Radio NErfing!!

[MonkeyPants4736]

While I know many are unhappy with the change to radios (one of my chars is going to hate it when he/she understands what happened), I also think the event was cool.

[Aduah]

At least they made a lore type of annoucement.

[Vanya]

OMG OMG OMG!!

I SAID IT!! I said that the electromagnetic field of Cantr was going to change and supress (or reduce) the radio effectiveness. I said it!!. its just right in the other thread.

Now... Lets prepare the steeds. We have a mission. We have to communicate Cantr by mail... (for a reasonable price, of course).

[Arval]

First characters must realise what happened, of course.

[cutecuddlydirewolf]

I give it a day or two before people figure it out. ;P

[SekoETC]

Can you copy here what the event was, for people who are no longer playing?

[Arval]

Can you copy here what the event was, for people who are no longer playing?

Of course.

5403-6.06: High above, a bright mist starts to spread, stretching from horizon to horizon in the form of ridges made of light. The air is charged, and a faint whisper of static noise is heard before all recedes into silence.

[viktor]

1. You should implement the other things meant to fill the gap first.

2. You should give players at minimum a month to prepare.

This is just as crappily started as the "kill all characters over 50 regardless of race" that happened in FTO.

I have to soo very much agree

and aside, at least let us know the new ranges. with such an extreme and drastic change at least give us that to help adapt to such a hard impact on the game.

[witia1]

I think they should not give as new ranges. Let Cantrians do it for them self.

[Rmak]

It was available on the wiki previously so it should be updated.

[Millhouse]

It's not exactly easy to find out in game.

[viktor]

It's not exactly easy to find out in game.

i'll second that. it's deadly hard... we do not have the activity or population to manage this in most regions. I know exactly how but for ANY of my characters to find someone who can help with determining ranges in game the hard way.. it isn't happening PERIOD.

[Vanya]

It's not exactly easy to find out in game.

i'll second that. it's deadly hard... we do not have the activity or population to manage this in most regions. I know exactly how but for ANY of my characters to find someone who can help with determining ranges in game the hard way.. it isn't happening PERIOD.

While I will agree, I will also say something: I come from Wurm Online. There, you pretty much receive new features and fixes regularly. While fixes are always explained, new features are thrown over the table and the Developers just laugh at your face and say "Its up to you to guess what happened".

There is no official mantained wiki in Wurm. Every page of the actual wiki is written by the community, and every piece of info is guessed through "scientific studies" made by the players.
From time to time (or better said: years to years) the Head Developer and owner of Wurm comes and mocks about it, and throws some light over some secrets of the game here and there, while he says that is surprising how some long (LONG) added features are still not being discovered. So the game is all about discovering things, or just living with myths and guessing, like in the Medieval Age.

You are lucky. I agree: it would be REALLY hard to guess the new ranges and its better if the Devs reveal it. But I still think you are lucky.

[witia1]

I think that there is already to much of "common knowledge" in cantr. And to be honest it's not so hard to figure out. Tools are in game. Just use them.
This nerf thing can be quite nice world wide event.
I would even ask that if it will be discovered, then yes, share it but only through yours characters.
So many people want to go back to this "great discovery" part of times. Here is your chance. Create this story, look for explanations and solution but as characters.
It it their wolrd. Don't take that away.

[Shaudawn]

Now that I'm not so cranky (taxes...yuck!) I just want to say that my main objection isn't about the radios per se. I would like to thank the Powers-That-Be for the in-game event instead of just hitting the switch and killing it without explanation. That's more conducive of storytelling and gives worldbuilding reason for once.

Personally, I will miss them as a symbol of inter-connectivity and communication in an otherwise isolated world. None of my characters really have understood what the strange events in the sky were, so they won't miss them until they need them, and most will probably say "Good riddance" anyway (sorry, Biin). In fact, I'd rather that the world also was rid of internal combustion engines as well and give a lot more functionality to the horses and other steeds, but that would cause even more hysteria among the players (so let me advocate road degradation as a start instead).

My main objection lies in the three implications behind the removal of the radios, particularly the faulty logic of "Radios have not been serving well the dynamics of a slow paced game, they have shifted focus away from local environments, and they have placed unnecessary pressures on players attempting to keep apart the interests of multiple characters in the same region." The first implication is that by removing instantaneous communication, there will be some kind of improvement (a highly subjective term) in slow game dynamics (slower? wow). The second implication is that there will be a refocus on "local environments" (again, what is local and what kind of "focus" are we talking about? ...because there are whole swaths of geography that are entirely too uniform without any realistic microclimate or sustainable gameplay variation). The third implication is that this will reduce pressure on players in different locations but who have access to the same radio system.

Okay, the radios are now gone. Traders, wannabe radio entertainers (again, sorry Biin), and board pranksters now have very little means of communication. As far as the trading goes, there is always an element of uncertainty, although radios made it a little easier to give the far away customer what they wanted. Now, traders will have to horde a lot more resources in order to cover their bases, roaming more by ship or van (until they dismantle those, Mwahaha) without a base of operations. Traders just won't be able to afford a centralized base and will have to take everything with them. Otherwise, it will be years of travel back and forth. Hardly anyone will miss the banter and bickering (which I suspect was a major motivation for nerfing the radios). And now, it will take dedicated travelers (bards, mail-carriers, and the like) to bring word of someone dying. Those can be adapted. And for very small villages, it is probably a good thing. No longer will one person out of two or three have to stay indoors all the time just in case someone sends a message when they can best be working outside gathering or working or manufacturing in a building with machines in it. When the player base diminishes, good riddance to someone slaved to a radio.

No, the only benefit of instantaneous communication has been when there's been trouble--pirates, bandits, thieves. Now, bands of hooligans can operate for years in remote mountain regions before anyone gets wind of their actions. I guess this is good for character turnover. Or it might frustrate players. Someone steal a bike and all your dried jerky? Well, kiss it goodbye because now you can never inform other towns to corner or intercept them. The best you can do now is give chase on your little bike cart until they get to the next junction and...poof... Best to just cut your losses and start again. How does are the actions of a thief hitting all of the sleepers with a crossbow and then taking off conducive to a "slow paced game"? At least with a radio network as deterrence, it could be mitigated. But now...? I understand that there is a rumor of carrier pigeons to help with communication, but until it is a solid fact in-game, it remains an unimplemented rumor only. I'll believe it when I see it. I do hope that happens, at least.

The second implication was about a "shifted focus away from local environments". Huh? If the local environments were originally designed with a more systematic ecosystem in the first place, then you might convince me. But, as such, they are not. Even the more diverse regions are devoid of inhabitants, while some that have very few resources thrive by shear personality, individual capability and will. This has nothing to do with radios! What gets me in this whole thing is the implication that radios are a cause of these woes and that hobbling their capability, that will either diminish or solve the problems of game dynamics, regionalization, and Capital Rule violations. If the root cause is ignored, these and other problems will only creep up in new and possibly unintended ways.

For example, because the world was not properly designed to sustain systemic ecoregions, those who are now unable to sustain all of the requirements of living will consolidate into those regions whose ecosystems are a bit more compatible. Now in that migration, whole regions could become abandoned (not necessarily a bad nor unrealistic thing) and the consolidated population centers will still make it difficult for characters of different regions to interact. The gypsy traders, for example, will find their destinations increasingly limited to a few population centers, and if they have characters in some or all of those centers, then they will have to either make the Players Department very, very nervous, or they will have to avoid those centers altogether BOTH of which could be considered (depending on who you ask, because the CRV criteria remain subjective) illegal gameplay.

And if by "local environments" you mean that you think this somehow encourages interaction between towns, then you run into the vast traveling distances and times problem again. Why would I get on my bike cart and travel to another town with the exact same resources, buildings, machines, and problems? Do I really think the three days of travel is worth leaving the town I'm in? Your answers may vary, but I still don't see how nerfing the radio system solves any of these problems. It doesn't. And the implication that it will either reduce or solve them gives me little faith that the game won't evolve much beyond being a glorified RPG chat room where changing "rooms" is either extremely inconvenient to outright "illegal".

What makes Cantr unique as a game is that it doesn't rely on the competitive redemptive-violence dynamic cliche and tries to put its capital in player base interaction first. I applaud the GAB for at least trying to support that. I think you have the right spirit in trying to foster player interaction; I just think that sometimes we all get too wrapped up in everything else first, whether it's implementing a new feature or getting rid of one the Powers-That-Be doesn't like.

A manager I once worked with put it like this: "People don't resist change. Rather, people resist being changed." And you have to know how to make changes that leads to the natural flow of change, which includes the delicate balance between control and freedom of your "customers," which in this case are also the game capital, which is at the same time resource and human consumers. Poking the resource vibrates the human consumers at the same time, so a radio network isn't a radio network; it's people--not just the few in a clique, but everyone present and future. Players before characters and Capital Rules and game mechanics.