Hawk wrote:There is a tavern with gossip and port battles.. why not let players post news?
Anything that anyone posts to the forum automatically shows up in the tavern already. Players only need to post any news or anything else they wish to discuss in the forum and it automatically appears in the tavern. Actually, I can imagine some players are hesitant to post in the forums because of this feature. But...
There could be a tab in the tavern where a player could post something that would show up in everyone's gossip.
The only downside I can think of is that the posts would need to be censored.
Are you thinking of something like a shoutbox?
I think a shoutbox would be a great idea. I'm not a programmer/developer type person. I don't know how easy or difficult adding a shoutbox would be. I don't even know the proper vocabulary to discuss it. But as a user/player, I think it would be a lot of fun. Things posted in it scroll away and disappear much faster so it becomes a less formal, non-permanent way to interact than the forum. It's a great way to satisfy those random urges to post things like "YARR! Some bilge rat has tidal waved me best trade galleon!" I think it would lead to some fun "in character" banter and is likely in the spirit of what the tavern was initially intended to be, a source of information through player interaction.
There is a chat room, of course, but nobody uses it. I've never seen a shoutbox go unused on a site with active members. I'd use it.