What Design Principles Would You Choose For Cantr?

[Solfius]

I'd like to start a discussion, rather than make a suggestion; even if this sounds like a suggestion, I'm more interested in the discussion it provokes.

Following on from a few comments elsewhere about design documents and such for Cantr, and accepting it's currently beyond the staff's means, I wondered if a simple set of design principles or guidelines would help guide any development/redevelopment in a positive direction.

By a principle, I mean something like: Cantr should be free to play, and donating should confer no in game advantage.

The capital rule could also be considered a gameplay principle: All characters should be played independently and do not automatically know of or share knowledge with other characters.

This thought is prompted by musings on the different philosophies behind in game changes.

For example, when I was in the RD I implemented the change from gathering pure iron to refining hematite. The values I chose were based on scaled down real life ratios. My design principle was The Game Should Be Based On Accurate Real Life Processes, so the process, requirements and amounts were all based on what you'd need to make iron and steel in real life.

An important corollary to that principle would be Unless It Degrades Gameplay.

This corollary/principle led to the values being tweaked to allow faster production of iron and steel.

Although now we find ourselves in a situation where steel is less valuable than iron as it is over 100% efficient, as you get more out of the steel making process than you put in, effectively creating matter from no where (based on time taken to collect all the required resources, hematite, coal, limestone,and go through the process from hematite, to iron ore, to iron, to steel using the best tools and machines, but not including time taken to build those machines and tools).

The purpose of this example is to highlight how different people bring different design principles to their work, and how these differing principles pull the game in different directions.

Another, shorter, example:
1. The Resources and Processes in Game Should Be As Simple As Realistically Possible
2. The Resources and Processes in Game Should Stimulate Trade Between Towns

The second principle often conflicts with the first because, to stimulate trade, processes are overcomplicated or limited to more advanced technology than realistic making them harder.



So, my point is with no explicit principles guiding Cantr's progress, conflicting ideas about what direction the game should take confuse the game's design. As staff change, design principles change with them, and we get inconsistent development.

I'd like to pose this question:
If we were going to write a set of design principles for Cantr, what principles would you want to be in it?

Or, What are the most important things to bear in mind as staff work on Cantr?


To start the ball rolling, my contribution:
- For Every Action Possible In Game, The Opposite Action Should Be Possible
E.g. you can make locks, and you can break them
You get hurt, and you can heal yourself

[SekoETC]

I agree with the opposite action rule, that would make things much better.

* Basic stuff should be easy to make, available to everyone with the resources, but it should be possible to produce them faster or as improved versions by using specific tools.

Explanation: Cantr was much simpler back in the old days when pretty much none of the tools or weapons would require other tools to make, or at least not complicated ones. You could make a bow with just wood and in some cases with extra iron. Now you have to carve a bunch of separate parts and that only makes sense if they are usable for several items, but it hasn't been all thought through. The system doesn't support having the quality of tools affect the speed of the project or quality of outcome. We have a bunch of steel swords that require the same resources and tools, but we don't have an iron sword, or a sword that would require less tools, so everyone just ends up making something that matches their fighting skill / strenght and with biggest possible damage. Deterioration could be improved to include the chance of an item shattering and returning either a broken unusable item or the resources that were spent on making it in the first place.

* Play any role you can imagine has become a false statement due to skills - this needs to be fixed.

Twenty years of hard training should be sufficient to take someone from awkward to expert. This can be balanced by skill deterioration if necessary - but training should be made easier. The battle system is very clumsy for training your fighting skill. If someone wants to become a better fighter, the training should be project based. Also strength should matter in more projects such as crushing hematite and mining with a pickaxe.

* If a resource cannot be used without specific tools, it also shouldn't be harvestable without specific tools.

I just dislike newspawns digging loads of stuff they have no use for and then dying when they realize how little options they have, leaving the piles of resources lying around until some oldbie walks in and harvests the profit. Stuff like diamonds are worth trash in Cantr because even though they are slow to gather, it's still possible to gather them by hand, and characters cost nothing to create. Either make stuff unharvestable without tools or implement ways for using them without (hi-tech) tools (*cough*primitive*cough*jewelry).

* There should be logical metarules for item (and resource) weights and they should be consistent

It's understandable that small things might use more resources than in real life, and heavy things would use much less, but it needs to make more sense. Furniture and containers are totally out of line when you compare them to buildings and vehicles. I dislike the fact that water has been made so slow to gather but it also means that if it's used on a project, the amounts must be smaller than in real life. Maybe Cantr water is just generally lighter. Personally I'd think it was better if everything was heavier but there would be more carts and they could be pulled from the outside and by several people, but that must be something very hard to program.

[Tiamo]

The first question we should ask ourselves is what kind of game Cantr should be. Should it be an RPG? Should it be a life-simulation game? Should it be a society building game? Should it be an economic development game? Should it be a combination of those? Or should it be 'something completely different'?

Only after this question is answered we can have a look at the various game elements, and how they contribute to the overall game picture: character definition, character development, the world & what's in it, possible activities, game economics, knowledge & skills, social structures, movement & travel, time, combat, history building, etcetera.

[marginoferror]

I guess I think of Cantr as both a society simulator and a role-playing game. But it's hard to describe it as an "RPG" because that is associated pretty strongly with dungeon crawling. It's closer to a MUSH than a traditional RPG.


* Players should be able to participate without necessarily playing at the same time of day as other players. Currently this is true for most, but not all parts of Cantr, and the parts it's not true for really stick out.

* Nearly everything in the game except the natural environment should be player-generated.


I think the game would be much improved if *knowledge* was passed on from character to character like equipment. Currently, everyone knows instinctively how to build a blast furnace or how to operate a gas purifier. But there would be a lot more roleplaying involved in using and constructing high technology if these secrets had to be first invented and then taught to (or not taught to, or recorded for the benefit of) other characters.

[Piscator]

- Sustainibility should be possible.

Currently Cantr resembles a bathtub with a blocked drain. When things are built, they stay built. Ultimately there will be no need to build anything at all.
Future generations should be able to experience the same world as we do it now.

(That's basically a variation of: - For Every Action Possible In Game, The Opposite Action Should Be Possible)

[Tiamo]

I think the game would be much improved if *knowledge* was passed on from character to character like equipment. Currently, everyone knows instinctively how to build a blast furnace or how to operate a gas purifier. But there would be a lot more roleplaying involved in using and constructing high technology if these secrets had to be first invented and then taught to (or not taught to, or recorded for the benefit of) other characters.

We seem to think along the same lines, marginoferror. This is a suggestion i had in mind for some time now, i might even have hinted at it somewhere.
Adding knowledge to the requirements of more advanced projects would also give the RD an extra tool for balancing the economy buildup, so there is less need for adjusting production speed, tweaking amounts of resources needed and incorporating 'difficult' resources.

[HoH]

It is my opinion that the more complex the projects become, the less enjoyable the game is overall.

I noticed that towards the end of my playing Cantr, the game itself had changed dramatically. The time and energy once put into roleplaying had morphed into time spent manufacturing. Players that once had time to think about their character's actions now needed to concentrate more on what their characters were manufacturing and what tools needed to be made to make this step, and then to this step....etc etc etc.

Cantr should not mimic real life. Cantr is its own world, full of its own issues that can occasionally be similar to the real world's, but are often completely removed entirely from reality. After all, how many times have you been able to walk out into your backyard and harvest hematite lately? If Cantr were to mimic real life, the game would become way too complex. For instance, mining in real life destroys wildlife habitat, depletes the land of resources, and pollutes local watersheds. Now, I'm not vocalizing against real world mining, I live in a state where mining is a major industry, but obviously these effects would be incredibly difficult to incorporate into Cantr. Each time someone decided to mine some more hematite, the amount of hematite left would be reduced, farming resources would be reduced, gathering resources would be reduced, the water would be unusuable or would make characters sick, and local animals would leave the area. Seeing that these are the repercussions for one small activity, think of the cause and effect chains for every little action a character makes in the game. Whether it be hunting, farming, fishing, or manufacturing, if modeled after real life the game would have to become so complex it would end up similar to the Matrix. Please pardon the reference, I am not sure what else to compare it to.

Cantr has always been a slow paced game. But adding so many complex new inventions and tools and objects slows the game down even further, to the extent where it seems like nothing will ever get done. Granted, many players would use their entire 200 minutes of game play even before all the 'improvements', I know I did, but it was spent roleplaying mostly. Interaction with other characters is a fundamental part of the game that is rapidly disappearing. Especially now that the servers are slow as well, this degrades role play even more. Players' precious time is spent organizing their projects and not on non-essential interactions with others.

Please note that I say non-essential interactions with others. Players always will have to speak with others to do their business, but I remember when a large part of Cantr was character's developing personalities and pretty much just goofing around with others instead of working silently like mindless bots.

I do think this is the longest post I've ever written. Sorry about that.

[marginoferror]

HoH, we can address that by minimizing the manufacturing aspect of the game, or we can strive to make production compatible or even complementary to roleplaying. Right now, production often involves laboring for years inside a room alone. It doesn't have to be like that.

[HoH]

marginoferror, simplifying the game seems to contradict what you said before, especially with adding a knowledge requirement. But once again, Cantr should not be a model of real life, and even though in real life we have to learn things, in Cantr this should not necessarily be the truth.

I do agree with Piscator, though, and decay should be a part of the game. This preserves the integrity of the game, allowing you to build and maintain a society. But at the same time, if things are going to be decaying around you, its necessary for manufacturing to be simple. If you have to rebuild your tools each time you want to make something, you waste a lot of time.

[Piscator]

Before reducing the manufacturing aspect of the game we should consider that not every player sees Cantr primarily as a role playing game.

[Tiamo]

Before reducing the manufacturing aspect of the game we should consider that not every player sees Cantr primarily as a role playing game.

So, as what type of game DO we see Cantr? And is that what we want of this game?

[Piscator]

Cantr was designed to allow the player to choose for themselves where they set their focus and we should try to make Cantr as versatile as possible. Developing the game in direction of a certain genre would be a step in the wrong direction.

[marginoferror]

HoH, I didn't say anything about simplifying the game. I just said we should make it more compatible with roleplaying.

[HoH]

Exactly. The over-development of the game is doing just that. If the player should decide what the game should be, then the player should not have to put all their time and effort into organizing projects if what they would prefer is roleplay, and vice versa.

Although, through my observations, business oriented characters prospered even before many of the 'improvements'.

[HoH]

HoH, I didn't say anything about simplifying the game. I just said we should make it more compatible with roleplaying.

So you would be adding even more intricacies into the game. I'm sure that would really help. Keep in mind that this is a GAME. One of the things that drew me to the game in the first place was the simplicity. It was not the real world, it was a game world. A simple place to play a game. To escape reality.

Just the same as many other games of the past. It's quite easily seen that the games that stand through time are the simple ones...ie Backgammon, Mah-Jong, etc etc etc.