Cantr Is Dying. What Then Shall We Do?

[saztronic]

This thread is an off-shoot of this one:

http://www.cantr.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13380

I meant to post it there but couldn't find it until just now.

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All right, I have a suggestion relating to this topic. A bit of a radical one, maybe, although the more that I think about it the less radical it seems. It's this:

ALLOW LIMITED, CONTROLLED, ORGANIZED BREACHES OF THE CAPITAL RULE

Now before Jos has a heart attack, I'll explain:

Let's say that you want to have a community like Seko has described above: rigidly hierarchical, where those higher than you can punish those below by flogging, and those below have to do a lot of ass-kissing. Flaunting of the social order is swiftly and decisively discouraged. Vehicle ownership is only permissable for citizens of third order or higher, while you attain council membership with voting rights at the 7th order. Every fifth day you are required to work on community projects, in keeping with long-established religious principles. Feathers would be considered sacred. Indentured servitude is common.

In Cantr as formulated, it would be extraordinarily difficult to set up a community like this. You couldn't get people to agree to it. People with preconceived morals would balk at some of it. It would take forever to explain the system in game effectively and thoroughly. Etc.

So as an experiment, why not allow a group of, say, 4-6 players to agree on a social construct they're interested in exploring and testing in Cantr. They write out their request and submit it to staff, who review it and either reject or approve it. Once approved, those 4-6 players are set up by staff with charries in the same town, preferably a new or deserted one, and they all agree to adhere to the societal scenario they've proposed for that area. They won't be able to communicate OOC any more after that point, in character or outside the game, but only in character as normal -- but they will be starting out as a group with a shared set of assumptions about how that community works, and they will have agreed beforehand to role play apropriately according to those assumptions regardless of their station, reinforcing the continuation of the desired scenario (at least in the beginning). They won't necessarily RP friends, and they won't collaborate, except in perpetuating a certain social order.

This would give the system some time to get established and function properly. Newspawns would accept it more readily because it would obviously be the norm in that location. Travelers who come to town and try to usurp things would face more resistance, as would home-grown dissenters -- just like in real world communities. And this would stimulate much greater diversity of societies and governments in Cantr, along the lines of those already discussed in this thread.

Obviously things will change in each "experiment" town over the long term, maybe dramatically, maybe for the better and maybe for the worse, but at least it would be fun to watch or participate in. Maybe there would be a revolution, an invasion, an insurrection, a coup, a crash in the enconomy, who knows. Maybe slavery would be abolished. Maybe ritual human sacrifice would become passe. Even the charter members of this community would have to roll with these punches as they occurred.

*shrugs* Anyway. It seems like a way to add a little spice to the game. You may now feel free to shred it.

[Doug R.]

So when this preconceived society (quickly) becomes strong enough and (easily) conquers its neighbors that were not preconcieved but instead grew up over hundreds of years with luck and back-breaking work, we are to consider this fair?

I think not. Why isn't this in suggestions? If it were, I'd give it a resounding NO*

[Darkle-ish]

How would it quickly grow strong enough to take over towns that have been working for a long time?

This town would have to build up their economy and such just as anyone else. There'd just be a different government than most of the existing ones.

[Valsum]

I'd love to see different kinds of social orders too, specially in the Spanish isle. But preconceived means a certain advantage, and certainly not as much fun as entirely worked out in-game, so I disagree too.

[MakeBeliever]

Personally i feel that if you want a new society with radical morals you should achieve it ingame while playing as you are, despite all the hard to budge do gooders that you come across and equal rights demanders. With enough determination and hard work you can get something completely new established and it doesn't happen over night. The hard part is gaining followers and that takes determination and consistancy of character and be prepared to watch those around them drop like flies while it's building, because not all share the same dreams till you stubbornly get your character to share the dream till it becomes way of life to those close and who really see it as you want things. Rome wasn't built in a day. Neither where the Stone Knights, the MacGregors, the Silver Queendom, the Blackrocks etc and even Seatown Forest is a law unto itself.. They all evolved over a long time to become as strong as they are or where with determined characters behind them all for years.

It's truely hard i know to get something new ingame that you don't see from other towns that are particulary similar really in their ways without being stomped out by doogooder towns e.g Harry hawks slavery. There will be radical new societies/tribes/clans born if people learn to bend their morals a little and follow the laws of the town they spawn in even, they shouldn't know down the road that all are free to do what they want and you can earn what you like. For all they know every town is the same unless they travel to see things for themselves. I've had one in mind for years now and it's still going to be a miracle if my character ever gets things to even halfway the way they truely want the town and the way of life to be. I won't even start on my town idea where men can be traded, swapped or bought as pre packaged husbands, thats going to need a magic wand to get that going.

Who's to say even if your idea was thought about, that the town next door would consider the laws of the new thought of very wrong and be stomped out the same. You just have to be tough and determined solo and gain your followers i think to get a new society up and growing.

[Darkle-ish]

Yeah, you need all that and a lot of luck.

[BadMonkey]

If your character becomes powerful enough they can shape the world. That's how Cantr, and our world, works.

Environment shapes everything for my newspawns. So if someone had the power to implement it, or even I did, the future is certainly there for the taking.

(Tried to catch all my errors, blame alcohol for any left behind)

[Missy]

No way. It's what seperates Cantr from a ton of other games that don't crack down on that sort of th ing. There's no way I want to see this turn into a Runescape. I think the fact that people already do it is bad. The fact you want it to then be encouraged/allowed is even worse.

[Doug R.]

How would it quickly grow strong enough to take over towns that have been working for a long time?

This town would have to build up their economy and such just as anyone else. There'd just be a different government than most of the existing ones.

No...You're taking a handful of people outside the game, who will be guaranteed to be active, and putting their characters together in one place. How many towns do you know of with 5 or so consistently active characters?

Give me 5 active, reliable characters united in purpose and I could conquer anyone in a much shorter span of time than you think possible.

This suggestion is DOA.

[Darkle-ish]

I suppose...

And um...DOA?

[Doug R.]

Dead On Arrival

[Darkle-ish]

Ah...
Thanks.

[N-Aldwitch]

Oh, I thought DOA was dead or alive..

[buddyhall]

Well i've suggested multi nations world for english and spanish and polish
where they fight it out for superiourity i'd like to be invloved in that but i think the idea of allowing a community to cheat over the others is unfiar achieve it in game

[saztronic]

I see the disciples of orthodoxy are sharpening their pitchforks.

So when this preconceived society (quickly) becomes strong enough and (easily) conquers its neighbors that were not preconcieved but instead grew up over hundreds of years with luck and back-breaking work, we are to consider this fair?

Three points. 1) No such proposed society need have as its object world (or even regional) domination, 2) Staff review and oversight can prevent this, if desired, and 3) Even something like that was approved, so what? The Mongols came out of nowhere to dominate the world in a thirty year time span, and contrary to common opinion, had a lot to do with shaping modern civilization -- introducing fungible currency, civil bureaucracy, etc. And most players will tell you that at least some of their best playing experiences resulted from world-shaking events, not from the day they first smelted iron.

But preconceived means a certain advantage, and certainly not as much fun as entirely worked out in-game, so I disagree too.

Is this what you're describing as fun?:

There will be radical new societies/tribes/clans born if people learn to bend their morals a little and follow the laws of the town they spawn in even. . . I've had one in mind for years now and it's still going to be a miracle if my character ever gets things to even halfway the way they truely want the town and the way of life to be.

How many towns do you know of with 5 or so consistently active characters?

That's the game: It takes years to do anything unique, if you can ever do it at all; and most towns have only a couple of active players.

Yay?

I don't think so. The game is great in some ways, but in many other ways it turns people off. The deadening consistency of the morality, of the limited range of possible societies, of possible game play, is the single greatest cause of player attrition. The game is fun for a while, but only a handful will find it fun for the long term if it stays as it is, because it doesn't take that long to explore the range of possibilities. That's why so many players, including myself, quit playing after a while.

Give me a town built of ships, on the water, docked to each other en masse and roaming from place to place.

Give me a town where slavery is not only institutionalized, but roleplayed consistently and with true feeling.

Give me a society that believes tulips are more valuable than steel.

And give them to me without having to work for years of game time -- hours and days and weeks of my real life -- scraping and striving and banging my head agains the wall just to do something different for a change.

Give me variety. Give me options. Simulate society for real, as opposed to a set-up where, because most everyone brings some form of Western neoliberal values to it, all social scenarios end up being deadeningly similar. And I include the MacGregors, the Stone Knights, and TBR in that mix. All fascinating in their ways, but hardly distinct as social systems if you look anywhere beneath the surface.