Is the 200-minute limit effective?

[marginoferror]

I'm skeptical that the current system of "rationing" play time to 200 minutes a day is effective in lowering server load. There are a lot of rough edges in the implementation that, for instance, encourage people to re-log in before every action to reset the timer. In fact, it's not really related to server load at all; a person who makes 40 single actions spaced evenly throughout the day without re-logging in will run out of time where a person who plays constantly and aggressively for 180 minutes will not. This is, by the way, the exact opposite of what I would want to encourage, because it reduces the chance of any two characters being awake at the same time.

Why don't we have a two-week period where we disable the play timer and measure the change in server load and lag? If we find out the play timer is effective in reducing load, then we can examine it more carefully and find out which parts of the implementation are useful and which are less so. If it isn't effective, we can get rid of it.

[Solfius]

The original purpose of the time limit was to reduce bandwidth usage, not server load.

This is because before the limit was introduced Cantr always exceeded its monthly bandwidth limit towards the end of the month and the entire site became unavailable until the next month when the usage was reset.

[Tiamo]

The time limit prevents people from being logged in all day, constantly checking up on their characters (and be quite a burden on server load and bandwith). I think some players do tend to do so if they get the chance...

[marginoferror]

But the time limit doesn't prevent that at all. The screen that notifies you if your character has an event doesn't count towards the time limit, and once you do have an event, you can just log out, then log in again and check the event.

If we want to reduce bandwidth load, we can do that by reducing the number of pages displayed while you're performing actions. There are a lot of really easy opportunities to streamline this - a lot of actions take a lot more page loads than they strictly have to.

Anyway, I'm not saying let's get rid of the time limit outright. I just think it would be useful to compare two weeks without the time limit with two weeks with it, and see if it's still actually useful.

[formerly known as hf]

I see no reason to remove it.

I have nowhere near enough time to play 200 minutes. I like it that that doesn't disadvantage me too much. I'd hate a situation like other MMOs where if you put in the hours, you get more out. Cantr has usually been about the quality of the time you use, rather than quantity.

I don't think it needs to be about bandwidth - laying some form of limit on playing time seems sensible from the players' perspectives.

[Solfius]

Anyway, I'm not saying let's get rid of the time limit outright. I just think it would be useful to compare two weeks without the time limit with two weeks with it, and see if it's still actually useful.

If it isn't useful any more, implying players no longer wish to play for more than 200 minutes a day, it would suggest there are more fundamental problems within the game

[Crosshair]

Well why not get rid of it for a week or so, and just see... I don't why that'd do any harm....

[marginoferror]

There are more fundamental problems with the game.

But the problem with the timer is not the 200 minutes, but that it just doesn't work very well. So let's hold the experiment and base further decisions on hard data.

[formerly known as hf]

Anyway, I'm not saying let's get rid of the time limit outright. I just think it would be useful to compare two weeks without the time limit with two weeks with it, and see if it's still actually useful.

If it isn't useful any more, implying players no longer wish to play for more than 200 minutes a day, it would suggest there are more fundamental problems within the game

I'm pretty sure there are still some hardcorers out there...

I still think some form of activity limit needs to be there. The 200 minutes is a bit iffy, sure, but at least it's something.

It would be interesting to see, lag and load aside, whether removing the 200 minutes actually sees an increase in IG activity. I doubt it somewhat, as I'm not sure that many people still max out their time because they were using it, rather than wasting it idling while waiting for something to happen.

[SekoETC]

Those are good days when you actually manage to play the full 200 minutes. But it hasn't happened to me in ages. You can control that 200 minutes if you feel like it's not enough, but if it still runs out, you should realize that there's life outside Cantr, maybe you should do something else for a bit, and let the sleepy people have time to react and not be overwhelmed by a flood of events. If you really need more minutes, you can buy them with credits.

Also nowadays you can't lose all your minutes by sitting on a page, only up to 5 minutes can be used at once so you may well sit on the player page and click on something when you get an event.

If we want to reduce bandwidth load, we can do that by reducing the number of pages displayed while you're performing actions. There are a lot of really easy opportunities to streamline this - a lot of actions take a lot more page loads than they strictly have to.

I agree with this... and it would make a bigger difference than messing with the minutes.

[marginoferror]

200 minutes is plenty of time, but if you lose five minutes a time while sitting at the player page between events doing something else, then it might be only about 40 actions in a day. But whether most people are hitting the limit or not isn't the point. If it's not doing any good, then it shouldn't be there.

Also, I've never seen the credit system ever actually work. I actually thought it had been disabled.

[SekoETC]

You get credits for voting on one of the links. Except sometimes it didn't work. I haven't had a need to vote because I never use all my minutes anymore.

[Armulus Satchula]

Is it really THAT bad to have people logged in all day. I mean I've seen the arguments in other threads that killing off old character would possibly drive them away. But there are also those aspects of the game where people get bored from nothing going on and quit too. If a hardcore player wants to be logged in all day and do things. Let them. That means more is going on in the world. The more thats going on in the world the better. The better the game the more players. The more players the more funding from Ads.

There are also things like the website AnimePaper.Net does. They let you download ,I think 5 wallpapers, but other then that you have to be an active member in the community. Being an active member includes uploading anime scanlations and chatting on the forums, among other things. ALSO if a user donates 5 dollars or more they get unlimited access to downloads. Something like that could be put in place. More minutes from a one time donation of 10 dollars or be an active member in the community. Maybe every 10 posts adds another Credit to the character page which you can spend on getting more minutes.

Being part of an active community is a way to keep players. People talk about the game and then feel more into playing. The players that often drop out are the ones who have no friends who play and really can't share their awesome experiences with someone who cares.

Also, the minutes were limited back when Cantr was hosted on a VPS if i remember correctly. I was talking with Jos at the time and looking up potential hosting. Now that the server is moved to a dedicated server the Bandwidth allotment should be MUCH higher then before. I'm curious to the actually % used from the max before being charged more. If the numbers are in the mid to low end, then there might not be any reason for this restriction anymore unless the number of player spikes.

In the end though I think the majority of players end up being like me. If their minutes run out, it's because they hit f5 on the character's page and used up 5-10 minutes just to find out nothing happened.

If the problem is server load, then maybe situations like View ALL on events in seatown, which exectures 6000 queries should be cut back some.

[TerribleTadpole]

The smiling green face fixes the problem of waiting for things to happen. Whups, it's green now. I'd better log in and see what just happened!

Search for RSS feed and you'll find the download link.

--edit--

Search in Accepted Suggestions!

--another edit---

Page 5!

[Armulus Satchula]

RSS would be pretty awesome. Even if its just...

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