Postby Cogliostro » Fri Sep 04, 2009 1:10 pm
Actually, let's be fair here. There is a lot of healthy "universalism" in many of Cantr's mission-critical features. Witness how if you are on a ship, there's no discrimination whatsoever whether you are the captain or not, anyone can control the ship. That's just one example, but you'll find it anywhere that you find the game offering players the equal convenience to do something regardless of what the context is.
Why doesn't anyone raise a lawyerly objection to that, though, and point to the front page? Answer: 'cause that's a pointless, anal retentive exercise, (unless you are gearing up for law school down the line). Very similarly, I think we can categorize what you're saying as the same kind of thing.
Meanwhile I think the beef-objection you have in mind is that you're using sealed envelopes as currency and think that's a clever idea. But in the way I suggested it, it wouldn't be possible to use your envelopes as currency for stalls. I guess you are not aware, either, that seals can be very easily forged... Or you even accept that, because you really want to use something like that. Just for the sake of argument, what if stalls did accept your envelopes?
My point which I'm having to make over and over, is that having a market stall feature/option in no way stops you from continuing to use your envelopes or anything else you like. It's you, rather, who is imposing a limit, by arguing against allowing others to use the stall for convenient, gameplay-enhancing trading. Your specific objections are esoteric and nitpicky, and all come down to simply being against it on principle - you think Cantr doesn't deserve its own functional trade mechanism! It should be admitted openly, you're not saying you found something wrong in practice with the idea of people using stalls (exploits etc.), but rather saying that people SHOULDN'T be able to use stalls, because just because. That's your point and opinion, for which you can later contrive the examples to fit. Otherwise I did appreciate your well-constructed arguments!
Also before pointing to the front page as though it was the Holy Bible, it'd be good to make sure we understand the intent of what it's saying, rather than being stuck on following everything it said to the letter (like lawyers would). If you look at it from this perspective, then you will see that the "universalism will not be coded" objection is in every way equivallent to "automation will not be coded". But it's already been demonstrated that there is no automation here, and a feature usable by all players must of necessity be "universal" in that sense you mean - just like sailing ships, or driving cars, or joining and leaving projects - think about the terrible universalism inherent in that; people can join your projects without your permission! Or, they can give you stuff without you ever wanting to take any of it. The list of rampant white anglo-saxon protestant universalism in the game goes on and on.
Holding that thought about the intent being much more important than the literal contents of a communication, I got a question for you - why do you think a Cogliostro would push for a new idea like these market stalls in Cantr? Could it be because he has nothing better to do? Or, what if, he came up with that as an actual solution to something else, something that interestingly isn't being directly stated? I am talking, of course, of our heated past discussions about asynchronous combat in Cantr. Side by side with something like that, we introduce an asynchronous option for goods exchange. Doug likes telling me to go to another game for that, since after such changes Cantr wouldn't be Cantr any longer. The question is whether it's worth it to try completely new things at this particular juncture, when the English part of the game is rapidly dying away. Doug's right, but so am I - because I think unless we do something serious that changes everything for the better, pretty soon I'll be having to learn Polish if I want to keep on playing Cantr.