Roadmap

[Jos Elkink]

A solution is to make small distances instantaneous to move, or for the hit command to follow the victim for some distance.

Yes, small distances will be instantaneous. Otherwise the game will become unplayable. Similar to how you can now enter buildings without time. (For bigger towns, buildings might get out of reach, though, so that you will have to take time to go to the other side of the town.)

Also see topics about grid system which was the other idea of freewalking back a while ago.

Actually, that is not 'the other idea', but the same idea The main difference is that I am now more focussed on how to implement this into the current system as opposed to replacing the system.

The predators will not get to a sensible limit and then stop reproducing. They might well eat everything and then die out themselves. It is spatial aspects that stop this happening in reality, and Cantr locations are too big for this.

I'm not a mathematician, but I am trying to change my career into becoming a complex systems specialist, which is closely related to the stuff you are referring to. So, yes, I know complex things can happen and things can go badly wrong, but for me (and for Thomas) that is actually the fun of doing it ... We'll try to create some kind of interesting ecology, and I hope it'll work. We want to device some basic rules for animal behaviour, including eating other animals and resources, and hope that some kind of interesting ecology arises. And we can always intervene in hopeless disasters (e.g. the thousands of raccoons we once had who killed half villages ...)

[The Industriallist]

You could try to put the animal populations initially in the convergant region of the state spece...If I remember right there ought to be one. That way, if a disaster happens, you didn't directly create it.

[wietse]

Thx for sharing this information with us Jos,

I think all ideas you talked about are great and i hope by not completely rewriting the game we will see them implemented sooner.

A couple of things i have comments about:

graphics: Why not? I dont see what people have against more graphics. It would be great to have more graphics. The most important of course being the map, or view of the surroundings. I really like to see this expanded in such a way i could see buildings, people and animals walking around. Also to see resources, plants and such on the map would be great.

Also important is i think the graphics of the game interface. At the moment it is and simply but quite clear. But it looks a bit 'dull' and nor very apealing. I can imagine players not even bothering to check the game out by seeing the first welcome screens and the game interface. (i know friends of me, in which the way the game looked most certainly kept them from trying the game (not playing, but not even trying to play)

The grapics of the game itself could be improved to. I dont see a problem with pictures of tools and such, although i must admit there also isnt much benefit by adding them to the game instead of only text. It would be cool to see a person wearing clothes and such, but at them moment i cant think of how this can easily programmed. I guess it will cut down a bit on the imagination of things when everyone looks the same...

Speed of the game
One thing i think is very important but i guess you know it too, is that the game should remain playable for players who want to play 3 hours a day and for player who only play a few minutes a day or once in a couple of days. it also should remain possible to go on holiday for a few weeks and let your character do something without it needing attention.

All of this free walking around and other things make the game much more dynamic, but i hope they don't interfere with the game being a 'turned based' game (like a slow game, (or not to fast) which you can play and continue when you want. and suddenly quit when you got a visitor or phone.

About it being a lot of work:
If I could i would like to help a bit with development, but i guess it's not much use without programming experience.... I was thinking i could do a bit of the grapics and such, but that seems to be no longer important now..

[Jos Elkink]

graphics: Why not?

I completely agree. It's not me who objects ...

One thing i think is very important but i guess you know it too, is that the game should remain playable for players who want to play 3 hours a day and for player who only play a few minutes a day or once in a couple of days. it also should remain possible to go on holiday for a few weeks and let your character do something without it needing attention.

I fully agree and don't see why the proposed changed would affect that ...

If I could i would like to help a bit with development, but i guess it's not much use without programming experience.... I was thinking i could do a bit of the grapics and such, but that seems to be no longer important now..

I think you misunderstood something. I will still try to make the game more graphical. What I said is that I will try to make the game more graphical, while keep the option open for players to play it text-only. Many things can be done both ways and the idea is to indeed program both.

[Pirog]

Graphics is not important to me, but I see no reason for not including it as long as it doesn't make Cantr slower.

[Pirog]

I was thinking about the placing of buildings in towns...some of characters have named their buildings after how they look and are placed, like "small cottage in the outskirts of the village", "a house by the beach" etc.

Is it possible to actually place these buildings in places that goes along with their names? It seems silly if the house in the outskirts of the town is placed in the main square of the town

[creepyguyinblack]

That'll be a big pain to place all those buildings in each location, probably falling on my departments heads . But it'll be nice once it gets done to see town's lots fill up, and force out farmers and create urban sprawl and such.

[Pirog]

Yeah, it will be great once finished. Sorry for making your work load heavier

[Jos Elkink]

Well, I could imagine some method like this:

- First we place them using just an automatic algorithm
- Then we make them visible to players (even before we change the system of walking etc.)
- Then people can mail newlands within a week or so if their (or a) building is placed incorrectly or not logically and we can investigate what rights this person has to ask this or how valid their claim

That way we solve that we don't have to do all buildings manually, or survey all players about "their" buildings (impossible anyway), but we do have some player influence before we make the changes definite.

[Revanael]

Obviously. houses that are named to be in the same street (like the hundreds in Lake Village) should be placed as such...

[Just A Bill]

You could probably keep the same interface. Each characters position could define a circle of influence. If a house, person, animal, resource exists withen your circle of influence, you can enter it, attack it, talk to it ect.

Your actuall position would not have to change. This would prevent people from using multiple buildings and instantaneous moves to hop rapidly across the map. IE you have a building in your circle of influence, you may enter it. If you leave it, you return to the same position you started at. Think of it as cantrians having long arms and necks

[BlackRose]

Well since we have kids being incorporated, I think some pets would be nice too. Like, a tame wolf or such. You create pens and cages and such, and then add projects like taming [insert animal name here] the [SPECIES]. And like, itd take a certain amount of projects to fully tame it.

On the note of the road map, I love everything but the whole Java idea. Nuh-uh, sadly, I'd have to quit because my computer doesnt load that beautiful stuff. And it'd break my lil black heart!

-BR

[Halley]

A couple years ago I came across an online game which managed to incorporate relatively free "walking" into a text-based game. I don't know if anyone else imagines the next Cantr following a similar interface, but I'll post a link anyway, in case anyone is interested:

http://quiz.ravenblack.net/blood.pl?biter=RavenBlack

[Cookie]

Are we going to lose everything we already have whn this is implemented?

Like characters, notes, places etc.

[Solfius]

I don't think so, I believe every effort will be made to transfer the database across.

Also, an update would be nice, and perhaps a version of this as a locked sticky so people can see it?