Defias Radio - Donations wanted!

There was quite some interest for this idea, and we've got a group of hosts and producers together now. All we need to pull it off, other than a bit more planning, is a music license. It costs £160/year, and it'll allow us to play pretty much any music we, or the listeners, want (excluding game/movie soundtracks). We already have one person willing to donate towards it.

A license isn't completely necessary: if we can't play music, we'll stream a podcast instead. But music helps liven things up and keep stuff varied.

The radio isn't named yet, but here's some info on what exactly it'll be:
- Regular live shows once (or more) per week, scheduled for a set time and day, with a few different hosts, and we'll have guests on often. The live shows will generally consist of a lot of discussion between hosts and various guests, and some music in between.
- A realm news broadcast at least once a week with information on current RP events and guilds, as well as a smaller report on PvP.
- In-character voice acted reports during major RP events, with sound effects!
- Regular interviews with guilds and players (pre-recorded in most cases).
- People can interact with the hosts through email and (possible) live chat, or they could come on the live show as a guest. If we play music, there's also the probability of music requests.
- It'll be mostly aimed at the RP community, but with the occasional PvP guest or interview, and some discussion of WoW in general.

How it'll work, for anyone curious or sceptical:
- Each host installs broadcasting software, and uses that to broadcast music and voice to a server. There's a link from the server embedded into a forum or a website which opens the stream in Windows Media Player or another media player.
- Guests are in a Skype conversation which is linked to the broadcaster with virtual audio cables, so acts like microphone input.

Who's involved?
Right now, myself, Jensbirger and Helmut can host, with Darilas as producer and reporter. A few other people might also be hosting.

I don't want to ask anyone to donate until we're sure we're going to go ahead with it and planning is done. But if you find the idea interesting and you'd like to donate towards it, either PM me, add my Skype (raenmar) or add my Battletag (Raenmar#2715) and we can discuss it.

You can also speak to me if you'd like to help out, either as a host or a producer, or just with advertisement.

I like this thread, this is a nice fucking thread.

I might be up for hosting some stuff. I'll donate, at the very least, a fiver if this idea is going ahead.

Might donate towards it myself, no way I can host anything myself out of a speak from Lord Lag.

I can talk on it though! Always wanted to be on radio and sing Bird is the word. xD

Thorvald wrote:

I can talk on it though! Always wanted to be on radio and sing Bird is the word. xD

I would be willing to fund the full amount not to hear this.

Well it turns out we actually need 2 licenses (£300). They cover the exact same thing but you know, they need 2 separate licenses.

So unless we find £300 in donations, we're gonna start off playing royalty-free and fanmade stuff. We might advertise a little (only on the website/forum) to make up the money we need for licenses, or ask for donations once we have listeners.

Even still, fanmade stuff isn't bad. There's some nice WoW OST remixes.

Raenmar wrote:- In-character voice acted reports during major RP events, with sound effects!

This. A narrator in the big-scale events.

Which two licenses do we need?

As I understand it, one for playing music and one for the use of the lyrics in that music....

Why would you want to play music, though?

I can listen to whatever music I like wherever I like.

I can't however listen to DefiasRP talkshows, because they don't excist as of yet.

Why don't we focus on the latter and forget about the former?

Thelos wrote:Why would you want to play music, though?

I can listen to whatever music I like wherever I like.

I can't however listen to DefiasRP talkshows, because they don't excist as of yet.

Why don't we focus on the latter and forget about the former?

I have to agree with Thelos. I would probably hate most of the music people on this forum play so I doubt I'd listen to that. Talk shows would be funny and you can see if it works before you decide to pay a cent.

I'm not sure how music would work with WoW- on The Secret World, which is a modern-day setting MMO, some role-players set up an actual radio-station that was all-IC, with news reports etc on current rp events, special nights with themes for ic events/parties...and so on. Worked out really well and enhanced immersion.

I suppose you could do similar for certain largescale events- have epic/cinematic music playing on a night with a big PvP event, or chamber music or w/e to support a ball? The narrator idea makes me cringe a little but that's just me, others might like it.

What I'm saying is the idea is cool but what would the actual content be?

Well, one idea is for me to host a show that every week invite some people to have discussions about the servers RP and RP in general. Each week we have a special topic or theme that all conversations will surround like God-Emoting, Romance/ERP, War on the server, Racism on the server etc etc. I am looking forward to fiery discussions and hopefully some laughs and good conclutions. Some weeks it could even be a straightforward debate about a subject and you will, ofcourse, be serinated every week by my lovely voice and wits.

It would be funny to hear IC talks between characters. Like improvised audio-plays! Make your voice fit your char!

Also, maybe ask certain people if you can play some WoW-fan music inbetween segments? Like Spacebar Clown and the Exodar one... :3

Question.
The lisence to play music does it specify the reasons they want money? Is it for only main stream music that usually the rights belong to some fat capitalist record company instead of the actual person or persons who wrote the music?

If so, there are thousands of musicians and music groups that dont give a cr@p about record companies and distributors. Such individuals and groups pay for their own recordings and self distribute their albums. Most would gladly give their permission for their music to be heard and would not ask for a penny. The station could play underground music and avoid spending anything on a licence to play main stream music.

Get back to me on this for I can help out a lot to get free music to be played. As a music teacher and a performer, I know and have worked with a lot of underground groups and individuals who write really good stuff.

Vaell wrote:Talk shows would be funny and you can see if it works before you decide to pay a cent.

Especially this - my advice is to start small and cheap, with things you can do without investing in anything. If that takes off...Who knows?

Test the waters before you dive in, is all I'm saying.

Hey there Reanmar,

I am glad to see that you are willing to roll with the radio idea. I would have some questions though.
What website will there be used for this radio/stream? Twitch I presume?

The second thing is why exactly do we need to pay two licenses, what is the second one for?

I think it would be wise to first try the thing without paying the license, i.e no music and see how it fares first. Because, it would be a waste of donations if the music turns out to be a function we do not really need. Or we can start without the music first and open a Donate option for the music license, once the required amount is raised, you can purchase it.

Lastly, I would be willing to donate regardless, even if it is a small bit, it should count and contribute to the cause.

Raenmar wrote:

You can also speak to me if you'd like to help out, either as a host or a producer, or just with advertisement.

I am willing to fill any role occasionally, but not regularly!

I have to agree with Thelos. I would probably hate most of the music people on this forum play so I doubt I'd listen to that.

Music breaks things up, otherwise it could get boring. It's also a lot harder to fill the time with purely talking. There'd still be full talk shows if people wanted that, but imo having music interspersed helps.

We'd take requests with the music though, and the play styles that people usually ask for. I see how conflicting tastes in music could be a problem, but it's worked in other WoW radios in the past.

What I'm saying is the idea is cool but what would the actual content be?

All the stuff mentioned in the OP. The music would just be spread out to break things up. And we're happy to take suggestions for other content. But I think the stuff we have so far is at least enough to keep things going.

Also, maybe ask certain people if you can play some WoW-fan music inbetween segments?

We'll definitely do this. Might be hard contacting some of the uploaders through Youtube though.

Get back to me on this for I can help out a lot to get free music to be played. As a music teacher and a performer, I know and have worked with a lot of underground groups and individuals who write really good stuff.

This would be great. I'll speak to you on Skype about it.

What website will there be used for this radio/stream? Twitch I presume?

We could possibly use Twitch, but I'm not sure how good it is for broadcasting. There's a few free broadcasting services, or I could pay for a Shoutcast server. I've had an offer from someone about a cheap host so I'm gonna speak to him about that.

I think it would be wise to first try the thing without paying the license, i.e no music and see how it fares first. Because, it would be a waste of donations if the music turns out to be a function we do not really need. Or we can start without the music first and open a Donate option for the music license, once the required amount is raised, you can purchase it.

We might do this. If we can get some license-free music we could play just to liven things up, then I'd be happy starting without a license, and maybe not getting one at all if people are happy with it how it is.

As for the two licenses thing, this is the email I got back from the licensing company:

Spoiler:

We have about £110 in donations so far, as well as other people willing to donate that haven't given an amount, so thankyou to everyone for that.

I think once we get the hosting set up, we'll start off without a license and play license-free music if we can find any, and make up the rest of the donations once we've shown it works.

You know my stance on this, just tell me when the cut off date is and I'll do what I said I would.

If you make it a podcast instead you wouldn't really have to play music as filler. There are loads of podcast that are 2 hour long without any music breaks or anything, it works if your voices are pleasant to listen to, you're charismatic and you don't talk about "heavy stuff" all the time, like you vary the tone and seriousness and all that.

Also, I think you can play OCremix music without needing any special license or permission, I'm sure someone can correct me if that's not the case though.

OCremix is completely free, yes. Lots of people use it when they can't use the original music.

this sounds awesome id totes be an amazeballs host jk id suck and i think everyone would hate me for my accent cause youre all racist but beyond that if the donations are needed for music stuff, then i wont donate i think. we dont need music ! we can listen to our own music but if you need the donations for other stuff then ill gladly spend some of my oil money on it np

good luck awesome idea raenmar youre awesome i love you!!!

I'm not sure about OCremix. From what I see, it's remixes of existing OSTs, so the original composer probably still has rights to the original composition. I dunno, the whole music rights thing is really convoluted and I've given up trying to understand how it all works. I just really don't want to take a risk that could end up with my parents needing to pay 10 years of their salary in damages and fines.

this sounds awesome id totes be an amazeballs host jk id suck and i think everyone would hate me for my accent cause youre all racist but beyond that if the donations are needed for music stuff, then i wont donate i think. we dont need music ! we can listen to our own music but if you need the donations for other stuff then ill gladly spend some of my oil money on it np

good luck awesome idea raenmar youre awesome i love you!!!

Thanks Shae <3

Counting all offers of donations so far I'd say we have enough for both licenses right now. But I want to hold out on buying licensing while we see if things work. I'm thinking we'll start with using WoW music and some license-free music (thanks to Duv for finding some for us), to get the music out there and break things up. It's not intended to be music-heavy for the most part, but music-heavy shows are a possibility (despite conflicting tastes they've seemed to work on other radios in the past).

Still, the intention is to mostly only use music to break things up and add some atmosphere. Depending on how things go over the first few weeks, then we might start collecting donations for licensing.

Now, also, we're in need of people to help out with this: reports to pre-record news reports, and hosts to host their own show/co-host a show (we need Horde especially!).

Edit: What are peoples' thoughts on this not being entirely about RP? That'd be the main focus, but there'd be some discussion regarding PvE/PvP and the game as a whole, as well as the occasional interview with PvE/Pers? I think keeping the rest of the server interested can only be a good thing, and it could get them interested in RP too. But I don't want to put the RPers off - so would anyone dislike having a small amount of non-RP content?

Raenmar wrote:Edit: What are peoples' thoughts on this not being entirely about RP? That'd be the main focus, but there'd be some discussion regarding PvE/PvP and the game as a whole, as well as the occasional interview with PvE/Pers? I think keeping the rest of the server interested can only be a good thing, and it could get them interested in RP too. But I don't want to put the RPers off - so would anyone dislike having a small amount of non-RP content?

I do not think it even Should be about only RP. You have much easier time creating content if not narrowing the area of content to only RP. I myself enjoy doing PvP and used to be a Heroic Raider. I believe i would find Non-RP topics interesting to listen, even if i don't have time to do so myself either. PvP/PvE/General content also bring Non-Roleplayers listening to the radio, and its likely that they get interested about Roleplaying once they hear more about it.

So i do consider the radio being about general WoW things, not only RP, a good thing.

I'd quite like PvP, especially world PvP to be covered. I'm not sure there's that much I personally would be interested in for you to cover on the subject of PvE, especially stuff unique to defias or that isn't already covered all over the internet. That said I'm sure someone would be interested even if it's not me in it so yeah, do a PvE programme or something.

Hiding in our little RPer box and refusing to talk about the other aspects of the game (which many RPers are interested in themselves) just alienates the people who aren't solely interested in the playing of roles.