Do we really need to limit people's minutes?

[SekoETC]

Why do town leaders do menial tasks like this? Because it doesn't make them sweat. More reason to change it. It would encourage hiring laborers. If you have the food storage in a sub room, you would ask a worker to bring in as much carrots you can drag in one go (that takes two trips back and forth), have them drop them on the floor and you can drag the pile into the storage room. Repeat until the pile is gone.

Let's say you can drag 24k, the laborer carries 12k each time.

Pick - pick up 12k
Drop - drop 12k
Drag - drag 24k
E - enter or exit building

Assuming laborer and storage key holder are both outside when the project is finished.
Storage key holder: (Tells laborer what to do), E building
Laborer: Pick, E, Drop, E, Pick, E, Drop
Storage key holder: Drag
Amount in storage: 24k
Laborer: E, Pick, E, Drop, E, Pick, E, Drop
Storage key holder: Drag
Amount in storage: 48k
Laborer: E, Pick, E, Drop, E, Pick, E, Drop
Storage key holder: Drag
Amount in storage: 72k
Laborer: E, Pick, E, Drop, E, Pick, E, Drop
Storage key holder: Drag
Amount in storage: 96k
Laborer: E, Pick, E, Drop, E, Pick, E, Drop
Storage key holder: Drag
Amount in storage: 120k
Laborer: E, Pick, E, Drop, E, Pick, E, Drop
Storage key holder: Drag
Amount in storage: 144k
Laborer: E, Pick, E, Drop, E, Pick, E, Drop
Storage key holder: Drag
Amount in storage: 168k
Laborer: E, Pick, E, Drop, E, Pick, E, Drop
Storage key holder: Drag
Amount in storage: 192k (now there's only 8 kilos left outside)
Laborer: E, Drag
Storage key holder: Drag
Amount in storage: 200k

Laborer has picked up and dropped 12 kilos 16 times, entered/exited 32 times and dragged 8 kilos one time.

Storage key holder has dragged 120k 8 times, 8 kilos one time (I'd rather have the tiredness based on weight manipulated than a set number).

One question is would they still be able to drag 24 kilos after becoming tired. Reaching or surpassing 100% tiredness is only dangerous in that it makes you defenseless against hitting and dragging. It wouldn't stop you from picking up or dropping things (and maybe dropping should be a free action seeing that you're relieving yourself of weight rather than picking up more).

[Piscator]

And if a town finishes a 200 000g carrot harvesting project that should be moved into the storage, which is a room inside a building and only the town leader has the access to that room, since it's one of many storages around. (one for food, one for animal resources, one for valuables, etc.)
I know an example of this kind of towns.
It would really suck if the carrots had to be moved in and doing so would give you (even if you had your entire inventory available for the carrots)

200 000 / 15 000 * 2 * 4 = 107% of tiredness.

(200 000 = the amount of carrots, 15 000 = the amount available in inventory, 2 = tiredness per room entered, 4 = amount of times entering a new space during one trip)

Plus any possible additions from picking up and dropping resources, like suggested.

And on top of that the town leader probably would need to set up some projects, perhaps trade (get resources from the storage(s))...

Well, don't you think you were pretty tired too after moving 200kg of carrots? I know, realism is no argument, but I actually like Seko's idea.
Although we could live pretty good without it.

[Marian]

Why do town leaders do menial tasks like this? Because it doesn't make them sweat. More reason to change it. It would encourage hiring laborers. If you have the food storage in a sub room, you would ask a worker to bring in as much carrots you can drag in one go (that takes two trips back and forth), have them drop them on the floor and you can drag the pile into the storage room. Repeat until the pile is gone..

Yeah but then the carrots sit there rotting on the ground for hours until the worker wakes up.

It's not like a project, having to wait on other people to do something you can do yourself in five minutes just doesn't make much sense to me.

[Piscator]

But you only can do it in 5 minutes because of the game mechanics. In RL transporting such an amount would most likely take longer. (Especially if you are a weakling who can only lift 15 kg).

[SekoETC]

Yeah, it's completely natural to be exhausted after moving such a large amount. Let's imagine the key holder did it all. Then they would have

(12000Pick + 12000Drop)*16 + 33E + (12000+(2*8000))*Drag = ?

We can define Drop = 0, which leaves us with

192000Pick + 33E + 28000*Drag = ?

Then just replace Pick, E and Drag with suitable values to reach ?. How much tiredness do you think such a job should give? 100% or more or less?

Edit: I forgot something

[Tiamo]

Moving 200K of carrots this way should not exhaust you. I wouldn't be IRL (just would be tired a little), and a laborer used to the task would hardly notice. A tiredness of 20-30% would suffice. That does hamper you a bit, but doesn't prevent further activity.

Marian, there is a mechanism that reduces tiredness. It's called resting. You can do that on a chair, on a rug, on a bed, etc. It removes tiredness rather quickly. Just a few hours of rest would completely remove the tiredness, so effectively this hard work has cost you those few hours. Quite nice for RP, i think.
By making tiredness a real factor of Cantr life you make furniture useful and add to RP incentives.

[Marian]

Sorry guys, but seriously...I just cannot get behind any suggestion that A.) does not make the game more fun, B.) does not try to fix a major problem, or C.) would distract the programming guys from fixing the major problems.

The original suggestion that this thread is actually about was cool because it would encourage RP, possibly help with the lag, and be really easy to do.

I just can't see any kind of argument for the tiredness thing except 'realism', which we already have too much of at the expense of actually getting things done and having fun.

[Jos Elkink]

I can't really think about this thoroughly right now - too many difficult Cantr decisions to make - but I do think this idea is really worth considering: more effective tiredness instead of minutes limit.

The reason for the minutes was server load - we really had a problem there that stopped once we introduced the minutes - but later it was kept on because we wanted a slightly fairer balance towards players that do not have all day to play and because we don't want to encourage playing that is really just like chatting. Too many public speaking events make playing impossible if you do not log in all the time. (I have this now - recently started some chars, but my events list is so quickly so long that I simply cannot play.)

The comment that the minutes actually leads to more lag, because people keep logging in and out and reload page they wouldn't otherwise reload is a very strong argument, though, and should be taken very seriously. Removing the minutes might reduce lag. But we need another compensation, then, to keep people from using Cantr as a chat engine ...

[*Wiro]

If we get more effective tiredness I want more effective resting. NO ONE has to sleep two days on a fur rug to be able to work on projects normally again in real life. So either forget about it with the excuse of "Cantreality" or make BOTH work properly.

[Jos Elkink]

To be sure: I don't like the suggestion for reasons of realism - I don't think Cantr needs to be realistic in this regard - but if we remove the limit on the minutes, I do want something instead. Some players consider "roleplaying" to be endless chat on a public square. For me that would render the game unplayable. So we need something to counter that. Maybe tiredness is a solution, maybe something else, but ... something ...

If two players can stay online for a few hours simultaneously, and keep replying to each other's characters on a square or something, it is really impossible for people logging in later on to follow at all what happened. It will take too much time. And it will also increase the lag.

[Marian]

Some players consider "roleplaying" to be endless chat on a public square. For me that would render the game unplayable. So we need something to counter that. Maybe tiredness is a solution, maybe something else, but ... something ...

Have your character tell them they are annoying and to either find a building or STFU?

...or what Wiro said. I just can't see any scenario where having to rest a 'few' hours (which would be at least nine real life ones) after carrying a few resources inside would enrich the game.

Maybe we could just try it out for a week with no 'balancing' changes to see if it even needs them, first?

e: okay ending my part in this conversation for now, the forum keeps freezing up

[*Wiro]

Oh, I'm also completely AGAINST having "actions", I'm sure it'll be the same thing as with the minutes. "I will keep a few so I can use them when I'm in trouble." I doubt people will use them to talk, especially with 15 active characters. :S So it'll probably just have an opposite effect.

[Dudel]

I'd rather just remove them but I see the 'issue at hand' which to be honest isn't really an issue as the player base isn't big enough for that to be an issue. If the event page is 'too big' you could do something like, remove certain events for certain characters. Such as such and such is doing such and such. Or such and such went into who do where now. Or the even MORE annoying of those, THE WHISPER!

That would limit the event page for certain characters that don't need/care/etc about 'such things' I have a couple that could 'benafit' from it... and it wouldn't take away from RP. It would be like your character wasn't paying attention. Which a lot don't seem to anyway.

My original 'suggestion' was to ATTEMPT at making everyone happy but this is going to be a win:loose situation NO MATTER how you do it. The 'best' for the 'active' player is of course to remove the minutes but for the 'inactive' player it wouldn't really matter.

Most of those that want the 'fair play' aren't the ones complainging about the minutes, they aren't those that have 15 characters and are at the comp for 8+ hours. I only have 6 characters and this is ONLY because of the 'minute issue' as with more I'd not be able to give them equal attention.

Then a thought, maybe its not the minutes but the players? They are overwhelming themselves with too many characters and can't 'keep up' with what is around them.

I'd LOVE for the minutes to just 'go away' but I know that could and WILL cause a BIG metta-gamer 'issue' but again as the player base isn't large enough there shouldn't be a 'big' issue. Just the one or two and thats a simple IC fix such as Marian's suggestion.

*laughs* New IC laws! STFU! I don't wanna hear you speak more then twice a day or I'ma kill you! *laughs*

[Marian]

Okay forums seem to be working now.


One thing I wanted to add was that I don't see how adding tiredness to actions like moving resources (a boring thing that people only do when they have to anyway) would cut down on people using the town center like a chatroom in the first place...to have any effect the simple act of talking would have to make people tired (or whatever other restriction) and then we're right back to no one RPing because they're 'saving their actions', only it would probably be even worse because at least there are tricks for saving minutes...honestly I'd rather just stick to the way things are now then see that.

As for the problem of too much noise outside in general (which is one I almost envy because it sure doesn't happen where any of my charries are ) I almost think that's an issue for another thread...but still, I like Dudel's suggestion - let each character have a setting that turns certain events off, or at least whispering off since it's the biggest offender.

But I really think the root of the problem is that buildings just aren't used enough - only a small fraction of characters even have one, and since it's so boring inside alone and getting other people safely in and out is such an annoyance it doesn't get used much, and because it's basically ingrained in everyone even before spawning not to go inside one they don't own, what else can they do but stand around outside and emote?

I know a lot of that is an IC issue, but I think in general it would be good to take a serious look at ideas that have been suggested to make people more willing to go inside (like windows), and maybe even consider more drastic changes (like making the fields or forests or wherever peopple gather the raw resources into something like a seperate 'room' from the town square where buildings and vehicles go) but like I said, this should all be in a second thread,,,I definately don't want to derail this one.

[sanchez]

Searchable events would help a lot, if minutes are unrestricted and that really leads to too many events. Being able to choose to view events generated by a particular char or set of chars, or only events of a certain type like picking up or hitting would make life in cities more bearable, even now.

Removing motivation from people who actually do stuff, like moving things around, starting projects, or talking, does the opposite of reviving the game.