Dead Zone o_o

[Cherize]

If characters could mate and give birth then you could control population growth in your community by either encouraging everyone to bond with others or by killing/exiling pregnant women.

Another happy thought from the mind of Seko.

[Chris]

I would be interested to see the population trends by island. Island names wouldn't be necessary; just label them A, B, C, etc.

Setting realism concerns aside, using population density as the main (only?) determinant of spawning location has its good and bad points. Towns that are thriving are good places to have a character. However, it's a big world, and if TPTB want the new islands to be used, then they need a critical mass -- which is definitely more than 2 -- for social interaction, economic production, security, and as a buffer against characters who starve in their sleep.

Also, the older islands are full of people who are spinning their wheels, not feeling needed. It's true that an ambitious go-getter can still make a mark and rise in society. But on the newer islands, everyone is needed. That's why my favorite character is the one on a new island.

Maybe a two-step spawning process for most characters (excluding a player's first character) would be good. Let each island have an equal chance of getting a newspawn. Then let town population density determine where exactly on the chosen island the newspawn appears. Taking islands into consideration as a unit of analysis makes sense because land travel is possible immediately with no technology or vehicle.

[DylPickle]

I think they changed the spawning system while anticipating that cantr's population would steadily rise. Unfortunately it started to drop.

[SekoETC]

If characters could mate and give birth then you could control population growth in your community by either encouraging everyone to bond with others or by killing/exiling pregnant women.

Another happy thought from the mind of Seko.

Heh, it's just going to the extreme ends of the scale but it's the only 100% sure method of not getting children in your town if children were possible to make. It's possible to tell people not to have relationships, it's possible to arrange propaganda campaigns to convince people that pregnancy is an illness and spawning is the natural way of how things go but if all bonds were mechanically invisible as it has been proposed to keep things clean, the only way of proving someone's been doing it is when they get pregnant (or get a STD but those might not show). Or then having men and women in separate buildings or one group working outdoors and one indoors. It might lead into some interesting cultures. If you keep half your population indoors then you'd also be attracting less newspawns.

[kinvoya]

How does one person reproduce by themselves? Don't answer that, lol. The more people, the more newspawns.

I had a char living alone up in the mountains and suddenly, out of nowhere she got a newspawn! Whoot! I guess it was one of those strangers passing in the night.

[SekoETC]

One of my characters is kinda lonely and the only member of his language group that he knows of lives in the next location. She sleeps quite a lot so maybe he could just cuddle up to her when she's sleeping and maybe the Gods of Cantr would grant them a newspawn. It would be better she slept through it all since she's a bit annoying. Then I could take the "child" back to my location and give him or her all sorts of cool equipment and teach him/her stuff... about life. Make babies with a sleeper and save yourself from parental disputes
(Disclaimer: this wouldn't actually be possible with the proposed procreation system, that would always require a commitment from both players.)

[frenchfisher]

How does one person reproduce by themselves? Don't answer that, lol. The more people, the more newspawns.

I had a char living alone up in the mountains and suddenly, out of nowhere she got a newspawn! Whoot! I guess it was one of those strangers passing in the night.

I once had a character spawn in a location with no people

[Doug R.]

[

I once had a character spawn in a location with no people

That's because the character that spawned you was on a road. The check to determine population happens once a day, so if a character leaves after that, it's possible to spawn where no one is. It happened to me once as well.

[SekoETC]

Curiously enough, seems like Cantr is waking up. There's been loads of newspawns in the last few days and well, I made one too... I know I said I wouldn't but that's just silly whining about how there's no events when you're only playing sleepy old farts and explorers. Making a newspawn gives fresh perspective into it and maybe Cantr has changed, because my newspawn has been trusted and treated like an intelligent person with potential instead of a child or a possible thief. Then again, it's kinda sad that there's no time to be a child, you are thrown into the working life from day 1...

[frenchfisher]

Seems like it to me, Seko, but maybe that's because some of my characters have stumbled on pockets of awakeness (Stone Knights, MacGregors). Oddly, for the first time I'm starting to hear of events that I've seen happen with one character from another character. It's an interesting experience

[Chris Johnson]

[

I once had a character spawn in a location with no people

That's because the character that spawned you was on a road. The check to determine population happens once a day, so if a character leaves after that, it's possible to spawn where no one is. It happened to me once as well.

Twice a day ... but that's the normal reason , In very rare circumstances where the spawning process can't find a spawn location which meets the criteria of distance from other characters of the same player, there are a list of specific spawn locations for each language which are then used ... it is conceivable that this fixed list includes one or two with no population.