Cantr II Discussion Forum

Off topic, but maybe a post somewhere about what specific staffing resources Cantr needs atm could be useful for new players/those interested in joining staff. (IE, "we are currently implementing X and need Y to work on it.")

*sighs*
I don't want to do this, but I have been taught all my life that it's a 'must'. If you are part of something, you have to give your 2 cents every time someone brings something to the discussion table.

PaintedbyRoses wrote:~ THERE WOULD BE NO WIKI or communication channels for players.

This is silly. You can take down the official wiki, but that doesn't mean that someone else won't start another wiki project at some point.
About the communication channels, I came with the Discord thingy already here. I don't know how it was before, and I don't want to know neither. I think that every community needs a fluid communication. If the people use it in the wrong way, it's not the communication channel's fault, but the people. Specific, pointable, people.

PaintedbyRoses wrote:~ Notes could only be written if the character possessed some kind of paper and ink. Notes could not be copied - everything drawn or written would have to be copied by hand (until someone invents a machine to do it).

Partially agree. While I'm with you about the need of paper and ink,... This is internet. Manually selecting and copy/pasting or doing it automatically is the same. It saves you... what? half a min? Just let the auto copy thingy there, please.

PaintedbyRoses wrote:~ Cantrians would be spawned at different ages: infant, 5 years old, 10 years old or 15 years old. The player could choose the age or take one at random. Infants and 5 year olds would have to go to a character or characters who requested one that age but they can't request the gender. 10 year olds and 15 year olds are on their own. 10 year olds would be limited in the kind of work they could do. Survival would be hard for them without help.

Totally with you. I would even suggest pregnancies, in the way of having the option, with a female or male character, to access an option about 'mating' or something with someone. That person has to agree in order for a pregnancy to happen. People shouldn't be notified about someone wanting to mate with their character (or it would become a spamming resource), but should could check on someone specifically to see if that person is trying it or not. Both should be at the same spot and it actually becoming an action that would take some time.

PaintedbyRoses wrote:~ At 20 years old characters could formally choose a profession. They would have to apprentice to an master in that profession or fulfill certain requirements on their own.

Totally with you. I would even add that while you are an apprentice, your skill raises faster, but you can only learn as much as your tutor knows.

PaintedbyRoses wrote:~ Apothecaries would have more healing skills.

Sweet Voldemort!! I would even add skills for bandaging.

PaintedbyRoses wrote:~ There would be more illnesses.

Totally with you.

PaintedbyRoses wrote:~ There would be injuries.

Totally with you.

PaintedbyRoses wrote:~ There would be insects.

Again. With you.

PaintedbyRoses wrote:~ The weather would have more effect on characters: freezing to death in the cold weather, dying of thirst in the desert, etc.

Same as above.

PaintedbyRoses wrote:~ Other than small gardens, plant food could only be grown by farmers who have cleared land and planted crops. Crops could fail due to weather, insects, etc.

Same.

PaintedbyRoses wrote:~ Everything, EVERYTHING, would have to be invented from scratch by trial and error. These inventions or recipes or other things or knowledge of them could only be learned directly from someone who knows them.

I would like to see where you are pointing with this... Like you explaining a bit more your idea.

PaintedbyRoses wrote:~ Animals would have to be killed in some more realistic way - traps, guns, bow and arrows and it would take more skill to kill big game.

Indeed. Actually, you shouldn't be able to see all the group, but to 'hunt', like an activity, and see what you find. Just to know there is a tiny, small, medium, or big population around of certain animals, but not to actually know the amount of them. And for Josh sake, if you hit some animal and the animal doesn't die, correct that of someone else coming and hitting the same individual animal you hit before.

PaintedbyRoses wrote:~ Players could play wild and domesticated animals. Some animals could talk. Animals would be able to do more things and have more personality.

With you.

PaintedbyRoses wrote:~ There would be a few other species of human-like characters. Some would have a certain magical power like invisibility at will, hypnosis, the ability to charm animals, etc.

Not with you at all. I think that the essence of Cantr is, in part, the totally lack of magic. At all. I wouldn't even add zombies, and I love zombies.

PaintedbyRoses wrote:~ It would be a whole new world with new islands and continents.

...? Yeah,... Well... New or not, the whole experience would be new. You can change the resources and spots location and it would be like new.

PaintedbyRoses wrote:~ On land there would be rivers which would need to have bridges built to cross (or boats).

Wow... This is really interesting and I think it deserves an own topic.

PaintedbyRoses wrote:~ Characters could build new roads in rural areas to start farms.

How?...

PaintedbyRoses wrote:~ Walls could be built with gates and locks.

I remember myself talking about this before, I guess?. If I didn't suggest it, I support it.

PaintedbyRoses wrote:~ Sea travel would be more dangerous with deadly sea monsters, reefs, shoals, currents that take you off course plus a ship could sail off the edge of the world never to be seen again.

Please. I was really really disappointed when I came to know that the Kraken has already died and it will never respawn again :C...


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Chris wrote:1. Each player would have only one character. The rationale for multiple characters was that the game was so boring that people needed multiple feeds to stay interested. Then that had some very negative side effects like (1) CRBs and (2) people over-committing with 15 characters and getting burned out (and disappointing their co-players). Developers shouldn't use multiple characters as a crutch to avoid addressing core gameplay flaws - the most important flaw being that so much depends on waiting, not on the player's current desire to play.

Not with you at all. I think that since we are really few, a big population is 'needed'. Anyway, a starting population could be limited if every language spawns initially at the same island; since you can't spawn 2 characters at the same place, you would be initially limited till the language groups start spreading a bit.

Chris wrote:2. Everything on a timer should be accelerated: projects, travel, etc.

With you.

Chris wrote:3. Characters should die of old age if they live long enough.

Totally.

Chris wrote:4. Auto-eating should be removed. If someone doesn't log on for several weeks, the character starves to death. Eating should be prompted on login for a character who is hungry.

Agree.

Chris wrote:5. Trade should be automated. Someone makes a hard-coded proposal: let's trade A for B. If the other character makes a hard-coded acceptance (i.e., game checks that they actually has B in inventory to trade), then the trade immediately occurs. Perhaps a trading post that is easy to build would be necessary.

Discussable. I'm more with the trade post idea, since irl, you can always cheat.

Chris wrote:6. There should be some kind of money system baked in, not character-driven ones that are quickly abandoned.

Not with you. Actually the dollar works because people believe in it. And what happened with the Bitcoin? I ve studied about it at school. It started being meaningless, and it ended being worth millions. It's up to the people. Always.

Chris wrote:7. It should be made explicit that the game will be reset from time to time, with some notice (e.g., six weeks). This is so things don't fossilize just because X years have passed with certain things in place. Devs should feel free to take chances and not feel that innovation might be a mistake that ruins things forever.

Not at all. I'm against resets. You mess it up, you fix it. If some societies or communities at Cantr are static now, that's because people don't grow the balls to change the status quo. France was an absolute kingdom till some peasants, herded by some merchants who wanted more rights for themselves, started to kick tables and throw chairs.

Chris wrote:8. Devs should work out how they feel about PvP violence and steer the game accordingly. When PvP is unconstrained, it tends to overshadow every other aspect of the game. But if that's OK, then adopt a proven combat system (i.e., one used by another game that has unconstrained PvP). Otherwise, put in PvP limits (e.g., only in an arena or a lawless region).

Not at all again, partly. Violence or the lack of it it's up to the people. If you start moderating stuff, then it's not a social simulator. It's just Stardew Valley Online. Go and play with your text sheeps.
But I'm with you about the thing that the game needs a better combat system. Just not a zone limited one or something.

Chris wrote:9. Have NPCs intermittently pop up and offer rare goods for sale. This is a much better resource sink than rot. Prices can adjust in a quasi-market fashion. If a lot of people are buying serrated hunting knives, then the price goes up. I know that NPCs are felt to be un-Cantr-like, but they can flesh out a world that will otherwise feel very empty compared to real life and other MMOs.

Not with you... at all. Again, Stardew Valley Online. You lose the simulator thing on there. The greatest thing from this game is the lack of npcs and the absolute discretionary commerce.

Wolfsong wrote:

PaintedbyRoses wrote:~ Cantrians would be spawned at different ages: infant, 5 years old, 10 years old or 15 years old. The player could choose the age or take one at random. Infants and 5 year olds would have to go to a character or characters who requested one that age but they can't request the gender. 10 year olds and 15 year olds are on their own. 10 year olds would be limited in the kind of work they could do. Survival would be hard for them without help.

Hard pass. My thoughts on that FTO birthing system are available elsewhere on the forum. I've suggested compromises before, allowing people to spawn at adult ages in addition to children over multiple characters, but I haven't seen it well implemented yet. Simple fact - some people do not want to play slavering idiots for 20 IG years, and forcing them to (or forcing them to "only" play idiots for 5 years before they can do anything) will massively hurt new player retention.

Another thing to consider - browser games get a lot of very unsavoury people playing them from time to time. Other games, like FTO/Marosia, have had pedophilia rings pop up around underage characters ("but the player is an adult"!) and violence against children is probably not something you want to advertise as a feature of your game, at least when the game is tied intimately to the Mormon faith.

Given how many people on Cantr already play as children, despite spawning in at 20 years of age, and then get wrapped up in weird sex cult shit... Again, hard hard pass.

Ugh. That's... Creepy. And I have a foot on the children side actually since I'm not adult (yet!! Just wait for me 5 months!!). I have had a lot of talks about this at the school, and a ton more with my parents. It's a real thing on itself. While I think a social simulator should have a complete freedom (yet pressing the rules about it)... I can say that even the actual rules about the sexual rp and... that... all... are not totally rigid. Maybe a more active vigilance...

Wolfsong wrote:

PaintedbyRoses wrote:~ There would be insects.

What does this contribute to the game? You can roleplay bugs currently if you want.

I was thinking about it like... I dunno... plagues? More like events, not animals you can point to.

Wolfsong wrote:

PaintedbyRoses wrote:~ Players could play wild and domesticated animals. Some animals could talk. Animals would be able to do more things and have more personality.

How does this improve the game? If animals are primarily hunted for sport, and cannot do things like farm, make weapons, etc. (unless you're suggesting that horses be able to weave clothes or something) - how does their inclusion as PCs make the game more vibrant? If anything, if there is a strict cap on characters, this would stretch out playerbases and make towns even more population poor.

I think he means "play" like making the animal do something. Just like parrots talk. Eagles could cry, or... Idk... do something eaglely!!

Wolfsong wrote:

PaintedbyRoses wrote:~ Characters could build new roads in rural areas to start farms.

How do you envision travel working? You'd need to redesign it because the system that exists in Cantr doesn't really have rural vs. urban areas. How do roads = farms? Are you suggesting a simple grid system a la FTO/Marosia with "roads" (ie, speeding up travel between grids) connecting adjacent ones?

Good question.

Wolfsong wrote:

PaintedbyRoses wrote:~ Walls could be built with gates and locks.

Walls around towns? IE, literally preventing newspawn from ever leaving your slave pit?

Yeah,... Well, you know that could always happen. It happens with some modern countries right now. BUT... you can always climb a wall, right?

I just moved and I'm having problems getting my WiFi set up so I can't respond much right now.

Wolfsong - *sigh*

Joshua - "...organizing the work and writing out the details for things; also user experience research (join Marketing)" this stuff is my talent. I didn't think there was anything I could do to help but, when I am better able to get online, I will definitely be in touch.

Also - What's the deal with the close ties to the Mormon church?

I'm selfish, and I totally fall for the whole "good old days" bullshit mindset of the 600s to 2000s, so I would love to see a reset, or a "side-set" allowing for a return to my youth :p in such a scenario I'd love to see the following:

-A single language group - I never really enjoyed interacting with other language groups. Really cool that it exists to date as a concept, and likely brought in a good number players who would have chars in multiple language groups, but I always found in practice that it was not pleasurable.

-A fresh map designed for the current catalogue of resources and lessons learned from this go around. - Not only would it be fun to HAVE to explore again, but an appropriate scale could make it more enjoyable and placements of resources could promote more interesting behaviours.

-A blank slate might encourage some more bold and interesting societies to emerge, where we currently still see a remarkable amount of "samey-ness". Maybe this is too much to hope for, but a guy can dream!

-I'd like to see a player culture that allows their characters to impose a little more direction on newspawns. As it stands, you spawn knowing nothing about your home, the people in it, the culture. Nobody really tells you. For those who want to craft their character from their environment, it would be neat to have this precadent. Ultimately the player can make the decision to do whatever they want, but they can do that anyways.

Mechanically, it would be interesting to see a few systems implemented that would stimulate some critical elements like cooperation, conflict, and commerce.

-"Vending machines" or "Bank machines" - These could be tuned in-game to accept player made currencies in exchange for certain items, and vice versa. This would make trade so much more practical with cantr's pace. Interaction would still be important, as price settings could be tweaked, etc. I was debating with myself if this "automation" would be a bad thing, but I think benefits outweigh the cons.

-Combat would be more sticky, less lethal, and a little more random. I haven't dealt much in combat in game, but I think as it stands you hope or plan (maybe through cbr unfortunately) for a group of chars to be awake at once, suprise attack key targets to kill, or wound drag and kill. This gives a severe advantage to attackers, kills important characters, maybe encourages cheating, and ultimately isn't very fun for anyone except maybe the victors.
I'd envision instead an engagement being instigated with another character over a period of time (4 hours? 8 hours?) with the ability for others to join the engagement and support either side. Factors would apply to separate sides as a whole, and results would trickle down to individual characters. Victors would rarely escape completely unharmed, losers could have verious penalties applied to them, rarely would people be killed outright, though it should be a possibilty. Dialogue/RP during engagement might make it more fun, it would better suit the pace of the game, risks would apply for attackers, and a loss would be less definite. A good designer could probably get really conplex with this if it added to the system. Encourages cooperation within groups and allows conflict to be a more enjoyable option.

-Age would impact a character's ability to do things themselves. Maybe through skill degradation, maybe through increased tiredness for simple things, maybe through more frequent sickness. This would mechanically incentivise the wealthy, immortal elder elite to lean on the younger population, encouraging cooperation and maybe economic systems.

-Machines and roads would degrade when not in frequent enough use. Maintenace of machines and roads can be implied with use. This reduces clutter and allows for decline while not implementing a boring mechanic to always fix what is used most. This could probably be expanded to other things as well. I'm not sure why I think this would be useful, tbh.

It's a fun exercise.

Those are some good ideas, DylPickle (do you go by Dyl?). I can see now that I needed to add some explanations as to why I thought my ideas would be good in a reset Cantr. Some are more justifiable than others and, of course, they would all be nightmares to program (but I don't have to care about that). Here goes!

~ THERE WOULD BE NO WIKI or communication channels for players.
--Because the Wiki has ruined Cantr.

~ Notes could only be written if the character possessed some kind of paper and ink. Notes could not be copied automatically - everything drawn or written would have to be copied by hand (until someone invents a machine to do it)
--Because I think there are too many notes around and they are too easy to reproduce. We can only do that with the aid of a copy machine or a printing press so I don't see why it should be so easy in Cantr. Paper and ink should be precious and valuable items. Copyist (or whatever you call someone with the ability to make copies) should be an important and difficult skill which is learned at a school or from a master.

~ Cantrians would be spawned at different ages: infant, 5 years old, 10 years old or 15 years old. The player could choose the age or take one at random. Infants and 5 year olds would have to go to a character or characters who requested one that age but they can't request the gender. 10 year olds and 15 year olds are on their own. 10 year olds would be limited in the kind of work they could do. Survival would be hard for them without help.
--Because I think a lot of players would like it and I think it would make the game more interesting. As for abusing child characters, that is something that should be controlled by reporting it to staff. Perhaps there should be an emergency reporting system for heinous behavior.

~ At 20 years old characters could formally choose a profession. They would have to apprentice to a master in that profession or fulfill certain requirements on their own.
--Why don't we have schools where characters could go to learn from skilled teachers? Knowledge and skill should be acquired by the character in game, not just available via mechanics or by the player reading the Wiki.

~ Apothecaries would have more healing skills.
--Because the whole apothecary concept is wasted now with virtually nothing for the practitioner to do.

~ There would be more illnesses.
--Because in life a lot of people are affected by illness. It would create drama, change up stale populations and give healers something to do.

~ There would be injuries.
--Because in life a lot of people get hurt. It would create drama, change up stale populations and give healers something to do.

~ There would be insects.
--Because insects rule the world. They would cause disease, ruin food, kill domestic animals, be annoying, etc. They would also produce silk, be a source of food for people and animals, help with decay, etc.

~ The weather would have more effect on characters: freezing to death in the cold weather, dying of thirst in the desert, etc.
--I would like to see areas with extreme climates which have a real effect on the characters. Arctic, jungle, volcanic islands, places that flood or have droughts, etc.

~ Other than small gardens, plant food could only be grown by farmers who have cleared land and planted crops. Crops could fail due to weather, insects, etc.
--Because I want to see the professions have more meaning and consequence in the game.

~ Everything, EVERYTHING, would have to be invented from scratch by trial and error. These inventions or recipes or other kinds of knowledge could only be learned directly from someone who knows them or from a note produced by a professional note maker.
--This is why no Wiki. Players would not know how to make things either because everything would be different, for instance: The way of making iron would be more complex and the machines to make it would be different. All these things would be learned by the characters and passing knowledge from player to player would be a breach of the rules. If a player sees another character suddenly have knowledge that they didn't discover for themselves or learn from another character, that player would be reported. The age of discovery and exploration were the best times for Cantr.

~ Animals would have to be killed in some more realistic way - traps, guns, bow and arrows and it would take more skill to kill big game.
--Because what we have now is stupid and unrealistic.

~ Players could play wild and domesticated animals. Some animals could talk. Animals would be able to do more things and have more personality.
--Because I think it would be fun. I don't see the problem with a little controlled magic in Cantr. Maybe it would be limited to a very few characters. Maybe when choosing male or female, very rarely and randomly, a third choice of "animal" would appear and the player could choose it or not. They would start off wild and could be killed or domesticated, just like other animals.

~ There would be a few (2-3) other species of human-like characters. Some individuals would have a certain magical power like invisibility at will, hypnosis, the ability to charm animals, the ability to steal, immortality, etc.
--Exactly the same as with animals except for the domesticating part. They would start out alone in an isolated place.

~ It would be a whole new world with new islands and continents.
--Because Cantrians need to explore and the game needs danger and excitement.

~ On land there would be rivers which would need to have bridges built to cross (or boats).
--Because it would make the land more interesting. It wouldn't be so easy to get from place to place. Bridges could give way, or be destroyed (dynamite!). Boats might sink with passengers on board.

~ Characters could build new roads in rural areas to start farms and to mine ore or other resources.
--Because people don't grow huge crops of food or dig up diamonds in the middle of a town.

~ Walls could be built with gates and locks. They could be breached or torn down or burnt down (let's do more with fire!)
--Because it would promote conflict.

~ Sea travel would be more dangerous with deadly sea monsters, reefs, shoals, currents that take you off course plus a ship could sail off the edge of the world never to be seen again.
--Because it shouldn't be so easy to sail across an ocean. Characters should die doing it.

My apologies for not yet reading everything. - And how do we turn these suggestions into action items?
I can see that we need to clarify what Cantr is and what principles we use to decide changes. We've been planning on writing new guidelines for the Resources Department, but haven't yet. See Cantr's mission statement for a start: http://webzine.cantr.org/english/game-u ... rs-mission

4. Auto-eating should be removed. If someone doesn't log on for several weeks, the character starves to death. Eating should be prompted on login for a character who is hungry.

Problem: We don't want to inconvenience or annoy players.
Proposed solution: Have characters eat only if they are viewed within a specified period (e.g. a couple days)- same activity period that will be used to enable the arrival of newspawns.

5. Trade should be automated. Someone makes a hard-coded proposal: let's trade A for B. If the other character makes a hard-coded acceptance (i.e., game checks that they actually has B in inventory to trade), then the trade immediately occurs. Perhaps a trading post that is easy to build would be necessary.

Tradepost: Great. Need to work out the details are implement it, but I would implement it with two keys- one for each side of the trade. Each side can determine what the other side must pay, and they can only receive items from the other side of the agreement when they've paid on their side, with their key. - unfortunately that's not so good if someone has a copy of both keys, so maybe an easy way to generate a new key for each trade would be needed- could even reuse the iron of the last key.

-"Vending machines" or "Bank machines" - These could be tuned in-game to accept player made currencies in exchange for certain items, and vice versa. This would make trade so much more practical with cantr's pace. Interaction would still be important, as price settings could be tweaked, etc. I was debating with myself if this "automation" would be a bad thing, but I think benefits outweigh the cons.

I agree that there's probably a good way to encourage both communication and player convenience. And the tradepost and bank machine ideas could be merged.

Joshuamonkey wrote:

4. Auto-eating should be removed. If someone doesn't log on for several weeks, the character starves to death. Eating should be prompted on login for a character who is hungry.

Problem: We don't want to inconvenience or annoy players.
Proposed solution: Have characters eat only if they are viewed within a specified period (e.g. a couple days)- same activity period that will be used to enable the arrival of newspawns.

Please no. Let people's characters continue to choose to keep other characters alive by feeding them if they want to spend their time doing so. They will eventually have a heart attack or starve because people stop feeding them. I think the best compromise is to add a "do not eat" feature that people can toggle on or off if they want (per character). Then players can keep their characters from being fed if they don't want them to live when they get sidetracked by life.

I also don't want to have to log in every couple of days just to "wake up" some system to allow my character to be fed when I'm dealing with RL and either don't have energy to log in or have extreme anxiety about logging in for a week or something.

All that aside, to get this thread back on track, this is a fantasy thread, that's why there's no proposed mechanical or fleshed out details; they aren't suggestions. It's just "what if" you could make Cantr exactly like you would like.

the_antisocial_hermit wrote:All that aside, to get this thread back on track, this is a fantasy thread, that's why there's no proposed mechanical or fleshed out details; they aren't suggestions. It's just "what if" you could make Cantr exactly like you would like.

Yeah! That's the word that has escaped me. This is a frickin' frackin' fantasy thread!!!

"What if" you could make Cantr exactly like you would like it in your wildest (but legal - you know what I mean) fantasies? Try it. It's fun.

~ Notes could only be written if the character possessed some kind of paper and ink. Notes could not be copied automatically - everything drawn or written would have to be copied by hand (until someone invents a machine to do it)
--Because I think there are too many notes around and they are too easy to reproduce. We can only do that with the aid of a copy machine or a printing press so I don't see why it should be so easy in Cantr. Paper and ink should be precious and valuable items. Copyist (or whatever you call someone with the ability to make copies) should be an important and difficult skill which is learned at a school or from a master.

Everyone will just save information outside the game in notepad or whatever, and if someone else needs it, text-dump copy/paste it into chat/whisper. At best you can try and sic the PD on them for rulebreaking, but then you'll just be losing players, which there aren't that many last I checked. While it might seem like a fun mechanic to you, it's just busywork that doesn't add much if anything to the game experience for others, and means the PD will have a more work to do for a net loss of players. This would be a very flat pointless hill for this game to completely die on.

One could make it so that standard notes will deteriorate and disappear after a couple days outdoors ("year" or so indoors), and "hard" notes written spending resources will stick around until dismantled. This way there aren't just dozens of notes around on the ground. (would also be nice if they had their own tab under objects, just like they do in your inventory)

Having notes in one's inventory deteriorate should be a hard no, as again, then there is no reason to even have them, everyone will just use notepad.

And the term you're looking for is Scribe (not copyist).

However what a scribe COULD do for a skill, to add some meaningful interaction to the game. You've got that "invention" concept running around. Scribes could be necessary for efficiently spreading knowledge. Have a scribe and a person with some skill, or an inventor of some item do a project together, and spend some writing materials... and out comes a training manual that a character can read to give them experience in a skill quickly, up to a point. Or they can get a blueprint for the invented item, that lets others automatically(or more quickly) learn the invention without having to spend time working up to it the normal way. After that, copying and repairing these books would be an entirely reasonable profession for a character.

That 1 guy I came across years ago might finally live the dream of being a librarian, gathering up all the books and building a place on an island to store them.


Far as "invention" as a whole the idea of players being able to work their way up a tech tree seems fun, but it's a stupidly broad stroke to just say "players would have to invent new things" without the slightest shred of how invention might work. My fantasy about how invention should work in cantr I know for a fact is extremely different from yours, and any time I might talk of it from this point on, would be quite contradictory to yours.

I know the opinions of a couple of yous is

All that aside, to get this thread back on track, this is a fantasy thread, that's why there's no proposed mechanical or fleshed out details; they aren't suggestions. It's just "what if" you could make Cantr exactly like you would like.

(which by the way is a contradictory statement. Thoughts on how exactly you'd like the game to be, generally should mean that ideas should be fleshed out. Perhaps not at a mechanical level... but more than an single sentence stating a want.)
But please, for the clarity of others reading... how about a tiny bit more detail than "invention exists", "hunting should be more realistic", "have anyone associated with the wiki: court marshaled, shot, and sent to the Russian front!"

This is after all a thread about "what if' you could make Cantr exactly like you would like."

I just do not understand why people who are so good at role playing and imagining have so much trouble day dreaming about a Cantr of their imagination without worrying about the mechanics. There are plenty of 'suggestion' threads and you can always start a new one. This thread is not under 'suggestions'.

I would like to address some of your comments about my fantasy Cantr, though.

Everyone will just save information outside the game in notepad or whatever, and if someone else needs it, text-dump copy/paste it into chat/whisper. At best you can try and sic the PD on them for rule breaking, but then you'll just be losing players, which there aren't that many last I checked. While it might seem like a fun mechanic to you, it's just busywork that doesn't add much if anything to the game experience for others, and means the PD will have a more work to do for a net loss of players. This would be a very flat pointless hill for this game to completely die on.

In my imaginary Cantr, players would understand and embrace the fun of having their characters discover the new world and almost everything in it for themselves. Some characters could be amateur or professional inventors. Basically, scientists who thrive on figuring things out. Others would benefit from their hard work through the natural spread of knowledge.

In my Cantr it would be as exciting to discover or find out about a new recipe or machine or resource or tool as it would be to discover a new island. It would not be 'busy work' to me, it would be fulfilling Cantrs' original promise that a character can "be whatever they want to be." I choose not to assume that everyone would cheat. That's like saying in RL that we shouldn't have laws because there will always be people who break them.

Thanks for reminding me of the word 'Scribe.' Cantr is so medieval in so many ways, I think it's a profession that would fit right in. I like the idea that notes on the ground would deteriorate. Someone would have to invent a way to protect them for town notices and such.

Scribes could be necessary for efficiently spreading knowledge. Have a scribe and a person with some skill, or an inventor of some item do a project together, and spend some writing materials... and out comes a training manual that a character can read to give them experience in a skill quickly, up to a point. Or they can get a blueprint for the invented item, that lets others automatically(or more quickly) learn the invention without having to spend time working up to it the normal way. After that, copying and repairing these books would be an entirely reasonable profession for a character.

This is (almost) exactly what I had in mind. I didn't elaborate much because my post was already quite long.

My fantasy about how invention should work in cantr I know for a fact is extremely different from yours, and any time I might talk of it from this point on, would be quite contradictory to yours.

Maybe, maybe not. I guess we'll never know. If only there were a thread where you could talk about your fantasy version of invention in Cantr.

"have anyone associated with the wiki: court marshaled, shot, and sent to the Russian front!"

Please don't put things I never wrote in quotation marks as if I did write them. I know your intention was to make a point through exaggeration but you put it with several other actual quotes of things that I wrote and that is not appreciated.

This is after all a thread about "what if' you could make Cantr exactly like you would like.

I was hoping that my original post (and I have said many times) would give others an idea of how free they could be about having fun with an imaginary Cantr without worrying about the mechanics, for once. I thought it would be fun but, alas...

Just pointing something out here:

Before Cantr, I played some other games and I wandered and frolicked around the inet for quite a while; I guess that's something common to all my generation now. One of those games was Wurm Online.
Something amazing from WO was the fact that you were only able to discover how to craft something through putting things together and seeing what items were available as output. The game had a wiki, indeed, but all the knowledge there was the fruit of the constant work of the entire playerbase for discovering new things and trying, calculating, testing stuff.
When I came to the game, that age was concluded and they added a kind of in-game wiki with the entire list of craftable things and their mats and process. Yet, something remains still from that: the exact mechanics behind the game are still a mystery for all but the coders. So what happens beyond the obvious things, what are the numbers or the influence of different factors, are only up to the people's guessing and the experimentation.

NOW...

I think that the absolute lack of guides and knowledge of the game's gears and ways is interesting and thrilling, BUT SOME PEOPLE, SPECIALLY THOSE WHO ARE OLD PLAYERS, might feel that this is turning quickly into rocket science, and so making them frown from the game completely. Some people is here, after all, not for the complex mechanics and thrill of having to develop, invent, and discover,... But for what this was all about at first: the RP.

MAYBE... If we make some simple things, items, and tasks, a common knowledge, and we leave the more complex stuff to the experimentation and learning?

Just trying to find a middle point into all this.

I still think this would be a great thing, or to have a fresh world that would run in parallel with the existing one.

Edit: I'm considering returning to Cantr

Andu wrote:I still think this would be a great thing, or to have a fresh world that would run in parallel with the existing one.

Edit: I'm considering returning to Cantr

Or there shall be an option to create new character in a distant wild island in a location without any other characters.

lacki2000 wrote:Or there shall be an option to create new character in a distant wild island in a location without any other characters.

Yes, I think there is enough space for this already, and if the problem is that there are too many things, then it's time to clean up abandoned towns.

Also, we're planning to do a lot with the Intro server soon (in fact, all players are allowed to have a mentor character on the Intro server- you can send me a message), but the idea of the Intro server is to have many players in the same place, not spread out. More about this later.