[Theory of Roleplay] Why Are News Factions So Difficult?

[HaveADream]

To preface this; this isn't a complaint against anyone or any group of people, I love you all, this is just me discussing the theory behind why running news factions remain a difficult task and why it will continue to be. This is my personal experience in running a news faction and may not represent the feeling of anyone else involved in news factions.

 

As many of you will know, I run the 'Saints News' unofficial news faction, what was originally intended to be a very small scale operation that I was just planning to review nightclubs on until Weazel were hiring turned into the main roleplay for my character, which was overwhelming in itself to some regard. In fact, my first ever post on the subforum was a post about the backstory of my character, seen here. I had never intended to have anything come from it, but now that I do it, I do honestly love it and I'm very proud, even OOCly, about the stories I publish and the level of effort I place into most of them. 

 

But that doesn't stop it being difficult. 

 

As with many strictly legal, non-government factions, there is an almost surprising lack of interest in this kind of roleplay or strictly legal roleplay in itself. I'd compare it to the government or even the fire department to some extent, a lot of this roleplay is strictly writing, reporting and standing around writing notes and keeping your parser active. Strictly speaking, Saints News has six members in the journalist team, and it pays per article so that people can't 'freeload' as such, most people that display an interest seem really keen, but eventually that withers out and they just never submit articles, or lacklustre articles that are at most, a paragraph long and require heavy editing. Therefore, I write the vast majority of the articles, do the research and so on, @Sammy also publishes on my regard, but on different topics and remains editorially independent from Saints News. I don't think this activity is a problem with just me individually, but one that can be attested to by both @Mecovy and @Ribsey. Maintaining activity in news factions is the biggest problem, allocation of resources proves very difficult when you're the main resource. 

 

The former point is tricky to me - as there is plenty of interest in the articles themselves, most of them attracting comments from a wide range of people, I rank articles' success by page views and comments. On many topics, people are interested in writing comments and discussing the theory or the quality of the article, but very few people are willing to actively engage with the faction and join it. 

 

Being an unofficial faction, I had to make money for the faction via selling advertisement packages, which are usually priced at $10000 for five, with a maximum of three advertisements per article (which won't always sell), this results in around $6000 profit per article for articles I write, my alt is a DJ, who makes double that in the time it takes to write an article, it is very difficult to encourage activity when most people are motivated by the virtual numbers in their bank account, I eventually stopped offering ads altogether as journalists would not be motivated by only making $5000 per article, so I didn't see much of a point for chasing advertisement money, while I'm not personally bothered by the amount of net assets in my /stats, I know a lot of people will seek out roleplay that pays well, and unfortunately, journalism doesn't. Resources in a news faction are extremely limited, both in terms of capital and manpower.

 

As with other parts of legal roleplay, there is very little appreciation for the effort that people put into them, which can be demoralising at times. There have been times where I've been completely demotivated to continue doing it (#NeverGiveUp), I receive much more OOC complaints in my Discord messages than any kind of "good article" or anything like that, while I don't exactly rely on compliments to keep me going, it is incredibly demoralising to receive the complete other end of the spectrum. I know there are similar feelings around in other legal factions, hence why many of them maintain low activity.

 

The role is also extremely demanding at times when it comes to publishing, many people want this or that published, people want theory, for example, behind polling, or long convoluted articles that I simply don't have the time to do when I have university and a job to focus on as well, while I have the time to indeed continue the level of activity that I currently do, what if something came up and I had to do something else in my real life? There is a lot of pressure to stay active, which drives a lot of people away from this type of roleplay, I have at times, felt overwhelmed by the level of activity I've had to maintain to run this faction.

 

I do want to see active news, and this is not a problem contained to just GTA: World, but all roleplay servers altogether, why work as a journalist standing on the sidewalk away from the active scene when you can be involved in the scene in an illegal or legal capacity? 

 

Thanks for reading, let me know your thoughts.

Edited July 8, 2019 by HaveADream

[Vash Baldeus]

Mostly from what I've seen News is not that interesting to Roleplay, not to mention when you need to look for Investors who will provide funds for that (commercials, sponsorship's etc) in order to actually have a company running with employees who you need to pay and such. But these are my 2 cents on the matter.

 

Something similar plagues the FD on most Roleplay communities I've been, you have 10~30 cops on duty and 5~10 FD max. Not to mention that last time a friend of mine required FD, it took them 10~15 minutes to arrive, resulting in the characters death.

Edited July 8, 2019 by Vash Baldeus

[Mitch]

3 hours ago, Vash Baldeus said:

not to mention when you need to look for Investors who will provide funds for that

This is the problem that most companies face, they simply don't actively advertise they're looking for investors or sponsors. I'd gladly help in some orgs, but they never ask or even reach out to other people. 

[codependency]

I honestly think a lot of this also boils down to the fact that editorial skills are hard to come by and certain factions only accept the best of the best; thus resulting in a low player-base/high-quality members-only collective, which can be good but also very discouraging for the current members and therefore ends the faction due the lack of interest.

 

It's also the fact that those skills are not easy to come by, and some of those that are skilled enough to do it might argue that putting their own talents and skills into the real world and applying them there rather than on a fictional world is much more profitable and provides more advantages than disadvantages by all means. This is a video game, people play it to have fun - and while your roleplay is very much appreciated, I feel like people's visions of actual quality roleplay have been tainted by the thrill of the pursuits of illegal goals in game because it provides the most "fun" to the average player; assuming that the definition of fun differs from one person to another.

 

I, too, work very hard as well on my screenshots and don't always really receive a lot of feedback or appreciation, but I suppose it's a video game at the end of the day and as hard as it may feel, if you really enjoy it, then go at it. I'd love to join your faction and help you despite having no interest in News Factions whatsoever, but I simply just don't think that I can afford to allocate the time to be in two factions, however I am very supportive of your ideas and think you're doing something different and great.

[Legate]

I skimmed through this because I'm at work but in short I believe that you should find a way to motivate people to role play with you guys. There should also be more support for factions/businesses that create roleplay but don't actually generate much income. I've made a thread about this in the past but I do believe that the more creative & script-less unsupported roleplay schemes should be better supported by us as the players and the people who have made us this wonderful server. The more support that's given to unique ideas or ideas that just aren't your typical grand theft auto cops and robbers the better the server will be.

[HaveADream]

5 minutes ago, Captain said:

I skimmed through this because I'm at work but in short I believe that you should find a way to motivate people to role play with you guys. There should also be more support for factions/businesses that create roleplay but don't actually generate much income. I've made a thread about this in the past but I do believe that the more creative & script-less unsupported roleplay schemes should be better supported by us as the players and the people who have made us this wonderful server. The more support that's given to unique ideas or ideas that just aren't your typical grand theft auto cops and robbers the better the server will be.

You're probably already aware that Saints does not get any script money at this time, even offering what we can offer, people don't want to roleplay jobs if there is no money in it.

 

People are motivated by money and will seek to make their characters rich, that's the simple explanation.

[Thirteen]

Let's face it, the city is filled with criminals and criminal organizations. Almost every business/club is a front for those illegal groups, and as a result of this, the people involved in it might not be too eager on people snooping around and creating stories about them because that might bring attention to their group if the journalist finds something that they don't want them to.
So that's one part not mentioned so far, that might cause people to be a bit reluctant to interact with you guys.

[HaveADream]

Just now, Thirteen said:

Let's face it, the city is filled with criminals and criminal organizations. Almost every business/club is a front for those illegal groups, and as a result of this, the people involved in it might not be too eager on people snooping around and creating stories about them because that might bring attention to their group if the journalist finds something that they don't want them to.
So that's one part not mentioned so far, that might cause people to be a bit reluctant to interact with you guys.

I actually find the opposite is true, illegal factions love to interact with me because they see it as publicity for their brand/front.

 

I understand where you are coming from though and I'm sure it's true in some cases, just not in my experience of it.

[Exploits]

Let me offer my probably-outdated and perhaps now-irrelevant personal experiences to this subject!

 

I was a part of and ran SAN News back on LSRP between '09 and '10-'11~. There were two 'major' problems that I had identified at the time that held back activity and membership in the faction. I'll touch on how I approached these issues to alleviate them.

 

• The server and its international nature and this relation to effective English language skills:
• The rote and repetitious nature of how we report things and what there is to report.

On the first (the internet being cosmopolitan), it was important to find and include members in the faction who did have effective language skills as editors so that we could include other/new members who had lesser language skills, specifically relating to English. Initially (as yourself) this meant it was only me who was editing and expanding on news pieces which came by my virtual-desk, but as articles went out, so did our presence, and this increase in presence begets greater interest in other English-proficient or non-proficient players. I found that many players were quite capable as reporters -- as far as finding stories either naturally or through initiative -- but were lacking in their ability to correctly and concisely write on their stories in a way that met a standard of quality. It was work, but working together, we could still increase the number of stories we'd publish. 'Bad news' is better than no news, so to speak.

 

On the second, it was important to report on events even if they seemed dull, boring, already said, etc. Yes, it's tiresome to report on a shooting in Strawberry for the fourth time this week, but we don't get to pick and choose the events which are naturally occurring in-game. The job remains to report. Capable reporters will be able to take one event, match it with another, and string together a connecting narrative that can make a 'boring' story fresh again: are these shootings an indication of failure on behalf of the government; failure on behalf of the police; slow response times from paramedics to save lives; lackadaisical security at a particular business; are the perpetrators and/or victims connected in some way; etc. These 'boring' articles do need to be the bulk of what's reported, since they are, at minimum, practice for the development of larger stories. And if you aren't reporting on the little things, then how are you (or anyone else) going to be able to track these trends to produce larger stories? Again, 'bad news' is still better than no news.

 

On the subject of money; do you allow your employees/contractors to hold a second job? Players can still be involved in secondary work and find stories simultaneously to work on. It can help to minimize the issue of "This isn't profitable work" for players who are more focused on the imaginary dollars than the enjoyment of the work itself. It also inserts them into little communities where stories otherwise wouldn't be let out to the greater public -- trucking is unprofitable? Who knew!

 

Finally, ignore the haters. SAN News wasn't 'THE BEST EVER' when I was running it as CEO, but we had bi-nightly interviews and talk programs and outputted at least one article a day. I found that to be very satisfying for my own goals, and even though we certainly received criticism, previous and future iterations of SAN News were such a bygone thought for people that they weren't even worth criticizing, let alone praising.

Edited July 8, 2019 by Exploits

[McCatalyst]

6 hours ago, HaveADream said:

 

Being an unofficial faction, I had to make money for the faction via selling advertisement packages, which are usually priced at $10000 for five, with a maximum of three advertisements per article (which won't always sell), this results in around $6000 profit per article for articles I write, my alt is a DJ, who makes double that in the time it takes to write an article, it is very difficult to encourage activity when most people are motivated by the virtual numbers in their bank account, I eventually stopped offering ads altogether as journalists would not be motivated by only making $5000 per article, so I didn't see much of a point for chasing advertisement money, while I'm not personally bothered by the amount of net assets in my /stats, I know a lot of people will seek out roleplay that pays well, and unfortunately, journalism doesn't. Resources in a news faction are extremely limited, both in terms of capital and manpower.

 

The ad selling part is mostly hindered by script that achieves to smother News RP because why would I go to second party for an ad when I have a script at my disposal. Changing this might solve another problem being retarded ads, that wouldn't be possible to be aired in any sensible outlet or ad-space. This requires a wider poll and community discussion because the ads right now are a wildfire if you ask me. There's nothing "quality-RP" about current ad spam.

 

Also I'd look for more unconventional ways to earn extra dollar by making under the table deals when reviewing clubs or covering news about certain individuals or accidents. Approached and offered in the right way this might open a lot of opportunities for pretty great RP.

6 hours ago, HaveADream said:

As with other parts of legal roleplay, there is very little appreciation for the effort that people put into them, which can be demoralising at times. There have been times where I've been completely demotivated to continue doing it (#NeverGiveUp), I receive much more OOC complaints in my Discord messages than any kind of "good article" or anything like that, while I don't exactly rely on compliments to keep me going, it is incredibly demoralising to receive the complete other end of the spectrum. I know there are similar feelings around in other legal factions, hence why many of them maintain low activity.

Trust me this goes both for illegal and legal factions. Any type of work put in to screenshots and RP that goes unnoticed hurts to anyone and that will stay that way because of the ADHD and simple carelessness. Can't really blame people for not wanting to read stuff about topics that don't interest them. So I'd focus on people who appreciate it and use that as a motivation to improve with every step.

6 hours ago, HaveADream said:

Strictly speaking, Saints News has six members in the journalist team, and it pays per article so that people can't 'freeload' as such, most people that display an interest seem really keen, but eventually that withers out and they just never submit articles, or lacklustre articles that are at most, a paragraph long and require heavy editing. 

Maybe there's a way to approach government and become partially funded that way. There should be a way to be rewarded for every click on the article, with ads woven in the articles. If approaching people who run bigger legal organizations both by IC or OOC means fails. I feel like server is quick to limit RP using the good old there isn't a script for that argument, but they struggle to help projects in similar situation like you are. 

 

 

That said anyone arguing that this is an IC issue is not thinking straight. Trying to make RP like this grow in gta:W without artificial help is equivalent to opening an Apple store in small Amish village and expecting profit.

Edited July 8, 2019 by McCatalyst