Rip Van Winkell

[The Sociologist]

This is where the wheels fell off, so to speak. I am an always have been in favor of what I call entropy, but large numbers of characters doing nothing but repairs is hardly motivational. You need resources to be used in repair projects, then you can radically cut the times involved in doing the repairs themselves. The current effect is that most newcomers to the game may well experience crushingly boring first experiences, back to the issue of player motivation.

If you are doing "nothing but repair", you are either exaggerating, or you have too many tools. The whole idea of this development was to balance the "game capital" with the "currently alive" chars, as opposed to the integral of the history of the chars. It was meant so chars would re-evaluate what tools were worth maintaining, and which ones to let rot. It isn't a design flaw that everyone wants to repair every single stone hammer in the game.

It would be much better if repairs required resources but very little or no time. This would enhance trade and activity. I continue to warn that repairs currently require too much time and too little activity and interaction between players. I am not opposed to repairs as such. Indeed, they are needed for vehicles and buildings as well, but if repairs to such items required comparable percentages of time to repair versus time to constuct, then the result would be a catastrophe for the game. So there is clearly something wrong with your model. Believe me, it's wrong.

[sem]

The whole idea of this development was to balance the "game capital" with the "currently alive" chars, as opposed to the integral of the history of the chars. It was meant so chars would re-evaluate what tools were worth maintaining, and which ones to let rot. It isn't a design flaw that everyone wants to repair every single stone hammer in the game.

If it isn't working as designed then surely it must be either a design flaw or an implementation flaw. If the development was implemented as designed then it must be a design flaw.

[saztronic]

People are motivated by two things in Cantr, it seems to me. First, when they can roleplay well. Second, when they can achieve something within the parameters of the game.

As currently implemented, rot and repair detract from the latter motivation considerably. I have a char who is utterly alone and has been for a dozen years. He has exactly four items that require repair. Every twenty days or so he has to stop and repair them for four days -- because he's terrible at it -- even if he's only used one of the items, and that but rarely. So 20% of his time -- and four real-life days, regular as clockwork -- are spent doing nothing but repairing things that shouldn't be rotting that fast in the first place.

As Seko has said many times, rot should be tied to use. That reattaches repair to achievement. If I need to spend a day repairing my hammer because I've been using it for days to make a longboat, that makes sense. If I need to spend a day repairing it when I haven't touched it in a week, that doesn't make a lot of sense.

I have some similar thoughts about skills -- I happen to think the change that was made there wasn't dramatic enough, actually. It didn't really differentiate the value of peoples' effort enough to impact trade, and therefore didn't achieve its desired effect -- it just annoys people that care about it, or else people don't really spend a lot of time thinking about it. It would be one thing if an expert toolmaker actually created expertly-made tools, that impacted project times based on their sharpness, sturdiness, imperviousness to wear, whatever. That would get me actually to seek out an expert toolmaker. If I'm not that great at toolmaking but all it means is it takes me an extra hour to produce something of the same quality as the expert -- that's not any incentive to pay someone else to make it for me.

[Peanut]

Chars are just lazy. I've seen ample people being very succesful in cantr with the current setup.

[Marian]

Chars are just lazy. I've seen ample people being very succesful in cantr with the current setup.

Too true, from what I've seen the #1 thing holding back progress in Cantr is finding helpers that can be trusted not to fall asleep, not any of the game mechanics. (Though repairs are annoying, especially when you're terrible at them and no one can be bothered to help you. The crowbar was a good start, but they should lower the time on everything else too.)

I noticed that no one like's doing anything that takes time, either. I work out plans for my chars five or ten years or advance, but you of course can't convince people to work for you based on weapons or a ship you'll be able to provide for them that far away. So you have to do everything for yourself and then it takes even longer.

Even when you give people iron shields and keys and everything else you can't rely on them for anything but the most basic stuff. "Work on that smelter. Cook this meat, but let me start the project because last time you screwed it up and forced us to build another fir pit. Repair this sword. Stand there and drool. Good job!" Gathering trips? Tradelines? Forget it.

[saztronic]

Chars are just lazy. I've seen ample people being very succesful in cantr with the current setup.

Too true, from what I've seen the #1 thing holding back progress in Cantr is finding helpers that can be trusted not to fall asleep, not any of the game mechanics. (Though repairs are annoying, especially when you're terrible at them and no one can be bothered to help you. The crowbar was a good start, but they should lower the time on everything else too.)

I noticed that no one like's doing anything that takes time, either. I work out plans for my chars five or ten years or advance, but you of course can't convince people to work for you based on weapons or a ship you'll be able to provide for them that far away. So you have to do everything for yourself and then it takes even longer.

Even when you give people iron shields and keys and everything else you can't rely on them for anything but the most basic stuff. "Work on that smelter. Cook this meat, but let me start the project because last time you screwed it up and forced us to build another fir pit. Repair this sword. Stand there and drool. Good job!" Gathering trips? Tradelines? Forget it.

I agree that some succeed, but that finding reliable people with whom to collaborate is a challenge. It seems more of a challenge than it has been in the past. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that the tedium of the game contributes to people not getting involved, interested. I'm not suggesting the game is tedious if you engage it -- only that the level of tedium has risen, and that keeps new players away, and discourages experienced players.

I don't know. I'm open to other explanations.

[west]

Chars are just lazy. I've seen ample people being very succesful in cantr with the current setup.

These are the people who regularly run out of minutes, and devote substantial bits of their day to cantr. The rest of us don't have that luxury.

[SekoETC]

Being successful demands concentration. When I was out of town and couldn't log in every day, I started losing the reasons of why Cantr was so important to me. Only after being able to play on full concentration for hours I started getting back the joy of playing. It can come of very simple things.

[tiddy ogg]

Chars are just lazy. I've seen ample people being very succesful in cantr with the current setup.

These are the people who regularly run out of minutes, and devote substantial bits of their day to cantr. The rest of us don't have that luxury.

I understand that, but they are the people who keep the game going. They are the ones around to interact with newspawns so that they don't quit. Two of my chars have been thanked by newspawns recently, implying that they would have quit without such interacction.
The game needs us geeks to enable others to be able to play briefly.

[The Sociologist]

Chars are just lazy. I've seen ample people being very succesful in cantr with the current setup.

Too true, from what I've seen the #1 thing holding back progress in Cantr is finding helpers that can be trusted not to fall asleep, not any of the game mechanics. (Though repairs are annoying, especially when you're terrible at them and no one can be bothered to help you. The crowbar was a good start, but they should lower the time on everything else too.)

The one aspect here impacts on the other. The tunover in players is too high, causing the loss in trust, and the high turnover is attributable to the tedium. Obviously, there always has been and always will be turnover, but it shouldn't be this high. Players are leaving the game because they are bored.

[Mykey]

Rather quite good topic

[Mafia Salad]

It would be much better if repairs required resources but very little or no time. This would enhance trade and activity. I continue to warn that repairs currently require too much time and too little activity and interaction between players. I am not opposed to repairs as such. Indeed, they are needed for vehicles and buildings as well, but if repairs to such items required comparable percentages of time to repair versus time to constuct, then the result would be a catastrophe for the game. So there is clearly something wrong with your model. Believe me, it's wrong.

Would someone please take a good look at what he is saying here???? It makes more sense than what is being done and I think it would have a + effect as opposed to a - one.....

Using resources instead and using a lot less time is accomplished by letting you stuff rot away and making new ones. Just because you can repair doesn't mean you have to.

[Mykey]

It is possible to tell, this exception