Has the Cantr player base gotten better or worse?

[Bran-Muffin]

Makes two of us.

[Frits]

I miss not knowing what was around that bend (I have a few explorers, but unpopulated islands aren't that interesting). I miss wondering what strange customs and history such-and-such place down the coast had. I miss unreliable maps, slow-traveling news, the unknown. That's one thing location-centric spawning was good for. Frontiers. Nowadays a frontier is just a place where you don't know where you are, and you're probably being slaughtered by animals.

Great post west, i get a good feel of what the game used to be like. I'm a new player, lifelong analyst, into strategy gaming actually and scouting is a thing i miss. I spawned in 7 different communities, all but two are highly developped, communities can be similar in more than one way, the island is known and prospects seem low. But in fact this is untrue, i get work, tools, shields, food, it's too easy. One got rather nastily bitten but will be healed by a project involving eggs in 5 days.
The game is too easy! ... nature is harsh and it's threats are numerous, where are the floods, fires, disease, really dangerous animals and bad weather? Or would you rather implement a fire brigade, medicin and umbrellas?

[HoH]

I think I'm gonna post here!

So, um, I voted yes. When I first started playing (almost 3 years ago...wow.) I always worried about my roleplaying which seemed far lacking of skills compared to other players. Now I don't worry so much.
*wonders if she's one of the mature teens Dee is talking about*

I used to love Cantr so much, because it was so much more mature than other forums (Yes, I actually did play RPGs on another forum before Cantr). I spent like 6 days on Google trying to find the "perfect game." It was love at first sight when my eyes first adjusted to Cantr Green.

Me? Oldbie? No. Long time, dedicated player? Yes.


Cantr's just not as fun as it used to be, or maybe that's because the new factor has worn off for me. But now, its hard to find characters to have an actually interesting conversation or relationship with. It's frustrating!

[Nixit]

Make annoying ones that can have conversations with themselves. Works for me.

Anywho, I voted no... I think it's changed, but I don't think see it as better or worse. Plus, my charries are gettin' older and I'm lovin' it!

[goitre]

I suspect that the average 'playing skill' has remained constant while the forum peoples' playing skill has increased gradually. So relatively it appears the skill level has lowered.
Would you still have the same answer if you have never read the forums?

[Mafia Salad]

I'd love to hear the other side of the story. What's it like to venture into cantr for the first time? Do you still have that wonder, or has the creeping featurism scared it away?

I want to know.

It was a little different for me when I started playing 10 Cantr years ago. Although it felt like I had entered into an epic timeline, it felt like nobody cared. Everyone was content to stay busy maintaining their own little towns and didn't seem to want to do anything different. There was, and still is a lack of direction for most towns. The old characters are just as responsable for it as the young ones. It's all about maintenance and in-town day-to-day small-time role playing.

The only character that was really different was the one who spawned on K island just a short while after TBR left. It was like he spawned knee deep in a mess, and he didn't even know what that mess was. He was probably my favorite character to play for a while, and remains one of my favorites still.

After I spawned enough characters to get a good idea of what the world was like I was really disappointed to find out how monotonous it was. I still think that it is because people are intent to create unique characters for their town, instead of spawning up and jumping on the local bandwagon no matter how strange it is. (Then they get upset when nobody jumps on their strange bandwagon)

I have found though that it is really fun to try and work with and against the set in system. To try and use, change or manipulate the predictable masses to achieve my characters goals. It's a real exercise of the brain to try and figure out how to get what you want when you don't deserve it and would loose in a physical fight over it. And this is what the game is about for me.

It was about discovery for no more than the first few weeks. I found out everything I could have wanted to know, with the exception of a few other characters motivations, here on the forum and in the wiki. For me it's about trying to change the status quo and unify people under my goals with a dozen different methods and a dozen different characters. I’m afraid I don’t know what the game will change into for me after I start meeting those goals though, luckily some of them are very lofty, so I don’t think that will happen anytime soon.

[formerly known as hf]

It was a little different for me when I started playing 10 Cantr years ago. Although it felt like I had entered into an epic timeline, it felt like nobody cared. Everyone was content to stay busy maintaining their own little towns and didn't seem to want to do anything different. There was, and still is a lack of direction for most towns. The old characters are just as responsable for it as the young ones. It's all about maintenance and in-town day-to-day small-time role playing.

That's exactly how I've been feeling recently. Cantrians have become so insular, there's hardly any wider vision now, no one looks beyond the day-to-day, there's no future vision that I can see anywhere.

Apart from K-Isle, where I've been very lucky to hold a central position almost right from when I started playing, only there have I ever felt like there's truly been some drive that goes beyond the day-to-day, location-only concerns.

[SekoETC]

Oh, my charries have long term plans.

[The Sociologist]

That's exactly how I've been feeling recently. Cantrians have become so insular, there's hardly any wider vision now, no one looks beyond the day-to-day, there's no future vision that I can see anywhere.

Yes, this is very perceptive and the key central issue of what's gone wrong. In other words it's not the standard of roleplay that's at fault, really, but a problem with the relative weight of those players who were prepared to play the game economically and strategically.

So often I see this. New players enter the game and immediately have their characters look around for advantage. So they begin by punching the nearest animal and then punching themselves and try out as many skills as they can as soon as possible...and then begin looking around for self-interested opportunities. Is there a war on? Anything to be traded? Something to steal? After all, who knows? One of them may in time become a Lord Gregor or a Alexei Romanov or even just a Jo Jo. What happens to them?

Well, simply put, they are derided and scorned and mistrusted and put down until they leave the game, and thereafter the doll's tea-party continues as usual.

[formerly known as hf]

the doll's tea-party continues as usual.

Very well put.

[Mafia Salad]

That's exactly how I've been feeling recently. Cantrians have become so insular, there's hardly any wider vision now, no one looks beyond the day-to-day, there's no future vision that I can see anywhere.

I don't think wider or future vision is the issue as much as shared vision. Plenty of people have big visions, but nobody else grabs onto them so the world remains at status quo.

New players enter the game and immediately have their characters look around for advantage. So they begin by punching the nearest animal and then punching themselves and try out as many skills as they can as soon as possible...and then begin looking around for self-interested opportunities. Is there a war on? Anything to be traded? Something to steal? After all, who knows? One of them may in time become a Lord Gregor or a Alexei Romanov or even just a Jo Jo. What happens to them?

I think that the overriding self interest is a problem for the new players. The way they begin finding out about themselves before they find out about their surroundings. It has worked out a lot better for me to find out what's going on first, get involved, and then figure out my specialties. But for those newspawns who aren't as active in getting involved, it becomes the responsibility of the established characters to plant a goal and vision in their head and get them involved. It's the only way I've come across that creates a shared vision without a CRB, and it works well in places like Karnon and is ignored, unknown, or just not use in 95% of English towns.

The player base is fine in that respect, there just needs to be a strategy change to create the politic intrigue and epicenes of yon olde daies.

[saztronic]

My first and oldest charrie is 35 now, so I'm new enough, but have been around the block. I would say, like someone else has said already, the first few weeks were a real period of wonder and discovery. After that, eh... what else is there to know, at least mechanics-wise?

Some of my chars do have long-term plans. The Balkanization* of Cantr does seem really depressing. Everyone accepts on its face that it's just not possible, for example, to be expansionist in a military sense. Just too difficult to take over and control other towns. I have one char who's out to test that theory, though no one knows it yet. Honestly it seems like it will take about 30-40 years of prep time to have a chance of success.

That, from what I understand of how it was in the 'old' days, is what has changed for the worse in the game. Didn't Piers Anthony invade and level Cantr City and several other of the surrounding towns? There is nothing like that happening in the game today, and although I don't know for sure, I think it results from a lot of the programming changes -- locks and attacking and weapons and what have you -- making that kind of thing harder. Probably there's less CRB than in the old days too. Anyway it's depressing to think you'd have to spend four decades of Cantr time -- more than 2 years IRL (and, uh, I'm not a teenager, and have a career and a family and a mortgage, yo) -- just to get to a place where you might be able to have that kind of impact in-game.

Sure, the Barons had some interesting and region-wide impact, guerilla-style, and that's great. But it's not the same as actually building a lasting region-wide economy, taking over several towns, whatever, something large-scale. Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar. That's what the game lacks for me -- a nice 30-year Pelopennesian War, or Hannibal shocking and decimating Rome by coming over the Alps. Without even the chance of those kinds of things happening, Cantr can have some devastatingly dull periods where I start to think to myself, why am I bothering with this?

* My old professors would scold me for using the word "Balkanization" like that. It fits here, but it's not PC. Sorry, and a shout out to all my homies in the Balkans!

[Oasis]

Didn't Piers Anthony invade and level Cantr City and several other of the surrounding towns? There is nothing like that happening in the game today

You're just not in the right places. I know of two fairly recent, and quite a few not too long ago. It still happens, though yes, lots of preptime......or, finding the right people.

Probably there's less CRB than in the old days too.

This is true, many of the early governments/empires and subsequent takeovers of those, and even some latter ones, were carried out by means of illegal groupings. However, that doesn't mean there weren't many legitimate ones as well. And these are still very possible, and becoming more prevenlant again, from my experiences. Perhaps not the large empires, but there are some comebacks being mounted. Find those rich old folks who have grown bored. Convince them to use some of their riches. Use your imagination.

[Hellzon]

It still happens, though yes, lots of preptime......or, finding the right people.

Lots of preptime for a massacre? Seems about right.

/Hellzon - posts meaningless posts

[Ash]

I posted no.


/me gives a reason