An Essay on Motivation (Long)

[Marian]

I have asked people to please talk out loud or at least go in a building...even offered to drop what I was doing and work on their projects while they were in there. Usually I'm just told the equivalent of 'shut up, it's none of your business'.

It's not like I even have anything against whispering in itself...it's just when there's nothing but whispering for days and days at a time that it becomes a problem.

I've also tried starting conversations, asking things about the town as a whole or the government, but that never seems to work...probably because by the time anyone who shows the slightest interest in making newspawns or travellers feel welcome wakes up my questions get lost in the two hundred lines of whispering that happens between all the other people lost in their own little worlds.

And I don't know why it means I have an 'attitude' just because my chars don't want to live in places where they're completely ignored.

[notsure]

Choose another town to pick on -- Dory always gets bad press. Olip West is much worse.

notsure

[The Sociologist]

*heaves a deep breath* People, this isn't about picking on Dory. I could have used Drojf but my charrie there died of boredom. Let's get back to the issue of how to finetune towns for better roleplay. Thank you.

[Marian]

I could have used Drojf but my charrie there died of boredom.

Oh so that was you! Funnily enough I think it was actually healthy for the town, people are definitely talking a little more now as a result. A noble sacrifice for the greater good.

As for 'fine-tuning towns for RP' if we're still on the subject of whispers I say the best solution is to just get rid of them! Then people would have to either talk outloud, or if they had an actual reason for whispering in the first place they could go inside or out on a road, or something. If there's some reason they couldn't do that then a note could be used...that might still get as annoying but it wouldn't be as bad since notes are slightly less convenient and you can't emote sex through passing them back and forth.

[The Sociologist]

I could have used Drojf but my charrie there died of boredom.

Oh so that was you!

No no. Mistaken identity, sorry.

[Songthrush]

The theory that decay (or the lack of it) prevents currency from developing in Cantr seems ill considered.

Currency in our game is "non-convertible" at the moment. You can't instantly convert your coins into whatever goods you need at some locally specified rate. Your best bet is requesting a town leader to do so for you, and then waiting until they wake up and deign to pay attention. Then we find that almost all non-currency-obsessed town leaders will simply not want our coins at all.

In a thought experiment we can see that a buildable dispenser machine would instantly give the sought after value to coins - the person(s) holding the key to the dispenser could set down items or resources into its limited number of "drawers" and set the price in coins at which the dispenser gives up the contents of the drawer.

There are metals which are significantly more scarce and durable compared to gold. Yet, they were never as interesting to our ancestors as gold. Although any number of sham explanations can be invented, the inherent "value" of gold remains shrouded in genuine mystery even now, with roots that reach deep into religion and royal bloodlines. There is a strange saying which reoccurs in this context: what comes from underground will be used underground.

The reason for bringing this up is justifiable concern for what we do and do not allow to leak into Cantr from our own world. Our own preconcieved notion that gold is valuable and is a "representation" of value on which currency depends should be very carefully separated out and not allowed to enter into Cantr "by extension", automagically. We should not be expecting this to happen or striving to make it possible, as though gold-backed currency was a logical absolute of the known universe.

In Cantr, the metal with inherent value is iron (or steel), for obvious reasons. If you have 1000g of iron you can build certain things with it, but not others which you may want. If iron could be easily converted into coins which in turn allowed someone to select from a town dispenser an item they want to instantly have, coinage would begin to have widespread circulation in all locations where these "dispensers" were built and tended by town leaders/owners. Without some mechanism of this kind, coinage will forever be crippled - even with very punishing decay rates set on all things from food to tools.

The permanence of a bunch of golden or iron coins would clearly mean nothing to us, if there was no way to do something with them. Put in a situation with everything decaying, players will simply begin to hoard and value non-decaying iron or steel, even more than they do currently.

[Sho]

That would be why Sociologist wants iron and steel to decay:

The bottom line is that eveything in Cantr should decay, even indoors. The only issue is the rate of decay. Raw foods fastest, preserved or prepared foods less fast, but beyond that even other resources such as wood and metals must decay over time. Raw materials should decay faster than finished or treated materials. Slowest to decay should be materials like baked clay, glass and cast metals such as bronze. (We still have classic bronzes from ancient greece but hardly any iron weapons or tools). And not decaying at all would be silver, gold and finally diamonds - which don't decay in any case.

Vending machines would probably help, too, but since they smell very strongly of automation it would be better if we could do without them. And coins caught on quite nicely in classical times when vending machines were unheard of. If we duplicate the circumstances that caused that to happen - which Sociologist's suggestions are a good attempt at - we might be able to get the same effect.

[Songthrush]

Don't forget, the main reason for imagining these dispensers is that our game has non-realtime interaction, unlike the "real world".

If that condition was somehow changed, and Cantr became real-time, then no dispensers would be needed to give coins true convertibility. Only we can't change this fundamental aspect of Cantr.

In the proposal set forth by Sociologist, some more thinking "into the future" of the gameplay (rather than into entropy, royal bloodlines etc.) will make it quite clear that non-decaying silver and gold would continue to be worthless, as you can't make a sword out of them and as usual nobody will wish to exchange this permanent but useless gold for an impermanent but status-granting and useful sword.

We can easily see proof of this in the game right now. Take feathers, which are a somewhat scarce non-decaying resource just as the proposed gold and silver. However we don't notice this giving any special value to feathers... while the always-decaying, timeconsuming, hasslemaking "swords" (codeword, you understand) continue to be highly valued.

From here on I ask you just once to take a leap of faith with me, what if the reason for this does not have to do with entropy, but rather with the striking futility of the idea of ever making ourselves an awesome sword out of feathers? And ever convincing somebody else to part with their awesome sword in exchange for "permanent and rare" avian bits?

[sem]

Another reason that coins haven't taken off is that either metals are produced in the form of filings which can easily be weighed out, or everybody carries an invisible hacksaw with which to carve the appropriate amount off the ingots they're carrying.

[BarbaricAvatar]

*shrugs* I like Doryiskom. I seem to be in the minority, at least here on the forums. If you don't like being left out of a conversation, try starting one.

I've seen charries make efforts to improve conversation in that town, from games to public announcements to electoral debates to outright pleas for people to talk more. I don't know what it is that keeps that from happening -- but maybe it's players with attitudes leaving instead of doing something about it. Self-fulfilling prophecy.

Ah see? Someone with sense!
Whispering plays an integral part of Dory life, as without it half the interesting things that happen from time to time would not occur at all. Imo without naming names, a lot of secret plotting is going on, it's happened before, it will happen again (a week ago there was the Valleria incident, that was interesting).

Getting back to the point though, if whispering were removed and people had to go into buildings to talk privately, you'll find that the screen will look like this:

1201-1.34: You see David Letterman entering Fishfin coming from Bog Cottage
1201-1.34: You see David Letterman leaving Fishfin entering Bog Cottage
1201-1.32: You see Sally Fields entering Fishfin coming from Smelly Castle
1201-1.32: You see Nigel Mansell entering Fishfin coming from Bog Cottage
1201-1.31: You see Pongoo Pinknuts leaving Fishfin entering Smegsbury
1201-1.29: You see Funkin Wagnose entering Fishfin coming from Diddlenip

etc.. And repeat x10

It's the same thing, instead of people whispering and getting things done, you'll just have everyone walking in and out of buildings in order to have a private talk before continuing on with their projects outside. Then eventually they'll decide to do their projects inside to save them running in and out and then the town is dead because everyone is inside.

[Mykey]

What necessary words... super, magnificent idea

[The Sociologist]

It's not about banning whispering, and I agree that that should be an in-game policing issue. The above was more about finding ways to filter and manage the level of "noise" and allowing towns to extend themselves and even grow bigger without becoming unbearable. Also, please don't make this the "We love/hate Dory" thread. Thanks.

On the subject of coinage, gold was the best available store of value. In order to be such it needed some use to prop up that value (ie attractiveness in jewelry), it needed to be very long lasting (ie a stable metal which does not oxidize) and it needed to be sufficiently scarce (ie you couldn't just pick it off the ground wherever you were). In most cases the city states gained control of the gold mines. Coins were just a means whereby those states certified that a lump of gold shaped and stamped in a certain way always equalled a certain weight. There is no mystery to it at all.

Another reason that coins haven't taken off is that either metals are produced in the form of filings which can easily be weighed out, or everybody carries an invisible hacksaw with which to carve the appropriate amount off the ingots they're carrying.

Yes, well put.

Also, with regard to the above discussion, if swords required the addition of some quantity of extra steel every time you repaired them, then they would no longer serve as a store of value. That's what I've kept on pointing out ever since repairs were first introduced.

[Songthrush]

There are artificial stores of abstract value that have been deliberately introduced in the real world, but in Cantr we have no such thing.

In Cantr we have objects which either have gameplay significance or don't have gameplay significance. Gold, silver or platinum in Cantr will not succesfully become currency even if all other things in the game world decay at crazy rates and nothing can be precisely measured, because the theory of gold being valuable in the real world due to scarcity/nondecay/prettiness does not really explain anything - outside the textbook it remains an open question why REALLY was (and is) gold so valuable to us.

With a superficial explanation of why gold is valuable, even after restyling the game to fit the theory we cannot expect it to work at all.

[The Sociologist]

There are artificial stores of abstract value that have been deliberately introduced in the real world, but in Cantr we have no such thing.

Right, bank notes were originally mere promissory notes. The bank would promise to pay the bearer $1 or whatever in gold. World governments were only able to go off the gold standard by forcing people, virtually at gunpoint, to do so. In the US, for example, Executive Order 6102 carried a maximum fine of $10,000 or ten years in prison for anyone who kept more than $100 of gold in preference to bank notes. That's how it was done.

But those are bank notes. Prior to this people were happy to accept coinage so long as the value of the coin was what they expected it to be, in other words a value in gold or silver.

In Cantr we have objects which either have gameplay significance or don't have gameplay significance. Gold, silver or platinum in Cantr will not succesfully become currency even if all other things in the game world decay at crazy rates and nothing can be precisely measured, because the theory of gold being valuable in the real world due to scarcity/nondecay/prettiness does not really explain anything - outside the textbook it remains an open question why REALLY was (and is) gold so valuable to us.

With a superficial explanation of why gold is valuable, even after restyling the game to fit the theory we cannot expect it to work at all.

Songthrush, with respect, I suspect you're missing my point a bit. I don't care whether the substance is gold, silver or toucan dung! But what I am telling you is that if it has a value to people and is scarce and doesn't decay, then it might potentially form the basis of a currency.

For example, the Romans at times paid their soldiers in salt and it was often used in ways which resemble the use of a currency. Salt, a pure chemical, doesn't really decay (unless it gets wet, in which case it might leach away), it is useful, and it was relatively valuable before modern production techniques. One could perhaps imagine "salt cakes" becoming a currency in Cantr, especially since there are no tools or machines for harvesting it quicker.

[Songthrush]

Salt cakes and/or feathers are doomed in Cantr. I already explained why: they have no gameplay significance. Immunity to decay and measurability in and of itself gives no inherent significance to these items in Cantr (we can agree on that much at least, as I also want to say that in the real world decay and measurability does not at all explain the exclusive value attached to gold). You propose to increase the decay and confuse measurability more than now - do not forget we have no clear bartering rate for the various goods and resources - but this is misguided. No matter how much the decay and the confusion is increased, the consciousness of inherent value of salt cakes and feathers in cantr will not rise above zero.

Every project meant to encourage currency formation in Cantr, however gentle, is doomed to fail if the explanatory real-world theory behind just does not work.