Cantr III

[Russell of Los Angeles]

Cantr II's game mechanics are a mess. The user interface is poor. People can't decide if it's a roleplaying game or a society simulator, but I think we all know it's uniqueness is due to it being a combination of these. It's time, I think, for a fresh vision and a new philosophy.

Cantr II has been a grand experiment, inspired from a gem of a game that was Cantr I. Now we've all learned something. If you could redesign Cantr from the ground up, what would you have it become? What do you feel are the most important suggestions in the suggestion box?

Personally, I prefer it as a roleplaying game. The game mechanics give it a structure that freeform roleplaying lacks, but the setting is totally open-ended, allowing for the raw forms of a society to emerge spontaneously from the mob.

I think it should be more literary, to attract players that like to develop their characters and create a collaborative story. The entry box for words should be bigger. If it was up to me, I'd have an entry box in which players type quotes to indicate the dialogue of their characters rather than the the current system, in which players have to stuff emotes into the preset quote marks. And if it was up to me, I'd create the world to be more sensual: more things for characters to see, smell, taste, touch, and hear. Dynamic graphical portraits. Midi sounds of music. (And I'm off in fantasy land now, so I'll go with it...). Weather. Wind. Rain. Seasons! A moon, sun and stars!

But there are things I would simplify, too. I'd have fewer types of objects and resources, but still covering a range of diversity. I'd have fewer fashions of clothing, but enough to capture and represent some archtypes: the caveman, the city laborer, the warrior, the queen.

Anyway, I'm sure you have a different vision of what Cantr could be, so I'd like to hear it.

[Joshuamonkey]

Those things sound like a good idea. I would rather just have them added to cantr II though. More of the five senses would be good, along with seasons and stars. Then we can have aliens.

[wichita]

Well, Cantr is a roleplaying gaming because it is a society simulator. Societies have roles to fill that are defined by and help define history and economics (resource availability, manpower, etc etc). The society affects the personal development of each of its members, and each of its members affects its development. Different societies interact with each other and influence each other until it all blends into a grand story of....well...life. In short, both sides of that discussion are correct as much as both are wrong, which is what real life politics are all about, so welcome to our little world we have recreated.

Having said that....

I think if I had it to do over again, Cantr III would look much like it does now. I personally love the interface for the most part, but probably because I am a rather old fasioned guy.

There are a lot of implementations that I would like to see added that haven't been because (and I am guessing here) that the code needs to be reworked in order to get them in there easily. Things like individualized animals, domestication of animals, and fishing from boats would be nera the top of my list of implementations. I think technically those relate to free roaming (walking and riding bikes just like ships) so I would throw that on the list of key differences as well.

I am particularly fond of the rp of food and diets, so I would throw a lot more variety of fruits and veggies into the game and have a sort of nutritional system probably (x points of veg, y points of fruits, meat, water, etc...). Oh yeah, pork, chicken, and beef rather than mystery meat would be important as well. One think I wish we could get Cantr II to have more of is regional cuisine instead of everyone across the globe eating essentially the same food.

And I think the last thing I would add is a simple computer controlled avatar system for giving a face to characters. Build, hair, complexion...just to give some shape, as well as simple animated articles of clothing as the character adds them. I think that would be really helpful in being able to quickly get an idea of what gear a character is holding, in lieu of reading through a long list of text (which should still be there as well ).

Blah blah blah, I'll shut up now.

[Russell of Los Angeles]

I would rather just have them added to cantr II though.

But doesn't Cantr seem like a mess? It's a mess because new things are being added all the time. Some of the new additions are great and contribute something to the game, but other new additions don't work right because they are only partially implemented. And I think some old things could be pruned away, simplified a bit to counterbalance the added complexity.

[Mafia Salad]

I kind of like having the surprise of finding new things in the game, it gives Cantr a charm of it's own.

One advantage that I can see to starting from a clean slate would be that you could have climate zones, you could have reasons for resources instead of it just being in a forest or hills etc.. Citrus grows where it warm enough, the wildlife is specific for its temperature and weather. Some areas can have monsoon seasons and others can have long drought spells. Definitely let the weather play a major part, but have a guiding climate to keep it making sense.

As of now, I'm happy with how Cantr II is.

[Sho]

Cantr has a lot of cruft that can only be gotten rid of by starting over completely. If we could go back in time five years and give Jos a road map for the development of Cantr, Cantr today would be a better place. But it's too late now; we don't have the manpower or will to dump a good portion of what we have and rebuild. Cantr is too large now for us to do anything but make small changes that nudge it towards where we want it to go.

[InsaneIrony]

Anyone remember the graphical Cantr that was proposed and probably put aside a long time ago?
I believe days and nights are not in the game because people who play it are in varying timezones. Who wants to always play in 'midnight' or 'early morning'?
Weather, seasons, climate, and weather effects on people would be nice. It would make some clothes neccessary and some clothes annoying... Like needing warm fur clothes in a cold area, or something less oven-like in a warm place. Also, varying colors on some clothes would be very interesting.
If I can imagine Cantr being redone as anything, I'd have to imagine it as a visual game, 3d or 2d somehow.

[Schme]

There is nearly nothing wrong with the game. Not so long ago it was perfect, as it did not have the gathering limits.

[T-shirt]

There is nearly nothing wrong with the game. Not so long ago it was perfect, as it did not have the gathering limits.

I agree with you fully.

[Torch]

If I can imagine Cantr being redone as anything, I'd have to imagine it as a visual game, 3d or 2d somehow.

In my opinion, this would be the worst thing that could happen to the game. One of my favorite things is that all the visuals are my own. I "know" what people look like, where buildings are in the towns I'm in, etc. I'm sure others have totally different ideas of the same people and places, but it hasn't been an issue that I've seen yet.

There are plenty of graphics-rich games out there, most (no, not all) of which seem to me to have given up plot and style to focus on cool graphics. These are fun sometimes, but why turn something different into another clone? The scenes and people I can imagine are much more interesting to me than being limited by visuals. But then I'm one of those old-schoolers I guess that has seldom seen a movie surpass a book, much the same concept as this thought.

EDIT: Had book and movie switched in the last sentence, which pretty much ruined the whole statement. Going for caffeine now...

[WojD]

this would be the worst thing that could happen to the game

I agree!

Cantr II should be tuned up, we need more things in game - but not so big change in whole game idea... This can ruin all.

If someone need more graphics - please make some and put in notes- you can paint every place and person and keep in notes - this will be great!

For me much more important is another idea... Full switch to text mode
But for this idea I'll make new topic soon...

[formerly known as hf]

Have a look at the 'roadmap' thread.
It seems Jos at one point realised that a graphical/re-written Cantr wasn't going to be eaily possible, and that development would require building upon the current structure.

Which means, I suppose, that some additions are just far too difficult to implement because the underlying structure can't accommodate it.

But, it seems, the biggest hurdle to get over is the fact that Cantr doesn't have paid programmers to put in the time and effort to bring about all the changes that we'd like to see.

For me, one of the biggest places that I think needs an over-haul, is the manufacturing list. With all the bronze and compund items, it takes ages to navigate them...

[Russell of Los Angeles]

I accept that Cantr III won't be appearing anytime soon, but let's continue to fantasize.

If you had a team of programers at your disposal who are willing to create anything you imagine for a new Cantr, what would you have?

For me, I think it's important to consider the limitations of the players, and work around that. Players aren't jacked into the system 24/7, but the characters are. Therefore, I think the game is best kept rather abstract, based mostly on text. I think it should be more like freeform roleplay or storytelling with a resource and technology system layed over it.

I think the layout of the events screen detracts from the reading. Instead of having to read from bottom up to see events in chronological order, why not flip it?

[Schme]

But it was not created to be a freeform roleplaying game. Those are full easy to make. You can make one on the spot. In fact, that's one of the great things about them, you need nothing. But that's not what Cantr is or is supposed to be. So, if you'd like a freeform roleplaying game, the best thing to do would be to make one up. People who play Cantr are not wanting to play a freeform roleplaying game, they are wanting to play Cantr.

[Russell of Los Angeles]

I think it should be more like freeform roleplay or storytelling with a resource and technology system layed over it.

...and with a combat system, I guess I should have mentioned. It wouldn't be freeform roleplay.