Upcoming New System - Persistent Dynamic Noticeboards

[EO]

Greetings,

We will be rolling out in the next update a new persistent noticeboard system to allow players to post notices that will persist through resets. At first, this system will only be available in Vallaki and Port-à-Lucine, using the existing noticeboards used for item recovery quests and bounties (split into sub-categories to make navigation easier), but once it's stable enough, we'll be expanding it to other locations throughout the module.

We hope this system is intuitive enough but here's some general information:

How it works
To post a notice, use a piece of paper that's been written on (using the quill system) on the board placeable. If there's still room on it, the item will be destroyed and a notice added to the board. To view notices, use the board. You can also take down your own notices.

Notices will be expunged after 7 real-life days, but can be taken down by the poster, and posted again to extend the duration.

DMs and members responsible for a board (if applicable) can take down all notices, and their notices are posted in a different section of the board, thus not competing with general ones. No posting limit applies to them, and their notices last for 365 days.

Where
Initially, the existing bounty boards of Vallaki and Port-à-Lucine are used (new categories have been added to facilitate navigation). However, we plan to add similar boards to other areas in the future. Notices posted on a board in a locale will be posted on all linked boards (eg. Western Gate, Gendarmerie and Quartier Marchand boards in Port-à-Lucine).

The Vallaki Guard and Gendarmerie factions will be responsible for these boards.

Restrictions
At the moment, there's a limit of 30 faction/DM notices and 30 general notices per board; this is subject to change based on evaluation. Hopefully we'll be able to raise this limit. As mentioned before, non-DM/board faction members are limited to 1 notice per board.

Rules
All existing POTM rules apply to noticeboards but I want to highlight the following points:
-These boards are for in-character content; posting OOC content is against the rules.
-The profanity rules apply to notices as they do to talk.
-Remember not to ignore NPCs when posting notices.

These boards will be implemented next update. We welcome all feedback and suggestions.

[Siobhan]

!!! Very exciting

[Anastian]

Definitely looking forward, thanks EO.

Just to understand: so each faction will have access to some posts that only them can put up? Did I get it correctly? And those count toward the 30 DM/faction limit

[EO]

Definitely looking forward, thanks EO.

Just to understand: so each faction will have access to some posts that only them can put up? Did I get it correctly? And those count toward the 30 DM/faction limit

Not quite, only the faction that oversees that board can post in a separate section of the board. In Vallaki, it'd be the Vallaki Guard, and in Port-à-Lucine, the Gendarmerie.

[FinalHeaven]

Fantastic.  My only suggestion would be to up the starting number of allowed notices for individual characters from 1 to 3, with hopefully being able to raise that to 5 eventually.  Just browsing the calendar for the last few months up to now there are characters with multiple events posted at once and it'd be cool to have them all right there on the board.

[Barovian Female Peasant 2.0]

Fantastic.  My only suggestion would be to up the starting number of allowed notices for individual characters from 1 to 3, with hopefully being able to raise that to 5 eventually.  Just browsing the calendar for the last few months up to now there are characters with multiple events posted at once and it'd be cool to have them all right there on the board.

Bumping this. As someone who's currently handling three upcoming events (some to be announced), one per person seems too little.

But overall, this feature is greatly appreciated, it was long needed. Thank you.

[EO]

Fantastic.  My only suggestion would be to up the starting number of allowed notices for individual characters from 1 to 3, with hopefully being able to raise that to 5 eventually.  Just browsing the calendar for the last few months up to now there are characters with multiple events posted at once and it'd be cool to have them all right there on the board.

That'd mean that technically 10 characters could fill the entire board, thus preventing others from using it, vs 30 now.

[FinalHeaven]

Fantastic.  My only suggestion would be to up the starting number of allowed notices for individual characters from 1 to 3, with hopefully being able to raise that to 5 eventually.  Just browsing the calendar for the last few months up to now there are characters with multiple events posted at once and it'd be cool to have them all right there on the board.

That'd mean that technically 10 characters could fill the entire board, thus preventing others from using it, vs 30 now.

Ah, right, I misread things.  Generally though my suggestion is to up the base number of notices that a person can post, in whatever form that takes.  Assuming the total number of notices can be made higher.

[Death]

This system will make the server feel more open and alive. I look forward to seeing how players will make use of it.

[Lexica]

I suppose in the case of someone hosting multiple events, it probably isn't that hard to get someone else to post the other notices? Unless that's considered circumventing the rules.

[Cody]

Is there a way you could make the Examine Object command interactable on the noticeboard to open the dialog wind so you could read them from farther away.

[EO]

This is now in. Let us know what you think about it after trying it out.

[apeppertoo]

Could we give another think to putting the author's CD key on display when the author examines their own notice? I'm not sure how it helps me to have it there, and I admit I was ignorant as to what I was looking at at first and may have shared it as part of a joke

[Agony]

I suppose in the case of someone hosting multiple events, it probably isn't that hard to get someone else to post the other notices? Unless that's considered circumventing the rules.

Not an official ruling, but I imagine this would be fine provided they are members of the same group/faction, and it isn't someone asking a friend to post multiple things for an individual. So, members of a theater group, for example, could advertise more than one event, but Shaggy the Merchant shouldn't have more than one flyer up.

*Edit*: If you have space to combine events into one flyer, however, that should be encouraged in order to save as much room for others as possible.

[apeppertoo]

Has it been long enough that we might get the posting limit raised? I've already run into minor IC conflict with a police faction over having more than one advertisement in the old style, lying on the street in front of the board, because I'm unable to post a second (or third) to the board itself - even though by rights if my character can post one she can surely post the other.

[zDark Shadowz]

Could shorten all your advertisements to fit on one paper, though.

[apeppertoo]

Could shorten all your advertisements to fit on one paper, though.

No, I can't, because I have different notices for different things, and if I get my carpenter I do not want it on the Bridge recruitment notice, or the 'charity is open' notice.

[FinalHeaven]

Has it been long enough that we might get the posting limit raised? I've already run into minor IC conflict with a police faction over having more than one advertisement in the old style, lying on the street in front of the board, because I'm unable to post a second (or third) to the board itself - even though by rights if my character can post one she can surely post the other.

Yeah, this needs to be addressed.  I have not used the boards yet but if we are going to start calling leaving papers near the notice board a criminal act, particularly when it has been tolerated for years ICly, the amount one person can post needs to be increased.

[Madame Trousers Son]

Maybe we could allow people to post up to three notices, with a gold sink value associated with the 2nd and 3rd postings?

[EO]

Has it been long enough that we might get the posting limit raised? I've already run into minor IC conflict with a police faction over having more than one advertisement in the old style, lying on the street in front of the board, because I'm unable to post a second (or third) to the board itself - even though by rights if my character can post one she can surely post the other.

It's only been less than a week and in that time the boards caused several crashes (especially on Sunday). Hopefully those issues are resolved, but yes it's too early to reevaluate.

In any case, no matter what the general limit ends up being we'll always have to set a limit to the number of notices an individual character can post to let as many people post as possible.

[yinyang]

Has it been long enough that we might get the posting limit raised? I've already run into minor IC conflict with a police faction over having more than one advertisement in the old style, lying on the street in front of the board, because I'm unable to post a second (or third) to the board itself - even though by rights if my character can post one she can surely post the other.

Yeah, this needs to be addressed.  I have not used the boards yet but if we are going to start calling leaving papers near the notice board a criminal act, particularly when it has been tolerated for years ICly, the amount one person can post needs to be increased.

+1 to calling out the problem. I don't necessarily agree with the solution--I would, but it sounds like it is a technical problem which can't be solved right now.

I think the solution is to allow people to continue to lay down flyers if they want, and keep it from being a criminal act. The suddenness at which it became a "no no" isn't really friendly to players or RP. In the past I've seen players suddenly decide to RP that flyers are literally placed on the ground rather than the logical "posted on the wall", and that too is frustrating.

For now, can we please just ask guard factions not to treat it as a crime or degenerate act? No one should be afraid of putting down flyers if they have a reason to. The noticeboard will always be better.

[Day Old Bread]

Maybe just like... ignore the "law"

[apeppertoo]

You can ignore the law but you can't ignore the consequences for ignoring the law. This kind of OOC contrivance shouldn't spur IC conflict, even if minor.

[FinalHeaven]

You can ignore the law but you can't ignore the consequences for ignoring the law. This kind of OOC contrivance shouldn't spur IC conflict, even if minor.

This is what it comes down to.  It is extremely silly to start acting as though placing a paper down is littering just because we have the new Notice Boards.  This is not the kind of conflict that emphasizes a good story, it is simply nitpicking for the sake of flexing faction power.

I do hope that the limit will eventually be increased to at least 3 notices, but obviously not at the expense of the server stability.

[Madame Trousers Son]

Maybe just like... ignore the "law"

I mean it's kind of hard to ignore the law when they know who you are because you're signing notices.

The issue right now is that it's more an OOC question and disagreement than an IC one. We've been putting notices on the floor to represent them being pinned up for years, now we're adapting to this new concept. On the one hand I see the point that having this new notice board system is kinda undermined if people can just continue to post papers underneath it, on the other, there should probably be a reasonable workaround to the fact that you can't post more than one notice.

Either way, this being an OOC issue, I think it's on us to wait for a DM/Dev ruling on the question.