Gameplay: New class - COMBAT JOURNALIST

[Zekeen]

You should change it from being a class called "journalist" to Surveillance. Add in some local combat assistance abilities to have the journalist abilities a separated mod section to be certed into, seeing as a surveillance class would add to the battle and make becoming a high quality "reporter" something to earn.

That way, you start out with teamplay assistance items and move into personal recording assistance abilities.

Have a Surveillance type items include things such as the laser pointer we're going to get. A radio backpack for looks, Maybe a multi targeting tool to speed up targeting of vehicles for nearby AV and AA infantry (basically a broad targeting unit that targets all visible enemy vehicles, that makes all lock ons speed up to 2x on those vehicles while you are targeting them. Throw in some visual aids, targeting devices, and radar jammers and enhancers.

Then you can mod in the reporter side with things like a large video camera, required for youtube streaming. Maybe some sort of snapshot camera for stillframe shots with effects or something. Maybe even an audio amplifier for far off battle shots, stand a hill and set up the sound volume and camera, and go to town on the recording. At least till some angry camera shy VS eats your face.

The Reporter idea set is amazing and great, but it's a niche and shouldn't be a main class, so having it as Surveillance class that has a Reporter tree and item set gives it life and function in the game.

[Figment]

Can't believe in three pages the word "Spy" has not turned up yet. So what would be in place to stop anyone from streaming what they see directly to twitch.tv or something similar (because what you see on the screen can be streamed)?

If you can look along with any person's vehicle at any given time... "Oh hey, we're missing some pop, they might be prepping a raid, yeah can you go on TR and see where they are held up with your secondary account?" "Sure, one sec." "Alright, they're in the Hossin warpgate and goooiiiiinnnnnng... ah, Cyssor." [etc.]

[elementHTTP]

Originally Posted by Zekeen

You should change it from being a class called "journalist" to Surveillance. Add in some local combat assistance abilities to have the journalist abilities a separated mod section to be certed into, seeing as a surveillance class would add to the battle and make becoming a high quality "reporter" something to earn.

That way, you start out with teamplay assistance items and move into personal recording assistance abilities.

Have a Surveillance type items include things such as the laser pointer we're going to get. A radio backpack for looks, Maybe a multi targeting tool to speed up targeting of vehicles for nearby AV and AA infantry (basically a broad targeting unit that targets all visible enemy vehicles, that makes all lock ons speed up to 2x on those vehicles while you are targeting them. Throw in some visual aids, targeting devices, and radar jammers and enhancers.

Then you can mod in the reporter side with things like a large video camera, required for youtube streaming. Maybe some sort of snapshot camera for stillframe shots with effects or something. Maybe even an audio amplifier for far off battle shots, stand a hill and set up the sound volume and camera, and go to town on the recording. At least till some angry camera shy VS eats your face.

The Reporter idea set is amazing and great, but it's a niche and shouldn't be a main class, so having it as Surveillance class that has a Reporter tree and item set gives it life and function in the game.

I like the idea

Originally Posted by Figment

Can't believe in three pages the word "Spy" has not turned up yet. So what would be in place to stop anyone from streaming what they see directly to twitch.tv or something similar (because what you see on the screen can be streamed)?

In-game live steaming should be disabled because it can be subject for exploits (videos must be recorded in special folder and then edited for propaganda purposes , to have same power as people with fraps )

[Zekeen]

Actually, if everything you have has the capacity to be blown up, or you yourself killed, live streaming wouldn't be something out of the question. It'd actually add to teamplay. Imagine your outfit sticking offline while you have your Surveillance Reporter head to pick a location for an outfit strike, then then decide, and blast on in for a raid.

You could stream the game as is anyways, so add in an easier method for your reporters. Don't block what ya don't need to and can't anyways.

Really, it's only a problem if he could warp around, become invisible permanently, or otherwise be invincible. Other than that it's all fair game.

[The Degenatron]

I hate to say it, but could anyone ever do it better than Valve?

[Trolltaxi]

Probably the most unusual, still one of the greatest ideas.

Definetly needs a bit of tinkering, but if you approach the issue from the point of great gameplay videos, it may be doable.

If you try to capture long scenes with fraps (as others have mentioned) you will find yourself pretty much dead too soon.

But if you have the cameraman, that is actually hard or impossible to kill, you can pretty much solve this problem.

It is basicly a spectator mode with restrictions to prevent spying, or abusing the journalist's armour.

What restrictions I mean?

First, there are two types of frontline films. The first is for propaganda, and kind of fake. You can easily recognize this, because you see your fellow soldier's face. The cameraman almost never gets infront of the trooper.

The second is the real scene, the cameraman is behind and the action is real.

With this in mind, the cameraman should always stay behind the first line of the leader (technically, shouldn't be closer to the control point or center of the base/outpost than a real troop). This way he cannot spy forward to report on comms about the defenses. And he should stay in the vicinity of the squad.

He should have a character ingame (not just a flying invisible camera) so others would not run through him, making the scene more real. But the character would have infinite armour so he wouldn't die at the first accidental headshot.

To prevent multiple cameramen providing invalid targets, one base or hex or area should have no more than 1-2 jurnalists.

Dunno, it may be too much work to implement (new armours, new animations, new gear etc), and no one would really use, but if SOE could offer some tools to help recording great battles, that would be cool.

[Immigrant]

Just use the infiltrator with heavy cloaking device when recording. No need for new class.

[Zebasiz]

Originally Posted by RageMasterUK

Maybe also include deployable cameras. Friendlies could select them on their live-map and tune into them. So people can put a camera on mountains to provide empire with a remote first person view of the battlefield. That would help me decide what to bring to the battle when I log on or respawn.

-RageMasterUK

This just gave me a wonderful idea:
What if there is a wall with some screens in each factions sanc, and the screens each display a random reporter's footage to those in the sanc? They would see what was happening on their front lines as it happens. It could probably help some people descide where to go, They see their side is winning a fight at one base, so they go to one where they see needs some help.

[Nemises]

I've NEVER seen it done better (or funnier) than this..
Bare in mind the "reporters" in this are just tooling around in the middle of a "real" operation

I think all shooter games could take notes form the ShacTak guys:

.

[akiadan]

ya well it... I...
cant think of no reason to not have honestly. Would be cool to see but Infiltrator even though having limited cloak is the closest thing to this.