How would you run it?

[Stan]

Is that a baseball bat or a cricket bat?

[formerly known as hf]

A cricket bat - they're heavier, and more blunt...

[SekoETC]

Doug's things sound cool. Something along the lines I've been planning for my own game. I just keep getting stuck on small details like if you build a house with window holes, how much that reduces the amount of wall material used and what if the windows are not square but arched or something, etc, etc.

[wichita]

- Halve, no reduce by two thirds at least, the animals populations on some islands.

140 rabbits
90 horses
121 cows
129 deers
105 mountain goats
37 pigeons

Some people actually find this situation entertainging for roleplaying purposes. Animal numbers like this is what allows Aki and some French towns to have probably the only unique cultures in the game. It is survival of the fittest, life in its purest rawest form.

I killed a scarab with a bone knife! Took three guys smacking the thing everyday for about a Cantr year, but that shell is the most exciting 200 grams of resources any of my characters has held in a very long time.

Why screw over the fun of some players because we want the entire world to be a "safe and survivable" as the English islands? Too many animals? Let the character die and respawn until you land in Drojf.

[15454]

- Halve, no reduce by two thirds at least, the animals populations on some islands.

I killed a scarab with a bone knife! Took three guys smacking the thing everyday for about a Cantr year, but that shell is the most exciting 200 grams of resources any of my characters has held in a very long time.

Hope this wont disapoint you lol my charrie is lucky..

1572-4.27: You efficiently kill a scarab using a bare fist.

[notsure]

Wichita, it's not the pigeons or cows or whatever -- it's the wolves, bears and boars. When you have those numbers of animals attacking (40 or more of each every day for a year or more) , and you can't farm onions with your bare hands fast enough to stay under 50% damage, that's the problem.

notsure

[Surly]

1572-4.27: You efficiently kill a scarab using a bare fist.

I did 2 damage to a scarab with a steel sabre.

Man, my chars suck...

[15454]

1572-4.27: You efficiently kill a scarab using a bare fist.

I did 2 damage to a scarab with a steel sabre.

Man, my chars suck...

Mine does 0 with is fist on the scarb which is wierd.

[Pie]

...... Dang. There are alot of things i would change...

I would make it so that you can SEE THINGS!!! HURAY FOR GRAPHICS!!! I mean, we alredy have a team of people, All we need to do is make..... One place for each location, and one graphic for every building and boat... vehical... wheapons... and stuff... DANG that would be hard...*headacke*

AND now i think all that i would change is make it harder to get recourses. Like, if you find potatoes in the wild, you can only get one meal frome it, or somthing like that. And i would make it a wee bit more realistick... You see, waight, and how much stuff you can carry, will be determaned by two things. Waight, and mass. You know how, in real life, if you try to carry somthing awquard... like a treasure chest(unfilled) It will be hard, becaus it's to awquard(I'm talking about the big ones.. light, maby made of plastick, but hard) that's what I'll do.

AND i would change it so that you can build anything you want!!! That is along the lines of somthing els.choos a boat, large medium, small, tiny, and then choos what you wan't to use to making it, such as, how much wood, iron, and stuff, and then what tools to use on this boat, and then some other stuff.

[Nalaris]

Alright, I must admit that I skimmed some of the longer posts and skipped some others entirely, so this is my list of things to do if I were running Cantr, independant of any other suggestion.

1. Speed everything up, with a few exceptions. For example, making a building should still take time, but I should be able to duel someone in less than a weeks time solid. I wouldn't speed it up to real time (heaven forbid), but I would make things go faster.

2. Add in a basic measure(just like hunger or damage), stamina, that would go down one percent every X time you do something (X would change depending on the activity, whether it's easy(walking), average(farming barehanded), or hard(dragging)). Every X time you rest (this would be equal to the average time rate) you gain one back.

3. Revamp the combat system so that someone can hit someone else several times a day, each hit taking percentages away from your stamina bar. The amount taken away would be dependant on your combat skill.

4. Slowly but surely deplete food resources from area's that have valuable resources, i.e. limestone, wood or hematite, which, coupled with slightly shorter traveling times, would force them to either expand to unclaimed area's or trade with claimed ones. Mwahaha.

5.I'd make bronze very simple to make. It would require tin and copper, and would have a pretty good copper/tin to bronze rate. It wouldn't be as useful as iron. Copper and tin tools could also be made, but they'd be next to useless.

6. After that...I dunno...I'd hear what the players want and make a new list, I suppose.

[The Sociologist]

Thanks to those who posted some kind words above but I'm certainly not here to try and take over the game or start a personality cult. Alas, my playing Cantr is strictly for recreation and I don't have the time available to join staff. In spite of having 15 charries, I seldom if ever use all my minutes...because I don't have real-world minutes to spare, not because there aren't other things I'd like to do in-game with the remainder. Sorry.

A few comments designed to go back to the original question about design principles. And also the other question: Should Cantr be more like a game or more like a simulation? Well, this is difficult because of the degree of abstractness involved. Chess is actually a simulation of historical warfare but it is highly abstract, so you would tend to see it as a game. Even Monopoly can be said to be a highly abstract simulation of the property market, though it is clearly considered a game. On the other hand I've been involved in business games which are likewise very abstract--just a series of data fed into mainframe computers--and yet some of them are highly accurate simulations of the way markets actually work, much more so than many competing products with richer and more immersive interfaces. Yet of course you pay people a salary to sit through such things--I doubt whether even the most ardent of the young MBA's would want to "play" such a simulation at home for fun!

I don't see literal "real-worldism" as necessary in Cantr. I'm quite happy to find my character carrying a crossbow and iron shield while riding a bicycle, having just installed a radio, while out in the harbor lies a wooden galleon. Jos's original design is utterly brilliant in that regard, as is the idea of dynamic naming of characters. This being a roleplay game, I'm much more interested in what makes characters, through their players, act in the way they do. In other words, what motivates them. Societies are ultimately all about that: What motivates people to act in the way they do?

That's what my very first post to this forum was all about, though I got some parts of it wrong. It is also what my recent essay on motivation was intended to develop; I've continued thinking about this and will within a few weeks post a second such essay, covering the information flows involved in technological advances. Unfortunately, not one of my ideas from that very first essay, written years ago, has ever been acted upon (eg clothing visible when you talk to someone), so I have little hope of being paid attention to, I'm afraid.

In my recent essay I outlined roughly entropy->scarcity->conflict->hierarchy&symbolism->dynasty->polity as the factors that make societies what they are. In fact, if these form the "hooks" onto which roleplay actions can be hung, so to speak, then the outcome of that roleplay, through all the actions of the individual actors, should resemble a genuine society. So, the design team is welcome always to ask: "Does this current change or addition enhance the above as the factors which provide motivations for character actions."

But even more important is that it must be accepted that people play this game for recreation, for fun. Unlike the abovementioned business simulations, it is not a requirement of their careers. So the bottom line is that the characters of any player who has become bored with the game will in time fall asleep and drop dead. Factors which contributed to the big "die offs" we have had in the game seem to be server lag, the initial implementation of the tiredness system (when you became very tired from ordinary work), and the time factor involved in repairs. All of these factors have one thing in common: they slow down the game and reduce fun value. It is significant that a common thread above seems to be a desire to see the game speed up and become more interesting. I think we can accept that those posters have their fingers firmly on what the problem is.

Bottom line. The design team should always ask themselves: "Does this change of addition enhance fun, activity and motivation for the majority of players."

[Nalaris]

Impressive, Sociologist. As to your time problem, if you think you can stand the loss you might consider bumping off some of your characters so you can devote more time to the ones you still have. Or you could wait until the ones you have die and not make anymore. Or you could keep on going with fifteen. Or you could smash your computer monitor with the largest blunt object currently available. The choice is yours really.

Other than that, I don't know how I can add anything...once again, impressive.

[Pie]

you know what? WE must take into acount that cantr is only 1500 days old. 15 HUNDRED!!!lets see... thats like... 4 GENERATIONS!!! Now, in real life, right now, there would be only about 100 people in cantr(if we all came frome the same person, and if it was determand by activitys in the sheets...) and we sure wouldn't have anything CLOSE to the government rivalrys we have today. WE EVEN HAVE IRON WHEPONS!!! IF we want to make this more like real life, we need to change one thing.

Recourses. Resourses are what make cantr tick. But right now... we have an overstock. Seriously, overstock.no need for new recourses(exept for food, and thats fairly easy to get) what i would wan't to change is make it a HECK of alot harder to get recourses, and if you wan't to make it easyer to get the recourses, you would need a harvester, or a crop feild.

This would thus make it harder to get resourses. Send us back into the 100's. fighting braking out is a posability, the need for land is a probability, caos is a definatly. but when we get it all worked out, we will have a trading environment. Becous you know what? RIGHT NOW, THERE IS NO MARKET!!! you know why? NO FIGHTING!! NO NEED FOR LAND!!! AND NO CAOS!!! and ESPESIALLY becous IT'S WAY TO DAMED EASY TO GET FOOD!!!

Also i would set up a system for food gathering, seasons, best time to pick food, and overpicking food when it's to ripe making there a limit of food in the futier.

SUPPLY AND DEMAND!!!

but the bottom line, really, is fun. And to all people here(sertanly me..) fun stems frome sociaty diferences and enrchment of rollplay, and i don't think cantr is really all that bad right now. the main problem with cantr is time. There hasn't been enough time to enduce large governments, trading guilds, fudes(some places sure, but really...) and the enrichment that makes fun. So in the words of shakspere(changed a little by me..) If inrichment is the food of fun, play on.

[Solfius]

I'm not quite sure if I translated that right, but if you actually mean there is an "oversupply" of resources, then I'm prepared to accept that.

A thought that has occured to me, prompted by tiredness, is players don't want to be bothered by mundane things. tiredness, resting, repairing tools. These things are pretty mundane. Some things such as eating or repairing tools are important (food for health, and deterioration for entropy to stimulate activity), but not every mundane thing needs to be present.

I think perhaps the game is caught between two roles. One, Cantr as a simulation, and the other, Cantr as a game.

Tiredness fulfills the simulation role, but not the game.

Perhaps the test for an idea could be: does it make the game more fun or motivate characters (borrowing from sociologist), and then is it realistic?

Tiredness didn't so much motivate as hinder, although it is realistic in principle. It therefore fails the test.

Tiredness was to stop massacres and maybe provide a function for furniture. My opinion is scap tiredness, make furniture heal damage when used, and overhaul the combat system and replace it with a tick based combat project in keeping with the majority of Cantr.

Before I go off on a tangent, let me finish and repeat my main point:

The test for new additions to the game should be:
1. Will it make the game more fun, interesting, or positively motivate characters (give them an incentive to do something rather than a punishment if they don't)

2. Is it realistic?

[the_antisocial_hermit]

Before I go off on a tangent, let me finish and repeat my main point:

The test for new additions to the game should be:
1. Will it make the game more fun, interesting, or positively motivate characters (give them an incentive to do something rather than a punishment if they don't)

2. Is it realistic?

Well stated.