WSPDR News Unlimited -- A Virtue Roleplay Revival Project Supergroup
The WSPDR News Unlimited Supergroup now has a public forum for posting ideas and suggestions for news stories.
If you or your group have had recent RP events that a news organization might have found out and that you would like to have mentioned or featured on our occasional in-game "news updates" broadcasts in Atlas Park over /request, please leave a message there.
As part of the Virtue Roleplay Revival Project, I've created a new supergroup themed along the lines of a news reporting company, and somewhat aligned to the "WSPDR" in-game canon lore.
This isn't intended to be a large or socially active supergroup, but if you're a self-starting and creative player with a desire to roleplay a journalist to help build the community roleplay continuity, it might be for you.
OOC Concept and Discussion.
The WSPDR News Unlimited Supergroup uses and extends the "WSPDR" in-game lore within the continuity of the Virtue Roleplay Revival project. The Supergroup is not the whole of WSPDR's media operations, but rather, roleplayed as one branch office, located in Paragon City, which fields reporters and staff to generate content for WSPDR's many media outlets around the world. This is a loosely organized "niche" supergroup which does not directly organize teams, gatherings, or events, but rather provides OOC and IC support for individual roleplay in the form of a base outfitted as both a custom residential space and as a News Studio Center and with a guildportal web site where roleplay, story and reporting drafts can be discussed ooc-ly prior to release in-game or in the COH Virtue Forums.
Character themes which can fit the SG include: Print, radio, and television reporters, photographers, editors, storywriters, news analysts, advertising marketers, and executives. The SG is located blue-side, but the WSPDR news mission extends across blue, red, and gold equally. Ideal members will want to use news reporting themes in whatever media they enjoy roleplaying to help establish and broaden the general shared continuity of the Virtue Server. This can be accomplished by creating news reports that cover actual in-game activities by the broad membership of the Virtue Roleplay Revival project, and by creative "news-storytelling" of other current actual and invented events and storylines which help connect the shared experience of roleplayers on Virtue.
As an example, my vigilante-aligned character Kherianda is roleplayed as a tabloid photographer for the Talos Tattler, a non-canon low-brow tabloid covering superheroes and supervillains; and as a radio reporter and announcer for the WSPDR Impact Report, which I broadcast through the request channel in Atlas Park on irregular intervals. My character covers a variety of events such as parties, zone events, and contests, and reads news headlines over the request channel. Additionally, she photographs mission team and task-force activities, and on occasion, interviews other heroes. This kind of roleplay can be a lot of fun, has a great deal of room for improvisation, and helps build our shared continuity. It does call for creativity and being a self-starter. I miss a great deal of material, and there's plenty of room for more people to actively play journalists of all kinds -- good, bad, and indifferent.
This supergroup's size is expected to be small and stay small, but members have the possibility for high visibility roles in the larger roleplay community. Contact me, @Andreah, to discuss joining or coalitioning, by tell or through the "Virtue RP Revival" global channel, or by posting on this thread.
History and Organization.
Formed in 1958 after the Arachnos coup d'etat in the Etoile Islands initially as a propaganda arm of Arachnos, under financial pressure WSPDR quickly commercialized and diversified; eventually restructuring as an Unlimited Liability International Corporation in part to keep its financial records and investors secret. Originally beholden to Arachnos, WSPDR has attained considerable independence, and has at times become an obstacle to Arachnos interests, often through the investigative journalism of its star reporters.
Today, though WSPDR has diversified into several media, including newspapers, tabloids, internet, it remains heavily invested in traditional broadcast. In addition to the local 24-7 Rogue Isles AM and FM radio stations and WSPDR Red/Black Television Channels, WSPDR maintains pirate repeaters, Shortwave and Super-High frequency transmitters and satellite feeds for several programs and formats which reach to the Eastern Seaboard of the US, and in some cases around the world and even into other dimensions.
WSPDR's various departments include the flagship WSPDR Television News, Worldwide News Radio, Entertainment Now, Impact Reporting, Wide World of Action, Metahuman Affairs, Radio Diabolic and Radio Destiny. WSPDR's most famous TV personality is Star Reporter Amanda Vines of the Television News division. Other less-well known reporters include Frank Gordon and Jake Limes. Newspapers owned or controlled by WSPDR include The Sharkhead Sentinel, Metahuman Review, and the gossip tabloids Talos Tattler and Wild Images.
The Worldwide News division of WSPDR has a number of short format news segments broadcast over their various transmission services, Including the Rogue Island Review, Paragon Report, Voice of the Resistance, and Imperial Update. WSPDR Radio News has a number of field offices in the major cities of the world, such as Paragon City, and fields a number of correspondents, reporters, producers, editors, announcers, presenters, cameramen/women, and freelance photographers around the world.