Removing/Modifying/Skinning Dreadloch billboards

[Legendfluf]

http://auno.org/ao/db.php?id=288083

[Krisalee]

Okay, I'd actually like to see these billboards changed as well. For my part, it's not because of the model on the advertisement (says the fixer who runs around mostly-naked large amounts of the time), but just because I'd like to see the in-game billboards be dynamic and used again.

1. Allow community submissions for in-game billboards. These can be organizational recruitment ads, event announcements, etc.
2. Refer to this thread for more billboard uses: http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...2238-Arketting
3. Consider allowing players to create ads for things besides Dredloch. In a dystopian cyberpunk setting, advertising should be as pervasive as possible. Look at the subway entryways. The walls are plastered with ads, some of which have been defaced. I'd like for the billboards to have similar ads, and I (and I'm sure many others) would love to help create them given the image specifications.

I whipped up a couple of examples so you can see what I mean. Super quick 'n dirty work:

http://i.imgur.com/RWhUL9S.png

http://i.imgur.com/D9F3FCm.png

[Tryptophy]

Once again "quick and dirty work" proves to be at least equal to anything FC has produced in the last few years. I hate to bash FC's artists, maybe they just have too much work and too little time, but this underscores how beneficial programs for including player-created art would be. Contests would be the best to ensure quality and ofc FC has total veto power in the end, what's to lose?

[Krisalee]

Once again "quick and dirty work" proves to be at least equal to anything FC has produced in the last few years. I hate to bash FC's artists, maybe they just have too much work and too little time, but this underscores how beneficial programs for including player-created art would be. Contests would be the best to ensure quality and ofc FC has total veto power in the end, what's to lose?

I concur. Tomium? What sayeth the community team?

[Honorbound]

Many years ago it was somehow possible to get org ads on the billboards via some submission process; a number of the more popular orgs had ads running mixed with the paid ads and the "game world" (Dreadloch and such) ads.

The ad system itself is kind of a "plugin", the content is updated/downloaded at (most likely) client startup into a dedicated database, separate from the main asset files of the game itself, then the client loads and displays ads from this separate database. So in theory it should be possible to figure out the format of this ad database and, erm... "expand" it locally with content that is not coming from the ad server.

However, the way I remember it, the "game world" ads were always running, mixed with the paid ads, and those are in fact coming from the main asset database, so replacing/suppressing them would not be possible without modifying that.

[-Ruken-]

The company that did those ads has since gone out of business. We need to remember it might not be possible. To my knowledge the billboards no longer cycle. It's possible this is because the code that connected to that old company, and cycled ads has since been removed. I doubt we'll get a response as it'll only bring negativity if its true. Silence will probably tell us what we need to know.