new health system ect...

[Pirog]

Exactly. Glad to be on your side on this one!

[The Industriallist]

I couldn't care less what it looks like (though for referrence, my limited encounters with the Sims have not been positive.)...but the effects are disasterous.

Society simulation (which it was doing reasonably well before, just add degredation and it would have all been wonderful...still haven't done that one thing you actually needed! ) does not require any particular RL resemblance. It doesn't require any particular mode of business to be effective.

It does require both violence and productive labor to be effective. With the totally closed system, neither of them is currently effective with these new changes, and neither will be until enough OOC knowledge, abused vigerously, is built up for people to know how to fight and how to work effectively. This change makes that situation worse because the information is much more complicated now. But really...we all knew that your productivity and damage was proportional to your health, and we all knew how health changed, and we all used that knowledge. Now we don't know, and can't predict. Once we learn, we will be 'abusing' the same things again...it'll just be harder because they are more complex.

Reminiscent of the 'what do machines do' issue a while back, that was decided in favor of breaking the capital rule.

Also...look at this. Tiredness leads to change in work rate. Work (among things...) leads to tiredness. So work rates vary all the time, according to (currently) unknown formulas. This is good how?

Tell me what about this encourages any type of speciallization. More tools did that a little, degredation would do that a lot. The only craft this creates is 'soldier', because now your troops need to not be doing any work to be effective. Which is good, I'll grant...but not nearly so good as you seem to think.

A little suggestion...make work on repeating projects roll over. That won't come anywhere near making up this mess, but it will help.

[Sparkle]

I for 1 never said Cantr was like the Sims cause they are nothing in comparison. I said the meters are like the sims which they are.

In the sims you have meters that goes up and you have to do something to make them go down again. Is that not what we have here?

[ephiroll]

I don't think it's like the Sims because of the meters, it's getting to be like the Sims in the fact that about all you can do now is run around and be sociable. That isn't society. Society is much more dynamic. Plus, these changes are slowing down a already very slow game.

[kroner]

I think the changes will ultimately be good for the game, but right now there are some serious problems that need to be dealt with.

1. Damge system: I haven't been involved in combat since the change, but from what I've heard it's become much more difficult to injure other people and animals. Violence and the ability to kill are important to the game and so it sounds like there are aspects of the violence system that need adjusting (damage needs to be turned up). Second, from what I've heard, it sounds like the relative damage of certain weapons has changed. The choice that people made when they decided what weapon to build was motivated by the old relative damages and so it's unfair to change those relative damages after the fact without either some compensation or a very good reason.

2. Work progress: If it can be helped it would be very good if the rate at which work was done was not described by a discreetly calculated differential equantion. No one wants to deal with that, I promise. As has been pointed out, this also creates problems for people who run hourly projects.

3. Information: This is probably the most important one. Game mechanics should not be a secret. That's ridiculous. Game mechanics are learned by the player, not by the character so releasing them has nothing to do with the CR. Right now cantr can't seem to make up its mind on whether it is a puzzle game for the players or a society simulator for the characters. I think it's clear what cantr is supposed to be, so there's definitely some change in order.

Additionally, I'd like to thank the Programming Department for putting in all the effort to create such a huge change in the cantr system in the name of improving the game. But I still stand by my opinion that item deterioration is by far the most important change that needs to be made to cantr. Ways have been discussed to implement this with very little programming involved (the random breaking probability) so I'd like to see this happen.

[Appleide]

All I have to say is in the post above this one

[The Sociologist]

All I have to say is in the post above this one

Second that.

[Agar]

All I have to say is in the post above this one

Second that.

Me Too.

[Sparkle]

Same here.

[Missy]

all you can do now is run around and be sociable

And do it realistically.

It's reasonable that you would have to stop for a while after burrying a body on an (hourly) project. How many people here can dig a hole and burry a single body in even a day? Much less, 3!

I like the changes, and I'm thankful that if the only thing they do is make the other "bars" become useful and implement uses to some of the things we've been waiting to use for years RL time.

[Pirog]

ephiroll>

It's not like you can't work anymore. I think this change will make Cantr a lot more realistic, since a lot of characters didn't mind being holed up working for all their lives...now they are more or less forced to take a break now and again.

[Dragonslayer4ever]

Hmm. Right now I am kinda indifferent about the situation. I am trying not to let the thing bother me and learn how it works. Considering I have charrys right now in carrers from assisign to docter. I am trying to get a feel for what will happen when. But yes I agree with the others. A little insentive on how this "really" works would be nice. Many of my character are far to busy to stop and see what happens when I do this you know.

[Jos Elkink]

Whow, so many comments, complaints and compliments! Anyway, I hope those people that decided to leave now will wait for a bit and see how it works out. Although this is a rather fundamental change, it is also one asked for many, many times and I think it is definitely a change for the better. Let me try to respond to a few concerns. (The people I quote I quote because they seem to best summarize the issues raised.)

1. Damage system: I haven't been involved in combat since the change, but from what I've heard it's become much more difficult to injure other people and animals. Violence and the ability to kill are important to the game and so it sounds like there are aspects of the violence system that need adjusting (damage needs to be turned up). Second, from what I've heard, it sounds like the relative damage of certain weapons has changed. The choice that people made when they decided what weapon to build was motivated by the old relative damages and so it's unfair to change those relative damages after the fact without either some compensation or a very good reason.

I don't think the relative damages have changed for the weapons. If that is the case, that was a Resources Department change that by pure coincidence coincided with this change. I think, though, that they didn't change, but that there are effects of the new stats system that make it look like that.

Secondly, part of the reason for the introduction of 'tiredness' - in fact, the only real reason, but I also like griogal's comments about inns - is to avoid that one person can kill a village. This should avoid that. A large army has much more total 'energy' than one person, so army size now matters much more than it used to.

2. Work progress: If it can be helped it would be very good if the rate at which work was done was not described by a discreetly calculated differential equantion. No one wants to deal with that, I promise. As has been pointed out, this also creates problems for people who run hourly projects.

I think this complaint is totally based on the idea that you should be able to predict these things exactly. I see no reason why. It is true, the progress speed (and also the damage size when attacking) is now based on a fairly complicated formula, which also affects the tiredness, if I'm not mistaken, and hence the speed of the next round. So, yes, unpredictable differential equations. But why is that a problem? If I in real life start working on something, it is based on even more complicated equations, yet it doesn't bother me that much. You don't need to know by the gram precisely how fast you'll work. Based on experience you'll get an impression of how long something roughly takes and what conditions seem to benefit it. Without knowing them exactly.

I can tell you that I made the calculations even more complicated than you suspect. But they should not result in completely counter-intuitive effects. Just don't try to predict these things numerically, but build up experience as to how long things take roughly and what kind of factors seem to be of influence. I think most human knowledge works like that ... It doesn't even make it a 'guess how the game works' game, because the aim of a player shouldn't be to exactly know all this in the first place.

3. Information: This is probably the most important one. Game mechanics should not be a secret. That's ridiculous. Game mechanics are learned by the player, not by the character so releasing them has nothing to do with the CR. Right now cantr can't seem to make up its mind on whether it is a puzzle game for the players or a society simulator for the characters. I think it's clear what cantr is supposed to be, so there's definitely some change in order.

What do you mean exactly by game mechanics? The precise effect of this kind of factors? They'll definitely stay secret and we just disagree if that is the case. If you're talking about the use of tools etc. - I'm not 100% sure anymore I support my own policy (for a while already) and I'm discussing this in the GAC currently.

But I still stand by my opinion that item deterioration is by far the most important change that needs to be made to cantr.

That is currently being worked on.

Cantr is a hair from being nothing more then a text version of the Sims, and if I wanted to play the Sims in any way, shape, form, or fashion then that game wouldn't have been sitting on my shelf gathering dust since two weeks after I bought it.

I personally find the Sims horribly boring, so I don't like this accusation ... Yes, the bars are inspired by those in the Sims, I can't deny that. But that is really just about looks. At least half of the bars in the Sims are about how the character feels, about 'happiness' and 'comfort', etc. That is a huge, huge difference from Cantr, where you can still entirely set your own goals and interests for your character. Related to that, but at least as important, is the fact that characters in Sims are AI characters, not played by you. That is what makes that game so boring (and impressive from a developers perspective). Cantr is not in any way getting closer to that. So except that the bars look like those in the Sims and split stats up like they do, the game is not in any way anywhere near the Sims, let alone being a 'hair away'.

I don't think it's like the Sims because of the meters, it's getting to be like the Sims in the fact that about all you can do now is run around and be sociable. That isn't society. Society is much more dynamic.

I'm afraid you really have to explain this one to me. How does this change make the chars more sociable? How does it make Cantr society less dynamic? I really don't see this ...

I definitely like Cantr for its politics, economics, and military aspects - the social aspects are important to some, but only minorly so to me. So I do not think that you and I are seeking a different kind of game, hence I'm rather surprised by this comments. Please explain.

I'm NOT cool with is that attacking animals and people cause different amounts of tiredness and it seems that the tiredness caused from attacking another char doesn't decrease in the same way as that caused from hunting.

This is true and indeed a bit odd, but I'm afraid it's necessary from a game balance point of view. Making it tiring to attack people is to create the effect described above, but if I would do the same for attacking animals, Cantr characters will never be able to deal with the already rather harsh animal environment in the game.

[Jos Elkink]

did we sit around like homos, and do nothing?

lol - if homos indeed generally just sit around, there wouldn't be any changes - in fact, there wouldn't be a Cantr ...

[cantrlady]

Jos,

That post certainly didn't warrant a reply but you are one class act on how you did respond.