The Newsroom

[Croft]

Hope you folks are enjoying the news pieces so far, though am I disappointed that no one jumped at the Invester Clouseau joke from the Mackinac article. It was a defining moment in my long history of witticisms and terrible puns but alas, such masterpieces are often under appreciated in their time.

Moving along.

So what does make the news?
As I've clarified in an earlier post, these articles are based upon the NPC factions that make up Discovery's (theorically) rich tapestry. This is done for a number of reasons but the chief among them is simply so it doesn't intrude on player factions.

For example: In the Mackinac article I made no mention of Gallia despite OSC's faction page clearly stating it as being a stepping stone into the Kingdom. That's because from a developer point of view OSC and Orbital Spa & Cruise are two separate things. This allows player factions to take their own direction whilst leaving the template (NPC faction) unchanged, the same logic applies here.

The actual topics of the news articles cover a spectrum, some are retroactive like the Maine supernova while others are gentle nudges to the storyline much like the Crete article. Even the editorials can sometimes contain subtle hints to upcoming storylines or previous changes, though much less reliable than the News Service.
Generally speaking, if something changes the status quo of an NPC faction you'll see a news piece about it

Now how is the news made?
Tabris or Teerin give me a single line to turn into a full blown article. No, seriously. This is the specification given for the Gaian article:

"Gaian movement gaining strength beyond House Bretonia (editorial style.) Pro-Gaian news source "

Naturally we discuss the main points in the SLIS chat (stands for: Story, Lore, Infocard, Systems if you're curious) that can be covered and changes that need to be made to each draft. The telltale sign to see if Teerin has slipped something in to the story? The oxford comma.

Once I've got the points, or story milestones as I call them, its time to get writing.

Well not really, first I consider the specs of each article and research as much as I can about them. This involves reading infocards, skimming the forums, visiting the areas ingame, looking through the wiki and asking for info in the SLIS chat. Now moderately informed I start writing, laying out the main points in a rough pattern of Cause, Effect, Conclusion. This gives the article direction and helps to keep what I write from ending up a cluttered mess or a criss-cross of tenses.

After the first draft I step away for awhile and do something else. Either another job or project, house/garden work and usually a coffee with a biscuit (or cookie, depending on your location.) The goal is to completely divert my mind from my previous train of thought so when I come back to it I have to re-read the article to refresh my memory. If I've written it properly I continue on as before, if I haven't I rewrite the section until I'm happy with it. Rinse and repeat.

Depending on the difficulty of the article this can take an afternoon or up to a week, though it's typically three days provided nothing crops up. At the end I'll link it in the chat for everyone to read and give their opinion. Any suggestions or additions are added and the process repeats again until finally being posted for all to see.

Of course I welcome any feedback or questions regarding the news and will try to answer them to the best of my ability. Next time, the importance of tone and language.

Fun fact: The position of the Mackinac I attacked during the article, was the one I suggest last year. Talk about ambivalence.

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