Lower locked-character-slot time

[N-Aldwitch]

The locking of 'slots' for loosing characters is a bug bear of mine - I think that spawn-and-run thieves are good for Cantr, in that they are almost the only petty crime which exists, and they keep leaders on their toes... That, and I enjoy being a little anrachic.

On the bolded note, I completely agree. I know 99% of you agree too...

My main point:

Now that the Cantr world has time to recouperate after newspawn thief attacks, we as a whole are now better prepared for newspawn thieves.

Newspawn thieves are dually beneficial. Here's why. (edit: I added in three more reasons, so its not 'dually beneficial' anymore )

1: The townsmember gets some experience in fighting
2: The town becomes active and alert!!! This is a great thing.
3: Some dramatic role-play can occur
4: The newspawn might make off with enough tools/items to start some kind of tribe/clan/empire, which could snowball into Wars and a lot of good RP.
5: This will wake up even the most boring and quiet of towns.. this is a great thing.

What are the problems? I'll name them so you can't call me bias.
1: The town could lose valuable supplies. (though if they're valuable, the town's probably powerful enough anyway to reclaim them)
2: The thief could lose health! Oh no!!!
3: ....can't think of any more.


So essentially my suggestion is to lower it or remove it. However, we must compromise. One will say, 'dont remove it!!' and one will say 'remove it!!'. The middle ground is to lower it.

Feel free to discuss, though I believe the majority agree that we should bring back the good old newspawn thieves.
And hey, we know that even the oldbie players do play newspawn thieves.


( this topic makes me sad, it reminds me of the good old days of newspawn thieves.. )

[Reindeer^]

Agreed.
The locking of character slots makes role-playing a thief (or chainsaw murderer) very hard if every slot is in use.
And I like hunting newbies!

[Doug R.]

Having played a guard in several towns before, I'll comment based on personal experience.

1: The townsmember gets some experience in fighting

True

2: The town becomes active and alert!!! This is a great thing.

Not in my towns. All NTs did was pull me off of projects and make me chase them for days down roads, wasting my time. If the other characters know that there is someone else awake that will waste their time, they won't bother chasing too.

3: Some dramatic role-play can occur

Mostly NTs don't bother to speak, speak OOC too much, or just swear uncontrollably. I've never had an enriching chase with an NT.

4: The newspawn might make off with enough tools/items to start some kind of tribe/clan/empire, which could snowball into Wars and a lot of good RP.

If they are that good to be able to pull that off, they are most likely played by an experienced player who understands the risks associated with the locked slot and accept that risk.

5: This will wake up even the most boring and quiet of towns.. this is a great thing.

Not in my experience. Like I said under point two, no one will run after a hide/bone thief if there's one character that's willing to waste his time doing it. If they manage to grab something of value, sure, then you can have a serious pursuit, but that almost never happens.

In my experience, most characters wake up when they can, and if a player isn't in a position to log in, NTs running about won't make a lick of difference. Conversely, if a player is so bored with the game that they don't log in anymore, odds are that when they do finally check, the act of thievery will be so far removed from that time-point that it would be too late to pursue. Even if by chance it did happen, chasing and killing one NT isn't going to whet anyone's appetite for Cantr for more than a few hours. Personally, I find NTs so annoying, that if I was in that position, it would make me more likely to just drop out.

I think the slot lock is a blessing, and I'd hate to see it removed. NTs only serve to annoy me by distracting me away from my projects and role-playing with other townsfolk who don't bother to chase along with me.

[Doug R.]

Counter proposal:

Give the Players Department the power to unlock character slots so that players who lose their characters through no fault of their own can appeal to have the slot unlocked immediately.

[Reindeer^]

2: The town becomes active and alert!!! This is a great thing.

Not in my towns. All NTs did was pull me off of projects and make me chase them for days down roads, wasting my time. If the other characters know that there is someone else awake that will waste their time, they won't bother chasing too.

I agree with Doug R.
Town will build locks and so on. But that doesn´t mean that the town will chase thieves and kill them with battleaxes!

And I like hunting newbies!

But I like this suggestion!

[N-Aldwitch]

5: This will wake up even the most boring and quiet of towns.. this is a great thing.

Not in my experience. Like I said under point two, no one will run after a hide/bone thief if there's one character that's willing to waste his time doing it.

And this is a good thing, essentially it clears out the useless items that the town doesn't need, naturally migrating it to a weaker town where the thief 'hides'.

[Chris Johnson]

The locked-slots was introduced to combat newspawn suicides which it has had a good impact on- it may be unfortunate that a side effect is less thievery but don't present arguments for and against reducing or removing the lock-slot purely on a side effect without considering the main reason for its implementation.

[Doug R.]

The locked-slots was introduced to combat newspawn suicides which it has had a good impact on- it may be unfortunate that a side effect is less thievery but don't present arguments for and against reducing or removing the lock-slot purely on a side effect without considering the main reason for its implementation.

Exactly, so shouldn't the PD have this power to do so on a case-by-case basis?

[N-Aldwitch]

The locked-slots was introduced to combat newspawn suicides which it has had a good impact on- it may be unfortunate that a side effect is less thievery but don't present arguments for and against reducing or removing the lock-slot purely on a side effect without considering the main reason for its implementation.

Anyone would agree that suicide newspawns and newspawn thieves are a 1 to 4 ratio at it's fairest, a 1-15 ratio at what I would see as normal. So it's not really a side-effect, it's quite the opposite.

But you may as well lock the topic if you disagree as you have the greatest influence in these decisions.

[tiddy ogg]

No, keep it. Newspawn thieves are a bloody nuisance, and they possess no RP virtues. Whap the lock out time to 20 years so people look after their chars.
(OK I didn't mean that long, but the current system means that chars do get more concern),. and as selective bits were taken from that other thread, I'd remind you that one of the keys to success was biding your time, analysing the situation... and the spawn and run morons don't do that.

[SekoETC]

I think this is rather silly. Playing a newspawn thief is rarely worth being called roleplaying. Most of them are annoying bitches and you need to kill them just because they ignored the laws, not because the stuff they took would be worth anything. Someone picks up bones and potatoes and runs. If no one comes after them they think the town is weak, even though the true reason would be that those things would be freely given to anyone who asks.

Grabbing stuff and running doesn't require half a brain and is often suicidal. Why encourage such behaviour? Knowing that dying will keep you from re-spawning for a while makes you try harder. If you want to be a thief, pay some thought to it, observe which of the people are awake, who has keys to which place, don't risk your life over meaningless shit.

I can remember only one interesting newspawn thief in my history of playing Cantr, it was some woman on Reniov Mountains who had a heart attack after I followed her down a road. But 99% of the cases are just plain annoying.

I seem to remember the locking of a slot lasts rather long, maybe just two weeks would be long enough to prove a point. But I just want to say that I don't support newspawn thieves, so few of them are played with any thought.

[N-Aldwitch]

Another person who indirectly agrees with the suggestion:

If you get caught it gives the law enforcement type people something to do that actually pertains to their job but it's not really a big deal.

At last with this suggestion, with a lowered locked-char time, less suicide newspawns but still an increase in newspawn thieves. Newspawn thieves are one of those game-created problems that do not represent real life. And like it has been said countless times, Cantr is Cantr, Cantr isn't real life.

[Nakranoth]

Unfortunately... newspawn thievery is suicidal newspawn. Would you, with your one and only life, walk into a bank that has a posted security guard, grab a twenty and run? Why then would any sane individual new-spawn thieve. I agree that PD should be able to unlock them in the case of unfortunate spawning conditions (I've got a guy on the road about to starve), but it in general needs to remain in place to help buffer the amount of suicidal people in the world.

[N-Aldwitch]

Unfortunately... newspawn thievery is suicidal newspawn. Would you, with your one and only life, walk into a bank that has a posted security guard, grab a twenty and run? Why then would any sane individual new-spawn thieve. I agree that PD should be able to unlock them in the case of unfortunate spawning conditions (I've got a guy on the road about to starve), but it in general needs to remain in place to help buffer the amount of suicidal people in the world.

You are correct if you look at it that way.

I like to look at it this way:

Optimistic low-chance-of-survival high-adrenaline-requiring kleptomaniac newspawn.

[wichita]

Is the desire for mayhem really all that demanding that you need to create 15 bundles of claymore fodder each day?