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Dumpshock Forums _ Community Projects _ Would People like a Newsfeed generator?

Posted by: WeaverMount Jul 24 2007, 12:12 PM

So I've always really liked games where the GM gave the players lots of in game news coverage. I also understand what a colossal amount of work it is to generate all that by hand. Especially if the GM only generates a small amount of content then the players know that everything covered is important. I was wondering if people would like a program that generated random events of the form X blanks Y over Z. I do this by taking major players, what types of things they do that get news coverage, and who they do that kind of thing to, and what motivates then. That way you get events like the [Yakuza] [Assassinate] [Humanis Organizer] over [Prostitution]. Now you as the GM could flesh that out and think ok, so a Humanis Policlub was getting bent out of shape about the Yaks running a whore house in there back yard, they start to get their mob on and the Yaks decide that capping the ring leader and then laying low is quickest way to end the conflict. 5-10 minuets of the GM and text editor and you have news feeds for very active city. Remember players love to feel like they are having an effect on a game world. I know I have enough "professionals pride" that after a sabotage mission if would be fun to hear in the news "Horizon stock fell 3 points yesterday after a freak electrical fire corrupted the final build of there smash hit VR toy "Tir Princess" seconds before a global update". You could do that easily if you could slip it into a bunch of drek
Anyway do you think you would use it? Any make it or break it features?

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jul 24 2007, 12:28 PM

That'd be neat. Key features:

Cross-platform compatibility
Heavy focus on user customization
Break out terms and such into different modules based on, at least, edition of the game

Other things that would be handy include the ability to do some advanced things with the story-picker, like increasing the odds that some organization will be in the news or setting up a hand-tailored story to be delivered, not necessarily at a specific time, but with a greater likelihood during some time period.

Edit: scrap that last part, it looks like that's taking it a step further from your envisioned headline generator into an actual news generator. In that case, I'd say make the output easily machine-parseable so that this system can be used as a backend for more complex generators.

~J

Posted by: Rajaat99 Aug 5 2007, 08:20 AM

That'd be awesome.

Posted by: Rifleman Aug 5 2007, 08:41 PM

If you can build it, we will take it.

Yes, this would be highly desired.

Posted by: Gelare Aug 21 2007, 12:47 AM

Agree muchly. Having a world that exists on its own, rather than revolving solely around the players, is something that I find really cool, and I wish I had the patience to do that for the games I run. But...I don't. So! This'd be great.

Posted by: bibliophile20 Aug 21 2007, 01:04 AM

Please!

Posted by: dhyde79 Aug 21 2007, 09:10 PM

this would be great.....but, the cross platform part would be most important.....perhaps even web based maybe?

Posted by: Gelare Aug 22 2007, 04:24 AM

Ooh, web-based would be good. I imagine it'd be fairly simple to do, too, at least the early versions. The longest part would probably be manually writing down all the possible people and things that could make the news. Of course, there's all sorts of fun tweaks that could be done. And if only I'd kept studying comp sci I could do them...but I didn't. We're here for moral support, Weaver!

Posted by: Kagetenshi Aug 22 2007, 01:26 PM

I'd advise against web-based, at least as a primary interface—offering it as a secondary interface would be useful. Depending on your design choices I could possibly pitch in, though I'm too busy to be an effective primary contributor.

~J

Posted by: dog_xinu Aug 31 2007, 12:51 PM

I would use it. My players go through phases where they are all over the news, watching the new channels, listening to the news radio stations in the car, grabbing the latest screamsheets. then poof they ignore it all for a while and then the cycle starts again.

it would be nice to have some things prestaged for when they do decide to check out the news.

thanks!!

Posted by: dhyde79 Aug 31 2007, 06:30 PM

Kagetenshi: I'm curious, why against web based?

instead of having it be something that would have to be tested on multiple systems and coded in a language that is cross platform capable (and having to have access to people that can test on various OS's) why not just program it as a php/mysql app and then if you want your own flavor of it you can go in and change up the info in the mysql db when you install it on your own host.

I would be all for offering up hosting space for multiple instances of it if needed...

Posted by: bishop186 Aug 31 2007, 07:01 PM

Well, I'm interested in this as well and I agree with J.

Having it online means you need to have the internet available to you when you're doing the work. For those of us (I'm not included but I know people that are) that still have a connection that's not always on, or people with shoddy internet connections thanks to shoddy companies (a group which I *am* a part of), it would be a boon to have it available on your computer.

I know that one of the web-based languages is based on C (in fact, I think it's PhP), and C is a more-or-less platform-independent language, so I would think that with minimal work it could be translated from launchable program to web-based app.

On another note, I'm in the same boat as Gelare - while I'm the senator for the ACM chapter in my Uni, I have quit the CS major and have become lax in programming, otherwise I'd offer help as well. Good luck with your project! I hope to see it in any form!

Posted by: dog_xinu Sep 3 2007, 07:18 PM

QUOTE (bishop186)

Well, I'm interested in this as well and I agree with J.

Having it online means you need to have the internet available to you when you're doing the work. For those of us (I'm not included but I know people that are) that still have a connection that's not always on, or people with shoddy internet connections thanks to shoddy companies (a group which I *am* a part of), it would be a boon to have it available on your computer.

On another note, I'm in the same boat as Gelare - while I'm the senator for the ACM chapter in my Uni, I have quit the CS major and have become lax in programming, otherwise I'd offer help as well. Good luck with your project! I hope to see it in any form!

QUOTE

I know that one of the web-based languages is based on C (in fact, I think it's PhP), and C is a more-or-less platform-independent language, so I would think that with minimal work it could be translated from launchable program to web-based app.

PHP is loosely based on perl or perl-isc language structure. I am expert in perl and when I do php I run into the little "differences" between the two if I am not careful.

Now about PHP being cross platform, that is very true. I run php on my mac (my home computers/laptops), linux (my servers at work and at home), and Windows (my work computers). With a few exceptions the code that runs on any of them will run on all of them.

As for writing this app using php/mysql I am all for it. For being able to run this offline (off the Internet) and locally on you laptop, you can load of of the below *AMP stacks, which including apache (web server), mysql (dbase), & perl and/or php (for coding in).

http://www.wampserver.com/en/
http://www.mamp.info/en/index.php
LAMP (Linux/Apache/Mysql/Perl/Php) can be install via the installer/downloaded (each version of Linux comes with all the parts just might not be loaded by default).

Solaris, *BSD have ports of the software. I believe HPUX and AIX do to. Not 100%. But that shouldnt matter since most of dont have a UNIX RISC laptop.

if the code (in the php) is written carefully if could be dropped into any webdirectory and work smoothly. Especially if you put all the dbase connection into (dbase server name, login, password, dbase instance name, table names, etc) in a config file.

just my opinion...
dog

Posted by: Kagetenshi Sep 3 2007, 08:38 PM

QUOTE (dhyde79)

Kagetenshi: I'm curious, why against web based?

Most importantly: then I'd need a webserver running if I want to use it while offline, and I'd need to do HTTP requests to fetch its output to parse even if the frontend is on the same machine.

Also, making it a web app tempts you to do things like use MySQL, which is an exceptionally bad idea. A project like this would probably do better with flat files, or if absolutely necessary something like sqlite (though I'm not in favour of using any form of database—the project scope as suggested just doesn't demand it).

QUOTE

instead of having it be something that would have to be tested on multiple systems and coded in a language that is cross platform capable (and having to have access to people that can test on various OS's) why not just program it as a php/mysql app and then if you want your own flavor of it you can go in and change up the info in the mysql db when you install it on your own host.

Now you need to test it in multiple browsers, on multiple hosts with multiple versions of php/fooSQL, plus you need to worry about security, etc. since you're introducing network access into the picture. You do, granted, get the ability to put headlines online without having to be involved in a middle step, but that's a minor gain that can be picked up later.

~J

Posted by: Gelare Sep 3 2007, 10:26 PM

The arguments against having it web-based are better than I expected, but I still think like having it on the computer itself would be more of a hassle for the end-user. If it's online, there's one version that either works or it doesn't, and has all the bells and whistles. If it's not online, then sometimes people get stuck with old versions, and again, I don't know what I'm talking about, but if I have to install WAMP just to get a little (though useful) tool that spews random out, I'm not so thrilled. But, I leave all these details to those who actually know what they're doing. I'm just eager to see a working version in any form.

Posted by: Fortune Sep 3 2007, 10:35 PM

Personally, I'd rather see it online. Nice and convenient for me to use, even with my computer illiteracy.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Sep 4 2007, 02:04 AM

QUOTE (Gelare)

If it's online, there's one version that either works or it doesn't, and has all the bells and whistles. If it's not online, then sometimes people get stuck with old versions, and again, I don't know what I'm talking about, but if I have to install WAMP just to get a little (though useful) tool that spews random out, I'm not so thrilled.

You'd have to install fooAMP (or, if sanity prevails (a web app is a bad idea IMO, but not insane), fooAP) to use the generator offline if and only if it was written as a web app. If not, you might not have to install anything (language compiled to machine code and not depending on non-bundled libraries, bytecode, JITted, or interpreted language with bundled VM/JIT compiler/interpreter) or you might have to (dependency on non-preinstalled dynamically-linked library, any of that second category above without the bundling and the appropriate VM/JIT compiler/interpreter not preinstalled). With a non-web app, you get to choose. With a web app, you don't.

Of course, OS X installs at least have Apache, PHP, and MySQL installed off the install disc (IIRC, it might be an optional install but it's definitely on the install discs) and I'd imagine many Linux distributions would do likewise. I still think it's more of a pain, but it's not like you're definitely going to have to install stuff to use it as web app.

I think the biggest reason for not doing it as a web app is the ease with which, provided the output is properly parsable, a web frontend would be very easy to write—much easier than a similarly-obvious design for a web app could be adapted for non-web use. Well, with the exception of the obvious choice of writing an essentially-separate module for the actual generation, which is basically making it not a web app.

Of course, the originator hasn't posted in this thread since it started, despite being active since late August, so it's likely this idea is on indefinite hiatus. C'est la vie.

~J

Posted by: dhyde79 Sep 4 2007, 06:00 PM

see, I'm just recommending the web-app angle because it's the least painful in cross platform programming

(there are plenty of java apps that're written to be cross platform that don't work right on other platforms thanks to small mistakes because the coder doesn't have access to the other operating systems to test their app on...not all programmers have macbook pro's even though they should)

oh, and yes, you're right about OSX installing the full webserver suite by default, anything can be hosted from that machine by dropping it into the /user/sites directory. (glad you reminded me of that, I was getting frustrated fighting with a set of goodies I'm building for my gaming group)

my biggest fear and reason for pushing for something akin to a webapp is that things will get pushed out like NSRCG (no offense to the programmers of it) in Visual Basic, which is an insane P.I.T.A. to try to convert to something that'll run on a mac or a linux box

Posted by: Gelare Sep 4 2007, 07:49 PM

QUOTE (Kagetenshi @ Sep 3 2007, 09:04 PM)

Of course, the originator hasn't posted in this thread since it started, despite being active since late August, so it's likely this idea is on indefinite hiatus. C'est la vie.

~J

Yeah, about that...so, clearly there's people here who know what they're talking about. Anyone feel like picking up the project?

Posted by: dhyde79 Sep 5 2007, 12:49 AM

I'd offer to do it but, my php/mysql is so bad I wouldn't wish other people the suffering to use it....instead I'll offer to host the project