Was unlimited minutes the beginning of the end?

[SekoETC]

Before some time in 2009, people only had 200 minutes to play each day. Then it got changed into 2000 as an experiment, and once it was clear this was going to be a permanent feature, minutes were removed altogether. But did we value the game more back when we had to think how to invest our minutes? People would log out to read long conversations and write replies offline before logging in to post their reply. I don't think there were people saying things like good morning each day. Once a person had played their 200 minutes, they had to take a break until minutes reset, instead of spending the whole day reacting to things the minute they happen.

Kingdom of Loathing has 40 adventures by default each day, but you get more through eating, drinking and using spleen items. In the beginning you look forward to the next day when you can play again, but towards the end of an ascension, you start having about 200 adventures a day instead of 40, and collecting all the things that give extra adventures becomes a chore. Also playing those adventures becomes a chore.

It feels like things are better in moderation. If you can have everything immediately, there's nothing to strive for.

[ObsessedWithCats]

For me it's not the amount of time I can play but the number of characters I play. I'm able to find so much more enthusiasm for each character when I have fewer of them - currently I have just two and I'm really enjoying responding to everything and having time to really think through their actions and words and really investigate every potential route to develop them as characters. I'm not sure I'll be staying at just two but I certainly don't plan to have more than four again - the first (real life) year I played when my account was locked at four characters was really good in terms of my time and creative investment in my characters and the entertainment returns I got for that.

It doesn't surprise me at all that 2/3 of every town sleeps most days when I think that their player could easily have 10+ other characters taking up their time and mental energy on top of real life. I can't imagine a lower character limit would go down well with most though.

(Also IMO we need fewer, larger towns in the EZ at least, but every idea I have for encouraging that is riddled with holes)



edit: I think limiting time would completely kill most people's ability to have the kinds of conversations and interactions where you both happen to be online at the same time and you can really get into a good discussion without two years passing and all the distractions associated with that, because you couldn't just stay logged in and repeatedly checking.

[SekoETC]

Yes, having a time limit would totally kill casual conversations. Then again, sometimes people feel put off by a wall of text when they log in after hours of inactivity do to sleeping or work. There are some towns with so much casual chatter that I have occasionally turned off most things that light up my character, including public talking. I know it's rarely anything to do with my character anyway. I probably have too many characters because I hardly have a connection with any of them. Some are making plans to arrange their own funeral while others are just depressed in general, not knowing their days are numbered. At first I was planning to rp the death of every one of my characters, but it makes more sense if some of the younger ones never see it coming, instead collapsing in the middle of an ongoing timeline. I'll only rp deaths if they make sense or if it emotionally gives me the kicks.

[ObsessedWithCats]

One or two walls of text is a lot less terrifying to come back to than ten to fifteen Probably if any kind of changes were made some adaptations would need to be made - more people would whisper private conversations if they were having more of them or they were in bigger cities (and the players would become more used to it too), just as there would have to be work-arounds for a great number of situations that are dealt with simply in the current situation of everyone being able to play whenever they have time to, more when they can and less when they can't.

[SekoETC]

People avoid whispering in public as a remnant of the time when they couldn't be overheard, so generally the usual suspicion was either a sinister plot or public sex. Also there was no way to prevent You see X talk to Y events from lighting up your character. Now that we have custom filters, people could consider using more private talking when what they're saying has nothing to do with other characters and has no surface anybody could build their rp on.

[MonkeyPants4736]

I feel like people did take more time to think of their responses, because they'd type them up before posting. Typos, unclear ideas, etc., had a better chance to be caught before they were submitted.

On the other hand, there was much less descriptive RP, if I recall correctly. Now people write about twirling their hair or giving a certain kind of glance. The writing seems more personalized to the characters.

I think the old way encouraged people to get more done. Discussions/responses seemed more related to actions involving mechanics. The new way allows many more emotional/flavor exchanges.

I think the concept of time is different now, possibly related to no restriction. I recall seeing a note written to one of my old characters. Someone told her they found someone suspicious, because that person arrived and then spent TWO WHOLE HOURS sleeping instead of speaking. Yes, two hours. But it used to be like that. If you arrived somewhere, you knew there was a good chance you were expected to quickly state your business. People were much more awake.

Also, players now don't seem to care if their chars are working on projects or not. Every town, big and small, has people just standing there. I understand that the players might not be logging in much, but that happened in the past, too. However, people seemed much more concerned with making the time count for something. Though, perhaps that isn't so much the time freedoms as it is the comfort levels of the society. We all pretty much know that someone will feed our chars, and that they have basic protection if the town is attacked, etc.

[ObsessedWithCats]

The way I play at least, limited minutes would reduce both the length of time my characters are awake and how often they wake up. Possibly there are people who would be encouraged to use up their minutes but I can't see stopping people playing when they might really feel into it would help overall.

I've noticed that passing notes is far more popular than whispering with actual trouble-makers XD I think that if some change was made that caused people to put more time into each character and subsequently have more one-on-one conversations, or if towns became larger, then as you say anything that's not going to invite others to RP can be whispered and people can choose whether or not to let whispers light their characters up. The problem would be more of a situation of how would we encourage people to play fewer characters with more investment per character, or how can we encourage people to move their characters into towns large enough to generate more events to latch onto, without causing problems directly from the 'solution'.

[SekoETC]

In a way the security is an illusion. Sometimes people forget to feed sleepers and they die. Also it's still fairly easy for a group that's online at the same time to drag away a town leader and get a hold of all their keys. Now they don't even have to necessarily worry about killing the person because they can heal him or her from near death state, assuming the person can survive the humiliation of losing everything they owned and endangering their town. The reason it doesn't happen more often than this is that most people think OOCly that playing a player killer is equal to being a prick. That if someone has their character live beyond the age of 50, they get to decide when the character dies, not some pirate. Everybody seems to automatically assume that if someone kidnaps or kills an older character, it's due to OOC hate towards the player, and not because the character was a tyrant who needed to be overthrown, or simply because they had too much wealth.

[HFrance]

Limit the number of characters available for free and put the rest as a bonus for those who make regular donations. This encourages to give more value to the characters and solve the cost of the game. Since cooperation between the characters is prohibited, there is no need to talk about unfair disadvantage among players with more or less characters.

[ObsessedWithCats]

Limit the number of characters available for free and put the rest as a bonus for those who make regular donations. This encourages to give more value to the characters and solve the cost of the game. Since cooperation between the characters is prohibited, there is no need to talk about unfair disadvantage among players with more or less characters.

I surprise myself by really liking this suggestion, though we'd need a solution or fairly long grace period for existing characters over whatever limit is chosen.

[MonkeyPants4736]

@Seko: Yeah, I agree totally with the security illusion comment. It seems that every city is actually less safe than cities used to be. It's the apathy. It sort of makes me want to make a feared conqueror type of character. I mean, every city I see is just begging to be taken My time for playing Cantr is already maxed out, though, so conquering will have to be put on hold.

[HFrance]

Limit the number of characters available for free and put the rest as a bonus for those who make regular donations. This encourages to give more value to the characters and solve the cost of the game. Since cooperation between the characters is prohibited, there is no need to talk about unfair disadvantage among players with more or less characters.

I surprise myself by really liking this suggestion, though we'd need a solution or fairly long grace period for existing characters over whatever limit is chosen.

This solution would not apply to existing and active accounts, as granted rights.

[SekoETC]

I assume extra character slots would be bought with money instead of being bound to a repeated monthly fee, because if someone created 15 characters, then cancelled their subscription, there's no way to penalize them. It would make sense if each character beyond a certain limit cost 5 dollars or euros. A single character would be cheap, but if someone was to create 10 extra characters, that would be 50 dollars and that's a considerable donation. People would be less likely to abandon characters after paying for the right to create them.

Also people might be ready to pay extra for the right to pick where the character spawns, or at least for the right to eliminate certain towns or islands from the pool.

[ObsessedWithCats]

I can't comment on town security all that much having rarely seen big towns XD I'm not sure where that comes into the minutes limit/characters per player/bigger cities discussion?

I just occurred to me that we're saying all this like Cantr is dying but I can't say I've seen much of a change in the 2.5 years I've played. There have been slumps in particular areas but plenty of signs of new growth in others and mostly just signs that we have plenty of wakeful characters and enthusiastic players stretched out a bit further than is comfortable.



For English players at least (and I've not heard complaints of this problem in other language zones, though I guess I shouldn't expect to necessarily), judging by the stats pages, 'old' players make up nearly 80% of (active) players, so I doubt we'd solve much if they were exempt.

[SekoETC]

I feel that a lot of players have the potential to rp and their characters have more depth that shows on top, but they have fallen into apathy and stopped trying. I certainly used to emote more in the past. Then things changed and I got generally known as a simmer and having characters who never *smile*.