Scrolls

[Jur Schagen]

Now why do you all think that I expect chars to study indoors for many years, to get the scrolls? As I was saying, it should contain exotic combinations, like 50g of lead, 1000g of papaya's, and only three days work. Copying it would just take the three days, though.

There may be lead in the deep storages of the bigger towns, but I'm pretty sure that there aren't 1000 grams of papaya's in most of the major towns (though I can't speak for the Polish zone). There. You have your quest. Go get papaya's. Ask around, for people that have ever heard about papaya's. Travel in all directions, unboard, and ask again. Find them, but guarded by an army, selling them only at extreme prices. Devise a cunning plan to steal them. Quest.

You think it adds to tedium? Well, building a stone house once took an uncivilized person 30 days to dig the stone and 28 days to cement it; let's say 60 total. A place like Blojt has like thirty buildings and god only knows how many indoors rooms... do you want me to make a calculation? Chars have spent Cantr centuries building all that... and why? It's like the pyramids, noone knows. 20% of all those locs is actually used, the rest just contain stacks of bones and wood. But there has never been slave labour in Blojt, and all those buildings were built purely voluntarily. Can it be that these chars actually liked the tedium?

Another point. We are heading towards the end of the current tech tree pretty fast. Dirt motorcycles were introduced some time around Cantr day 1000, and they're a pretty common sight now. Cars and the like are still scarce, but that will not last much longer. Some groups will go after a bus after that, but that's about it. New machines are built within a month of introduction by RD, just look at the radio's. All has been built. And how? By millions of hours of char labour, and securing the iron supply.

So you guys are saying it is too hard? I think the reason of your boredom might just lie in the last paragraph... there aren't goals to strive for, in material terms, for much longer. Your other char has the motorbike, this char works equally hard, he should have it too pretty soon. Every experienced player has a city leader or two, a businessman, a pirate, that has access to a car or a galleon.

We might just ask the RD to add new stuff... trains, aircraft carriers, mobile phones, you name it. But if they are built the same way as the current stuff, by getting a lot of iron and an even bigger lot of labor, I don't think it will be any different pursuing material goals than it is now. Soc is right, the game needs quests, it needs reasons to travel, and it needs regional difference.

Scrolls adding to regional difference? Yes, you heard right. In the land where the papaya's are plenttifull, this sexy new stuff gets built pretty easily; lets say it is a cheap but fast vehicle, with very little space in it. Communication will go fast, but cargo will travel slow. Town leaders can travel around easily to have meetings, but a house is hard to build in a place without local stone. An other region, however, has reed; and with reed, you can build a scroll that gets you a land monitor with room for a million of cargo and an army of soldiers, but terribly slow. A third region has the stuff to build a pistol, that can do 70 damage in a shot. Luckily, they border a region with the stuff to build a 50 def shield. This goes on.

And that's the first part. The scroll policies will vary greatly too. In some places, the rare scrolls will be guarded like treasures... using the result stuff to sell overpriced, to enforce government, to terrorize the region... In other places, the scrolls will get copied (remember, very cheap) and distributed fast by benevolent inventors that are after fame only. Conflict may arise from this; do the town leaders want the pistol scroll freely distributed? Or exported? Traders will take local scrolls out to far lands, and see what they're worth there... but will they be so valuable that they need a bodyguard not to get slain over it? Chars will have to adjust to new scrolls reachig town... and what can happen if that land monitor army is armed with rifles?

Wichita, I realize the problem of balancing all this, if you're comparing the "herbs" and the "doohickey", and the danger of homogenization. I think this could be avoided by two things; i.e. the constant adding of new stuff (as it is now) and new scrolls (associated to new stuff) by RD, and the implementation of rot for raws (losing a percentage each turn), so noone can store papaya's (and all other rare stuff you can lay your hands on, alongside with it) and wait for the RD to design something associated with them.

And I surely wouldn't mind introducing new raws every once in a while, unmapped, for the sole reason of being included in new scrolls.

Jur.

[wichita]

I actually had the "top of the tech tree" discussion in chat this evening and I am right there with you. I believe that the recent excitement over instruments being added shows that the player base in general is thirsty for something new and different. Like you say, cars are starting to become more commonsight, and it won't be much longer before we see a bus.

Simply having more stuff to build is probably going to spark the most interest IMO because it is tangible. There is always the social aspect to play with (which is where my characters spend their time, actually) but by and large Cantr is a tangible game for many players. Once you reach your fifties and have been productive, you kind of start running out of stuff to build and then it is just maintenance.

Discussions lately have been geared a bit more towards new/unused resources. What kind of shineys can we implement for characters to make, what kind of cute semi-functional things can we add that aren't simply new weapons or shields that just bump up the combat system another notch.

And I personally want to try to push a more regional flavor for the game. Ideally I think it would be fantastic if we could have resources distributed in such a way that characters from different locations could obtain items with the same game properies but different apearance.

For instance...
Island A: the primary dwellling type is the cottage, steel-bladed weapons, diets rich in potatoes and meat (stews, cooked meat, baked potatoes), hemp based clothing, prefered vehicle is ships

Island B: log cabins, mostly bows, vegetable rich diet, leather/wool clothing, mostly ships

Island C: stone buildings, bronze weapons, vegetable rich diet, silk clothing, more motor vehicles

Just a rough idea on the kind of differentiation it would be interesting to see. I am always concerned about vanilla Cantr, with everyone building the same equipment, setting up the same government, etc. If technology could be based more on what you can find to work with, as long as the survival needs of the characters are met, then all is well. The adventure will be figuring what all can be made.


I think I am wandering off topic here...but I think that is what I would like to try and offer, rather than having this scroll/eureka style of implementation which still leads everyone to the same ultimate endpoint.

[Jur Schagen]

Just a rough idea on the kind of differentiation it would be interesting to see. I am always concerned about vanilla Cantr, with everyone building the same equipment, setting up the same government, etc. If technology could be based more on what you can find to work with, as long as the survival needs of the characters are met, then all is well. The adventure will be figuring what all can be made.

I'm 100% with you there... but, to be honest, my chars usually couldn't care less on what exactly they feed on, though they see the advantages of light food. Being in a mud hut, a reed hut, or a stone building, isn't gonna do it either, if they have the same properties... big enough to set up some machines and the chars working them. This hasn't got to be about the names of the exact stuff you're using, but about the functionality of it.

I think I am wandering off topic here...but I think that is what I would like to try and offer, rather than having this scroll/eureka style of implementation which still leads everyone to the same ultimate endpoint.

There is no "ultimate endpoint". You are the chair of RD. It is your job to make sure there's no end point, dammit.

Jur.

[Pie]

I compleatly agree(although I find this confusing)

the biggest difference is language In cantr. We have ahuge cultural difference on some islands, such as that one with my one carricter on it, I have seen 3 different languages... 2 excluding my oun. Its very exiting to try and talk to different people. but differences should extend beond languages.

Irl, different languages had different wepons.This came frome different religions, but it also came frome different roots.

Lets look at the difference between Europe and aisia, and how those differences were inposed.

In Europe, there is no stable government(Im talking about mideeevl ages.) Its a fudilistic type government. Now, this tipe of government cannot be avoided, IMO(In my opinion... wait.. so THATS what IMO means) Becous every nation has experianced some sort of this. Japan, for instance. China surly, although I don't know much about china. Fudilism is what I think that cantr is in. Anarcy really. Each location has a different leader, and they rarely get together to form a rgeional group. Its all small time. Now, things do happen thougn, like, with blackrock on K island. And Mcgreggors, and the like. and of course, with the barron wars near blaman. I for one helped in establishing a government centrald in blaman, although I don't know what happened to it. Its happening all around cantr, diferences are happening. And what we must know, is that cantr is a very young planet. how many cantr years has it been? 100? 150? Belave me, in earth, we weren't this big 150 years after the creation of intelegent humans, or 150 years after creation, however you look at it.

now, back on topic. Confushis, budda, and many other religionistic people helped greatly in the creation of differenes in asia. And then there were the wars. And then theres the echonimy, and then theres cultural imperialism. all of this created differences. and tecnolagy creats difference also.

Now, in cantr, there is only one thing we can influence. Thats technolagy. to have tecnolagistic differences, we must have different root tecnolagys. DIFFERENT ROOT TECNOLAGY. that is the problem with cantr. We all have the same thing, the only thing ceeping people frome tecnolagy is recourses.

And i agree, we need to get different metals and alternatives to iron to be created. OR, if we want to make it more IRL, than we need to make it so that iron cant be gotton, UNTIL you have bronz things. MAby we should have made it so that you need a picaxe to get iron, so that you needed to get bronz first, and by then, you could, or could not, have gotten a good enough source of bronz to not need iron. OR, since we DIDN'T do that, than we just need to make bronz easyer to get, and use less coal.

but we also need to make it so that there are differences in compleat tecnolagy. So that people dont know about iron in some places. and in some places, the swords will be more like broadswords, unstead of the sabrs. And that will also create differences. I know this is goin back a loong time, but I think we should have a way to create tecnolagy. maby thats what your trying to say here... but i don't know... So, i will sugest this.


Itll be like real life. It won't affect alredy here places, but itll efect the newer places. Its easy. you don't make a project and then put in your iron. you put in your iron, and THEN start the project. VWALA!! And then, when making the iron, you choos both an amount of iron, and a way to make it, such as bending it first, or making points of weight.

VUALA!!! PERFICT!!! HUURAY!!!

The plan is in my head, but its still a fairly good plan. It'l create differences in tecnolagy, and create a need for specialasation. HURAY!!! WERE ALL THROUN BACK INTO THE CANTR 100'S!!!

But you have cool caricters, right? Youl get used to it, right? RONG!! It'll take another 50 CANTR YEARS to get back to normal!!! Maby. But look at all we have right now!! We have humongous 3, and 4, maby even 6 location empires in setain places right now. We can get trough it, becous we can still get a large amount of iron to just throw at it. and it'll create a need for specialasation. Well, at least, if this dosen't, than NOTHING will.

Now, look at this. What will it do? Will it create an insentive, or a desentive? It will create an insentive for knowlage. It will create an insentive for disign. It will create an insintive for discovery. It will create an insintave for EVERYTHING!!!

But it will take a long time to program, i mean, with all the persentages and numbers you will have to program, all the variables that will have to be added, for this, is it worth the work? Just look at all it will do. It's no harder to create than wether......... Well, I think jos is thinking up somthing REALLY complicated for weather.

To create differences, you need to have two things. recourse insentives, making iron harder to get posibally, or other things easyer to get, so that only sertain places can afford iron, but those places will have the upper hand. and Intelegence incintives. If you can have differences in tecnolagy, than you have everything. We have this alredy though, but it increases everything. It causis spetialasation, aprentanceships. it causes even more differences. its PERFICT!!!

dang, this is long.

[Phalynx]

I think communication is the key...

Telephones, mobile phones, mobile radios or something new and entirely cantr based would be great, but empires and expanded societies, diplomatic relations, trade agreemets, empires would be much more likely with communication and fast mass transit..

I know soe would argue that the British (and similar colonial powers) existed before such communication but they had something cantr will never have... massive man power.

Anyway my thoughts on what would stimulate development. Radios as they are should be either easier to make or be able to be moved so that most towns have one...

[SekoETC]

Being in a mud hut, a reed hut, or a stone building, isn't gonna do it either, if they have the same properties... big enough to set up some machines and the chars working them. This hasn't got to be about the names of the exact stuff you're using, but about the functionality of it.

Indeed. What does it matter to a loner character if their building can house ten people, when he may not have even seen ten people in years?! So he'll build a mud hut or a shack. But if we would find out that the shack has a chance of catching on fire from the firepit or smelting furnace, or that you couldn't put a door (and therefor a lock) on a mud hut, they would be more likely to invest in a stone building. But oh woe, you can't build a stone building since you don't have an iron trovel to spread invisible mortar with! Like, hello.

In real life the person might try building a house without mortar, by setting stones on top of each other. Some managed in it pretty well when they cut the stones to match each other perfectly. But maybe our crappy builder would try to use just ordinary stones, maybe he wouldn't have the tools to cut them. The building would be weaker, and likely have a roof made of another material, such as wood and or straw.

After the roof would burn a couple of times and part of the walls would collapse in a storm, the builder would start thinking of means for plugging the holes, keeping the stones together, repairing and improving his dwelling. If the stones are not stiffly mortared to each other, he might even take the whole house apart and start over with the same stones.

Ok what does this have to do with scrolls? I don't know, I haven't really read this topic. Maybe the guy could tell the next newspawn how to learn from his mistakes and use mortar on first attempt.

Communication is important too. If I make a game, people's voice will carry further than just fixed locations, so that within a certain radius they can be heard. Light will be carried over a distance in a similar manner. Or smoke signs. Though free roaming might cause some problems. You can't allow instaneous jumping from one space to another, as in real time games such as "Survival of the Fittest" I once played. There was barely any communication at all since you never ran into other people while online, and even if someone spoke to you in your sleep, they'd already be gone without a trace by the time you woke up. Though mostly you didn't wake up since someone killed you. That's why I tended to kill my character as I ran out of playing time, make a new one to collect the stuff as I reached the dying spot, provided that the cleaning bot hadn't gone through before that, then spend the night under newbie protection shield. It was a cool game for a bit but then I got bored in the impossibility of survival. Even if you managed to buy the most powerful weapon in game, you could still get killed in one shot if the older player finding you managed to get initiative.

[MrPenguin589]

Umm... I have a question here. These scrolls you are talking about, Jur, are these like blueprints for something that you can build, or what? Because if I remember right, I said something in the Invention suggestion thread that was something similar to this, that you experiment and make blueprints, and from these blueprints, you can make the item you designed. Exactly how good it is depends on your invention skill and the such, but yeah...

So is that what this is like? If so, that's really cool that one of my ideas got picked up, if not, then whatever. It's still cool either way.

[Jur Schagen]

Umm... I have a question here. These scrolls you are talking about, Jur, are these like blueprints for something that you can build, or what? Because if I remember right, I said something in the Invention suggestion thread that was something similar to this, that you experiment and make blueprints, and from these blueprints, you can make the item you designed. Exactly how good it is depends on your invention skill and the such, but yeah...

Sort of... it makes stuff unmanufacturable without them. Like, if you wanna build that mobile phone, you simply need that "Cellular" scroll, which costs 1,000 cadmium and some other stuff, which isn't right here or in the next town. So mobiles are out of the question until cadmium hits town.

That don't mean you could actually "design" the mobile, though; the mobile and its requirements are entered by RD, just like new items are right now.

Jur.

[Nalaris]

Can we please just decide that this is a good idea and implement it already? You're driving me nuts with all this futile debate!

[saztronic]

Can we please just decide that this is a good idea and implement it already? You're driving me nuts with all this futile debate!

Agreed. Make it so.

[MrPenguin589]

Can we please just decide that this is a good idea and implement it already? You're driving me nuts with all this futile debate!

Amen

[Jur Schagen]

*looks at Wichita* well he's the boss... and he don't like 'em...

Jur.

[Nosajimiki]

Okay, I don't know how well this goes in this thread, but if fits the culural differences and the talk about changes in how iron is worked with. Right now basicly every steal/bronze weapon is made using the same tools and machines. I think if the tools requirements were more varied, and perhaps the tools themselves requiring exotic materials for certain ones (zinc, cobalt, nickel, reed, whatever), then we could see more stylistic variation, so that something "primative" like a mace-head could be forged using nothing more than say a clay or stone casteing mold and some billows, whereas a more "technologically advanced" weapon like a Katana would require numerious expensive machines like a steel carbonizer, and some specialty hammers etc. that other swords don't use. This way you would see Sabres emerging where the tools to make them are more affordable and Longsword emerging where other tools are more affordable. This way there is no one "best value" weapon. Its then a ratio of what to put in to be able to make it versus what it takes to actually make it.
I also think Bronze isn't nearly common enough, It seems to me that it's harder to come up with all the base componets for than Steel, even if it is less labour once you have them, and it's less versitile and worse for weapon smithing. Going back to my previous topic, having some tools that have to be Bronze would also improve diversification of practical items... Imagin all those Crossbow manufactures out there sudenly realizing they need some kind of bronze componet if they want to keep making such a powerful weapon.