Cantr II Discussion Forum

What is it like to spawn in the recent years? Does it differ a lot from spawning a hundred years ago? I seem to have a lot of experience in spawning new characters in the recent years, so here's my experiences:

One spawned over 10 IG years ago. He was initially given a job without pay but he gets free food and some clothing (better than raw hides). He had some say in what kind of clothing he got, but not as much as he would like. Also he was given all the tools he needs to do the job, a good weapon (even though he's not a fighter), and a decent shield. After a few years he was given a key to one of the storage rooms, even though he was initially told that he would never get a key to anything.

One spawned 8 years ago. The community is rather poor so she has mainly been given things in exchange for labor. She thinks it's everybody's duty to work for common good, whether or not you get paid.

One spawned 7 years ago. She was instantly given decent cotton clothes and a shield. Soon after she was given a key to a ship, as well as a decent weapon and a crowbar. Sometimes she has been the last person on the ship, so people trust her. She doesn't have access to resource storages but usually gets any resource by asking for it.

One spawned 5 years ago. She has been given a few things but the town doesn't seem pretty prepared for newspawn, of which there have been plenty in the last 5 years. Pretty much everything is behind locked doors, which forms a bottleneck. This character is very ambitious and has a sense of entitlement.

One spawned four years ago. He was given hide clothes, which he didn't like, and a crappy shield. He has been gathering and processing resources for his own benefit and has gained a couple of tools through begging. Later he got some better clothes. Food is free, which is good because it cannot be farmed on the spot. He has never left his spawning location. Sometimes he helps around on projects because he's thankful for all the freebies, but overall he's still pretty selfish.

Second one also spawned four years ago. The community was completely unprepared for a newspawn. Valuable stuff was scattered on the ground and in unlocked buildings. She picked up almost as much as she could carry. When the others woke up, they gave her more stuff and she had to drop some of what she had initially stolen so that they wouldn't fill her inventory completely. No one ever seemed to notice she had stolen. There were no clothes to give so she had to make some herself out of stolen resources. One of the town people was inappropriate towards her so she used it as an excuse to leave, and told the next town that she had been given resources as compensation for being mistreated. The stolen resources have been very useful in getting her started, but she has also worked to earn things she would be awkward at making herself.

Third one also spawned four years ago and was initially given ugly clothes she didn't like. Soon after she gained a lot of freebies, including a car. Sometimes she emotionally manipulates people into giving her stuff. She has never worked on things that would benefit other than herself, as far as I can remember.

The latest one spawned recently. Was given hide clothes and a shield. After a bit of whining, she got some better equipment. Still trying to figure out an optimal tactic.

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So in your opinion, which works better, being polite and useful to the community or whining, emotional manipulation and selfishness? In my experience, both have a chance of working depending on the environment.

Overall, newspawns seem more likely to be given clothing nowadays, but about 50% of time, it's rawhide. Compared to 200 years ago when you had to make your own from hide or fur, and there were only bikinis and loincloths, not hide pants or dresses. Cotton and hemp clothes existed but you had to work for them. I think the current trend might have something to do with the weather system. If a character says they are cold, the weather can actually back it up.

I'd also like to hear how people experience spawning in Klojt nowadays, because it's hard to put myself in their perspective. Is the clothing allowance too restrictive or does it actually give freedom of choice? How many people get their starting equipment from the university rather than the government? How does working for coins compare to working "for the good of the town" in other towns, and being given equipment at random to approximately match your work effort?

Spawning now sucks. There are too few people, too little conflict, and even fewer options for growth. Towns need newspawns to bring in new blood to old ideas, but newspawns aren't necessarily needed as much due to the mechanics of the game.

Newspawns should be a towns most valuable asset.

Spawning is about luck. I had some great luck before. Spawned in a swamp and a day later the only man there dropped dead? It started me on the Path to be a rich Merchant. Then again I also spawned in a town a month before the Blackrocks took it over and killed the leadership and guards. I was a guard. Over all now because of less players if you want to Thrive you can. You need some luck and the will but it can be done and that is what always made this game great.

Only 1 out of 5 of my fresh spawns has had an overall positive experience (from a player perspective, a truly terrible time for the character could be quite entertaining for me.) 2 show some promise but will require some extra work from me to bring some interest into their lives, and 2 might as well be long forgotten limestone quarries for the type of interaction they receive.

10 years ago spawning felt like waking up in the middle of a story. I was in the middle of a bustling city with 60 other people and war was on the horizon, or in a sleepy town with nothing but a couple grumpy ex-mercenaries, or a forest with a dozen people hoping they will see animals again. As a player I wondered what had happened here and where it was going. Every spawning was different and introduced you to a new a different part of the world. Some more democratic, some more totalitarian, some more primitive, some more civilized. Every town seemed to have between one and a half dozen people trying to recruit you to some cause or army or company. There were big dreams and big organizations you could buy into and become an instant part of something larger than yourself. It didn't take long to figure out there was a clear currency in iron and steel. With those two things you could build good shields, weapons, locks and crowbars. The things that divided the haves from the have nots. And it didn’t take long to figure out you couldn’t get any of that stuff on your own. Or at least it would take RL years to so you either joined a group or committed to a slow climb through poverty.

Newspawns weren’t given much of anything. If you were lucky you got a loincloth, bone shield and 5 days worth of food. But in most of my spawns experience you had to work for those things or kill a raccoon with your bare hands and use it’s bones to make a knife so you could kill something bigger. Or you could join up with the recruiter and get whatever their starter pack was. (food, a wooden shield and after a year, a recurve bow!)

6 years ago spawning was entertaining in a different way. Most of the big organizations were still around but shells of their former selves. Recruiting was still quite common but it was to be a part of a community not a part of a movement. If the group had a goal, it was secondary to the interpersonal relationships. It didn't take a town rallying together and negotiating with (or killing off) neighboring towns to build a car because there were plenty of cars around already. Towns had become more uniform. Laws from town to town were pretty much the same with a single person in charge. What worked best given the game mechanics had been established and universalized.

There was very little talk of building this or saving up for that, and with boats, groups that hated each other just went their separate ways. Iron shields, decent weapons, and crowbars were pretty common. Goals were more cultural, things like festivals, museums, libraries and universities, and less strategic like securing the source of limestone and imposing heavy taxes on anyone who wanted some. What won the day and made the game worth playing was the big personalities. Larger than life characters who could shape an entire town around their cult of personality and wacky side show gimmick characters committed to their bit. It was still waking up in a story, but it was more a grand comedy with bits of personal drama instead of a grand drama with bits of personal comedy.

My first impression with my fresh crop of spawns is very old people going in and out of buildings and sometimes talking to each other about mundane things like potatoes and tools. 3 of my 5 characters got clothes their first day and two were given iron shields which is pretty cool, but after a week I only have names for about 1/3 of the people I've interacted with. Most of the active characters seem to ignore new spawns. Nobody treated my new spawn like a new person, everyone assumes I know how the world works (both game mechanics and the social norms) and that I already have a reason for being here even if I’m asking questions, which is very different from before. That would really suck for a new player trying to figure out the game.

It feels like I woke up in a small town where the mill closed down and the few people who are left are just living out their days because that is what they always have done. Some people are polite but nobody has any driving dreams or desires, and certainly not a plan to achieve them. Nobody is striving for anything, they are just existing. If it' a part of a story it certainly isn't the middle. It's either the beginning, where the hero leaves his dumpy town and goes on his quest. Or the happily ever after where the hero settled down to live a quiet life. If there is going to be any compelling story, I feel like it has to be my characters who drive it.

Very good way of putting it, IMO.

I cant say how it used to be because I only recently began playing, but I have to agree that for the most part, everyone seems to be waiting for someone else to do something interesting instead of making things interesting themselves.....

You want something to happen, then be an interesting character and MAKE something interesting happen!

I have come across so many towns now with people bemoaning the fact that things arent like they used to be...... all the newspawns keep leaving....... why dont they stay anymore..... well maybe its because quite a few of the towns my characters have been to very few of the characters introduce themselves.... even after my character has given her name, and engaged them in conversation and gone so far as to ask their name since they didnt seem to grasp the concept of being polite..... so my character left....why? Because if they cannot even be bothered to give her their name they must think very little of her, and she has better things to do than to try and make people like her......

Its not like this everywhere, I know .....some of my characters have met some wonderful people and been made to feel increadibly welcome and part of something. One of my characters has been wandering Fu and STILL has not seen anyone who is awake..... three years and she just recently was able to make a bone spear because she finally found a place with a hut she could hide in and an oh SO important MAP! she spawned in a town of sleepers, all behind locked doors....and no food resources in the area...... funny, Three of my characters have started with that same scenario..... I honestly can't believe they all survived.... there were some close calls...... one was saved by a dead man... he died just as she came into a town.... and he had food for hunger and food for healing.....thank goodness

Over all my experiences with spawning have been good..... or at least interesting from a player perspective ..... there have been only two that were boring and/or frustrating...... so 2 out of 15 isn't bad

one of those, sadly was Kjolt.... my newspawn was given a list of the clothing allowance, then told well to bad you can't have what you requested from the list cause we only have ____ ok, no biggie... supplies are running low... it happens... so she went to work... and honestly it felt like she was in a sweatshop..... she was repeatedly ignored and it got worse when she finished her work and asked for her payment ... when she finally got an answer after days of asking she was told she would be paid when the boss felt like paying her.... ok, time to go.... it was not welcoming it was quite the opposite.... and if this had been my very first character I most likely would have closed the webpage and never come back.... fortunately it was not my first character... and she is living happily elsewhere now

In Klojt there's currently a list of 10 people who have been failed to pay over the years because they left, or in some cases, they did projects that didn't round up to full days and there weren't enough copper coins. It is generally kept track of, though. I do generally pay people when ever someone requests it, assuming my character is outside.

My second round of spawnings has gone much better. I came with more developed characters instead of my prefered method of letting them develope based on their surroundings.

I figure each spawn can be an experiment in its own right since I can have 15 to play with.

disclaimer: i will be talking about PL zone that appears to be richer than original islands

the game changed a lot, around day 2500 you could expect to be given hide pants / loincloth, or some hide to make pants yourself
you could get more in already well-off cities if you agreeded to become a citizen and would be working for common good
on the other hand my recently spawned characted received something along the lines of shoes (not moccasins), a dress made of hemp, a coat made of hemp and a hat. add obligatory wooden shield to that - and i know multiple other cities give iron ones (e.g. vlotryan has at least 5 lying around in unlocked building, free for taking)
other characters got a similar treatment

but its all because we got richer - recently my character found an abandoned city with e.g. 2kg of diamonds, rubies, 50kg of petrol, and other stuff thats basically worth hundreds if not thousands of work days - and its not the first one i have found like this one

Mafia Salad wrote:10 years ago spawning felt like waking up in the middle of a story...

This was really impactful for me. I actually joined Cantr around the same time as you, so we played together and had a similar experience. And I totally agree. There was just so damn much going on in the world - history notes today barely capture a fragment of it.

You woke up in the middle of a story arc back then, no matter where you were. K-island, Treefeather, Cantr Island; they all had major events going on, and even the minor events were intriguing - from kidnappings to regional/town tensions etcetera.

We just don't have enough players anymore to return to this anytime soon.