An Essay on Motivation (Long)

[RatofLuke]

I've been lurking about this forum for the last month or so, and I feel now is the time to voice my opinions on this matter. I agree with generally everything that the Sociologist has put forward, but I have some comments on the issue of children. I agree that parents should be able to play their own children, but the question arises: which parent is to play which child? Should fathers play the sons, and mothers the daughters?

While parents do generally instill their values upon their children, it is also true that children rebel. This is especially true for the offspring of a sovereign or the holder of any inheritable title -- and I refer not only to sibling in-fighting or rebellious second born sons; even first-born heirs are known to turn on their fathers (for example: Robert Curthose fighting his father, William the Conqueror).

But if the player plays both the parent and the child, such realistic situations would be unlikely to ever arise unless the player is so dedicated to RP that he would pitch his characters against each other. Allowing the player of the child to be random (say, when the child turns sixteen, the computer will randomly select the father or the mother as the child's player) will be a measure towards solving this problem, but it would still make for unrealistically stable dynasties. We'd have large families with overly obedient children and very little Machiavellian conspiring.

What I suggest is that, at a selected age (say thirteen through sixteen), the child becomes the character of a player, but this player could be one of three people: the father, the mother, or . . . some random player. Each of these options would be of equal probability, and such a system would allow some wild cards thrown into otherwise stable dynasties. We could have evil brothers like Richard III, ungrateful cousins like Macbeth, treacherous uncles like Claudius, or conniving daughters like Regan and Goneril.

It'd be a lot of fun!

Also, I don't think children should only be possible after age thirty. The fear that pirates would be producing endless clones of themselves is nothing to worried about. The system I propose would limit the usefulness of breeding children purely as pack-mules or as a personal army, (after all, only one in three of them would be under their control-*) but would still make such an enterprise possible. Historically, crime families have always existed anyway, and that should be reflected in Cantr. Now, raising a child should be labor intensive and expensive, but I don't see why we shouldn't allow people in their twenties to do so.

*-And, just to make sure the system wouldn't abused, a male and a female under the control of the same player would not be able to reproduce.

[Marian]

Great first post!

Also, I don't think children should only be possible after age thirty.

And I guess I agree with that...if a character in their twenties has got it together enough to have everything they need for raising a kid, (or marries someone who does), then I don't see any reason why they should be able to. I do like the Sociologist's idea of needing a bed though...that right there should be enough to avoid any problems with newspawns having kids. (There should also be a good chance that a baby could die before a player ever gets control of it, unless they have the right things for taking care of it.)

[Chris Johnson]

Sociologist - Excellent thought provoking set of post as are many of the replies.

I can let you know that a lot of what you discuss in the first two categories
is aleady planned or has been discussed amongst staff members.

Resource decay indoors is on the cards . RD and ProgD will be implementing this soon. RD I believe want to introduce some methods of preserving things before this is done.

Tool decay was originally set up to be a combination of usage and time based decay . Currently only the time based element has been introduced though all the values for usage based decay have been set up by RD . I would guess once this is implemented then time based decay effects will be lessened (I can't promise this as its an RD decision )

Building slots/capacity has always been planned and every region already has a set maximum ... its just never been implemented (and several of the larger towns already exceed the planned levels). The original idea was not to use up resource slots but then it was set up along time before resources slots existed.

Enclosures have been heavily discussed and will probably be implemented as well as land development projects to create new resource slots (though again - a total potential cap would exist for each location).


I can also deny rumours that RD are working on a set of minature tea pots and plates , suitable for childrens toys.

[T-shirt]

1. Entropy & Mortality;
   Decay should be implemented with utmost priority. Ways to slow decay and repair items should be implemented at the same time. My shaving horse for example is already 'used', but I have no means to repair or slow the rate of decay. Maintenance on objects should be minimal in time though.
   No mortality was mentioned in the article about entropy and mortality. I would like to add that natural causes of death like diseases, hunger, fatigue and cold, should be more dangerous for older characters. I suggest that the hungerlevel rises by 3% per day without food plus 1% per decade of the character; ie 5% for 20–29, 6% for 30-39, 7% for 40-49, and so on. Tiredness should be overcome more slowly by older characters, very very old character will not ever recover from tiredness, unless on the better resting furniture.
   
2. Scarcity & Economy;
   I'm not sure about enclosures. If machines could be locked and operated only by people with a key, I think scarcity and economy could be handled. Build a rice harvester only you can operate and you have assured you food supply.
   I like the idea of addresses. Four plots in the main square and six on each road leading out of town, with the possibility to build side roads.
   
3. Immortality & Dynasty;
   No children in Cantr. It won't make a difference. People can always pull the plug out of their characters and that will remain the problem with an online RPG. You can't trust anyone. Making your own children will not change that, except you allow people to make a character that is forced to work together with at least one other character you play. A forced CRB.
   
4. Hierarchy & Symbolism;
   Would be a nice addition. Not essential to making Cantr significantly better. You can now already give your clan people all wooden clogs and skirts to set them apart from the neighbouring clan.
   
5. Conflict & Warfare;
   Actions should take time. It's nice to see someone docking, but undocking should take time; You see The Falcon starting to undock. And one or two Cantr hours, depending on the size of the ship, it leaves the quay.

[RatofLuke]

[*]Scarcity & Economy;
I'm not sure about enclosures. If machines could be locked and operated only by people with a key, I think scarcity and economy could be handled. Build a rice harvester only you can operate and you have assured you food supply.

Well, the advantage of estates is that you could build more than just a food gathering machine on it. Enclosures could have all sorts of things in them: homes, vehicles, farm equipment, storage sheds, etc . . .

[*]Immortality & Dynasty;
No children in Cantr. It won't make a difference. People can always pull the plug out of their characters and that will remain the problem with an online RPG. You can't trust anyone. Making your own children will not change that, except you allow people to make a character that is forced to work together with at least one other character you play. A forced CRB.

Why do you say it won't make a difference? It would allow for the creation of the kind of real-life social structures that Cantr is currently unable to implement. While players can always pull the plug, so what? If the player of the character is random (either the father, mother, or a random person), then one player deleting their account wouldn't necessarily destroy the entire family, just decimate it -- which could be explained IC as a plague or whatever. And as for CRB, it would mirror real life. People can generally trust their family to support them, whether in business, politics, or crime, and the randomly selected character system would keep the family from being too homogeneous. A family always needs black sheep and estranged relations.

[*]Hierarchy & Symbolism;
Would be a nice addition. Not essential to making Cantr significantly better. You can now already give your clan people all wooden clogs and skirts to set them apart from the neighbouring clan.

Yes but war paint and, more generally, colors would allow greater diversity.

[The Sociologist]

I'll just do a quick wrap-up. Thanks for all the responses and sorry for the delay. I was rather overwhelmed!

Thank you for the sledgehammer correction, Talapus. I have now changed the passage to read stone axe. As you correctly noticed, it would otherwise have created a misconception.

I don't know if babies and baby creation projects would be necessary though, I'd just set an age limit of 40 or 50 years to have a kid. And let everybody know that the kid is someone’s kid. [...] Limit it to one per parent char and five or less per player (taking up a character slot too) and cut their project rate in half when they are in the same town as their parent as well as under x years old.

I'd prefer that the emphasis was on making the baby difficult to produce in-game and otherwise leave it more open-ended as to how many the player chooses to produce, subject of course to needing a free character slot before the baby can mature. While ths might seem risky, overdoing babies may produce its own corrections. Babies, would be immobile, defenseless and quite heavy objects that would require care, showing well-fed, fed and starving (much like my weapon example shows well-oiled, etc). It would therefore be extremely risky ever to hand them to any other player in case that player falls asleep. Dropping them on the ground would not be the way to go, but storing them in a crib device would be. Babies that aren't secured could be kidnapped. Players would therefore probably want to produce some "spare" babies in these circumstances much as peasant families used to overproduce children in the full - and quite rational - expectation of a higher childhood mortality. That's as realistic as it gets!

There are a lot of issues with the combat system, but because of the limited freedom in the game mechanics, I think any new system including yours will only create a new stuck in the mud fight and only provide a few months of compelling military strategy while the system is being worked out.

That is to a degree true of this and any other game with a strategic component, but I don't see it as a reason not to try.

I don't really agree with everything (some of the stuff about repairs seemed a little drastic, since every char who bought a iron or steel tool would also need to be able to produce iron and steel if they wanted to keep it...though then again, that might encourage more repair businesses to spring up.)

Yes, I'm saying every character who wants to maintain a steel weapon needs some kind of infrastructural support somewhere. But it isn't that difficult. None of the towns I control would refuse steel to a valued trader who'd just visited them with needed goods, for example. I also introduced the "tool oil" capability specifically with long-distance travellers in mind. Again, that's something that could be traded for.

What I'd like to see is everytime Programming or Resources make a change they should ask: Does this enhance trade, interrelations between characters and general activity in the game? Currently, repairs unfortunately don't do that. They cause people to stay at home and repair stuff!

...and the simple idea was the best. Building slots. So obvious, and probably easy to implement. I've seen a lot of apartments complexes and community centers, but no one ever actually seems to use them.

Exactly! There's no demand because there's no property market. But I must stress that, because building names are currently business names rather than addresses, you won't see a full property market develop yet. It's absurd that Theed & Walworth must operate out of the "Temple of Pure Soul" (Thanks to Muldy Bread's obsession with "finishing old projects"!)

...but if it takes two people to make a kid, who gets to play it? (Maybe they should remain an object until one of the parents dies, and whoever goes first gets to 'possess' them?)

Heh, I didn't think this far. Maybe at conception you could specify "a baby for him" or "a baby for her"? This would preclude one hell of a marital row developing later on! On the other hand, random choice may be better (see below). However, you make a strong point. If the "owning" parent dies or even disavows, the child might default to the other parent.

...and isn't hematite red? We need tatoos, body paint, hair dye, more kinds of jewelry, flags, decorated shields (if you can make a diamond encrusted sabre, why not a diamond encrusted shield? Or one inlaid with gold or silver or copper?)

Yes of course. You can indeed make pigments from metal oxides and hematite is indeed red. I'd overlooked that. On the other hand, I don't want just another encrusted item. My example was all about displaying symbolic information on shields and maybe weapons. Yes, this could be merely a free text description of your choice, but I don't necessarily want to see that. My suggestion would restrict complete freedom to "write" anything you like on a shield while nonetheless allowing symbolic information to be emblazoned on it. It's the symbolism that I was emphasizing. Quite badly needed in the game, in fact.

The thing that won't work is the dynasty thing. The RL ananogy took place over centuries. It is most unlikely many players will play Cantr for more than 5 years, (there ain't many 70 y.o. + chars)). This equates to some 85 Cantr years, about 3 generations, after which the dynasty must die out if continued by procreation, thus it rests on trusted nominated descendants.

Well, firstly, there is no reason people should stop playing Cantr if the motivation is there. It is potentially not the sort of game one grows out of. Indeed, the central problem that I have identified is lack of motivation. Secondly, most players who are worth anything have characters who have reached thirty, and they don't then expect to leave the game, so they will be in a position to think about whether they want to have a baby. This should improve social behavior and the forming of social relationships. I am as much interested in the new emotional drives that this will introduce into the game as I am interested in the longer-term effects of the resulting dynasties. Finally, dynasties may in any case become quite well established within a generation or two. You've had several political "dynasties" of a kind even in America - the Kennedy and Bush families, for example.

A third point is that in RL all but a few of the population are their through procreation of their own kind, immigration being minimal in most cases, and certainly historically. In Cantr, even with the advent of children, most new chars will be newspawn "immigrants" thus destroying any such cohesion an immobile subserviant population would provide [...]

You will find that, historically, culture is the product of remarkably small elites. And this applies in-game too. The whole MacGregor thing was the product of one player, helped by some others who decided to let their characters go along with it and then began contributing. So we need to ensure a kind of immortality for those small elites who want to go on playing the game. Hence players playing their own babies.

You forget that it takes 2 to tango. Each offspring will be controlled by the mother or the father. The offspring's offspring will be controlled by the offspring's player or the other parent. Each generation will cause a 50% chance to move away from the founding patriarch/matriarch's player, meaning entire dynasties will not just drop dead when a player quits. The more generations, the less impact a founding player dropping out will have.

That is very well put, better than I could have thought of putting it myself, and serves also as very good advice on how to play it. It seems you are suggesting a random choice between parents for the parentage? That's a variant on what I'd been thinking above, but it makes better sense in terms of how genetic inheritance actually functions.

One thing I will add though, is that even with decay, currencies will not take off. Barter is the prime trading experience, and it will continue like that as long as it is possible to universally tell how many days worth of work X amount of carrots is, compared to X amount of limestone (or other resource) - it can be even carried over to manufactured items.

Very broadly, much economic thinking as it exists in Cantr seems to be based on something like the Labor Theory of Value. First formulated by Ricardo, this became the basis of Marxist economic theory. Obviously, if labor is the source of value and capitalists pay a minimal wage to their workers, then they have expropriated their surplus labor, and this "theft" forms the basis of the class struggle as Marxists see it. However, modern Neoclassical economics sees price as purely psychological. It is entirely a matter of what I am prepared to pay for X. The market then acts as a corrective mechanism. As X becomes more valued - because scarce - more companies wil arise to produce X. This continues until the market corrects for overproduction. Now, many Cantrians are strange that way. A character could spend all their lives digging stone until they have a whole house full of it. Someone arrives in town with salt, which they've never seen before. And yet they still insist on wanting to pay only 750 grams of stone for 250 grams of salt! They are reluctant even to take travel costs into consideration.

What is missing is the concept of scarcity and the resulting psychological pricing. Now I really don't know what to make of this. Are most cantrians Marxists? I've got one of my characters paying both travel and scarcity bonuses, and the player of Goram Yoful was also aware of the concept of scarcity and had him price materials accordingly. For example, he offered silk cloth for limestone based entirely on how much limestone was worth to MWS, and not at all on how much labor had been expended while digging it. More players need to think about this. However, fluffing our knowledge of "how many days worth of work X amount of carrots is worth" will not necessarily solve the issue. You would simply be making it more difficult to determine productivity. I'd say it's rather a matter of players needing to think more about how markets actually work. Come to think of it, I've seldom if ever seen an auction in the game.

Oh, one thing I might add. If the character with the stone hoard from my earlier example also had a store of surplus hide, and the hide was deteriorating rapidly whereas leather would decay much more slowly and leather clothes not at all, then he or she might be much more tempted to ask the right sort of question: What is this salt really worth to me? So you can see how resource decay would promote economic rationality.

Maybe have each street use a resource slot? The town government would then need to balance the desirability of buildings against the restricted ability to gather local resources. Eventually if a city ever arose it would be unable to support itself from local resources, and would become dependent on trade.

Interesting! Very risky but interesting!

The following posts I only read after I had written all the above.

While parents do generally instill their values upon their children, it is also true that children rebel. This is especially true for the offspring of a sovereign or the holder of any inheritable title -- and I refer not only to sibling in-fighting or rebellious second born sons; even first-born heirs are known to turn on their fathers (for example: Robert Curthose fighting his father, William the Conqueror). [...]What I suggest is that, at a selected age (say thirteen through sixteen), the child becomes the character of a player, but this player could be one of three people: the father, the mother, or . . . some random player. Each of these options would be of equal probability, and such a system would allow some wild cards thrown into otherwise stable dynasties. We could have evil brothers like Richard III, ungrateful cousins like Macbeth, treacherous uncles like Claudius, or conniving daughters like Regan and Goneril.

This is indeed a very interesting supplementary suggestion. It would most certainly lead to some overproduction of babies! One possible hassle is the extreme disappointment it might cause the parents. Take for example a player whose character is already old and has had limited chances to produce babies, while that character's beloved spouse has died of the sleeping sickness - very common - and she as player is then confronted with a stranger who doesn't play the child the way she had hoped. Such an outcome might prove intensely demotivating. She might also suspect that the child has been inadvertently assigned to the player of her character's traditional enemy and so on. These are the sort of stumbling blocks that came up in previous discussions, issues which would tend to involve the PD in more work. We don't want to create a situation where they will be forced to assign and monitor babies manually, and the baby system should not be held up purely because PD lack the mechanisms to handle it. I think maybe this decision should receive input from the PD members; if they are happy with it, then it certainly remains a worthwhile variant.

Also, I don't think children should only be possible after age thirty.

I was expecting huge opposition to my suggestion and to my surprise didn't get much at all. So, I'd expect the limit may not be necessary after all provided, as we mostly seem agreed, that babies take considerable effort to produce.

*-And, just to make sure the system wouldn't abused, a male and a female under the control of the same player would not be able to reproduce.

Yes, I hadn't thought of that but it's an entirely necessary control.

I do like the Sociologist's idea of needing a bed though...that right there should be enough to avoid any problems with newspawns having kids.

Yes, beds will suddenly become strategically significant machines. One can almost imagine them being banned for private use in some towns. You know, those towns!

Chris, thanks for your comments. There's only this one...

Tool decay was originally set up to be a combination of usage and time based decay . Currently only the time based element has been introduced though all the values for usage based decay have been set up by RD . I would guess once this is implemented then time based decay effects will be lessened (I can't promise this as its an RD decision)

Very well, but I don't see that as, by itself, an overall solution to the issue. It is more of a response to my paragraph (A)(d)(i) only, ie the "quick fix" part. And, as a resonse to that part, it's fine.

And that was as far as I got. Thanks again for all the responses!

[Doug R.]

You forget that it takes 2 to tango. Each offspring will be controlled by the mother or the father. The offspring's offspring will be controlled by the offspring's player or the other parent. Each generation will cause a 50% chance to move away from the founding patriarch/matriarch's player, meaning entire dynasties will not just drop dead when a player quits. The more generations, the less impact a founding player dropping out will have.

That is very well put, better than I could have thought of putting it myself, and serves also as very good advice on how to play it. It seems you are suggesting a random choice between parents for the parentage? That's a variant on what I'd been thinking above, but it makes better sense in terms of how genetic inheritance actually functions.

Random assignment of babies, I think, is necessary, from both a clan survival standpoint and as a protection against OOC influences affecting paternal control.

While parents do generally instill their values upon their children, it is also true that children rebel. This is especially true for the offspring of a sovereign or the holder of any inheritable title -- and I refer not only to sibling in-fighting or rebellious second born sons; even first-born heirs are known to turn on their fathers (for example: Robert Curthose fighting his father, William the Conqueror). [...]What I suggest is that, at a selected age (say thirteen through sixteen), the child becomes the character of a player, but this player could be one of three people: the father, the mother, or . . . some random player. Each of these options would be of equal probability, and such a system would allow some wild cards thrown into otherwise stable dynasties. We could have evil brothers like Richard III, ungrateful cousins like Macbeth, treacherous uncles like Claudius, or conniving daughters like Regan and Goneril.

This is indeed a very interesting supplementary suggestion. It would most certainly lead to some overproduction of babies! One possible hassle is the extreme disappointment it might cause the parents. Take for example a player whose character is already old and has had limited chances to produce babies, while that character's beloved spouse has died of the sleeping sickness - very common - and she as player is then confronted with a stranger who doesn't play the child the way she had hoped. Such an outcome might prove intensely demotivating. She might also suspect that the child has been inadvertently assigned to the player of her character's traditional enemy and so on. These are the sort of stumbling blocks that came up in previous discussions, issues which would tend to involve the PD in more work. We don't want to create a situation where they will be forced to assign and monitor babies manually, and the baby system should not be held up purely because PD lack the mechanisms to handle it. I think maybe this decision should receive input from the PD members; if they are happy with it, then it certainly remains a worthwhile variant.

While it is an intriguing concept, my opinion is that it would be more trouble than it's worth, simply due to the possibility of demotivation and the OOC influence issues.

[formerly known as hf]

Cantrians are certainly not Marxists - they are, as I have said before, entirely utilitarian.

They will not get involved in anything, especially trading, that does not materially benifit them, preferably towards the advancement of their personal goals.

This can be seen by taking clothing into account - yes, a lot of characters wear it, even though it has no game-mechanic function. Yet, have you seen many successful textile / clothing traders? No, because most clothes are made within the town, by using common machines, or by having a single tailor. If you live away from places which have material for clothing - you just don;t bother - you certainly don't bother paying for it, not if you could get limestone/hematite/coal instead...

[T-shirt]

The suggestion for babies is silly. Players with older characters and sufficient wealth are allowed to create an extra character they can control and CRB with. No two character of your characters are allowed to cooperate, but this babies suggestion does allow this cooperation.

I am against this suggestion.

[Marian]

Actually I think having babies in the game at all is silly, but the Sociologists idea is the only one I've seen so far that might work out. Who wants to go through all the trouble and then wind up with Pie or Mykeyrools playing their baby?

[Mykey]

In my opinion, it is error.

[Mykey]

I consider, that you are not right. I suggest it to discuss.

[west]

Soc, with the possible exception of who controls the babies I agree entirely. The game you describe is the game I've been wanting to play these four years, and the game it's moved farther and farther from with each change. I love cantr, but mostly for its history and not its game mechanics. If cantr was as you describe I would probably become addicted again.

[Marian]

You know, the more I think about it the more I start to like the repair ideas. I look around some of the towns my chars are in and it's a little crazy seeing everybody with steel weapons and iron shields, it'd be like in RL having everybody from the pizza delivery guy to the checkout girl to the nice old lady next door walking around with kevlar vests and automatic weapons.

In RL too, back in medevil times I don't think you would have seen farmers and tailors and cooks or whatever all packing swords...because they wouldn't have put up with all that crap from the kings if they had, and also because good weapons were just rare. I googled it and supposedly even crappy armore and weapons for a knight cost a lot.

If it's changed so that it requires sttel and iron to repair stuff, I think it'll eventually (probably still take awhile though) get to the point where only the guards and leaders and business owners have the really good stuff, and things like composite recurve bows are kind of the high end for everyone else.

But this would be balanced out by the fact that the leaders would have to get organized in sending people out for hematite and limestone, which means probably making more vehicles. If they didn't they wouldn't be leaders very long...and there's also the fact that if they got cut off from supply or their iron workers went on strike or something all their crowbars and swords and shields would eventually fall apart and somebody could take over the town. (We need an IC way to sabatoge machines, btw. Also, locks need to rust away too)

And if the Sociologist's ideas about locks are implemented, this would be balanced out even more.

So, guys, LISTEN TO SOCIOLOGIST! Why isn't he in the staff, anyway?

Though the thing I wanted to add about oiling weapons, I definitely like the idea, but oil right now is too rare. I think the regular oil for roads should be the best kind, but you should also be able to build a machine that lets you make oil from things like fish and nuts and I don't know, coconuts and whatever else makes oil...do we have olives in the game? Actually makign the oils should take a long time though, and weapons and tools should need a lot more of it then if you were using road oil.

[RatofLuke]

In regards to the controller of any given child, I feel that it is vitally important that in most instances the player of one of the parents be chosen. That being said, I also see it as equally important that there be a signifigant chance that the player not be one of the parents.

Here are the space of possible options, and my thoughts on each:

The player of the child is chosen randomly and is virtually never the parents:: This would defeat the entire purpose of introducing children in the first place, as there would be no real family ties in the game. Children would, for all intents and purposes, be complete strangers to their parents and may not even associate with the family they were born into. For all practical purposes, they would just be newspawns. This mirrors real life -- but only to a very limited extent. While some children grow up to be radically independent or even hostile to their parents, most children, at least in some fashion, follow in their parents' footsteps or at least associate with their families. If the players are never the parents, then there would be no family ties in the game and little insentive for players to bother with children at all.

The player of the child is always one of the parents: The problem with this option is the exact opposite of the previous one. Where as the previous left family ties non-existent, this option makes family ties nearly absolute. Children will always do as their parents wish, and will never rebel, never steal from the family, never wander off and abandon them . . . if there is to be children, there must be risk involved for the rest of the family.

The player of the child will be randomly chosen between the father, mother, and a randomly selected player: This is a good compromise between the two extremes. Families will be have strong ties, but there will still be wild cards. As the Sociologist said, this may dissappoint some players of parents, but that is true in real life; there are many parents who are dissappointed in their wayward children. However, most children in the game will maintain ties with their family.