Cantr II Discussion Forum

In response to stuff in the Cantr's biggest problem topic:

Welcome to Cantr

When I started playing, I thought really hard what my two first characters would be. I decided to make one an artist, and one a village idiot, since those are the stereotypes I act to in real life as well. What I soon learned is that there is no way of making art in Cantr, not even pottery. At the time there was no uploading pictures, so if you wanted to draw something on a note, you had to host it elsewhere. I got an account in some place but I cannot remember my username and password anymore. Soon I also came to realize that she had been unfortunate enough to spawn practically in the middle of nowhere, and ran into very few people during her first years of life. You couldn't eat raw corn, and I don't remember if there were much animals to hunt (she had found a bow on the ground, along with a bunch of other stuff), and even if she'd managed to kill something, the nearest forest was about a year's travel away. But being a newb, I was rather optimistic, like I have a right to be here and I have a right to pick up things on the ground, if no one is watching. Then I ran into a couple of nice people who gave me enough rice to travel across the mountains. (Thanks Kev!)

As for Seko, naturally there had been other village idiots, but still not as much we have them today. (Think about Brunoi for example, at one point there was a whole three of them at the same time, and the whole town has spawned several verbally and/or mentally impaired people during the time I've been watching.) All I can remember from the time I joined was the name Silly, seems like everyone spoke about him... And I felt like gee, am I just a copy of someone I've never met?

Ok, I'm just babbling here... As you can notice, you're not the only one with a trouble of keeping things short.

The point is Cantr is limited by the mechanics. "Your imagination is the limit" is only a commercial phrase to lure people in. But after a while you learn to adjust your dreams to what's possible in this world. In process you lose a part of your creativity.

Multitasking was also one thing I was missing in the beginning. Like who on earth uses the whole day to "farm"?? Umm, in real life you plough the field and put the seeds in, do some weeding every now and then and then harvest. No need to babysit it all day.

But if Cantr projects had realistic durations, you might have to log in every half an hour to switch in order for your character not to get bored. Ok, have several projects on top of each other and it will update them at different hours. Something like farming should progress without constant working on it. (We now have the automated projects, but there should be something between automation and having to work constantly, and that is some work being required, but most of the project processing on it's own.)

Conserning characters getting killed, nah, just get an iron shield, a crowbar and a few kilos of onions and you should be fine. That's how they do it. The other way is to be nice to others and not to go to lonely places, at least not without telling someone you're going and how long you're planning to stay. Just like real life.

Also it's made so that it's rather much impossible to be killed in one day. So if you log in every day, you might still have time to reason with the hostile person. (Though yea, I tried it with the first character of mine to be killed - or the only one actually, the others I have starved or gotten deleted.) If you are given a sword, strike everyone you can! Also if in a vehicle, the opposite way is always the best way.

Usually wether you're likely to be killed based on picking things up can be detected by reading the law notes. And speaking politely might help too. Definitely do not run. That makes the hunter's instict kick in. Back away slowly and smile.

Ok, I can cope with having to adjust my ambitions to the game - it's a bit of a shame but I accept it's not really possible to allow everything. Just an observation that my saddest moment was when I realised there's no such thing as chocolate and I can't create it.

Multitasking - why must this be a problem? There is, as far as I can see, no competition in this game - people progress at their own rate. If you are only online once a day then you can either automate tasks to keep three going, or you just do slightly less. And if you're online less, then you have less time to talk about what you're doing, so where's the problem with your character doing less? "Falling behind" other players, something with which I'm familiar in other competitive games, I wouldn't have thought would apply...

As for getting bored... as long as my character is doing *some*thing, then he won't be bored. I'm not bored watching a film on telly, but that doesn't mean I can't eat some cake at the same time.


As for characters getting killed, I am comforted that death is not just around the corner - which was my fear from reading the initial guides to the game. I am now happier to try exploring around so that I can experience more areas in relative safety.

I just hope that the road I choose isn't too long - as spending 10 days on the road, when (I assume) I can't so much as repair a needle while I walk, would be rather dull! I guess that's something for me to find out or ask about...!

Thanks,

psymann

I just want to welcome you also, Psymann.

It happens that I have seen your roleplay and I think you have a lot to offer the game, so I hope you don't get discouraged

Well I'll certainly stay for a bit seeing as I have my very own forum thread

On work training at the moment so will have to go away for three days soon - presumably my character will just snooze for a while and I can leave him? Or do I need to use a holiday-mode or something?

psymann

Should be fine for 3 days. Even if your char didn't have food, it should be fine.

The 'on leave' or holiday mode is only used when you're going to be gone longer then two weeks. Three days should be just fine, and in fact since you seemed to be bored by things like farming or travelling, you could start them off on that and have a good chunk of it done and out of the way by the time you get back.

That's a fine plan

I have a little question regarding timing.

I have an activity that takes 1 day, it says.

- I understand that to mean 1 cantr day.
- This would be 8 cantr hours.
- This would be 288 cantr minutes. (8*36)
- Since I believe a cantr minute is the same length as a minute in my world, this would be 288 of my minutes.
- This would be less than 5 of my hours. (288/60)

If this is true, and a cantr day is the same as five of my earth hours, why has it taken so much longer than that for me only to have completed a miserable 82% of my project? I have been working on this thing all day - and given that it's now my bedtime, that's a long while...! Perhaps I am just a slow worker...

psymann

psymann wrote:That's a fine plan

I have a little question regarding timing.

I have an activity that takes 1 day, it says.

- I understand that to mean 1 cantr day.
- This would be 8 cantr hours.
- This would be 288 cantr minutes. (8*36)
- Since I believe a cantr minute is the same length as a minute in my world, this would be 288 of my minutes.
- This would be less than 5 of my hours. (288/60)

If this is true, and a cantr day is the same as five of my earth hours, why has it taken so much longer than that for me only to have completed a miserable 82% of my project? I have been working on this thing all day - and given that it's now my bedtime, that's a long while...! Perhaps I am just a slow worker...

psymann

No

A cantr day = 1 real day - 24 real hours
A cantr hour = 3 real hours
A cantr minute = 5 real minutes

The time differences were one thing that took me a little awhile to get a hang of, but it becomes pretty natural after awhile, and if you're like me and hate having your char stand around doing nothing it's easy to set up projects so that they never finish in the middle of the night or anything.

Also, once your chars get established I think you'll find that menial things like farming and repairing really don't take up much time at all...repairs I always save for when I'm travelling, or just for a couple of hours while I"m waiting for someone to wake up while I do something else, and a lot of my chars haven't had to farm in years. Most towns that have farmable food also have huge stocks of it they don't mind a trusted person helping themselves too, and cooked meat is usually pretty easy to come by too.

Anyway, just from reading your posts I think you'll be a great addition to the game. Just don't make the mistake I did and make a ton of characters at once...things might seem slow at first, especially if you spawned somewhere with a lot of sleepers, but once you start getting involved in the community and making friends and enemies everything can pile up on you fast and you may not have enough time for them all. If you stick to just a few and keep them active I think you'll find people will notice you. I know all my chars that run towns are constantly on the look out for active newspawns, anyway.

New active newspawns? Where? I want some!

*calms herself* Sorry. Welcome, Psymann. I hope to see some of yours in-game, though we'll likely not know anyways. It's best to keep your characters anonymous.......it makes it so much easier to play them when people don't know who's behind them.

I have only one character at the moment - and you'll be sure to know who that is if you meet him If I make more I'll keep it quiet as to who they are though...

Haven't got as far as making any others yet as want to see how I do with the one first. As said above, better to play one character well than to play ten badly... Also, I have had bad experiences with duplicate accounts in another game so it takes a bit of getting used to!

The time did confuse me, so thanks for the clarification. Maybe I misread that when I started.

Thanks for the warm welcome and advice, people

psymann

psymann wrote:I have only one character at the moment - and you'll be sure to know who that is if you meet him

Well that's good to know, at least you're definitely not the obviously new newspawn I just arrested...

(I knew you couldn't be him anyway, you're way too literate. )

Still, I can't stress it to new players enough, when you start a new character, READ THE FREAKING LAWS! I can't believe how much trouble I've had with people failing to do that lately...

Why not start out playing two characters? I think you'll get it sooner. If you want to start walking gather about 7 meals first, but not before you've found a map!

Yeah, I would agree with Frits there. You don't want too many chars, but too few could be a problem too and you might have trouble keeping interested in the game during slow periods. A couple more would give you an idea of what different areas or like, and you might find some place a lot more interesting then wherever you originally spawned. (and there are enough out of the way forests and mountains that are almost completely dead around that it's possible to have some very bad luck when spawning for the first time, which is why I hope the 'newbie island' gets implemented soon. An experienced player would know how to get a map and figure out where they were adn where the roads lead, but a newbie might just hang around and starve while wondering why no one's talking to them.)

I would recommend something like 3 to 5 at first, and then depending on the amount of time you have to play you could consider others later once those are established. Anyway, I figure you'll probably be driven to start creating a some new ones the first time your one char goes off travelling, I know that's what I did.

Just be sure you know where to draw the line and don't go completely crazy clicking that green smiley face like I did too. I know the limit is 15, but 10 is all I've ever been able to manage. Everytime I go over that I regret it and eventally wind up having to starve a couple.

Sound advice, and actually, I have created another character already! But not 10... I have found that just the two caused me to use up over 100 of my 200 minutes yesterday, and I am wary of getting more than three or so because I think that the time limit would mean I'd only have time to play about three properly. And to be honest, my brain can't cope with that many different personalities all at once - well, not until the first ones become better-defined in my head...

Anyway, I'm still here after a couple of days which is promising. Since I started playing War of Empires, only one game has managed to draw my attention for longer than a week, and that was only as a joke so I've since left it... so maybe Cantr can solve my problem of finding something that is as entertaining (both in-game and in-forum) as War of Empires, without requiring the same amount of time, and without me worrying who's winnning...!

I'm going to try some Cantr travelling before long and already I am excited... I need to work out what to take in my character's packed lunch...!

psymann