What Design Principles Would You Choose For Cantr?

[marginoferror]

These goals don't have to be contradictory. Some people in the game will make it a focus to study technology and learn from one another. Other people will take an easier path and just hook up with people knowledgeable about technology and help out on projects organized by those people. Other people will trade on the high seas, or do resource extraction, or just sit in their cottage and cook tasty pies. Other people will do nothing but organize other people, if they feel like it. If it's designed in a realistic fashion, complexity will *increase* the opportunity for roleplaying in that it will increase the opportunity for specialization, and encourage people to work together with others in their community.

One very simple, no-nonsense thing we could do to encourage roleplaying right now would be to open up buildings to communication with the outside. Let people build windows or doors that you can leave open so that their building functions like a vehicle - you can talk to people outside as if you were in the same location.

[Solfius]

It doesn't have to be like that.

Indeed, this thread is less about how the game is, and more about how the players would like it to be.

It's a hypothetical question, but by finding out what players value in terms of the design of the game, we could feed that information back into the game to make it more enjoyable.

I'm really pleased with the number of replies already; I think it shows that the players have a lot of thoughts on the matter.

Just to list all the principles mentioned so far in order of posting:

* For Every Action Possible In Game, The Opposite Action Should Be Possible
*All characters should be played independently and do not automatically know of or share knowledge with other characters.
*Cantr should be free to play, and donating should confer no in game advantage
*The Game Should Be Based On Accurate Real Life Processes Unless It Degrades Gameplay
*The Resources and Processes in Game Should Be As Simple As Realistically Possible
* The Resources and Processes in Game Should Stimulate Trade Between Towns
* There should be logical metarules for item (and resource) weights and they should be consistent
* If a resource cannot be used without specific tools, it also shouldn't be harvestable without specific tools.
* Play any role you can imagine has become a false statement due to skills - this needs to be fixed. [Based on this, I'm going to suggest: Players should be allowed as much freedom as possible to play a chosen role]
* Basic stuff should be easy to make, available to everyone with the resources, but it should be possible to produce them faster or as improved versions by using specific tools.
* Players should be able to participate without necessarily playing at the same time of day as other players. Currently this is true for most, but not all parts of Cantr, and the parts it's not true for really stick out.
* Nearly everything in the game except the natural environment should be player-generated.
*Sustainibility should be possible. [based on the original post by Piscator, I'd reword this: All things should grow, flourish, then decay or diminish over time, and where realistic, it should be possible to find replacements (This is worded to include natural resources and other things - e.g. trees grow, seed new trees, then die e.g. finding new mineral deposits to replace old ones) ]
*[based on moe's comment on knowledge] The system should, where practical and feasible, control the availability of knowledge to ensure fairness between old and new players [obviously, only where a solution to do this can be found and doesn't impact negatively on player creativity (auto mapping of visited locations may have a negative impact, for example)]
*Cantr should not mimic real life
*The game should focus on roleplaying and character development over manufacturing [my ideas spun off this one: Manufacturing activities should not come at the expense of role playing activities, The player should be able to perform non-roleplaying actions (including manufacturing and project organisation) as quickly and simply as possible to ensure maximum time for roleplaying]

The first question we should ask ourselves is what kind of game Cantr should be. Should it be an RPG? Should it be a life-simulation game? Should it be a society building game? Should it be an economic development game? Should it be a combination of those? Or should it be 'something completely different'?

Only after this question is answered we can have a look at the various game elements, and how they contribute to the overall game picture: character definition, character development, the world & what's in it, possible activities, game economics, knowledge & skills, social structures, movement & travel, time, combat, history building, etcetera.

The answer to that question would probably be the game concept, the core idea the rest of the game is built around.

I would define the concept as "A roleplaying game set in a persistent world that models real life"

It's worth pointing out that a "model" in a scientific sense is a simplified representation of a complex system

[HoH]

These goals don't have to be contradictory. Some people in the game will make it a focus to study technology and learn from one another. Other people will take an easier path and just hook up with people knowledgeable about technology and help out on projects organized by those people. Other people will trade on the high seas, or do resource extraction, or just sit in their cottage and cook tasty pies. Other people will do nothing but organize other people, if they feel like it. If it's designed in a realistic fashion, complexity will *increase* the opportunity for roleplaying in that it will increase the opportunity for specialization, and encourage people to work together with others in their community.

One very simple, no-nonsense thing we could do to encourage roleplaying right now would be to open up buildings to communication with the outside. Let people build windows or doors that you can leave open so that their building functions like a vehicle - you can talk to people outside as if you were in the same location.

I've yet to see how any of this will encourage more roleplaying. All I can see are more buttons to push, longer loading times, and more machines to work with. I see working and organizing, and not much time for play.

Not to mention with more upgrades, the slower the server will get. The slower the server, the more frustrated players will get and will just stop playing or stop roleplaying. When players stop roleplaying, the game gets boring. And more players quit. New players will stop playing after a while, because, as stated before, its boring.

And windows and doors have been discussed before. And I believe it really is nonsense. Slows the server, and the game. Going indoors allows privacy for characters. Not to mention if the outside could hear everything and see everything from the indoors, the event stream would be even more cluttered with sights and sounds. Very annoying. Therefore, nonsense.

[Solfius]

pulling one quote out of the simplicity vs complexity/roleplaying vs RL simulation conversation

the player should not have to put all their time and effort into organizing projects if what they would prefer is roleplay, and vice versa.

That is, IMO, an excellent principle to bear in mind.

More than that, I don't see this as a case of you can have an accurate simulation but not roleplaying, or vice versa.

I see it as Cantr forcing the players to stop playing and become accountants.

Even more, I see it as a fundamental and underlying cause for many of the issues aired on the forums.

Most people don't want to play accountants, they have too much minutiae to deal with in real life.

It's simply not fun. Some things which are fun include becoming

the worlds most famous politician, most feared criminal, most cunning military commander, most wealthy entrepreneur, or most beloved village idiot

I don't think we need to cut features to relieve players of this accountancy, but I do believe we need an elegant solution to balance the complex simulation with the open-ended roleplaying (The combination of those 2 things are what makes Cantr unique, in my mind)

That solution may be in the user interface or the game mechanics; I don't know, that's beyond the scope of this thread.

I'm still very interested to see what other principles are important to people

Edit: Fixed quotes

[marginoferror]

HoH, there is no reason why lots of events should be a problem for players. The reason that lots of events ARE a problem for players now is that there is no way to filter important events from unimportant events. Regardless of the ability to talk between locations, this needs to be fixed.

Likewise, more buttons, greater lag, etc. are problems with solutions that have nothing to do with the complexity of the simulation. We have unacceptably too many unnecessary page loads to perform simple tasks right now, already, regardless of complexity. We have too much lag, too. But these are problems with fixes unrelated to complexity.

Cantr is terribly claustrophobic right now. If you're in a room you have absolutely no way of getting any sort of information from the outside save passing notes through the door and knocking. You can't see, you can't hear, you can't even shout and hope someone hears you. It's absurd. If we're talking about redesigning the game, there's no reason to make it like that.

Obviously if players want privacy indoors they can close their windows and get that. But currently there is a lot of work you have to do indoors if you want to get it done at all - including many types of cooking - and there's no reason those characters should be isolated from other characters for days or years.

[HoH]

I have had multiple characters that worked indoors and I never had any problems with being isolated from the community. That was, however, when the game was simpler and it only took a few moments to step outside, socialize, and step back inside to continue working. After all, if you are going with the realism approach, what kind of person works for years, let alone days, without so much as taking a break? It was quite simple to roleplay when I was online, and allow my character to finish her work when I was not. No need for a window, people can and will enter and exit a room so long as it is not locked to give and receive information. And passing a note under the door is not a bad way of communicating when doors are locked.

I have also noted that many towns have a central work building, such as a plaza or a similar structure that has many machines inside it open to the public. There can be many people in these buildings at one time, thus no one is 'isolated' as you so claim.

Why waste server space and player's time on something so completely unnecessary?

[marginoferror]

You are right, another thing impeding roleplaying is the current system where characters have to be working at their stations 24/7 to make progress. We should think of a more flexible system. If the game is going to be unrealistic in any aspects they should all be aspects that make it *easier* to play, roleplay and interact with other players, not harder.

If other players think a system allowing the opening up of buildings is unnecessary as you say, then fine. But I am sure that a lot of players would welcome the idea. As long as it is optional and there is still a way to get some privacy, there's no reason not to implement it. As a programmer, I can tell you that this would not be a significant drain on server resources.

Anyway, specifics can be discussed later. Let's focus on basic game principles like Solfius requested.

[Solfius]

I like how the discussion is dredging up implicit principles, such as

If the game is going to be unrealistic in any aspects they should all be aspects that make it *easier* to play, roleplay and interact with other players, not harder

As you may have noticed I'm considering all principles, even ones that seem to contradict previous ones, because I'm not trying to produce a list to be adopted, but spark up discussion about these kinds of underlying principles in the game.

After some time, giving everyone an opportunity to add their thoughts and join in discussion, I think I'll take the resulting list, edit it to group similar ones or duplicates, add brief explanations of the principles, and then invite people to put their top 10 or so most important principles in order so we can build up a picture of what is important to the forum-going player base (particularly as the regular forum goers tend to be the most long term and loyal players)[/quote]

[Tiamo]

I would define the concept as "A roleplaying game set in a persistent world that models real life"

So you are putting the RP part at the center. Everything else is there to serve the key goal of roleplaying. This is a possible starting point (although not everybody would agree). Let's look at the consequences of such a choice...

Above definition makes (a model of) real life the stage upon which the game will be played. All other element within the game would be props that players can use to play their chosen role. Consequently, anything that is not supporting roleplay would be a distraction, and should be removed from the game.
Like the dozens of people hammering and hunting and operating the smelting furnace in the background, making lots of noise. And the long, tedious traveling you will have to do if you want to go to another portion of the stage (from the 'village' to the 'seashore'). And like having to go off-stage if another roleplayer hurts you with his sword playing his part, to go harvesting and eat some healing food. Like being overwhelmed by hundreds of animals running and flying, picking and biting you so you are distracted from the role you want to play (while they totally ignore you while you are travelling).
If RP would be the center of the game travel would have to be relatively easy and swift. Posessions would have to be available at a reasonable rate, not holding up the roleplay, but also not be available at will. Nature would have to be part of the background of life, not the foreground (unless you decide to play in the wilderness). Other players will have to be able to interact with you, but should not be able to make playing your role impossible.

This would completely alter Cantr. Most of the economic tree (or jungle) will have to be simplified and speeded up. Players will have to be able to be online at the same time more often, since roleplaying requires a lot of interaction (the quicker the better). Character descriptions will have to be expanded, made more individual and possibly more visual, so players get more handles to play an individual rather than a 'character'. Anything players can do to each other would have to be made more responsive, so players are not faced with a 'fait accompli', but will be able to react to the stabbing, the dragging attempt, the running away, the stealing attempt or the lockup.

This all is the logical consequence (a little bit exaggerated, i admit) of stating that Cantr should above all be a role playing game. Is this what you had in mind, Solfius (and HoH)?

[SekoETC]

Increasing visibility and communications is good. In addition to the windows and leave the door open suggestions, I think people on a road close enough to town should be visible, and they should likewise be able to see the town. Level of detail would increase as you got closer and could also be increased by carrying optical aids. For example first you could see a vague count of buildings and people with some random deviation thrown in the mix, then you could see a list of people and view their clothes but not see the items, you could see building types but not the names, and a bit closer you could identify people and see building names.
Shooting with long range weapons between a town and nearby roads (and vehicles) should be possible, with change of hitting affected by distance. Range of vision would depend on terrain type and could be increased by weeding out trees and undergrowth, but it would keep growing back so keeping a clear zone would require regular maintenance.
There should also be town walls or gates that would be built separately on each exit. People in town could then look out to the road without being seen, but travelers could not see the town from the road.
When a traveler arrives in a town, they would still be presented with all the roads leading out of the town even if they couldn't enter the town itself because the person could walk around outside the wall. Notes (and preferably resources as well) could be left outside the gate and there would be a separate objects space on each exit that's separated from the town proper with a wall or gate, but it would be impossible to build there and also there would be no resources. If the gate (wall) was destroyed, the objects outside the wall would be merged with the stuff in town center.
The traveler could walk around the town moving from exit to exit looking for a gap in the wall or an open gate. If there was no gate or there was an open one, the traveler would arrive in town normally. Moving between the town and the exit areas would be like moving from room to room and would not require waiting for a travel tick to get back in town.
People could try to sneak closer to a town without being seen by selecting 50% speed or less. Chance of success would be affected by terrain.

[marginoferror]

For a roleplaying focus, we can make things faster without making things easier. Right now, whenever we want to balance something, we make it slower. This has resulted in patently absurd amounts of time required for relatively simple tasks. But if we make things too easy, roleplaying will be harmed because people will be able to accomplish their goals individually with minimal interaction with others.

We should find a way to encourage cooperation and specialization without making everything take forever. Likewise, transportation might be made faster (I'm not sure if this is really necessary or not) but it could also be made more interesting than just walking down a road and not checking your account for a day and a half.

[Tiamo]

marginoferror,

for roleplaying purposes being able to make something is important, not the actual fabrication process itself. That would require a completely different approach to economy than the current one: making things would be easy, learning to make new things, or better things, would be difficult. This, by the way, would be in line with the suggestion of introducing knowledge as an economic factor in the game. The actual fabrication could even be done in the background (like eating and resting is automatic now), based on the chosen role of the various players.

I'm not saying this would be my choice for the future of Cantr, i am merely pointing out a possibility, based on Solfius' choices, trying to find out what kind of game play Solfius really is envisaging.

[Solfius]

I agree Tiamo, yours is a perfectly valid interpretation of that concept, and goes to show how the same concept can be developed in many different directions.

A roleplaying game set in a persistent world that models real life

The truth is, this sentence is so vague, it could apply to any RPG that is played in a real world setting (Most RPGs aren't set in the real world so I can't think of any examples)

if you listed some key features, then you restrict the possibilities and home in on a complete description of Cantr.

2 key features we can draw from the concept:
*you choose a role to play (and we already know you can choose any role or purpose, from a quiet townsperson to a hard working industrialist to a bloodthirsty pirate - all valid roles)

*persistent world that models real life (so death is permanent, you need food to survive, animals can attack, you can't pull most pure metals straight from the ground).

In truth, a single sentence won't capture the entire concept. It'll be too vague still. That one line concept doesn't capture the most fundamental and original feature of the game: only the physical world is defined by the game mechanics.

I think this deserves it's own thread, so I'm going to start a separate one.

[Solfius]

i am merely pointing out a possibility, based on Solfius' choices, trying to find out what kind of game play Solfius really is envisaging.

I'm not actually envisaging anything in this thread. I'm trying to see what matters to the players in terms of gameplay.

As I said, this isn't a suggestion, it's more an opinion gathering exercise

[marginoferror]

Tiamo,

I think I understand what you're getting at. We're approaching this from different angles. My suggestions are focused towards making roleplaying an integral part of achieving any other goals you might set in the game (i.e., amassing wealth). But if the game explicitly exists to make roleplaying possible, then you can assume the opposite - people are playing the game in order to roleplay, and because the goal is to roleplay, there's no need to make roleplaying "necessary" in order to achieve ancillary goals.

I'm not sure that we can make that assumption - that everyone is here explicitly to roleplay - in a free, internet-based game that anyone can join. But whether we do make the assumption or not would radically affect the design of the game.