reset cantr

[Snickie]

How about something like natural disasters to clean up some of the stagnant towns? A couple of tsunamis along the coastline or a tornado in the mainland... A few mini resets to liven things up. Would definitely lead to a more inviting environment for pirates and bandits.

So in other words you want weather to be implemented with actual damages. :3

Tornadoes would basically have to be contained to grasslands and maybe forests (if they don't immediately border a mountain location) because tornadoes don't like hills or mountains.
In the desert they would be dust devils. Actually we can have dust devils just about anywhere. We even get them here, though instead of dust they usually kind of just stir up leaves and stuff.
Waterspouts could affect coastal locations.
Lightning from thunderstorms (including the ones that produce tornadoes) could strike buildings and either start small fires or short out any radios that were inside.
Tsunami-affected locations could be labelled as having evidence of a severe flood or water damage or something lke that.

[Auryn]

That's exactly it, Snickie. You have some great ideas there, especially with the lightning.

As for picking which towns need the disasters, it should be randomized, of course.

If anything would cause a greater chance, it should be percentage of resource slots used. Maybe that would create a sort of "nature fighting back" sort of scenario.

[Snickie]

By the way, these storms do people damage too. Lightning striking people should cause damage but be extremely rare.
Islands and peninsulas should have a higher chance for hurricanes and storms with excessive lightning.
Flat areas (I'm looking at grasslands and deserts especially) right next to mountains should have higher chance for wind stuff, though not necessarily tornadoes. I'm thinking of Casper, Wyoming, ish scenario.

Asdfghjk it would be so cool to be in RD helping develop this stuff.

[Wolfsong]

A simple way to "fix" Cantr II, from an ex-player:

Cantr II: Apocalypse

One island remains a safe haven for the denizens of Cantr, while the rest of the world goes feral: dangerous lands full of wild animals, unforgiving wilderness, and whatever bandits, thieves, murderers and rogues live in those areas, hidden from law-abiding eyes.

1. Continue to allow people to have 15 characters.
2. Add building/vehicle rot/decay/destruction.
3. Limit the first 10-12 character slots in an account to only spawn on a single island (for English speaking folk, obviously, and other language groups suffering from similar attrition with multiple islands.)
4. Allow the remaining character slots to spawn anywhere there are enough characters present, as currently.
5. Increase wild animal populations everywhere else, and possibly look into increasing damage or adding new animal types so that even people with iron shields are at risk of taking damage.

[Snickie]

I'm going to write a fiction about this. One day.

[freiana]

I am having enormous amounts of fun in the game as it is. Please please please, remember, you are still playing, and most of us actually LIKE it. Don't overdo these kind of changes. If "this world" ended (first of all, I'd just quit, but that's not the point), or there'd suddenly start being huge groups of animals everywhere that need to be fought off, the way I have fun in the game now would not be possible anymore. Places where people live shouldn't suddenly become overgrown or dangerously infected with animals.
I do support building and vehicle rot if repair is possible just like with tools.

[hyrle]

I agree very much with friana's comments... introducing rot to buildings and vehicles would be the limit of what I think should added. My only reason for thinking those should be included is to create an "archeological" element... allowing people to roleplay "archeologists" who explore old and abandoned areas. The suggestion forum contained a post about having old buildings that rot away become "ruins"... a container that cannot be locked which contains all the building's old contents, and which can be razed/destroyed, destroying anything that still remain inside the ruins.

I live in a real life place that includes several old mining towns that are now either "ghost towns" or "semi-ghost towns", and creating a game element that simulates that experience would be intriguing to me. Additionally, it stimulates the economy a bit more by not allowing today's citizens simply rely on stumbling across the work of those who passed that remains in pristine condition even centuries after its original creators passed on. Sure... ancient buildings should still stand and ancient vehicles should still work if they're being maintained (just as in real life), but the element of building and vehicle rot/decay simply just makes more sense to me than the current system.

[Shaderon]

How about adding a new island for paying players only? It doesn't have to be expensive, maybe a couple of dollars a month and it could be Cantr 3. or Cantr subscription only add on pack.

The new island could be completely uncharted and you could choose to go to the new island (by boat if you want to take your old character) but you would have to have a visa (have paid a sub) before you can land there and if you fail to pay your subscription when it's due then you get thrown out and transported back to where you left last.

This would get some money in to support the server too.

[Doug R.]

There's a pretty strong cultural current in the community against giving any kind of perks for any reason. However, if there was a functional aspect to it, say, a low monthly fee that allows you to age-verify yourself and play on an adults-only island without having to moderate your character's behavior out of fear of corrupting some poor twelve year old, that might be something that would work.

[kaloryfer]

the problem is not too many resources or too many buildings
it resides inside people's heads, who do not want to talk, to live, to have fun
and most of us are guilty of this

in previous rl year, one of my characters spawned in ruins of old town, with only 2 citizens living
during that time, he had to work hard to get basic items (clothes, shield, food)
so for obvious reasons i kept him silent - because he was working all the time

over time, the old citizens died out of heart attacks
my char inherited a town with over thousand man-days of work in goods
he can barely use some clothes, some food, and stuff
some he put on his rickshaw, and rode away to have fun elsewhere, i think it was about 1% of value, rest remained open for plunderers

why wasnt he given anything at start?
why did he have to live a dull and boring life from beginning?

people with STUFF, like food, clothes, tools, simple vehicles would not suffer from that much separation from the wealthy rest

[bnlphan]

the problem is not too many resources or too many buildings
it resides inside people's heads, who do not want to talk, to live, to have fun
and most of us are guilty of this

in previous rl year, one of my characters spawned in ruins of old town, with only 2 citizens living
during that time, he had to work hard to get basic items (clothes, shield, food)
so for obvious reasons i kept him silent - because he was working all the time

over time, the old citizens died out of heart attacks
my char inherited a town with over thousand man-days of work in goods
he can barely use some clothes, some food, and stuff
some he put on his rickshaw, and rode away to have fun elsewhere, i think it was about 1% of value, rest remained open for plunderers

why wasnt he given anything at start?
why did he have to live a dull and boring life from beginning?

people with STUFF, like food, clothes, tools, simple vehicles would not suffer from that much separation from the wealthy rest

I understand completely. Human nature I suppose? I've seen places at times with tons of iron locked away and citizens still sporting bone shields. I can understand for a little while since newspawns like to get stuff and leave too often, but if you make a clear effort to stay some place. You should be supplied if there is supplies available. At least given work or something, but in Cantr he who holds the keys makes the rules

[Chroma Key]

And then there are chars who are given keys and the responsibilities that come with them, but still leave everything to the leader and don't take any initiative.
I think the spawn place is important, and I've been in places where a good shield and basic tools are given as standard, and others where everything is kept under lock and key, including the food. My leader had several chars arrive from a certain town after being ignored for so long. On the other hand, it also pays to be resourceful. My newspawn already owns about 10 years' worth of stuff (and counting) despite being just 23. All through very smart trades, extremely efficient use of her skills and some luck. Now she has the freedom to explore the world as she wishes, and I really enjoy the number crunching that's gone into her life. A lot.
As for a reset? Just no. There are plenty of unexplored places. Grab a world map and sail to those islands you have never heard of! As a player who has had characters in primitive places and built those places up, I know at least one rather large island which has not been fully mapped. Go and see what's out there for you to find. There is lots to explore yet. I, for one, am not prepared to go through the motions yet again, at the expense of all the history, stories, emotions and interactions I have been involved in through my characters' lives, which is what keeps me around.

[Black Canyon]

A couple of random comments in response to some of the above comments:

- A cantr reset is silly. Honestly.... why? If your character wants to start from scratch there are plenty of islands to do that with in cantr. Trust me.

-Being a leader sucks. It mostly means that everyday is spent playing gofer or target or babysitter to a whole bunch of characters/sleepers who can't wipe their own butts unless you ask them to do it or do it for them. My characters try to avoid leadership positions and still tend to get thrust into the role by default.

- Why do newspawns not get showered with the best weapons, vehicles, and keys to buildings and responsibilities and other wishes as soon as they spawn? Because the majority fall asleep within a few days never to awake again. So then you have to wait for them to finally die so that you can get the stuff and keys back so that they don't fall into enemy hands and so that you can try to coax someone else into taking those responsibilities on.

- I'm all for some new changes to shake things up. Like damage from natural events and so on. I'm even up for some explosives and sea battles to make sailing a bit more interesting

Umm.. that's all for now....

[saztronic]

There is nothing to strive for in this game. Nothing. It is a dead, post-apocalyptic world that is in its Dark Ages, with no hope of a Renaissance. There aren't enough players now to compensate for this, and the glut of goods and paucity of meaning make it clear that the player base won't be coming back. So many towns are just depressing graveyards.

The volunteer staff are heroic in their efforts, but can really only tweak the game mechanics in very minor ways (clothes, jewelry, animal domestication). Because there is no master plan for game change on a broader scale, some changes that get implemented, like radios, actually make it far harder to take on certain fun roles in the game such as true thief or pirate. Whether you agree or disagree with this particular example isn't important... my point is that because all mechanics changes are ad hoc, unintended consequences are frequent. If there was a clear vision of what someone wanted the game to be a year from now, you could work backwards from there to develop a list of incremental changes that would get the game to that place. But that's a tall, unreasonable order for volunteer staff and programmers.

Several times in the last eight years, I've suggested changes to the game mechanics that were (I thought) well thought out, logical, implementable, etc. but usually immediate, knee-jerk response is "but it will change this too much" or "this thing is already messed up!" or "i like things the way they are," only to see some of the same people in threads like this, complaining about the state of things.

No shake up is coming. There will never be enough consensus support for it, and the staff couldn't implement it even if there was. This is the game you are playing. That's it. Move along now.

It's still possible to have fun, if you are into roleplaying and invest time and effort into that, and happen to find someone creative who is willing to do the same. It doesn't make the game unique by any means, but it's enough some of the time and can be great once in a while. That's it.

[Swingerzetta]

In response to Saztronic, I think the problem that you bring up there, that proposed changes that would lead the game mechanics in some worthwhile direction are too controversial to be accepted, has a simple solution. It seems more like what you describe is actually a symptom of a simpler problem, and that is that in many respects, Cantr is treated as a democracy. It might be better if suggestions in the forums came without polls, and those in charge of deciding the game direction would decide, on the behalf of everyone, whether to take inspiration from specific suggestions, or not.

This is how things work in business, and politics, too. A leader or boss, often democratically chosen, makes decisions for everyone, even if it's an unpopular decision, because a single vision has more direction and drive than an average of everyone's visions.

On the other hand, I don't think game mechanics are the full answer. And I don't think cantr's really in as much trouble as all of that. So many people talk about the addictiveness of it. From my point of view, it's doing quite well. I'm only thinking about how it might do even better.