Dates on News Items
The addition of printing-dates to the news stories on the News tab in the stations would be a welcome step towards further immersion if it were implented properly.

-Implentation-
Each news item that is printed to the news tab is given a date in the article itself as well as on the headline list. This date will reflect the game time period, not the real world.

-Rationale-
As it happens, the years 4432 and 2004 match up perfectly on the calendar. Put one calendar on top of the other and you will have no days sticking out from their counterpart months; each day of the year is in the same spot during the week. 4432, being the year that the backstory ends, is a logical choice to start the clock for Vendetta Online. Coincidentally (sort of), VO was launched in a corresponding year, 2004. This makes 2005 easier to pass off as 4433 in VO-time. Conversions are simple, then. Just add 2428 to the year to get to VO-time, and subract 2428 to get to RL-time.

-Example-
(Headline) "TPG Headquarters Reports Shortage of Consumer Electronics" -April 25, 4433
(Article) "On the 25th of April 4433, a shortage in TPG Headquarters' (Dau K-10) Consumer Electronics supply was reported. Authorities at Edras Command, (Edras G-11) are reporting a simultaneous surplus of the same item and ask that any merchants who are interested stop by to help restock their fellow members of commerce."

Basic Personal Charinfo
Basic personal charinfo adds to the immersiveness of the game, and is relatively easy to implement.

-Implementation-
Add several variables (see my other thread: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/10165 ) to the config (not wgaf) file that the player can change. These variables take specific types of input (strings, integers, chars) and appear on the Left side of the Charinfo popup when it appears, where exactly should be decided by the community. The data going into these variables would also at all times be run through the filter that checks the new character names (instead of ***ing out bad words, it disallows the usage altogether).

-Rationale-
People are clamoring for more personal info for the charinfo pages. Yeah, sure, I'd like to put my entire char bio on there. Who has the time to read that though? Start small. This gives people a taste of how it *could* work. If it does, we continue on.

-Example-

[Emi Pros]
fullname="Emi Sola Pros"
age=23
hometown="Armand City"
homeplanet="Itan"

yields:

Name: Emi Pros
Full Name: Emi Sola Pros
Age: 23
Birthplace: Armand City, Itan

Discuss!

Yes, for both. For the dates, it would be really be cool if there were GTS symbols for the month names & they were used in the news. Waylon, come back!

Although I don't use the news tab it definitely needs some attention. For me, I don't use it because it's extremly crowed and unorganized. You have claimed bounties mixed in with daily trade routes and local items in demand from the inception date till the present. Perhaps give it a bit more file structure:

Example:

__/News\_
Headlines
-Hive Queens have been spotted building forces in "x" sector
Local Items in Demand (list date)
-blah
-blah
-blah
-blah
Daily Trade Route (list date)
-blah
-blah
-blah
-blah
-blah
Bounties
-Collected (with date)
--blah
--blah
--blah
-Wanted Dead/Alive (date received)
--blah
--blah
--blah

So that when you clicked on a bolded section you would get the "-blah" that would go under that catagory within the news tab. Definitely should have a date stamp and should be sortable by oldest to newest or newest to oldest.

Right. Newspapers and news websites are organized, and it turns out that's because it's a good idea to do so if you want someone to read your news.