Millhouse wrote:I am denying that it exists everywhere, as it's been alluded.
Going by these quotes, it sounds like you're all saying that this behavior is happening rampantly on all corners of the game, which is what I am denying seeing any evidence of. I have two town leader characters and I don't coordinate ooc so it can't be said that these supposed people in control are in control of every town. I doubt very seriously that other towns I'm in are controlled in any way by some nefarious ooc clique. Again I'm not on Discord and obviously not in the same towns in-game as you.
I'm not saying that every town leader in the game is colluding OOC. My two characters are on the same very busy English speaking island.
On this island are, I'd estimate, about 25% of characters who role-play quite elaborately compared to other characters. Almost all of them are quite rich, elaborately dressed, have interesting work, have multiple homes, vehicles, ships, complex tools and machinery and many of them are leaders or influential in their towns. They mostly talk only to each other in long, detailed, descriptive paragraphs of their every tiny action. They tend to the less gifted role-players like they are feeble-minded servants who need only the bare essentials to exist.
This is an in-game power clique and there isn't anything wrong with it. They have used their skill to achieve what they wanted and that's the basic tenor of the game right now. I do think many, but not all, of these players know each other and talk OOC. I do think they share some info which is mostly not important. I also think they either recognize each other's new characters or are told about them OOC and these lucky newspawns are provided with wealth and opportunities that other newspawns never receive. It is exactly like the very rich in RL paying to get their children into Ivy League colleges and asking their influential friends to give them high powered, high paying jobs (think Jared Kushner). The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
These characters don't control every town on the island but they are influential everywhere. If they see someone not in the clique becoming too ambitious and slightly successful, suddenly "visitors" arrive, friends of the previously helpful town leader, and shut that character down by ignoring them, marginalizing them and even bullying them until they stop trying. I'm not sure why the players want to do this. Maybe to erase the possibility of change.
And this is OK (except for the OOC part). What would naturally happen is an uprising where the disenfranchised would get fed up, band together and use violence to overthrow the elite. It has happened over and over again in RL. It might happen in the US if things keep going the way they are. It can't happen in Cantr anymore, though, because the present lack of attack ability and random death makes change impossible. The only way things might change a little bit is if a player who is part of this elite group quits the game.
I personally, don't really care about the OOC stuff. It's always going to happen. Some people are really focused on and angry about it, though, for fairness reasons. I just don't like the fact that the mechanics of the game, the small player base, the small character base and the sense of resignation to lives of "quiet desperation" for most characters makes the game boring. My characters can't do anything interesting so I am bored and frustrated.
