Getting back to the original post....
Black Canyon wrote:I am interested in ideas that might result in changes that can help retain players who leave not because they aren't a good fit.... but because they are not having fun.
I'm going to bring up the whole "fun factor" issue again. Is there enough in cantr for the new player who is totally unaware of any historical or sentimental value that the game holds for some of us older players? How do you have "fun" when you first get started? Especially when you start with two characters who may or may not end up in a community with active characters.
1. My impression, from playing three characters for a few weeks, is that Cantr is a very work-oriented game. In order to accomplish most goals, you have to make and finish a project — many of which have prerequisite tools, materials, machines, etc. The thing is, I have little idea of what goals my characters should pursue. They need food, but beyond that, the game imposes little in the way of universal motivations. From looking at what other characters are holding, security from attack is a concern. What else should a newbie be thinking about? I have looked at the Wiki and read the notes on the ground, but there seems to be little guidance about a basic list of things that newbies might at least consider working toward.
2. Black Canyon mentions inactivity as a problem. I have been lucky that all my characters spawned in places with at least a few active characters. If anything, too much activity is a hinderance for new players because their characters are less likely to get attention and guidance.
3. The 200 minute time limit isn't well-explained. (The Wiki doesn't have any mention of it, and I had to search this forum to find out what was going on.) The game says that we have X minutes to complete our turn. I thought that was a countdown to when the server was going to generate new events, not a limit on how much time I could spend playing the game. On the first day espcecially, there is a lot of information to process. Since I learned about when to log off, the time limit hasn't been a problem. I understand the need to limit bandwidth use, but the time limit seems an ass-backwards way of doing it.
4. Also, lag is a problem in conjunction with the time limit, though it seems to have improved recently. The game message about updating once per day is inaccurate, isn't it? Aren't turns processed (with resulting server downtime) several times per day?
