Things that thrill or amuse you about Cantr.

[Wolfsong]

Yeah, that's one thing I've noticed playing this time around vs. my first account - the only conflict you get these days is via piracy on the ocean in small doses. Nobody seems to do big van raids anymore, and most towns are pretty secure and cozy - coastal ones, yeah, but inland ones especially. I only see traders get raided anymore.

[Marian]

I for one am perfectly okay with not logging in and finding a character has been dragged off to be murdered along with their entire community while I had lunch with a couple friends.

That kind of thing really isn't as good for the game as some people make it out to be. Believe it or not, characters being randomly murdered and massacred towns don't tend to be capable of contributing much quality RP. And have a way of underlining for the player what a waste of time developing a char a building anything up or playing the game in the first place really is. Pretty sure we lost tons of players every time a situation like that popped up.

Anyway, I've only got five chars and they've all seen plenty of conflict and excitement. You can take steps to avoid it, yes, but it's not hard to find at all if that's what they're looking for.

[Axiom]

When people trash talk my characters behind their backs.

Yes, I love this too!

Yeah, that's one thing I've noticed playing this time around vs. my first account - the only conflict you get these days is via piracy on the ocean in small doses. Nobody seems to do big van raids anymore, and most towns are pretty secure and cozy - coastal ones, yeah, but inland ones especially. I only see traders get raided anymore.

I like violence too! We should totally usher in a new era of violence and anarchy. Let's all be pirates and bandits from now on.

Marian, I think your complaint can be addressed by NDS as long as everyone is reasonably sportsmanlike about things. NDS has to be one of my favorite features. Now you can give people all the tension and fun of a near-death experience without having to actually murder them!

[Wolfsong]

It's not about being bandits and pirates, though. It's about war. We need active groups of people aggressively expanding an empire, etc. On my first account, I was involved (willingly or not) in at least 4 wars where towns actually fought each other, big affairs. I think on the second account I was involved in a single little futile skirmish between two towns. So far, on the third, nothing.

[sherman]

How about we first try getting more wake people? Can't really have wars with towns where 2 out of 10 people being awake. And that's just example... We just don't have enough people for that (plus you can't use two of your chars even if on opposite sides, I think that's CRB.)

And not to mention the fact that people aren't interested on that kind of thing. Takes lot of work to build empire...

[Surly]

I for one am perfectly okay with not logging in and finding a character has been dragged off to be murdered along with their entire community while I had lunch with a couple friends.

That kind of thing really isn't as good for the game as some people make it out to be. Believe it or not, characters being randomly murdered and massacred towns don't tend to be capable of contributing much quality RP. And have a way of underlining for the player what a waste of time developing a char a building anything up or playing the game in the first place really is. Pretty sure we lost tons of players every time a situation like that popped up.

I certainly feel we lose more to the game than we gain in most wars, since they are such targets for abuse. It's one thing to have a well played out conflict (the original Blackrock/Kisle conflict, for example) but most wars feature no RP and killing off someone's character that they have invested days of their life into has the common result of leading them to realise they have better things to do with their time.

Conflict is much more important than violence. Cantr as a game does not lend itself to violence.

[Breezy]

I for one, love conflict. I can't remember how long ago this was. It may have been four days, but just to be sure I'll be vague. But a man rolled into one of my character's town and said "There's a war a-brewin." My character is a budding weaponsmith so, but she was secretly like "Yes!". Then, literally the next day, the he came back and was like, "Well, everything's cool now." My jaw just dropped.

[JosiahH]

Sounds like its time to kick that military-industrial-complex into high gear, Breezy! No crisis was ever averted that couldn't be sparked again!

[SumBum]

Marian, conflict and death don't have to go hand in hand. The situation I mentioned did involve some death of chars in the fighting pits, but it wasn't an immediate thing. There was a lot of buildup and RP between my char and his captives for many days without a single weapon being raised. That uncertainty and suspense was very entertaining for me even if my char was totally confused and scared.

Mass blitz killing can be harmful to the game, I agree. But I'm very much in favor of conflict. There used to be tug of war situations over resources. There used to be groups/towns you did not want to mess with but you HAD to interact with them because they controlled resource X. It forced politics and interaction.

Unfortunately in Cantr, almost every resource is very easily gotten elsewhere. It's so easy to ignore or leave any situation where one char doesn't agree with yours that those long simmering conflicts are gone.

Oh, and all those sleepy chars? Just have one of your chars randomly do a "fire drill" and announce some kind of trouble - see what happens. People tend to wake up even if it's just to chase a newspawn thief down the road. It's something different and grabs attention.

[Marian]

I certainly feel we lose more to the game than we gain in most wars, since they are such targets for abuse. It's one thing to have a well played out conflict (the original Blackrock/Kisle conflict, for example) but most wars feature no RP and killing off someone's character that they have invested days of their life into has the common result of leading them to realise they have better things to do with their time.

Conflict is much more important than violence. Cantr as a game does not lend itself to violence.

This, exactly. And also sanchez's post. Except change out 'invested days' for months or years. The 'good old days' some of you are pining for featured a bunch of massacres with no RP, entire regions wiped out with nothing to replace them. Even with NDS, Cantr isn't designed for open or interesting combat. It favors, at best, lightning strikes with no time wasted on RP, or dragging tactics where half the time no one bothers with RP even while killing people at their leisure.

There's also the simple fact that wars make zero sense IG and never have. I'm still pretty convinced most of the old ones were driven by the OOC attitude of 'hey it's a game, we should all be killing each other like in other games!' because we're taking about a world with zero scarcity, no decay and infinite resources, that's designed to reward cooperation above all. WHY would any town go to such extreme effort to kill people over things, when there's infinite amounts of things and only a handful of people?

Empires also make no sense. Six consistently active people in your town, and you want to spread them out and make them vulnerable? No sane town leader would deliberately send away their most trustworthy and active people just so that a note in another town can say they own it.

I've said this before, but I don't get the criticism of the more laid back and peaceful kind of societies we have now... or at least the ones with active leaders. They're doing what they're supposed to be doing, simulating a society that makes sense and is the most practical and efficient for the mechanics of the world they live in. Warmongering is either insanity or driven by OOC reasoning.

And as Surly said, conflict and violence are two separate things. Most of my characters are involved in conflict of one kind or another, it's exciting, and fun, and makes me eager to wake them up whenever I can... violence on the other hand has pretty much the exact opposite effect.

Edit: I guess this is probably the wrong thread to be having this debate anyway.

Um...rakers thrill me! Rakers and friends.

[Moonflame]

One of my characters found some conflict in the last ingame year. I suppose you could say I found it thrilling, but I also found it frustrating. I'm quite lucky the other player was offline and I got it over with because I simply would not have found it enjoyable to try and figure out exactly when the sea travel tick is and fight over the wheel for every tick. It wouldn't matter how boat-savvy my character was if some dweeb somewhere is setting an alarm every 3 hours 24/7.

I feel the same about wars, surely a lot of them would be dictated by OOC factors?

[SekoETC]

I know when one of my characters was chased at sea, I set up alarm every three hours at night to make sure he didn't get caught. Fortunately I didn't have work at the time. I don't think I could pull it off nowadays, or he got really lucky. The main reason he got away is that he undocked in a sloop and the chasers had forgotten to bring a dinghy.

[Marian]

I simply would not have found it enjoyable to try and figure out exactly when the sea travel tick is and fight over the wheel for every tick

I feel the same about wars, surely a lot of them would be dictated by OOC factors?

Cantr Enhanced If you're not using it you're at a serious disadvantage while doing anything time sensitive, and it's got lots of other conveniences that come with it. And there's a link in the Time section of the wiki too that tracks server ticks, that's what I use when I'm on my phone.

To keep with the theme of the thread, I'll say I find most kinds of conflict thrilling. Even if attempts to stir it up sometimes get disappointing non-results or at best empty threats and whining...but I assume the willingness of most people to let their characters get seriously involved in things is directly related to how much time they expect to have online in the coming days to deal with what they started.

Conflict, and trying to figure out what the other person's up to, what they're really thinking, how to either unruffle feathers or deliberately push buttons, and all the planning and strategizing that involves just in case and everything else that goes with it is insanely exciting and fun. It just, IMO becomes much less so once it's time for somebody to click the attack button. Nothing exciting about clicking a button, and at that point, the outcome more or less just comes down to math, and locked doors. Even with the uncertainty a crowbar and yes, not knowing how much phone and computer access your opponent has at work throws into the mix, it can usually be guessed by both sides well ahead of time.

[Auryn]

I appreciate the steady increase in differing skin tones. I remember when white/Caucasian/light skin tone described almost all characters. Now we have much more variety.

[Genie]

I foresee a new trading source, soon there can be a bazaar for the sleepers.