I’m testing everything new in the September update and it occurred to me that since we don’t yet have (I hope they add it someday) invitations to other events outside the family unit, such as commitments, weddings, births, etc., we could at least have a news system to know if someone in the neighborhood got married, or if someone had a baby, if they celebrated a big party for a birthday, or if someone’s house caught fire. With fires it would be good to have a news report of where it happened.
But I’m not talking about a constant pop-up of “María got married” but perhaps a news system on television, on mobile or even in the newspaper, something you read or see that gives you 3 or 4 new random news stories (obviously limited) about events from the previous day or even future ones when we can be invited by other zois to events.
It would be nice to be able to visit a widowed zoi’s house to offer condolences, for example, because you found out about their partner’s death in the news :D.
I actually like the general idea of hearing about things happening around the city through TV, phone, social media or newspapers instead of getting constant pop-ups
I think I would just make a distinction depending on the city and how close the Zoi actually is to the people involved.
For a smaller/tighter community like Cahaya, I could absolutely imagine more local news or gossip about someone getting married, having a baby, a neighbor passing away, a local celebration etc. That would actually make the place feel more personal.
But in Dowon or Bliss Bay I’m not sure I would want normal private events from completely unrelated Zois to become citywide news. I live in a big city myself and I definitely don’t know who three streets away just got married or had a baby xD Usually I only hear about something like that if I know the person, somebody tells me, or they are famous/public enough to actually appear in the news.
So maybe it could depend on relevance and social connection instead?
A friend could tell you that someone you both know got engaged, a neighbor could mention that another neighbor had a baby, family could tell you about a death, social media could show weddings/birthdays, while actual city news could focus more on major events like fires, crimes, festivals, celebrity news etc.
I think that would also give neighbors much more purpose. Instead of the game magically informing us about everybody, it would be nice if we actually got to know the people living around us and heard things through them.
So I really like the idea of the world communicating what happens around us — I’d just rather have it feel different in a small community compared with a huge city.
Yeah that would be great, and you’re right that there are irrelevant news stories. Maybe with the celebrity system it could be interesting to have some news about that person? And yeah, I totally agree that in Cahaya there should be gossip and news, and in big cities something more depending on your sociability.
The idea came to me because I saw a message that firefighters are sometimes busy and you have to put out the fire yourself, so I thought maybe that could be news, even if it happens to you, you could make the news. I also thought about this because since there’s the profession of journalist, and I hope that in the future professions will be more active, it would be good to link it. I know this is a lot of dreaming but that’s what imagination is for hehe.
I hope you take this idea into account if more people like it and it could be seen instead of those annoying pop-up windows
This is indeed a good idea. The news system using mass media is realistic and practical. I agree with @Minthyuyu constantly popping up windows is simple, lazy, cheap, and annoying. But this way, we can choose for ourselves whether we want to know what’s happening in the world or in the city — we can use our phone, TV, newspaper, etc. There should also be a gradation of information, for example: global — about the world (changes in the economy, politics, etc.), local (city) — fire, death, opening of a new store, local discounts, etc., rumors — who got married, who got divorced, who was born, etc.
But there’s one thing: we need to develop a system (possibly even using AI) so that the news not only affects the game world and characters, but also changes constantly — because repeating the same news (especially without any changes) will get boring very quickly, and then the question will arise: why do we even need all this?
Yes of course, I completely agree, that they shouldn’t be pre-designed and that’s it, but rather that you can do something with that information. I thought, for example, if someone’s house burned down, you could go and comfort them or organize a donation for them, or if they inform you that market prices went up or down that day, or what the weather will be like the next day… what you said about discounts to plan that day, go to a funeral of someone you know or go congratulate someone on their new baby. I think a system like that could really come to life the way you’re saying
By the way, it would be possible to “sort” such news by different information sources. For example, you turn on the news — you learn about all sorts of incidents. Switch to the entertainment channel — there’s news about celebrities. Open the local newspaper — you read obituaries of the deceased, news about births and upcoming holiday events… You could also add information about store discounts over time It would be relevant in a game playing as a poor person.
That way, each information source would make sense, and we ourselves would decide what we find interesting to explore, and whether we need to know something about our neighbors.
But if there are news about fires — you should have the ability to at least contemplate these fires or their consequences for some time. That is, go and discover that the neighboring restaurant really burned down, and you have to wait a week for it to be repaired…
But that’s already a completely different level of detail.
I happened to notice these discounts by chance. For example, this series of things is what we were talking about — it would be great to be able to find out through a message or an announcement on the TV or something!
