a newspaper released in the past 3-4 weeks.