The time limit.

[west]

Drew, I mean this in the nicest way possible, as a full-time university student who works, is in a frat, and does a crap-load of other stuff, etc.

Zark off!

[Slowness_Incarnate]

I once wrote a little thing....about a page or so long...and gave it to Cosmo about this time limit thing.I gave reasons why it was good..and acknowledged that there are good reasons for it as well.Ultimately,I think the time limit should be abolished though. Yet,I find myself no longer willing to argue.I don't want to prattle on and on about it,when noone will heed my words..they listen but don't comply...

[XBL]

2, if you take away the limit, there will be bandwidth problems again.. People say there isn't a problem anymore like there used to be.. well, DUH, there's a time limit stopping people from being logged in and running the game all day long as to where there used to not be.

Not true. Logging in once, check cantr and don't log out won't eat more bandwith than logging in on Cantr, check your chars and log out. 15 minutes later: login again, checking Cantr and loggin out again...

Next to that: the server is slow because it has to keep track of everyones time limit (consumes a lot of CPU power). And together with A LOT projects, it gets even slower.

I have a life. I'm a fulltime student, and I don't have time to play Cantr whole day... but imagine the ppl who want to play the whole day! I mean, the time limit shouldn't keep you away from your comp... You should be so smart to keep away from the comp, yourself.

And yet again: I think there's no bandwith problem anymore, so why don't we give it a try? When we consume to much bandwith, put the timelimit back again. I'm even willing to pay those extra gigabytes we use, if it happens we use to much bandwith...

Jochem

[David]

I voted NO with a difference.

First off a fantasy hockey league is another comp. game if it is what I think it is (that stuff on Yahoo?) that wasn't a serious argument that was for fun.

Ok, but here is my NO with a difference: Allow people to accumulate minutes. If they don't use them, they add up. If you are gone for a week, you have 1400 minutes lol. It's practically like saying no time limit.


But on a side note, people who aren't sick all the time should try and find some out door activities to do and other stuff...(I am a college student/day laborer, though the laboring is a little light with no work around!!!, damn economy) I still do things outside even in the winter, like start huge fires *rocks back in forth in chair in fetal position *

I play a lot of Cantr when I wake up way too early (like right now) or can't sleep from drinking too much caffiene for school or work, and then sometimes I just set aside a half-day of Cantr lol.

Not a criticism, just a suggestion... Comps are like drugs if used improperly or for too long, I would imagine someone with an addicts genes could have a problem with comps to a clinical degree, its not weakness its what one is born with, thats like calling an alcholic weak-willed and telling to just stop drinking with no help, or a clinically depressed person to just snap out of it. I would imagine by this point the majority of the population would realize that addictive traits can be genetic and a true illness, but apparently not. I'm glad I'm not burdened with that problem, though I do have something called empathy for others, another trait gone by the wayside.

I do find it very annoying in the middle of a good RP session to run out of minutes, so this is why I came up with this compromise. I hope the partisanship apparent nationally hasn't spread to Cantr... lol compromise is not a four letter word

[XBL]

But should software developers take care of the ppl who have an addiction? NO, of course not.

Jochem

[David]

Did you just skip over what I said about the game, I'm sorry I should have made the other part clear.

The addiction part was just an aside, not an argument dealing with time limits. It just seems the nature of the replies shows ignorance about illness, and a lack of empathy. It was the way it was said, not what was said exactly. Our conception of rugged individualism has to become more abstracted like religion was, otherwise we will remain like the christain fanatics of the crusades.

[Ecilope]

David, your accumulation idea is the best one I've heard so far.

[sammigurl61190]

It's impossible for me to be a full time student. I have illnesses that keep me from doing that. So I go to school over the Internet--and that takes around 2 or 3 hours a day. After that, I'm at home, by myself, with nothing to do. I play Cantr because I feel like I have a purpose. I have two friends in real life. I leave the house once a week. If it were up to me, none of this would have happened, I wouldn't have to go to school over the Internet, I wouldn't have to be antisocial, I wouldn't have to play Cantr. But it did. And there's nothing I can do to change it. If I could "have a life", I would. So I really don't appriciate you preaching for me to do something productive, when there is nothing productive for me to do. Living in a town with less than 5,000 people total, the majority of which are close-minded and ignorant, where everyone knows that you have mental illnesses and thinks you're an insane freak and makes fun of you, isn't really a reason for me to go outside and do something with my life at this point in time, thank you very much.

[Sico van der Meer]

There is one argument I do not hear in this discussion. Without a time limit, a few players that will play 24 hours a day, will going to dominate the whole game. Playing time = power, in some sense. 95% of the players are people with a job, study, sports, friends and other activities, and are only able to log in once or twice a day - or even less. They would be completely overruled in the game, because their reactions will become far too slow compared to the 24 hour players.

[Sico van der Meer]

Oh, BTW, Cantr does have server problems indeed, and I agree that this is not fun. But please remember that Cantr is a FREE game, managed by volunteers. The server is payed from gifts by players. A real perfect server (if possible) will cost a lot of money, which we just do not have. But still, are some people around who remember the server problems we had in the past? Remembering that period, there is not a reason to complain now...

[1959 Apache]

In most discussions or debates, there are usually aspects that are ignored. Whether on purpose, or just plain narrow view, certain ideas fall by the wayside. Such is the case here, and I am guilty.

Sico is precise in his comments. I have noticed that the characters who are in charge of their respective places, seem to be the most active of all there. Given the opportunity to be even more active, could very well cause power structures beyond any ability to overthrow. Remember, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Then there is the player that can only log in sparingly. No limit could cause the Cantr world to leave behind those players who are always catching up to those very active ones. That would cause the game to be less attractive to players with more busy lives, thereby reducing the number of players.

Having looked at this from this new perspective, I change my opinion to be in favor of the limit. I think that if the speed of the servers can be resolved, the limit question would hold less weight. I am going right now to make a donation to help the cause. Not to be stumping or anything, but a few dollars here and there might do wonders for the game. I am donating because I love this game, and would gladly have paid to play anyway.

[XBL]

But do you think those active ones are always out of minutes? No. I'm active, I was in charge of several places, and still I'm in control of a few places (even a small army).

I normally have 100minutes left. And besides, you can't do projects faster when there's no time limit... you can't do anything faster besides talking (not even faster, only more). So I don't think there will change much.

The only thing that will change is that there's the possebility that there occur bandwith problems again. But it's also possible that there won't be used as much bandwith as there used to be... just because people don't have to login and logout everytime.



I don't get the point of everyone who's against.

You say 'people will get addicted to pc's'.

Even if that's true (which I doubt), do people who want to get rid of the time limit because of several reasons, have to suffer under the people who can't control their addiction?

You say 'The characters who are the most active will dominate the game'.

Not true (see above why).

You say 'The bandwith problems will occur again'.

Not true (see above why). And we can't prove if it will happen, until we tried it.

You say 'The server can't be perfect'.

Nothing can be perfect, but it could be improved by reducing the number of calculations the server has to make. I think that the server problems are due to CPU-lag or due to old hardware. I don't know, but I don't think it's a bandwith issue. By making sure the server has less work, you will increase the overal speed and stability.


Jochem

[new.vogue.nightmare]

There is one argument I do not hear in this discussion. Without a time limit, a few players that will play 24 hours a day, will going to dominate the whole game. Playing time = power, in some sense. 95% of the players are people with a job, study, sports, friends and other activities, and are only able to log in once or twice a day - or even less. They would be completely overruled in the game, because their reactions will become far too slow compared to the 24 hour players.

As it is, I can still stretch my 200 minutes over up to 16 hours of play (I have done it before on the days when there's nothing at all to possibly do.) So, I'd have to say your argument is pretty much useless. Anyone who's played long enough knows how to stretch minutes to last much longer than they should.
The time limit only has become a problem for me when:
a) a single action eats up 10 minutes (It has before)
b) I have to stretch my minutes over more than a day (also has before)
c) I was a newb and forgot to log out. (happens to everyone, no?)


And about becoming addicted...when Cantr's silent and there's nothing to do, I'll play XBox, or share death-metal with everybody on campus. All the time limit does in that respect is make people change their activity. And I'll certainly donate money to something that's important to me, and right now, staring at a red error bar or a character list without any names lit up isn't quite something I'm willing to give money to.

At least give us more minutes for putting away notes or burying bodies or something, I cleaned up a whole forest and it used almost all my minutes...stupid lag >_<

[Jos Elkink]

But do you think those active ones are always out of minutes? No. I'm active, I was in charge of several places, and still I'm in control of a few places (even a small army).

I normally have 100minutes left. And besides, you can't do projects faster when there's no time limit... you can't do anything faster besides talking (not even faster, only more). So I don't think there will change much.

I think that talking more actually gives you more power. Power in the game is much more about talking and bluf than it is about physical power. It is all about whether people accept you being in power or not and more argumentative power does help in this respect. So I think this is not a very good counter-arguments. Oni's argument about time-stretching is more valid, imho.

The only thing that will change is that there's the possebility that there occur bandwith problems again. But it's also possible that there won't be used as much bandwith as there used to be... just because people don't have to login and logout everytime.

That's pure nonsense - the bandwidth is not used by logging in and out ...

You say 'The server can't be perfect'.

Nothing can be perfect, but it could be improved by reducing the number of calculations the server has to make. I think that the server problems are due to CPU-lag or due to old hardware. I don't know, but I don't think it's a bandwith issue. By making sure the server has less work, you will increase the overal speed and stability.

Even if it is not a bandwidth, but a serverload issue, reducing the amount of time players can be online helps, so this is a rather weak argument. I cannot simply replace the hardware, and suspect it's rather up-to-date anyway. But out of my control.

And how do you suggest to 'reduce number of calculations' or 'make sure the server has less work'? That's not really an easily implementable solution. I agree that the code of Cantr can be improved considerably in terms of efficiency, and we are working on this, but this will take a lot of time, and is not going to be very effective very soon. A time limit is easy to implement and easily effective.

When we had no time limit, some players used the game almost as a chat channel, making the game very difficult to play for people who log in much less often. The time limit has, in my opinion, helped quite positively in that respect.

And as a side point - we are already talking about playing more than 3 hours every single day. That really is a huge load of time, available for free, so I do not really see why there should be a tremendous problem.

[::10votaal::]

XBL, people can get addicted to their PC. And it is dangerous

Screen-addictions (pc-addiction and tv-addiction) could cause damage to the health of people and it's more likely to find those addicts playing Cantr then looking up the latest news.

I think some people that are playing Cantr are not aware of the dangers of sitting behind your pc of your tv the whole day. These people should go out more, find some fresh air. This will limit the chances of sickness.

Next to the health problem we've some players who are missing some social-skills by just playing games all day. Though it's nice to know how to make friends in Cantr, it won't help you in the real world

So I think we should keep the time limit. 200 minutes a day is already far to much, looking from the medical point of view. I don't say that we should change the limit to 150 or 100 (though it might be better for some people), some days you just need you 200 minutes. Other days only 10.

So I say, keep it like it is... why change a good working thing