Donation Drive?!

[Doug R.]

Anyway, I know what I've experienced and out of at least 50 people since I've been trying to recruit every single one have stopped playing because of the amount of travel that *directly* interferes with the *basic* game play mechanic of role play. The exact thing this game was centered around.

And there is the central fallacy that is responsible for why I've lost most of my interest in Cantr. It was not designed to be a role-playing game. It was designed to be a society simulator. Simulating a society is what brought me in and what entertained me. Unfortunately, the lack of a large simmer population in the world led marketing to start targeting role-players (thinking they could be converted easily to society building rpers), but the rpers took the game over. Rpers don't care about building/maintaining society. They care about role-playing. Most care about role-playing romantic relationships. Few seem to care about role-playing within the context of building a society. Maybe that's because Cantr society has long ago reached it's apex, and there's nothing left to do other than fornicate and cause drama for entertainment. Somehow I doubt it, though. I keep presenting the characters around mine with interesting political, scientific, religious, and philosophical roles in building our society, but few are interested. They'd rather work in silence or pursue their romances.

Of course the mechanics don't support your role-play, because it's not meant to be an RPG. The rpers just evolved the social aspect of the game into an rpg. But it's not meant to be one. The disconnect between Cantr's purpose and it's player base is wider than the Grand Canyon.

What can be done about it? Nothing short of a revolution. You need to clear all the simmers out of staff and replace them with role-players, so that all the changes made to the game support role-playing. Either that, or the simmers on the staff need to purge the player base of role-players. Can't see that happening short of shutting the game down entirely and starting from scratch with new players.

The sad fact is that Cantr is fundamentally broken now, because the number of players still around dedicated to the game's original purpose is next to nil. You can't get anything done when 99% of the player base is disinterested in what you're trying to sell.

[Friar Briar]

Oh, well I just based that on my own experience on game so far. Didn't say it's fact because well.. There's so many opinions as there is players

That's true, Sherman. I just wanted to point out my opinion on the matter.

And there is the central fallacy that is responsible for why I've lost most of my interest in Cantr. It was not designed to be a role-playing game. It was designed to be a society simulator. Simulating a society is what brought me in and what entertained me. Unfortunately, the lack of a large simmer population in the world led marketing to start targeting role-players (thinking they could be converted easily to society building rpers), but the rpers took the game over. Rpers don't care about building/maintaining society. They care about role-playing. Most care about role-playing romantic relationships. Few seem to care about role-playing within the context of building a society. Maybe that's because Cantr society has long ago reached it's apex, and there's nothing left to do other than fornicate and cause drama for entertainment. Somehow I doubt it, though. I keep presenting the characters around mine with interesting political, scientific, religious, and philosophical roles in building our society, but few are interested. They'd rather work in silence or pursue their romances.

Of course the mechanics don't support your role-play, because it's not meant to be an RPG. The rpers just evolved the social aspect of the game into an rpg. But it's not meant to be one. The disconnect between Cantr's purpose and it's player base is wider than the Grand Canyon.

What can be done about it? Nothing short of a revolution. You need to clear all the simmers out of staff and replace them with role-players, so that all the changes made to the game support role-playing. Either that, or the simmers on the staff need to purge the player base of role-players. Can't see that happening short of shutting the game down entirely and starting from scratch with new players.

The sad fact is that Cantr is fundamentally broken now, because the number of players still around dedicated to the game's original purpose is next to nil. You can't get anything done when 99% of the player base is disinterested in what you're trying to sell.

Doug, I think you've encapsulated the entire problem right here.

A time limit in the past forced players to decide how much of rping and how much of simming they're willing to play. That's why I think, once the limit was lifted, Cantr, as a platform, has never structurally evolved to take advantage of either the RP aspect or the Simming aspect. We are now, as a whole, stuck somewhere in between with too many options with unlimited time. And the interactions you see in game today are what and how the players choose to fill their endless time with.

I'm suggesting we need to have some deep considerations of how Cantr should be restructured. Otherwise, any new players coming in here will be deeply confused as to what their purpose is in the game. Trying to sell Cantr to them one way or another creates misconceptions about what this game is about, and I can see that long-time gamers who are new players, coming in here for the first time, might carry with them certain expectations that may not fit with what they will be getting.

[saztronic]

Anyway, I know what I've experienced and out of at least 50 people since I've been trying to recruit every single one have stopped playing because of the amount of travel that *directly* interferes with the *basic* game play mechanic of role play. The exact thing this game was centered around.

And there is the central fallacy that is responsible for why I've lost most of my interest in Cantr. It was not designed to be a role-playing game. It was designed to be a society simulator. Simulating a society is what brought me in and what entertained me. Unfortunately, the lack of a large simmer population in the world led marketing to start targeting role-players (thinking they could be converted easily to society building rpers), but the rpers took the game over. Rpers don't care about building/maintaining society. They care about role-playing. Most care about role-playing romantic relationships. Few seem to care about role-playing within the context of building a society. Maybe that's because Cantr society has long ago reached it's apex, and there's nothing left to do other than fornicate and cause drama for entertainment. Somehow I doubt it, though. I keep presenting the characters around mine with interesting political, scientific, religious, and philosophical roles in building our society, but few are interested. They'd rather work in silence or pursue their romances.

Of course the mechanics don't support your role-play, because it's not meant to be an RPG. The rpers just evolved the social aspect of the game into an rpg. But it's not meant to be one. The disconnect between Cantr's purpose and it's player base is wider than the Grand Canyon.

What can be done about it? Nothing short of a revolution. You need to clear all the simmers out of staff and replace them with role-players, so that all the changes made to the game support role-playing. Either that, or the simmers on the staff need to purge the player base of role-players. Can't see that happening short of shutting the game down entirely and starting from scratch with new players.

The sad fact is that Cantr is fundamentally broken now, because the number of players still around dedicated to the game's original purpose is next to nil. You can't get anything done when 99% of the player base is disinterested in what you're trying to sell.

I think somebody got up on the surly side of the current era.

Doug, you have a very specific idea of what simming means. But a true sim isn't constrained by anyone's particular paradigm. People can interact, transact, organize... or do none of those things. Whatever they end up doing in the sandbox is, de facto, a simulation. You may not like the simulation. You may feel it's not the kind of simulated society you're interested in. That doesn't make it not a sim.

Cantr today is a kind of Roman bath house, really. Yes, lots of lazy and quiet and sex and ennui. People have to play roles to simulate a society, they have to pretend to be people. They are doing that. You just don't like what they're pretending. That doesn't mean they're doing it wrong, it just means you don't like it.

I don't much either, a lot of the time.

But I also think that getting tired of something is natural. We all get tired of games. Hell, we all get tired of life. People don't act the way we want them to, things don't turn out how we hope, routines become boring, we get distracted, whatever. I also think that when people get tired of the game (or life) or don't like it, they start looking for grand problems -- reasons why the game itself is flawed beyond reason, or people are all just doing it wrong. But I think the feelings precede the reasons more than the other way round.

I also think that with the size of the player base we have now, it gets much harder to do the kind of simming you are advocating.

But anyway, blah blah etc.

[Marian]

The actual mechanics of the game world really are structured more around supporting laziness and ennui than otherwise, too.

Not saying I like it, but even back in the beginning, if simming were the point the game wouldn't have been 'balanced' around picking potatoes one day out of the week being the only thing required for survival. Everything else is as much an RP prop as all the fancy dresses are.

From what I've read on the forums even most of those complex 'societies' with their wars and politics and so on from the early days were based on the players OOC thoughts about what would be fun to try more than any IG need to organize or fight.

Now it just so happens that what most players think is fun is relationship drama. But there's no pressure from the game itself or the mechanics of the world to do either one...or if anything the bias is toward the RPers. You need weapons and infrastructure to have your pretend wars, all you need is an asterick button on your keyboard for sex and drama.

[Joshuamonkey]

If it helps Doug, I'm definitely a simmer, much more focused on politics, economics, and buildings things than other things. And I realized long ago that my efforts are greatly hindered by lack of players, and players who care, but I keep going with the belief that one day Cantr will have more players (one day I may have the resources to help Cantr), and also because it makes things more interesting. Things move slowly, but that doesn't bother me, since I'm slow/sleepy too. I just try to make progress bit by bit.
But many get frustrated by lack of progress or roleplay and end up leaving the game. If consistently having roleplay or action is necessary to keep you in the game, then you may find yourself leaving. Although I try to discourage silence because it isn't good for the game (not that I'm good at it), for me it just means I don't have to use as much time in Cantr and can get more things done in real life.

[Friar Briar]

From what I've read on the forums even most of those complex 'societies' with their wars and politics and so on from the early days were based on the players OOC thoughts about what would be fun to try more than any IG need to organize or fight.

My characters have found thousands of pages of IG history from the earliest days of world building that support this. What consistently struck out, though, was a sense of urgency that would be difficult to believe could exist today, a feeling that tomorrow couldn't come fast enough as players discovered and explored on the blank pages of this world.

[Marian]

I still enjoy the game for what it is. Sometimes I get the feeling I may be a minority in that... especially when I read the forums!

But I definitely agree with you (and Piscator, was it?) that even with new things added, there's been this sense about the game for years now that everything important has already been done, and no new character will ever have the opportunity to contribute meaningfully to anything the way it was possible in the past.

I can keep myself entertained through pure RP but it will never be as satisfying as actually DOING something.

I still focus on gathering and trade because I enjoy it and so do my characters, even if in a world glutted with infinite resources it's largely pointless. And on some level I realize I'm only contributing to the problem by generating yet more resources to stuff into more store rooms...

[JsWill]

I can't see why it can't be a sim and RPG. They both go hand in hand. The problem is not it being too sim or too RPG. The problem as I see it is it's not enough of either and some of the game mechanics make accomplishing either extraordinary difficult. That's what I've been saying. I refuse to let myself get dragged into a sim vs RPG fued when both actually complement each other.

[Marian]

I refuse to let myself get dragged into a sim vs RPG fued

Suuuure you do, that's why you dug up a month and a half old thread about it.

[JsWill]

I didn't dig it up. I just saw it. Lol *puts shovel away* But seriously, how can no one agree with that? Sim and RPG go hand in hand like whiskey and coke. (if you're a drinker you'll understand.) But butting heads about it is crazy. We should come together and find the best formula using the two cause ultimately that's what Cantr is sold as and if you don't mind me saying having *both* mix would be superb. But maybe i'm not understanding the debate, however, if I am don't you agree? Feuding is illogical, no offense to anyone who got sucked into it of course. But we're a community and communities always work better when they come together. So I say fist bump, hand shake, kiss, w/e it takes but lets figure out something out that both sides will be content with because it's our game after all, right? It's up to us to make it what we want it and fussing and arguing will get us no where.

Also, I apologize if I necroed an old thread. I really didn't mean to. I just saw it as I was scrolling and thought it was recent. I'm not the best for checking time stamps. But for what it's worth I did think this was an important statement to make. It's the truth. We should unite and be friends, RPG elements and Sim elements and maybe if some are unhappy we could make some options toggleable? Definitely far from an ideal solution but it's a starting point and that's what we always need, a starting point. That's my first theory and I have a couple more but I'll wait for some feedback before I toss them out. Leave out what I said before about jank mechanics. Lets focus on one thing right now, for now lets just focus on how to make these two clashing ideas into one without the clash.

As I said, option one, toggleable mechanics. Not only would it solve a lot of these disagreements I'm seeing it would (probably most importantly) make the game more customizable to personal preference. Example, someone may not like hunger. Toggle it off. (maybe a bad example but that's just one.) Same for any other additions that are controversial. Sure it wont exactly make the most even playing field, however, it'll tailor the game to the personal experience you want to have. It'll make the game capable of being tailored to *your* ideal atmosphere. For the record, I love hunger. xD Don't want anyone to be confused about that. I'd definitely be the guy who toggles it on. But also, it would also be understood that regardless whether it's on or off that Cantrians do get hungry, thus, simmers would simulate eating instead of doing it. Does that make sense?