How Many New Players Do We Need?

[MonkeyPants4736]

What are your estimates for how many people need to be brought to this game to counteract the small player base problems?

[sherman]

I am no staff but considering the losses... (for example finnish group had like 16 players, now it has maybe 6 with, well nothing happening at all, just sleeping. Active chars numbering maybe 5...) I would say 50 is minimum and that also depends how many chars they spawn and there. Spawning on Fu or Noniwrok or Burgeo doesn't help much when there's empty places and sleeping towns. Looking by statics we have now 875 players so getting over 1000 would bring us to old times but doesn't answer the question is it enough

Also since we have many sleepers it's hard to say any real number.. There's so many of them that hard to tell how many of those 875 are really playing

[rd1988]

The better question would be How are we going to get new players onto a website with such archaic design. (I'm sorry, I really like this game but lets be honest here - Cantr is super ugly, I mean really UGLY, and this video intro from the main page is just.... embarrassing) At this moment any bigger marketing campaign would just fail. Sure we could get some players (like 4 or ...5?) but that's not enough.
I am the only one who wants a major rewrite? Welp, not gonna happen anyway.

[MonkeyPants4736]

Good question. My reason for asking was actually related to yours. I plan to reach out to Role Playing groups, generally. Not necessarily online or even video game RP groups.
This one, for example, is an online chat RP group, so they already are used to an events page style medium and we would technically have more graphics than them :
http://www.rphaven.com/

[sherman]

The better question would be How are we going to get new players onto a website with such archaic design. (I'm sorry, I really like this game but lets be honest here - Cantr is super ugly, I mean really UGLY, and this video intro from the main page is just.... embarrassing) At this moment any bigger marketing campaign would just fail. Sure we could get some players (like 4 or ...5?) but that's not enough.
I am the only one who wants a major rewrite? Welp, not gonna happen anyway.

That's the problem with game that is over 10 years old. The main problem is that people now days wants graphics which.. Of course doesn't fit well with what kind of game cantr is. The main code remains same, we can't really use fancy HTML5 stuff or so.

It of course could use redesigning and so but still main problem would be limited people who would be interested.

[SekoETC]

In the past when I've told people of Cantr, usually what I end up hearing is "Text based? That's not my cup of tea." When I was studying programming, most of my classmates were playing Travian. I tried it too but the game was ruined by the fact that you got beaten up by players who had been there longer than you and there was no room to develop because the same player would keep attacking you repeatedly.

Cantr has multiple issues. First of all, it's horribly slow-paced. Steeds have fixed that somewhat, but the problem with steeds on unmapped islands is you end up out of the sphere of vision within one hour, at least when using reins. So you have to have some optical device, which are very complicated if you live on a continent that has zero trade networks and you have to get every resource yourself.

Cantr hasn't looked at the survival and well-being of minor language groups. That's probably why the Portuguese players are quitting, because they're stuck on a small island that probably doesn't have all the resources needed for modern life, so they would have to sail away from their homeland, and they don't have maps of other islands in their own language.

Lithuanians used to be in war with the Portuguese, and they still bear a grudge against each other.

The Swedes have apparently abandoned their native islands and moved to to a bigger island. The spread of resources forced them into becoming seafarers. The setup is so that you have to visit three islands in a longboat in order to make iron. One of these islands doesn't have wood, so if you spawn there, you're completely at the mercy of wild animals. You might be able to make a bone shield, but I lost one character there to wild animals. Nowadays you might be able to make a kayak, assuming there are animals that give hide. One of the other islands only had animals that give fur (koalas and gorillas). So before you could make leather out of fur, you couldn't even make leather.

The old foreign language groups (Spanish, French, German and Dutch) are cramped on a very small area, so none of them have had the chance to develop without foreign interference.

Then the Polish originally have seven islands and that's not enough for them, they still have to go and settle elsewhere.

Even though Cantr has a lot of land areas, only few of them are worth settling. In my opinion, a culture in order to develop needs a food source, a healing food source (assuming there are dangerous animals), animals that give both small and large bones, wood and the resources to make either iron or bronze. In order to become a civilized culture, they need the resources to make steel, some sort of a fiber source (cotton or hemp) and resin or the possibility to make leather. In order to become an advanced culture, they need rubber and the resources to make alumium, glass, engines and optical instruments. The addition of steeds has partially made it unnecessary to be able to produce cars. In the past I used to think that finding rubber was essential for a society, but bikes are so slow on paths that you might as well be walking. The other fuel sources are so ineffective that you also need a source of oil, and a tarpit just doesn't cut it. One of my characters has a tarpit but they only use it to upgrade roads. A plus is if you have clay, because a tajine is handy on some regions, and a kiln can be useful too, not to mention you must have a kiln to make car windows. A lot of regions are lacking the building blocks of civilization and don't have anything to encourage people to return there once they leave in the first place. For example, an island that allows making iron and steel, but doesn't have a single fiber source, not even silk cocoons, and no precious metals or gems. No herbs. One island that was highly populated didn't use to have any source of fibers, but people complained vocally enough and they were given a single location with cotton. Not to mention that cotton and hemp and silk cocoons were seeded once the game was already hundreds of days old, so they haven't always been around. Things may have been overlooked when the seeding took place. Some islands were meant to be left without to encourage trade. It's good to have diversity, but every island should have some reason for people who spawn there to go back there after getting resources from other islands.

[Marian]

The better question would be How are we going to get new players onto a website with such archaic design. (I'm sorry, I really like this game but lets be honest here - Cantr is super ugly, I mean really UGLY, and this video intro from the main page is just.... embarrassing) At this moment any bigger marketing campaign would just fail. Sure we could get some players (like 4 or ...5?) but that's not enough.

I don't object to the design of the game itself but there is absolutely nothing inviting about the front page. That video alone I'm sure has driven away more potential players than anything else. I really can not fathom why anyone ever thought that was a good idea, or why it's still there after all these years. I'm seriously embarrassed to even link people to the site because of it.

[sherman]

Seko pretty much posted what's the problems here. Not much worth to stick at some places at the moment

And I can say as finnish player that location of finnish area sucks, only close by people are polish and due game rules we have no common language, thus no trade and location middle of nowhere doesn't encourage newspawns nor development of community. Actually I would say some groups will die of soon, mine being one too

E: That video isn't that bad really, seen games with much worse

[SekoETC]

I in the other hand think that the Finnish region is well placed. I recently found some old notes of a Finnish character interacting in English with a Polish character. The player probably didn't know it was against the rules. One of my Finnish characters has figured out what most resources are in Polish thanks to visiting enough locations that were on a Polish map. One problem is both of my Finnish characters are now mapping, so even if new people appeared, I couldn't help them. Maybe I should spawn a new Finnish character who would be stationary and help others, but there are so few characters and so many of them sleepers that it's kinda boring.

[HFrance]

Characters by old players by language



What happened in 3904 with the Portuguese-speaking community?

I still try to find out...

[sherman]

I in the other hand think that the Finnish region is well placed. I recently found some old notes of a Finnish character interacting in English with a Polish character. The player probably didn't know it was against the rules. One of my Finnish characters has figured out what most resources are in Polish thanks to visiting enough locations that were on a Polish map. One problem is both of my Finnish characters are now mapping, so even if new people appeared, I couldn't help them. Maybe I should spawn a new Finnish character who would be stationary and help others, but there are so few characters and so many of them sleepers that it's kinda boring.

Problem with finnish area is that, nothing happens. All sleep. I still think location would work better if we had water access or something.. In that sense I think finnish is lost cause and areas like English and Polish are main concern because of their size

[ObsessedWithCats]

O_o 90 characters lost in 100 days is pretty extreme, and specifically by old players too.

[SekoETC]

Some Finnish characters have found the sea but the problem is they never tend to come back. The world is too big to stray far from the homeland. And the homeland is too wide for such a small community. There are only two Finnish towns that have more than 1 character and they're over a year's travel apart.

[Wolfsong]

I've complained about the video before... Apparently it's so much of a feature on the front page that it isn't going anywhere.

[sherman]

Why I don't see it anymore? Maybe my addblock thinks it's an add...