Creating windows of opportunity

[SekoETC]

When I was a newbie, I assumed (since none of my characters had ever seen a key) that if I moved fast enough, I could peek inside a storage room when someone entered it, if only I clicked fast enough. But people aren't required to unlock doors to enter places, so even if someone happened to be online at the right moment, or even if they had planned to stay alert when a guard comes to check on them in jail, they still had 0% chance of getting through the door without a key because the door is never really unlocked. One argument was that if it had to be opened and closed manually, an unexpected connection crash could make a person leave a door open unintentionally and be vulnerable to thieves and escaping prisoners. But what if it was possible to set up a backup timer for say 5 minutes so that if the door hasn't been re-locked by then, the person who unlocked it would do it automatically.

It's been said that people clicking fast enough shouldn't be given an advantage, but sometimes you happen to be online when a great opportunity presents itself, thus why not create more tiny opportunities? It would be better for rp is prisoners had a chance to escape, no matter how slight.

It would also make the game more interesting if it was possible to jump into a vehicle that just left or undocked, maybe to balance out the increased chance of theft caused by owners having to unlock their vehicle to enter it. Using the argument of Cantr isn't supposed to be about who's the fastest clicker, a person shouldn't be whisked away to safety in an instant when they undock, but it should be at least simulated that undocking takes a moment.

I can imagine how to take it even further, what if after someone picks something up or uses it on a project, it would be followed by a short time frame during which another person could take the object away and in the case of adding things to a project, undo the action. Chance of success could be calculated with the same formula as drag percentage. Both parties would gain a bit of tiredness, but if the person attempting to grab the object failed, they would gain more tiredness, while if the defender failed, they would gain more instead.

[Doug R.]

I really don't like this suggestion. The last thing I need to worry about is some douche stealing my ship, my car, or my worldly possessions just because my character suddenly became incapable of noticing and preventing someone from following me into/out of these locations.

[*Wiro]

I like this suggestion.

[Caesar]

It seems like a great suggestion to me, Seko!

[Marian]

I'm not crazy about the entire suggestion, but what's in the first paragraph (buildings needing to be unlocked for even the keyholder to enter) definitely has possibilites.

The obvious benefit would be having at least a chance of a prison break, no matter how slight. (Even taking crowbars into consideration the game has always been very unbalanced in this area, IMO)

As far as sneaking a peek at a storage room, I don't think it would be so common as to become annoying, because really, you do so at your own risk - it's a pretty big gamble thinking you could get in, look around, pick things up, and get out all before the other person notices you and locks you inside. And of course even if you got out fast enough, you're now a known thief and not likely to make it very far from town, unless you've done a lot of planning in advance.

I don't think this should apply to vehicles though, because in that case it would be abusable enough to more of an annoyance then it's worth. Also, even if it's necessarily to protect belongings its kind of silly thinking of bikes or boats or whatever having a 'door' that needs to be unlocked in the first place.

The main downside I could see is all the clicks that would be required to get in and out of a building, which might slow the game down or at the very least be a hassle for town leaders and other people who do a lot of running in and out.

[catpurr]

Hmmm I don't know. tentatively leaning toward no.

prisions could still be made to be almost 99.9999% safe by using a locked room within a locked room. Yes it is more work to set up, but it be qutie 100% safe.

generally I don't like if anything requires constantly hitting the refresh button on the browser to grasp an opportunity.

Another suggestion might be in accordance to the other here around to make locks break e.g 0.1% of times used. However Marian pointed out a smart argument that would become void then. It would no longer be a risk to steal into a room which lock broke.

Another suggestion might be to make it a project to guard a locked door. When its passed you have a 1% chance to make it through. Still don't see it becoming a relevant gameelement. Firstly, do guards need to check prisons? Secondly, as said above even if, a prison within a prison is 100% safe. As you drag the person back if it escaped the inner one. Thirdly hardly anyone sane would want to enter a locked building that way, as Marian said, it would leave him locked inside.

[rconley]

I really don't like this suggestion. The last thing I need to worry about is some douche stealing my ship, my car, or my worldly possessions just because my character suddenly became incapable of noticing and preventing someone from following me into/out of these locations.

Agreed. Most times the character had their chance of escape no matter how small before beingput in a locked room. Many have their crowbars for their chance to escape. Sorry but I dislike this suggestion.

[*Wiro]

I'm not crazy about the entire suggestion, but what's in the first paragraph (buildings needing to be unlocked for even the keyholder to enter) definitely has possibilites.

The obvious benefit would be having at least a chance of a prison break, no matter how slight. (Even taking crowbars into consideration the game has always been very unbalanced in this area, IMO)

As far as sneaking a peek at a storage room, I don't think it would be so common as to become annoying, because really, you do so at your own risk - it's a pretty big gamble thinking you could get in, look around, pick things up, and get out all before the other person notices you and locks you inside. And of course even if you got out fast enough, you're now a known thief and not likely to make it very far from town, unless you've done a lot of planning in advance.

I don't think this should apply to vehicles though, because in that case it would be abusable enough to more of an annoyance then it's worth. Also, even if it's necessarily to protect belongings its kind of silly thinking of bikes or boats or whatever having a 'door' that needs to be unlocked in the first place.

The main downside I could see is all the clicks that would be required to get in and out of a building, which might slow the game down or at the very least be a hassle for town leaders and other people who do a lot of running in and out.

Agreed with all you said. And...I'd rather have locks auto-open and close again in 15 seconds or something, than have it be something that fast people can get past easily/an annoyance for going through lots of doors.

One great part of this suggestion is that people who lock themselves into buildings that are nearly full, can now be countered with this suggestions.

[BZR]

Another advantage for fast clicking players? 100% No

Cantr, the "slow paced game" is already too fast, I think.

Once I had to write simple macro to sneak into a building blocked by a bandit who kept atacking the village. It worked, though my computer (and Cantr page) were busy all afternoon.

As for me, dragging people and fights should also be projects. I usually lose characters in few hours between logging in, and mostly in a way I could prevent if I logged in more often.

[Money]

Agreed, this suggestion does not keep in line with the "slow-paced" aspect of the game. It gives to much of an advantage to those who log in a lot.

[Cogliostro]

Though the idea is easy to shoot down for reasons everyone has already stated, what shouldn't be shot down is the original germ that seemed to have led Seko into it: "creating small windows of opportunity". What opportunity exactly is meant? The opportunity to do certain things instantly almost real-time, all in the context of the slow-paced game.

Little mostly-harmless windows of "action" like that in different areas of the game can make it a lot more interactive and exciting. This can be used to keep more players playing, and doesn't at all need to break with Cantr's fundamental philosophy to do so.

About the door idea, I got this to say: what if instead of "15 seconds", you actually got 1 Cantr hour. That is, locking a door took "1 hour" to do, and was a project, and you could not pass through locked doors - even if you are holding the key. Think how much that would instantly change about how stuff currently works...

[Marian]

About the door idea, I got this to say: what if instead of "15 seconds", you actually got 1 Cantr hour. That is, locking a door took "1 hour" to do, and was a project, and you could not pass through locked doors - even if you are holding the key. Think how much that would instantly change about how stuff currently works...

Ugh...no. I don't even know where to start listing the headaches this would cause. If I didn't know you'd been around awhile this would make me think you haven't even had a character with their own building, let alone one that needed to move in and out of several a day just to do their job...

Also weren't you just bitching in another thread about how slow-paced the game is? And don't think taking three RL hours to go through a door would make it even slower?

[Cogliostro]

Yeah, of course. One has to adapt and improvise, like the marines. You could, let's say, keep the door open. You know?

It's a ridiculously ambitious idea, I know, that will never be considered. Call me crazy, but I am for little things like that which inject measured doses of chaos and disorder. In a nice move, we did away with all that perfect-security private messaging via whispering (too bad the probability JUST HAD to be nerfed afterwards as usual, so now one hardly sees it in action). Down with perfect-security doors and vehicles, also. I think Seko is thinking in a similar vein here with these "windows of opportunity".

[*Wiro]

Yeah. More chaos. The whole "We must keep everything balanced!"thing really made a lot of things much more boring than they could've been. Also one of the reasons people don't care much about food. You can easily get more food of a certain thing than you need to eat. Why not have some food items that take a while to make, and are only going to end up feeding you for even less? "Because that's not balanced and no one will make it." Pssh.

I considered the idea a bit more, and what about only having the ability to go out of a building like this? One of my characters used to lock up people and steal their stuff, then enslave them. It was way too easy. Lure them inside, lock all doors, attack, run. And done it was! They might've had a crowbar, but that wasn't going to help them at 80% damage, so they were forced to put them down. I'd have enjoyed it a lot more if there was some sort of struggle to get out.

[SekoETC]

If the frame of opportunity was like an hour, a person would have to sit online for that hour to ensure no one followed them, but if it was just 5 minutes (or 15 seconds, or something in between), after the time had passed, the player could know for sure that the door is safely closed / the vehicle has safely departed etc. The current system makes me think of a chess board, on which pieces are strictly in one square or another and even though they must cross the border in order to get from one square to another, being on top of the border doesn't count as a state.

It should also be considered that something like unlocking a door, slipping through and unlocking it takes less time than moving a boat away from the shore. But most likely we won't really consider this system since it would be such a big change. Still it's interesting to hear if people would consider it making the game more fair or more of a hassle if such a system existed.