The game is dying?

[cutecuddlydirewolf]

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's noticed how few players Cantr has nowadays. I remember that when I started playing about a year ago, it wasn't unusual for over 200 people to be on at once... now it's less than half that.
It also seems as though many well-played characters are dying off, not to mention the dozens upon dozens of sleepers who have an extremely small chance of waking.
What I want to know is if there's a way to get more players to join Cantr, so the game can be active and fun again. Personally, I think that Cantr needs more promotion... yes, I've read the other thread, and done everything that it's suggested, but it hasn't helped.
I'm wondering if it may be the addition of the tutorial world that's causing the decrease in players. Before the world was created, new players would be thrust right into the thick of things, which, for me as a newbie, was incredibly exciting. It's what gave me a lasting interest in the game.
However, it's ALL newbies in the tutorial world, which means less structure and less of a chance for good roleplay. I'm curious whether this first impression of Cantr has made more than a few new players become bored or annoyed with the game, which then leads to them giving up on it...
Just to clarify, I'm not hating on the people who developed the tutorial world or those who suggested the idea in the first place. Forgive me if I'm being naive, but I'm just trying to think of reasons behind the sudden decline of players, so it can be fixed. Cantr is one of the most fascinating games out there, and I would hate to see it simply die off....

[Finchington]

I actually agree with that sentiment.

I don't know about some, but RPing with characters and situations is what kept me in the game. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but it was a blast. If I had been put into a tutorial which had no real direction in which the RP was heading, I would have lost interest more or less immediately.

I don't know much about the tutorial island, and I think that some aspects of it would be fantastic for -training- new players, but not for -engaging- them in the game.

What if we could have a tutorial island for the players to learn with, but they could have a character or two in the actual game at the same time? Say, having a character as a vessel for learning, and another as a vessel for engagement?

[Friar Briar]

How about instead of making Tutorial Island mandatory for new accounts/players, we make it an opt in/opt out for any account less than 40 days old?

Allow all new accounts to get started in the game right away, but put a button on the side that says, "New to Cantr II? Feeling lost or stuck? Click here to go Tutorial Island to discover how to play!"

I'm wondering if it may be the addition of the tutorial world that's causing the decrease in players. Before the world was created, new players would be thrust right into the thick of things, which, for me as a newbie, was incredibly exciting. It's what gave me a lasting interest in the game.

Well, for me this was true. It was a turn-off for me when I re-subbed to the game and found myself in a tutorial, because I wanted to just get right back into the thick of things.

When I signed up my first account, the Tutorial had not yet been created. In that first account, I nearly ragequit after two days because of confusing IG mechanics and hostile characters interactions. But one of the older players took me aside and explained things to me while still being IC, which was so memorable that I decided to stick with it.

[*Wiro]

Tutorial island isn't "mandatory". It replaces the waiting period between signing up and getting your account activated. It also weeds out people that were only going to log in once. So you still get into the game just as fast.

Being able to stay in tutorial island for a while longer is a great idea.

[cutecuddlydirewolf]

Yes, but you have to keep in mind that it's still the player's first impression of the game, Wiro.

[Friar Briar]

nvm, delete this post...tried to clarify myself and just ended up confusing myself even more.

[Rebma]

There are mentors in the tutorial, and we do try to be engaging. A lot of times people join, and even when we are online and respond to their spawning immediately, some people don't ever speak (which happened a lot with newspawns pre-tutorial. )

They're not just a bunch of newbies hanging together reading popups. There's seasoned players there rping with them and guiding them.

[Marian]

Tutorial island is a thousand times better than having to wait days to do anything at all. When people sign up for a game they expect to be able to jump in and play it. There's no telling how many people in the past have registered on a whim and then lost interest by the time they actually got approved.

Anyway, there's nothing forcing anyone to actually do anything on the tutorial island, a returning player can just wait a couple days for the activation email like they normally would.

[Calyx]

Firstly, I hate the title... and once again, the focus has been stolen by the minutiae...

Secondly, as a returning player, I only skimmed through the learning environment. Mainly for an outline of the new features but I hardly played in it... just waited to be approved and jumped straight in. I do prefer being dumped in the deep end though...

I agree that the game has lost some great players, but more importantly it has lost some depth... Of RP, of relationships, of power and of rivalries from which the world was forged... There aren't as many hungry characters any more, or, the society has evolved in such a way that it actively clings together to stop them. Maybe the distance has just increased so greatly between the pockets that conflict is a lot more effort and a lot less frequent. It is all still there if you know where to look, but it takes more, when fewer players overall have less or are too scared to take risks! Why?! I think the problems are due to a few things...

We are missing active players... We do need to make the game exciting/appealing again...
People/the new generation don't immerse themselves quite as much, or take it quite as seriously. However this can be a very addictive game and we all have a balance.
People got older, got less time and started to play less...
There are so many more ways for people to spend time online now...
The design is dated and does need an aesthetic lift... However minimal.
The shallow sex culture takes from and interrupts much of the game. You're RPing with someone's brain, and then they start thinking with other things and it all goes to shit. But I know it's always been a bit like this.

I also hate the layer of shallow wafflers that refuse to let the focus stray too much from themselves or their RP. Some characters are just quiet and then appear and tear things up like a tornado... but a lot of the time this is lost between A saying something curt to B and B being unhappy because you know how he feels about A, but he didn't actually say anything to A because, well, he's shy and he didn't want to cause any drama, and... Is this what you're happy with, Cantr? I want to be immersed in an epic drama of war and peace, love and hatred, life and death, not a washed out soap opera...

I've tried to be the change I wanted to see with the few characters I have, and for the most part it's worked. But we all need to do it. Break your own moulds!

Want more...

"Jaded masquerade, no names... Contradicting fates. It's all the same."

[cutecuddlydirewolf]

Firstly, I hate the title... and once again, the focus has been stolen by the minutiae...

Secondly, as a returning player, I only skimmed through the learning environment. Mainly for an outline of the new features but I hardly played in it... just waited to be approved and jumped straight in. I do prefer being dumped in the deep end though...

I agree that the game has lost some great players, but more importantly it has lost some depth... Of RP, of relationships, of power and of rivalries from which the world was forged... There aren't as many hungry characters any more, or, the society has evolved in such a way that it actively clings together to stop them. Maybe the distance has just increased so greatly between the pockets that conflict is a lot more effort and a lot less frequent. It is all still there if you know where to look, but it takes more, when fewer players overall have less or are too scared to take risks! Why?! I think the problems are due to a few things...

We are missing active players... We do need to make the game exciting/appealing again...
People/the new generation don't immerse themselves quite as much, or take it quite as seriously. However this can be a very addictive game and we all have a balance.
People got older, got less time and started to play less...
There are so many more ways for people to spend time online now...
The design is dated and does need an aesthetic lift... However minimal.
The shallow sex culture takes from and interrupts much of the game. You're RPing with someone's brain, and then they start thinking with other things and it all goes to shit. But I know it's always been a bit like this.

I also hate the layer of shallow wafflers that refuse to let the focus stray too much from themselves or their RP. Some characters are just quiet and then appear and tear things up like a tornado... but a lot of the time this is lost between A saying something curt to B and B being unhappy because you know how he feels about A, but he didn't actually say anything to A because, well, he's shy and he didn't want to cause any drama, and... Is this what you're happy with, Cantr? I want to be immersed in an epic drama of war and peace, love and hatred, life and death, not a washed out soap opera...

I've tried to be the change I wanted to see with the few characters I have, and for the most part it's worked. But we all need to do it. Break your own moulds!

Want more...

"Jaded masquerade, no names... Contradicting fates. It's all the same."

I actually completely agree with you, Calyx. Characters have just become so… monotonous. Where are the pirates, the cultists, the eccentric, hyperactive people? All those who make the game fun and interesting?
And as for the title… I apologize, but it's how I feel.

[Friar Briar]

I also hate the layer of shallow wafflers that refuse to let the focus stray too much from themselves or their RP. [...] but a lot of the time this is lost between A saying something curt to B and B being unhappy because you know how he feels about A, but he didn't actually say anything to A because, well, he's shy and he didn't want to cause any drama, and...

This is exactly the type of "RP" that I encountered when I first started playing, and my immediate reaction was, "Are you kidding me?" I don't get myself involved in this melodrama IRL, why in the world would I do so in a game?! This is not fun!

I want to be immersed in an epic drama of war and peace, love and hatred, life and death

I've been playing less than a year, but I've gleaned that this massive culture of events had happened a long, long time ago (through notes, stories, monuments IG, etc.) It makes me wonder what were the possibilities that made it happen when Cantr was a younger game. What attracted people here in the first place? Because of this post, I made another thread asking players why they play?

Wipe the board clean. Start cutting down huge swaths of abandoned infrastructure, buildings, and outdoors machinery. Return this place to what it was before, a primitive environment free of clutter where characters have to scrape and claw to survive.

A few days ago, I started filling up my remaining slots with new characters, experimenting to see if I could be lucky enough to spawn by myself in a completely remote spot without infrastructure. (That's actually been my dream to spawn like this for a while now.) The closest I came to was an abandoned place where my spawn found evidence of active raiders in their area, every building was abandoned but locked up, dangerous animals roamed rampant, and creepy notes talking about kidnappings and murders.

It's only been two days, but this has been my most exciting and fun character so far!

[Mee]

Wipe the board clean. Start cutting down huge swaths of abandoned infrastructure, buildings, and outdoors machinery. Return this place to what it was before, a primitive environment free of clutter where characters have to scrape and claw to survive.

A few days ago, I started filling up my remaining slots with new characters, experimenting to see if I could be lucky enough to spawn by myself in a completely remote spot without infrastructure. (That's actually been my dream to spawn like this for a while now.) The closest I came to was an abandoned place where my spawn found evidence of active raiders in their area, every building was abandoned but locked up, dangerous animals roamed rampant, and creepy notes talking about kidnappings and murders.

It's only been two days, but this has been my most exciting and fun character so far!

aah doing exactly the same! Killed off a few that didn't give me what I want from a game anymore and couldn't resist.. spawned another, and now running in the wild, barely surviving on Fu with wild animals and no good shield. So exciting!

[SekoETC]

I think one thing that has ruined the game is radio, or the way it was implemented. It's like 4chan. I don't see any logical reason as to why voices cannot be recognized. If you have a character who is inside in a building with a window, someone walks into town, says hi and leaves, you can name this character and recognize them, even though you never had time to view their description because you were asleep when they visited. Yet you can't even recognize your friend's voice on the radio. The radio has already lead into nobody wanting to take the risk of piracy, because if you attack one town, all the rest will know the name of your ship and your custom description, fighting skill, equipment and what time of day you attacked. Piracy on the established islands would be suicide, so nobody even tries, leading into stagnation because there are no risks. People don't even have to chase newspawn thieves anymore, because they can just radio the next town over to apprehend them.

I used to play characters that would make my heart race. One was Gahak Jordan who was convinced he was of noble heritage while everybody else was peasants, and he especially hated Stone Knights. He got into an argument with one of them because he said something that called for a response, and this woman who turned out to be a Stone Knight whispered to her partner and never replied Gahak, so he took offense. It lead into Gahak removing his tunic and telling the Stone Knight to hit him to make things even, but while waiting, some newspawn stole the tunic and ran away. Gahak spent years building a darter (which were completely undockable at the time) and stocking healing food, then went to attack the Stone Knight headquarters. He never actually managed to kill anyone because they dragged the sleepers inside, and everybody awake healed after his attacks, so he was eventually gunned down by three people while I was reading the description page of the first guy who had attacked him and missed. I just didn't assume 4 people would be online at the same time. But it was exciting.

I also had Jonas Kooth who went crazy after years of working as a town tailor, assaulted the female town leader, who then started following him around like an abused puppy with Stockholm syndrome, so he kept abusing her some more, then returned back to town and almost got killed by his former best friend, who had recovered from the sleeping sickness conveniently. Jonas lost his memory, escaping with just 1% health left, was healed by some people and given the new name Phoenix, but he was having flashbacks of his past and eventually went crazy again. He terrorized several towns riding around on a stolen bike and attacking strangers, managed to escape seriously wounded and returned to his old hometown, convincing people there to kill him out of mercy, and even had someone hold his hand as he died. How epic is that? Now stuff like that just doesn't happen anymore, because every town would have a car and a bunch of healing food, so they would instantly slaughter a guy moving on a bike, not to mention warning everybody about him on the radio.

I also had Pharap Jahrot who worked years starting from awkward tailoring skill, to produce a selection of clothing and traveled through two long roads to Brunoi to sell those clothes, without having radios around to know in advance if anybody would be buying, just hoping for the best, and out of sheer luck, someone important died and left someone new in charge, and he managed to convince this new person that having a stock of clothes would benefit their organization, so he earned enough metals to build a raker. Back then it was easier to trade for steel and iron than to go around gathering all the ingredients yourself and making it from scratch. Those metals were actually valuable back then, with some locations using 10 grams a day for steel. Nowadays some locations use 100 grams a day, for comparison. He became the most famous traveling trader on the old English islands, being the #1 English character that people had dynamically named. He knew some awesome people, including his wife Emi and his hired sailor Eliya M. Yes, he was rich enough to hire someone else to steer the ship for him while he would chill out in a cabin with his wife. That hardly ever happens anymore because if you're lucky enough to have a character who has a spouse, finding someone reliable enough to steer your ship where you wanted to go is just too much to ask.

[sherman]

I have played over year and during that.. It has really got sleepy :/ I assume having already is problem... And finding good relationship seems hard but this is still good game.. Just maybe people are different now

[returner]

Personally I think the biggest reason for Cantr's success and also Cantr's downhill decline (in population, not quality of the game) is a lack of product ownership and a strong marketing strategy. By nature, Cantr and marketing don't mix well, because with marketing you can comfortably allocate a budget to it in the hopes that you get a strong return on your investment. Being free, this makes it difficult to justify doing, let alone getting volunteers to spend enough time to make it effective.

Organic word-of-mouth (or text-on-forums) has been what has grown Cantr, at least from what I've seen over the past 10 years (correct me if I'm wrong).

Cantr could be set up as a not-for-profit organisation. Even with the small population we have now, a single banner ad placed somewhere that is mostly out of sight with a PPV (pay per view) offer (as opposed to pay-per-click, as I don't think many Cantr players will want to actually click the ad), would provide a fairly reasonable advertising revenue stream - which could be used to either pay professionals to help market Cantr and/or pay for adverts or other marketing activities (imagine a sponsored meetup for Cantr players in your local city?).

I'm sure other older players can also attest to the fact that threads like these aren't new, and when it gets bad, there are big marketing pushes that the community takes part in (sharing Cantr with friends, on forums, on other communities). It's a shame it's going through a downward trend right now, but more often than not, these things resolve themselves through the community.

If we ever want to reach a decent population to fill the enormous Cantr world (the world is fricken huge) then we need more than community effort, but for now I wouldn't worry too much about the community dying. Just do your part for the time being - recommend Cantr to as many relevant people as possible.