An Essay on Motivation (Long)

[The Sociologist]

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.

Look, if salt cakes are easy to make - for example in batches of 100 so that the labor used to make them is not a big factor in adding value - and they can be dissolved back into salt again, AND they decay less than other things such that they are the best store of value in the game, then you would find them becoming an accepted store of value, and an increasingly used token of exchange...the beginnings of a currency.

If those factors do not apply, then it won't happen. And I mention salt above just by way of showing I'm not fixated on gold.

Finally, I would add that I believe the vending machine idea is way premature and tending towards automated trading a la Ultima Online. Sorry, but the whole idea here is at least to try and get these things going without automation.

Given the sleeping sickness I did once consider the idea of a "trading mat" (a sort of project) whereby the trader would put down his wares and indicate what he wanted for them, creating thereby a slot for you to fill, much like adding materials to a project. Then once you had "completed" his trading "project", he would pick up your goods and you would pick up his.

So you see I did think about it. I eventually decided it was probably hell to progam and in any case bad for roleplay. So I don't just rush out ideas, you see. I make at least a minimal effort to think about them first.

[Songthrush]

You are not fixated on gold, but you are fixated on the concept of a "store of value" which is quite a similar thing.

This concept is a chimera, a sometimes convenient theoretical fiction.
Ultimately there aren't any absolute stores of value in life or in Cantr. In Cantr we have things which are significant for gameplay, and therefore are valuable.

You cannot make i.e. feathers or salt cakes significant for gameplay by merely making them exceptionally durable and scarce. If we do so, what we fail to see is that a fundamentally faulty theoretical presumption from the real world has been forced upon Cantr in the hopes of seeing a result comparable to the real world where this same mechanism is erroneously thought to operate.

Actually by taking a distracting break from all kinds of theory and simply allowing our imagination to construct a free thought experiment as to what would happen to gamepley in Cantr if such changes were put in place, we see easily that nothing described in the theory will really be achieved in Cantr. The players will continue to admantly refuse to believe that useless chunks of gold or feathers or salt-cakes represent value! Why? Is this because they are stupid and don't understand that for roleplay reasons they ought to? We think not, it's rather because players understand and take part in gameplay dynamics, which dictate to them that gold is useless.

These same "gameplay dynamics" exist in the real world and DO dictate to us that gold is useless, compared to say, potatos! In times of war and famine, a loaf of bread is easily worth all the family gold of an average family on the black market. This is where one should search for the truth, in these exceptional conditions where the veil is temporarily removed from ordinary people's eyes. Why do the the black market criminals still want gold? Because, of course, they are outside the crumbling system and hunger is not killing them or their family.

In exactly the same way we should ask ourselves why the "US government" wanted all the gold during the crisis suffered by that country? Correct, because they too, just like the black market guys, were outside the crumbling system and had their own plan for the gold. So we see that TO THEM gold is universally valuable. We should not pretend to know the reason why.

But this is interesting! Some think no currency is developing because something is wrong with Cantr, but what if rather something is wrong with the theory, describing the value-creation mechanism we are told operates in the real world?

That debate is definitely not for our humble forum. So, we've suggested a gameplay mechanism which would encourage currency to be incorporated by players in the lives of their characters and provide numerous other benefits for gameplay - limited coin-op mechanical dispensers.

[The Sociologist]

Look, economists would say that the basis of money arises with the following factors: convenience, durability, divisibility, and high intrinsic value. Each of those factors in turn has a further technical definition. Clearly precious metals fit the bill rather well, which is why they have tended to be used as money right across the world for the past 4000 years.

Obviously for some tribal people a live cow is a store of value, but cutting one in half results in two dead half-cows. That offends the divisibility factor, and so on.

I don't want to end up sounding like an economist 'cause they're pretty boring people really. They even call it the "dismal science".

[Songthrush]

Economics only studies money and value as that which already exists. It is only the study of markets and the distrubution of wealth. Economics as a social science does not try to consider money on the philosophical level that our game requires.

If we sought to introduce a true indigenous form of mathematics into Cantr, the worst place of all to ask about it would be at the math department of a university. There you will find everything except what is actually needed for the task at hand, a non-superficial understanding of the essential subject.

There are exceptional economists and mathematicians who have tried to develop such an understanding. They are not considered to be doing really "useful work" by their peers in the field, who are concerned with, focused on different things. This is as it should be, of course?

Let's not rely on whifs taken from economics or thermodynamics to try and change Cantr to reflect the real world more. These are theories, of very questionable universal import. It must be acknowledged that the problem we have is an artistic one first and foremost, and the art in question is a type of philosophical construction, with an eye for gameplay.

[Sho]

Theories are always as meaningful as their underlying assumptions. Not all real-world theories (theories of thermodynamics and electromagnetism, for example) apply meaningfully to Cantr, but that's not because Cantr is somehow immune to modeling. There is no sense in which Cantr is somehow less able to be explained by theories.
Characters in Cantr have goals, most of which require stuff, but have limited ability to do work, and stuff cannot be created without work. Characters will make decisions towards satisfying their goals. That's economics, more or less, and if you take into account certain differences between Cantr and the real world (for example, that Cantr characters value power, quality of life and possessions differently from us), quite a bit of real-world economics translates to Cantr fairly well.

[Songthrush]

I agree that to study Cantr using economics is a great diversion for bored grad students!

Changing Cantr "using economics" or thermodynamics is another thing entirely. It can be made to resemble the theory better, but that's not what is wanted, or is it?

As the theory is not the real world.

[Sho]

We want Cantr to be like the real world. We can't simulate the real world from the ground up, since we have neither 24-hour players nor the resources for a realistic physics engine. So we build a system with the minimum of structure that will cause everything else to follow the pattern of the real world.
We want currency because it's something that Cantr needs if it is to develop many of the features of real-world society. We want it to develop in Cantr for the same reasons it developed in the real world, because we know those reasons worked before. They will be the least likely to cause unintended consequences and the most likely to give results that approximate the real world. So we ask why currency developed in the real world.
That's an economics question.

[Songthrush]

Yet right on the other side of that coin, it is a philosophical question.

Pun intended.

The "why's" of currency development in the real world do have something to do with convenience, all agree. If so, what a fortunate coincidence, so do coin-op dispensers in Cantr - the ultimate in convenience for the trader who isn't inclined to wait for days for his trade partners to finally awake, or come out of their buildings. The ultimate convenience for miners,crafsmen, smiths and other industrious types who can actually sell their wares now. The coin-op dispensers would be a sure step toward the stated goal. If you don't agree, please review the goals you wrote down again, and consider what having such machines would do for gameplay.

Ultimately it does not matter by what means what you've described is achieved. We agree in the goal. So, let's not try to pretend that the Quality Theory of economics is the one and only explanation of what happens in the real world into whose image Cantr must immediately be remade in order to gain some of its characteristics.

I think that theory is very questionable in its explanatory powers, but excellent for obscuring anything you want to obscure! Unfortunately this doesn't make it very helpful for gameplay-building.

[formerly known as hf]

In terms of currency, I will still maintain my old argument

Currency will never develop in Cantr as long as all Cantrians are able to know the exact weight, to the gram, of the materials they have, and also be able to work out exactly how many days, in terms of labour and travel, a certain weight or item is 'worth'.

As long as 10 days of limestone is universally worth 10 days of wood - why bother with currency?

The resource limits have made a short step to reducing availability, thus increasing demand. And skills have, on an individual level, changed the meaning of a 'day of work' - but not as much as required.

People still trade on 'days worth' - the only time I have ever seen this not happen is in cases where there is a limited resource which is very heavily controlled - i.e: When TBR where in Karnon Forest. In this case, a days worth of hematite was going for very inflated prices- because of the high demand and limited availability.

Individual characters need to have even more varying skills - so that a novice forester can collect hardly anything, whilst an expert forester can collect many times that amount. Sought-after resources need to be even more limited in their availability.

[Frits]

The value of money is an agreement. That's how it evolved, and there were many people who didn't agree for centuries. Also many currencies fell into disuse. Iron is what most cantrians can agree on so that's what they use, i think it's truly in line with the game's theme.

[T-shirt]

Currency works in real life, because some resources are hard to gather and are hard to come by. If every Roman soldier could dig salt for himself, salt would never have become salary.

Besides, resources in Cantr have the same day value everywhere; only tools and machines adjust the day value. That's a pity. If Djorf wood was cheaper then Klojf wood, day for day trade with wood would not be as straightforward and people could look for light resources with fixed values, like the Roman salt or medieval gold.

[Mykey]

It is interesting. You will not prompt to me, where I can read about it?

[The Sociologist]

If every Roman soldier could dig salt for himself, salt would never have become salary.

Nicely put. You most likely knew when you wrote it that way, that the Latin for "salt" is the root of our word "salary".

[Jos Elkink]

I finally had the stomach to read these essays (not the entire discussion afterwards, though). I knew I should have read them much earlier, but it was just so dauntingly long ...

I agree with at least about 80% of the essays. Some ideas I had thought off as well, just never got to implementing them, and some ideas are new to me and quite good.

I might react to specific parts later on. Thanks for writing it up, though ...

Well, some very quick replies, so you have some ideas what I'm thinking now ...

About land scarcity: I totally agree; in fact, I had halfway implemented 'fields', which were exactly the enclosed areas you are talking about, for a very long time, but never got to completing it, until Jur came with the slots idea which replaced it. It is still our intention to improve the slots system to have slots deteriorate, to make it possible to create new slots, to enclose slots, etc.

About currency and deterioration: good points and I must admit I never thought of currency in the context of deterioration.

About children: I quite like your ideas, but have slight problems seeing the ramifications. I fear somewhat that it will be a backdoor way for older players to create 'armies' of characters played by themselves. Exactly what the CR is there to protect us from. Perhaps with a rather tight limit on the number of children per char this could be revolved. I have to think about this / discuss this more with people.

About skills: it was never implement to affect the combat system seriously, and I'm also not too happy with the current system, although I totally ignore it when playing Cantr, so it doesn't bother me much either. I've also been rather lucky on average with my skills ... But players seem to like the skills system.

About house numbers: we have them now ... Not the streets, but the numbers at least. And they're fixed - they are stored in the database. About house decorations: nice ideas! I totally agree.

About making clothes visible when talking: yes, and this was the plan from the very start. It was subsequently not implemented out of fear for a too heavy drag on the database (for every time someone sees an event, all the clothes info has to be read from the database). Perhaps the ProgD should think about ways to do this efficiently. E.g. store the clothes info with the events. Personally I would love to *see* the clothes, but that will be pretty much impossible to implement anytime soon, I guess.

About cultures: yeah, nice ideas. Something for the RD to think about. I'm definitely in favour of making some resources more region-specific. To artificially limit animals in their movement ... nah, not so much. But there are nice ideas there.

Ok, for the rest I would have to print the essays and scan them for elements I forgot ...

Oh, wait, the combat system: yeah, working on this ... Breaking locks is going to be easier, probably, and new weapons of different style (e.g. catapults) should become available. I don't like the attribute-settings idea for character much.