Cantr Future: Science, Invention, Progress etc

[Ryaga]

Why does everyone have the idea that violence is bad at a social standpoint?

Wars were and are VERY important to society, as much as we'd not like to admit it war is what pushes infrastructure. The most universal way to bind a group of people together is to take a group who doesn't look like them, talk like them, or see things like them, and dehumanize them.

If anything, violence should be made much easier. At first you'll get a TON of fighting and killing and war, but that'll push people to bind together to make things safer, and then it'll calm down.

[Surly]

Why does everyone have the idea that violence is bad at a social standpoint?

Wars were and are VERY important to society, as much as we'd not like to admit it war is what pushes infrastructure. The most universal way to bind a group of people together is to take a group who doesn't look like them, talk like them, or see things like them, and dehumanize them.

If anything, violence should be made much easier. At first you'll get a TON of fighting and killing and war, but that'll push people to bind together to make things safer, and then it'll calm down.

I disagree to quite a bit of this, so here goes...

Violence is bad at a social standpoint. While you can make the argument that war disperses decadence(and therefore refreshes cultures) nearly all of the great social change and cultural development happened during peacetime. War if anything destroys great cultures: Greece, China, Persia were all ultimately brought down by war and their cultures stopped developing.

Secondly, war does not push infrastructure. The economy pushes infrastructure and has been shown again and again as the most effective way of bringing people together; war bankrupts countries and brings misery and economic strain to their poorest. War is inherently divisive and can only ever have one winner. Unless you wipe out your enemy completely, the defeated peoples will always resent you. The best way is to make them prosperous and show them they are better off under your rule. Even Hitler united his country more through his infrastructure program than his demonising of the Jews; in the end he resorted to war and the culture he built was destroyed.

Violence is too easy in this game and so has little consequence. Why is piracy limited predominantly to Somalia in the modern world? Because for most the risks far outweigh the reward. That is not the case in Cantr and that is why we have so much piracy and very few genuine cultures.

[SekoETC]

How about implementing death from old age only for characters spawning after it's implemented and making it optional for characters who were spawned before that (or who had exceeded a certain age like 50 or 60 before the implementation?) That way established characters wouldn't end up getting killed by the system, and new characters would know in advance that their lives are going to be limited, so they could plan their lives keeping that in mind.

[Marian]

I think characters dying at some point would add an interesting element to the game, because like others have already said it'd mean they'd have to put some focus on their legacy, who would succeed them and inherit the fruits of a lifetime of hoarding, which would lead to some great RP. Also I think it would help shift the player's focus from 'this is my story all about my character, to a little more awareness of their part in the collaborative story being told about their town or region.

But of course there's no way to do that without pissing off most of the long-term players, so maybe some sort of compromise?

The problem is not so much old characters anyway, but old ones who fall asleep holding the keys and let their town stagnate around them. So maybe...after the age of fifty or so, not working on a project for a certain period of time (five days?) would gradually start to wear away at a character's health and require them to eat more, over a longer period of time becoming worse with maybe additional symptoms like weakening them or making their skills go rusty. And I also think it's important this is visible to others in some way.

I don't know....it would need a lot more fine-tuning I'm sure, but I think it's a good idea. It would simulate someone slowly succumbing to age without being too drastic, and if the player cared enough it would be simple to avoid or fix before any permanent damage occurred, with the benefit that the char would actually have to wake up now and then. And if they decided they didn't care anymore it would at least provide them with a more graceful way to let go of the character, and let others around them be aware of what's happening even if they don't bother to RP it out.

[Bowser]

The problem is not so much old characters anyway, but old ones who fall asleep holding the keys and let their town stagnate around them.

This phrase "Sleeping key holder" has been tossed around and complained about for years and it has always rubbed me the wrong way. The key holders are usually the key holders because they own the building and car, they worked hard for years to make it. The non-key holders are just townies that feel entitled to use the fruits of the elder's labor.
Are you in a town with a sleeper who holds the keys to the building with all the machines? Then build your own building and make a lock oe, get a crowbar and break the needed lock. I killed off all characters from my first account and worked my way back up the totem pole with my new players. It's nice when someone loans you a hammer or you are allowed to use the "town" smelter, but you shouldn't expect it.

[SumBum]

My chars would cease to have long-term goals. Or they would become so rushed to accomplish their goals of acquisition that they would no longer stop to smell the roses. I do not like old-age death. It was one major thing I disliked about FTO. The risk of premature death from violence is enough to make life interesting.

Again, sleepy key holders are not restricted to chars in "old" age and that issue should be resolved in-game. I hope that's not the only reason for wanting to introduce natural death, but it's the only one I've seen mentioned here. Maybe it will spur more RP, maybe not. There are plenty of "old" chars who are very active and very involved, so it's basically a proposal to punish everyone for the inactive few.

[Joshuamonkey]

So maybe...after the age of fifty or so, not working on a project for a certain period of time (five days?)

Just a side note, but fifty is too young for this. Also, you shouldn't force characters to work on projects, and what the young ones want isn't really for the old ones to work on projects; it's for the old ones to give them their stuff.
I agree with SumBum (not that giving stuff away is bad).

How about implementing death from old age only for characters spawning after it's implemented and making it optional for characters who were spawned before that (or who had exceeded a certain age like 50 or 60 before the implementation?) That way established characters wouldn't end up getting killed by the system, and new characters would know in advance that their lives are going to be limited, so they could plan their lives keeping that in mind.

I would definitely be less stressed out by this, but really I don't think it should be implemented for future characters either. (And people would likely be angry if their character missed the "age" deadline. New players might complain too, but not as much, most likely.) By the way, how many characters even get to 50, or 120? I'm assuming that this number increases over time (especially since Cantr's only been around for about 155 years).

[Marian]

Just a side note, but fifty is too young for this. Also, you shouldn't force characters to work on projects, and what the young ones want isn't really for the old ones to work on projects; it's for the old ones to give them their stuff.
I agree with SumBum (not that giving stuff away is bad).

I don't have a lot of time to reply really in depth to everybody's points, so I'm just going to make this quick. Mainly I just wanted to say here that working on some kind of project is pretty much the natural state of a Cantrian - even just standing around having a conversation, people seem to get antsy if they don't have that little progress bar there, so I'm not seeing the requirement as some kind of hardship.

And of course I don't think the only thing younger characters want is for older chars to work on projects - but I think you're wrong too. Speaking from my experience, all they really want is for the players to check their chars once in awhile and respond to major events that happen around them.

That's the case for every char no matter what the age of course, but unlike that slowly starving newspawn that can be ignored with no harm to anyone, we're talking about people who have gone out of their way to make sure every decision and every project has to go straight through them. I don't get this attitude that 'oh, pfft, citizens of a town who are trying to get things done or at least see the place doesn't fall down around them are just greedy and after stuff they didn't earn.'

Not everyone plays some kind of lone wolf char where it would make perfect sense to walk over half the world to get iron and build their own personal empire from scratch. Some of them are loyal workers who would like their employees to wake up and pay them, or traders who would like to be actually be able to trade, or just normal citizens that would like to see the laws enforced by someone, only of course all resources, jails, etc. are in the hands of one person who hasn't moved in two years. When you found a town or a business and set up rules and make promises to the people that are helping you make it possible, I don't see how other characters are being 'greedy' just for making the mistake of thinking yours will keep their word.

[Joshuamonkey]

And of course I don't think the only thing younger characters want is for older chars to work on projects - but I think you're wrong too. Speaking from my experience, all they really want is for the players to check their chars once in awhile and respond to major events that happen around them.

Yes, sorry, you're right, but I still don't think that "activeness" should be decided by how often characters work on projects. We don't need to force characters to make unnecessary projects while sailing, or awkwardly force characters to work on projects so that they don't start "aging". My characters try to work on projects whenever they can, and I know that many other's do also, but it's quite a different situation to require characters to do so.
Other than that, I agree with your argument. My main concern here is not having characters die from old age.

[SumBum]

It could be a consequence of many things: char and/or player greed, disinterest on the player's part, rl situation that doesn't allow the player to get online often, etc etc. Regardless of the reason, a change to the game's age limit will not solve sleepy key holders. As Bowser said, some of that could simply be the char's personality and attitude of not wanting to share what they worked all their life to earn. I still maintain that if your char feels s/he has been ripped off in a "contract" then do something about it. Vocally protest or go to the next town and cry for help to murder the thieving bastard. If my trader chars don't get a response, they move on and don't go back to sleepy towns.

Three of my chars are in towns lead by very old chars. Two of those leaders are more active than the rest of the town combined and make resources available when asked, depending on the situation. The third is not quite as active but is always generous. On the other hand, one of my chars left a town where the leaders were too stingy (and those leaders were aged less than "old", some much younger). Another char left a town where the leader (younger than "old") slept so much it hindered productivity and my char didn't feel he could rally the other chars to protest. One char was able to build her own "empire" in spite of sleepy leaders. So on and so on....

I do agree that it's frustrating when anyone you depend on in-game doesn't respond in a timely manner. All too often been in situations where overly sleepy chars helped create a massacre or otherwise damaging/frustrating scenario. In at least one of those situations, I blamed myself for not doing something about the sleepy chars because the event could have been avoided.

The bigger problem is that trust is hard to come by in-game. Leaders are reluctant to give up any sort of control because it's so easy to get stabbed in the back.

And, not to be argumentative, but I do have two chars who do not work on anything if they can avoid it. So maybe I will have chars who die of old age in their 30s from not working. lol

[Joshuamonkey]

Two of those leaders are more active than the rest of the town combined and make resources available when asked, depending on the situation. The third is not quite as active but is always generous.

Lol, I probably have a character in both of those categories.

+1 to your post, though I think it's worth giving out trust more, versus being killed because you don't.

[kaloryfer]

In most of bigger towns new people are actually only project fodder, as their activity would disrupt current self-appreciation circles. Well, such is life

[masterekat]

I like the points Marian made. And coupled with what kaloryfer just said, I think the most frustrating thing about Cantr is when you are willing to role play, but there is just no easy way to fit your character into what is going on with the rest of the city especially when you are somewhat new. Some might say that this could be lack of creativity on the RPer's part, but I feel that it is a common problem in Cantr, which is why so many younger characters fall silent. Yes, it does take time to become a part of a community in Cantr, and those who are patient enough to stick with a character long enough to accomplish that should be rewarded, but at the same time, there should be more ways for the newer characters, who really do want to RP and play the game right, to become more involved than just being sent inside to a building to work for days on end. They might end up with more stuff, but if no one cares about them in game, what's the point? I don't think newer characters are wanting more "stuff" that they're not willing to work for, but they are wanting more in-game experiences to occur as they are working their way up.

I'm not quite sure what would fix that problem, but I do think that having some sort of pick-pocketing skill would help make Cantr more interesting. If a character pick-pockets successfully it wouldn't announce to the whole town that he or she committed a crime, but they'd just be able to secretly take the object from another character and put it in their inventory. Its just an idea that would force characters to be more on their toes if they really cared about their hard earned possessions. For instance, if someone stole your hammer, you wouldn't notice it was gone until you actually looked for it. But if your character didn't realize it was missing before the character who stole it was long gone (especially since most towns have cars), it probably really wasn't all that important to your character anyway. It would be a nice alternative to those characters who flip out and threaten jail time when a new character just picks up a shield or small tool from the ground. I can understand why they do it, but I really think it drives new players away more often than not. It would be like a "take care of all the things you really need, or else someone who can think of an actual use for it will end up with it" kind of thing. Of course not every character would be good at pick-pocketing, or would even want to try it. It would just be a nice option for those rebel characters in Cantr.

Another idea might be to give players the option to notify the player of another character by email. Maybe it could be called a "yell" button in game on each character's page. I know that there are some people who check Cantr more often than they check their emails, so it might not help in some cases. But I know that in my case, if not a lot is really happening on Cantr, I tend to log in less and less as the days go by as I get caught up doing other things. I know that's the reason so many of my characters have died in the past. When I finally get that email saying my characters are all dead, I really do regret forgetting about them. I know a lot of people who are able to receive emails by phone, so let's say they forget about a character, but another character wants them to wake up for whatever reason. They can "yell" something at that character, and it will automatically send the message to that character's player in an email. Just knowing that there is another character whose RP depends on theirs might give some players the motivation to continue playing. Of course, this option could be easily abused, so there might need to be a limit placed on it. Maybe you could only yell at another character once per day or something like that.

[Marian]

Another idea might be to give players the option to notify the player of another character by email. Maybe it could be called a "yell" button in game on each character's page. I know that there are some people who check Cantr more often than they check their emails, so it might not help in some cases. But I know that in my case, if not a lot is really happening on Cantr, I tend to log in less and less as the days go by as I get caught up doing other things. I know that's the reason so many of my characters have died in the past. When I finally get that email saying my characters are all dead, I really do regret forgetting about them. I know a lot of people who are able to receive emails by phone, so let's say they forget about a character, but another character wants them to wake up for whatever reason. They can "yell" something at that character, and it will automatically send the message to that character's player in an email. Just knowing that there is another character whose RP depends on theirs might give some players the motivation to continue playing. Of course, this option could be easily abused, so there might need to be a limit placed on it. Maybe you could only yell at another character once per day or something like that.

Now this idea I really like. E-mailing a person directly and bugging them to check their chars might be considered a CRB, especially since there's no way to track what info is given, but an in-game sanctioned way of just sort of 'reminding' them a char exists without giving any details wouldn't be an issue there, and would help a lot, I think. You really ought to give this it's own thread in Suggestions so it gets more discussion.

As to Joshuamonkey's post, my suggestion was mainly me just tossing ideas out there, it wasn't intended as a perfect solution, though maybe we could say forget projects and just find some other way to verify that a character has been checked. I don't think a small, gradually increasing penalty to inactive chars would be that big of a deal, since assuming you regularly check your character once a week or so it wouldn't even become an issue...and really, if you can't manage that, maybe it's time to ask yourself whether you're even still playing.

I don't necessarily want any older characters to die either, I just wish there was some way the game could give a gentle (or not so gentle) nudge to the inactive ones. Like I said, if a twenty-something falls asleep it's pretty rare that they'll have a major impact, but more often than not when it's an older char, not only does half the town come grinding to a halt, but the issue will never be resolved. People who have managed to keep an account that long are unlikely to just drop it one day, instead they seem to keep their neglected chars alive indefinitely just for nostalgia or whatever. Either logging in just often enough to pick up food and keep the account from being deleted, or more than likely playing other characters and ignoring the ones they've lost interest in.

People should do something to reform these badly run towns, but...this is Cantr we're talking about. More than likely they'll just get bored themselves and stop caring about their own char there. And of course not every char is willing to kill even for the survival of the town, but unfortunatley, again, this is Cantr. Confiscating the keys and forcing somebody into peaceful retirement is not an option.

RP your char as a tight-fisted old bastard that never helps anyone if you want, but for God's sake, RP them. A player who only checks in for 30 seconds every two weeks or so can't even use that as an excuse.

[masterekat]

It could still be tracked for CRB, if what was said appeared in game, but was also sent to the player via email. I took your advice for making a new thread in the suggestions forum, so thanks, Marian! Also, while I was there I noticed there already was a pickpocket thread, so sorry for the repost on that, everyone. I still support the idea though!