there are more ships than living characters

[EchoMan]

We will have to (and do) look over decay rates as more and more things become degradeable. The major overall road map dictates that everything manufacturable should also be degradeable though.

[Marian]

I'm actually kind of surprised building and vehicle deterioration hasn't been implemented yet, it was a pretty popular topic back when I last played (about 9 months or so I guess) with the details more or less worked out, and with all the other major changes like animal domestication and stuff being added it seemed like the programmers were really on a roll.

This is one thing I've been hugely looking forward too and it can't come soon enough as far as I'm concerned. (A full reset would be even better, but sadly I guess that's never going to happen...)

Now there are more ships than people, and every raker and sloop is rigged. There are more crossbows than sabers. Darters and carts and rickshaws and tandem bikes litter towns like a hundred forgotten salvage yards -- except for the one guard/junkyard dog in each that generally has all the keys. And there are stockpiles of resources everywhere... hundreds of thousands of grams of limestone or hematite and healing foods lying in the middle of towns, or in their storages.

The sense of adventure, of striving to do better than others, getting there first, doing the hard, amazing thing... not there anymore.

Couldn't have said it better. I'm pretty much a chronic account starter/abandoner with this game, it's a terrible addiction I have, but every time, no matter how excited I am to begin, this is one of the three big reasons I give up in disgust.

There is nothing to strive for anymore. You can't run a business, the very idea of politics or economics is an ancient fairy tale, and exploring is pointless when every town is just more of the same...same tiny handful of awake characters whose players are instantly recognizable, same boring laws, different resources but who cares, there's over 100 kilos already locked up at home. Rich or poor, it sucks from either side. Active newspawns whose greatest desire is to find a useful job and a place to belong get ignored or treated like shit because there's literally nothing their town needs that it doesn't already have...this kind of character used to at least get thrown a bone with repair jobs but not so much anymore with the changes to how those work. So you either strike out alone and build your way up from scratch, which at least temporarily provides a goal and a sense of accomplishment, or you do the practical thing and just wait around patiently for a sleeper to die and drop a ridiculous amount of wealth in your lap...and then what?

Make all the elaborate plans you want, do everything possible to wring some kind of meaning from Cantr life, but don't expect anyone to want to join you in your fantasy of being a contributing citizen like you live in some kind of 'community' or 'society' or something. It seems like everyone's long given up any thought of that and anyone not sleeping is busy indulging in their creepy fetishes and manufactured drama with the same tiny handful of other players 24/7....which I used to be more annoyed by until I realized the way the game is set up actually encourages that, there's literally nothing else to do or accomplish, and so maybe I'm just the weirdo for wanting something more.

Anyway that was all hella negative and depressing and slightly off topic but I just wanted to get it out there. Because I've seriously had the urge to play again for a couple of weeks now and needed to try and remind myself why that was a bad idea I guess.

I dunno, maybe if I just make two or three characters this time and try my hardest not to get invested in them in any way...

e: actually yes, I think I will do that. Right now. Shouldn't have gone to the home page, that particular shade of green is like heroin or something.

[EchoMan]

It is what you make of it. If you don't want the riches of an old town, take a few friends, a ship, and a lot of food and settle a new island without any of the luxuries that bore you too much. There are more unevolved locations than evolved ones still.

[Marian]

It is what you make of it. If you don't want the riches of an old town, take a few friends, a ship, and a lot of food and settle a new island without any of the luxuries that bore you too much. There are more unevolved locations than evolved ones still.

I guess so, but my impression has always been that that kind of thing actively hurts the game. There are only a handful of English players and they're spread too thin as it is. Everyone wanting to run off and start a town of their own is a big part of what got us in this mess to begin with.

[hyrle]

I have one character who ran off to start her own town with three of her friends and it has been great. Living ain't easy but the feeling of accomplishment as we do things is great. We are not that far from others but life is far from luxurious.

[Marian]

I have one character who ran off to start her own town with three of her friends and it has been great. Living ain't easy but the feeling of accomplishment as we do things is great. We are not that far from others but life is far from luxurious.

I admit I've often wanted to head for one of those crazy huge continents on the map to do just that, but the only character I've had that it would really make sense for couldn't bring herself to abandon her spawn town, and of course four or even three active people ditching the place would have left it more or less a ghost town. And there was the issue of how to ever get new people after that point that came up too, though I guess that's more of an OOC concern....or not? Never really been clear about how much characters are actually supposed to understand about spawning mechanics.

It would still be super fun to do that and establish some crazy tribal society where the founders are worshipped as gods or something, if we could only get any newspawns willing to play along.

[Chroma Key]

It is what you make of it. If you don't want the riches of an old town, take a few friends, a ship, and a lot of food and settle a new island without any of the luxuries that bore you too much. There are more unevolved locations than evolved ones still.

This. It took one of my eldest chars about 30 years to get wood. Most of this was spent walking from town to town on an unmapped island. Once he found wood, he was finally able to make the first car ever in the region. At least 4 decades for a car, how is that for a challenge? He is 114 now, and is rigging his raker. I won't even go into how long it took him and his wife to get the resources together to finally get the sails.
Really, Cantr world isn't just made of those developed, English islands. It is a huge world, with lots to explore and achieve. You've got fully rigged rakers galore? Hop on one and sail away! See what I'm talking about for yourself!!

[Marian]

It is what you make of it. If you don't want the riches of an old town, take a few friends, a ship, and a lot of food and settle a new island without any of the luxuries that bore you too much. There are more unevolved locations than evolved ones still.

Really, Cantr world isn't just made of those developed, English islands. It is a huge world, with lots to explore and achieve. You've got fully rigged rakers galore? Hop on one and sail away! See what I'm talking about for yourself!!

Well, I've had loner characters before, but there's always this little nagging part of me that says it's kind of a jerk move to accept an awesome ship or supplies from a town and then immediately recruit all their active people and sail off into the sunset never to return, and it would be better for the game as a whole to settle down in an already populated town even if it's mostly sleepers because that's where more newspawns will show up in need of help getting established and blah blah blah...and yeah I get that that's basically an OOC motivation, but my thoughts have always been that it's better for RP longterm to try and consolidate people than spread them apart.

[Chroma Key]

There are several ways this can be done graciously, and I don't think it adds anything to the game when all your characters do is resent the town they're in, and what it fails to offer them. I have news for you. Newspawns spawning into such locations usually turn out to be sleepers. I have seen that far too many times now, with towns of 20, 15-16 of which never wake up or utter a word. I won't be naming names, but especially one of those towns consider themselves to be the greatest on a very well known island, which makes my character want to throw up at the idiocy of such a claim.

[Majix]

I have a character who spawned in a city of four, mostly sleeping, people on an island that is mostly unexplored. She got some clothes and food and then started walking the paths. Didn't meet any other living person for 30-40 years. At a time she barley could keep up both gathering healing and nourishing food to survive. At some places she had to go out on the road to be able to sleep without the animals eating her. She has now both a home and a sloop. She has been very fun to play.

[hyrle]

I admit that the one I had leave her spawn town to start her own town - that town had quite a few people, and she had IC reasons to leave. The friends who left with her were bored, and she was bored - and she ran into some of that.. as you call it.. ."manufactured drama"... which was fine. It was kind of fun too.

If you want to do something different, then take control. This game is literally a sandbox... you can play anyway you want in the sandbox. As has been said, if you want to "up the difficulty" on the game, there's lots of ways to do that. It's easy to want to keep your characters in an area with tons of stockpiled resources but - as you've said - it takes away from the challenge of the game. If you want a challenge, then go make one!

Is doing that dangerous? Sure it is. Might your character get robbed or killed along the way? It might. But that's part of the fun - charging into the unknown.

[Alladinsane]

One of the items symbolizing the culture of greed that has always hit me is the common habit of stripping the dead of all clothes, jewelry etc. The rest is dropped on death, but its not enough. I just buried a 'wife' with the rings and clothes she wore when she died. Sure, I only eliminated 120g of gold and a few hundred of silk and leather from the game... its something. The char felt it more respectful to leave some 'dignity' to the dead.
Those who lament that this game is not like RL (are they serious?), should have a problem with the respect for the last images of their loved ones too.

Bring on the Kraken! That might help with the boats count.

Be well,

[Marian]

We need Viking funerals.

Or just the ability to bury a coffin...regardless of what's inside it.

[catwill]

One of the items symbolizing the culture of greed that has always hit me is the common habit of stripping the dead of all clothes, jewelry etc. The rest is dropped on death, but its not enough. I just buried a 'wife' with the rings and clothes she wore when she died. Sure, I only eliminated 120g of gold and a few hundred of silk and leather from the game... its something. The char felt it more respectful to leave some 'dignity' to the dead.
Those who lament that this game is not like RL (are they serious?), should have a problem with the respect for the last images of their loved ones too.

Bring on the Kraken! That might help with the boats count.

Be well,

I agree. I actually had a char who was upset when her partner died because he had been wearing gloves and therefore not the rings she had made him. He was very well-dressed for their modest wealth but it never would have crossed my mind to take a single thing off him. I have seen people strip bodies of the most ludicrous things including hide clothing where there is a container full of it -right there-.

[Doug R.]

The only characters I've seen stripped are nobodies. Anyone who was valued was always buried unmolested.