Fun factor

[Kreed]

In any game you go through different stages..
1) When you first play you have the initial steep learning curve of the games mechanics and theme.
2) Then you become confident with how things work and you can start exploring and trying things out. This is the fun part for me, new discoveries and ideas, (this should be where your hooked).
3) You become competent in the game, new things are few and far between. Fun comes from helping new people and completing long term goals.

Stage one cant be changed in any major way without destroying the game itself but it could be helped. I seem to remember having to wait for my account to be set up when I first started, how about using that time. Send them an e-mail with a walk through of a typical first day, with some notes on how to use the interface and why taking someones dung without introducing yourself is frowned on. Give them examples so they are forewarned that nothing at all might happen with one character and they might want to have a few extras. Maybe a flash animation or some kind of sandbox instead of an e-mail.

Stage two is where the most impact is to be made with tweaking things like repairs, introducing weather and reproduction.
Cantrs weakness in stage two is the characters individualization. In a lot of multiplayer games this is overcome using clan systems. Cantr should be the King when it comes to clans, secret societies and organizations, yet it fails pretty badly on that count. Adding repairs and using other means to force people to work together doesn’t seem to have had much effect, and the reason should be obvious.
It wasn’t iron or gold or even food that MADE my ancestors work together, it was the relationships between them. Without some kind of visible relationships tying people together Cantr is going to remain an individualistic world.
There seems to me to be only two ways of achieving that, reproduction or names. I know Jos is very purist when it comes to these two things but couldn’t we have an artificial system to get the ball rolling now until it can be done properly. On the principal that something is better than nothing.

Stage three is more a long term problem and improvements in stage two will “knock on” to stage three, and of course most olbies are fairly dedicated by this stage.

[Nakranoth]

Artificial system... like appointing newspawns a random last name of one of the charries that are already there? Maybe make it so the charrie has to check a box if they want to be able to have offspring pop up...

[Sicofonte]

"Oh, I had a son..."

I don't know...


About the tying issue, I think it is possible to get that without artificial system if the managers of each group achieve the goal of forging a name, a identity that the rest of the people like.
One of my chars has been thinking about how to create an empire, clan, religion, company... that motivates the people to get involved and compromised in the development and sucess of such organizations.
If you introduce an artificial system for this, it will eradicate the possibily of doing on your own.

I don't want a common game with vulgar players and a seedy interface.

I want a unique game with strange (and intelligent) players and a seedy interface.

[Kreed]

One of my chars has been thinking about how to create an empire, clan, religion, company... that motivates the people to get involved and compromised in the development and sucess of such organizations.
If you introduce an artificial system for this, it will eradicate the possibily of doing on your own.

But then wouldnt a 'non-artificial' system have just the same effect? Are you saying that implementing reproduction would prevent those things, I think it would add. Also I notice you say one of your characters has been 'thinking' about, ect.ect. So rather than have some/any form of family ties you'd rather have the 'possibillity'.
A couple of my charries run towns and one has a grand plan for unifying an whole island, I fail to see how any system for repro or family names would eradicate those plans? In fact I disagree with you response totally, how would giving charries extra social ties prevent them from working together socially, I'm sure it would have the opposite effect.

[Sicofonte]

No, reproduction could be a great thing, but not imposed. I mean, if my char is not having sexual relations with other char, he don't want to have children!

But I refered to an artificial system about the clans and organizations.

[Phalynx]

I would quite like some level of cooperation through OOC means to be possible,

Clan MacGregor, with it's highland flavour is about as CRB as it gets, although its now tolerated an accepted in game.

How about some similar, GAB endorsed arrangement. EG you opt in, your next character spawns in uninhabited location X automatically with the surname Jones

(it's an idea)

[Doug R.]

I don't understand why you think the MacGregors having highland flavor is CRB...

[Kreed]

Oh, yep. Totally agree there. All organizations should come from in game.

Right now the only ties we have are spawn locations and they don’t really impact because we rarely know where people have come from. Names are the only commonly used identifiers and they are individualistic. If you can’t identify with someone else that’s a barrier. Until we have something that imposes group identities upon us no amount of changing the way projects work will make much difference.

[Phalynx]

I don't understand why you think the MacGregors having highland flavor is CRB...

OK not a breach of the capital rule itself, but well outside the spirit of the rules:

None of the actions of your characters should be on the basis of your knowledge as a player about other locations, fellow characters, or the history of the game, or on the basis of your communication with fellow players out-of-character. Play your character from his or her in-game experiences, with his or her in-game knowledge, and taking his or her in-game personality and interests in mind.

Since when does tartan, use of Gallic, even the word clan, or laird, come from in game experience.... for all I know these things were introduced before the rules were.

I can tell you if I rename a town Los Angeles, form the LAPD, etc. etc. etc. people would jump all over me from all sides... and yet there is no priniciple difference apart from romantic ideas about highland life!

The MacGregors rock... mostly because the out of game influences gave players something familiar to hang their RP on - who hasn't seen Braveheart?

[Doug R.]

Since when does tartan, use of Gallic, even the word clan, or laird, come from in game experience.... for all I know these things were introduced before the rules were.

I can tell you if I rename a town Los Angeles, form the LAPD, etc. etc. etc. people would jump all over me from all sides... and yet there is no priniciple difference apart from romantic ideas about highland life!

Tartan kilts have been in the game ever since I joined.
Bagpipes are in the game now.
Clan is a word in the English language.
Some people in Scotland and Ireland intersperse Gaelic with English. It's a regional dialect. Regional dialects of approved languages are allowed.

You're saying that something concrete and specific like the LAPD or Los Angeles is not different from a romantic idea? You have a lot of funny ideas about things.

KORT on Noniwrok is the closest any group has come to CR breaching with their organization. Personally, I would have made them change their name if I had known about it in it's infancy (if I was playing and in the PD back then), but by now it's too late.

[Missy]

First of all I want to say that theres always this misconception in my mind that the game was actually easy at one point. Yes, noone is denying that before many changes it was certainly "easier" than it is after the changes, but in my mind it was NEVER what someone should call "easy." It has never been easy to construct a government, fill it with people to keep it up and running and keep it up and running. Whatever gave people that impression, has always bothered me.

At one point you had people on the forum explaining that oldbies had it easy because they got to dig iron straight from the ground and newer players didn't have that advantage. (Even though most of the characters who ever got to dig iron from the ground are dead, and even the characters who benefitted from those who got to dig it and their deaths are likely dead too.) It wasn't like the change from iron to hematite didn't effect everyone, and it isn't like just because it was easier then, that it was actually, again I repeat, actually "easy." This always bothered me, because people acted like just because we had it easier, that we didn't actually work hard to get what we had in game. We did. It wasn't dished up on a silver platter. We worked for it.


Once upon a time Jos did a poll asking what the most important aspect of the game was. I believe I said social. To me, every other option in his poll revolves around social. You can't really strategise without being social. You can't really form a government without being social. There would be no strategy and certainly no good strategy if you couldn't convince other people of your cause. (I'm finding that less and less people try to convince others of their cause. Which is why I give props to Ekivok Slon.) And a lot of times, it's all in a matter of how inspirational you are/ how well you sound, and how much effort you're going to put into your speeches.


Anywho, we just decided that the game was too easy for some reason. (At least that's how it's been looking to me.) And so we developed things that some people say were meant to make the game "fun." But if you look at all the arguments for these changes: "There needs to be balance." "This is unfair." No, afraid those changes weren't only implemented because people thought they'd make things more fun, even if they thought things would be more fun because things were more balanced, it wasn't then in the name of fun but in the name of "fairness." I can't see why things should have ever been evened out between oldbies and newbies. No matter how much easier it was for some oldbies at one point, it doesn't mean they didn't earn or deserve the things they had and that we should implement some change so that things would even out. People acted like it was all in the mechanics of the game when in truth it was all how people used their social skills. Convincing some newspawn that if he worked for this up and coming government, he would be given a dung-fork and a wooden shield. Power, always relies on how well someone can convince others of their cause. Some of you remember Teck/Wu Tang, and we all know that a lot of his success relied on how he had so many of his own characters in Blojt, but they weren't all his characters. He started pulling all the people that lived in Blojt together to discuss setting up a government due to frustration over the lack of one. I remember it like it was yesterday because I recall his character asking one of mine indoors for a meeting, and she tried to tell him she was interested but never got an answer so left town to gather materials. When she returned she was struck etc (due to an implementation that if you weren't going to help you were going to be locked up/killed or whatever) She reamed him for it and stormed off.





There just isn't any convincing anymore. I have to build cars in Siom to get people to do the simplest of ******* tasks, and even when doing that, I can't seem to buy loyalty. No matter how much I say to someone that they are welcome there and that they're in a great city and that they'll be taken care of. If they need something to please come and speak with me, they all still feel like individuality is more important. And while I commend Ekivok on one hand, I hated how he immediately spawned and already had a problem with the way the government was, it wasn't like his political beliefs had developed over time. He spawned and right away began asking why Siom didn't hand out food to other cities and it made absolutely no sense to me. Especially when everyone who spends five minutes in Siom knows that food is OFTEN taken to neighboring cities for absolutely nothing! What happened to people spawning and wanting to know what they can do to help? You just dont see it anymore. What you see is people asking: "Where can I get an iron shield? Oh, and for the least amount of work possible, by the way." Everyone spawns with their own desire for power and it's disgusting. It's not anymore, about helping a place become the most powerful it's about individual desires. No matter how much I grow to accomodate peoples individual desires, it's of no benefit to Siom. For a while it seemed to work, but it's not working anymore.



You're talking about tweaking and balancing all these new/?recent? implementations and Im not certain that tweaking or balancing of any amount is going to bring back the fun of the game that is obviously and undeniably missing for some people. Myself, I am down to twelve characters and I have absolutely no desire anymore to create more characters. (When has anyone on here known me to be able to resist the urge to create one? Never. Until now.) I'm finding that to make a successful or even a defined character, it pays to spend all my time on five or so characters rather than fifteen. (I don't deny that my silent, boring, nobodies are in some way a part of their society. IE- Mathew Truig has never asked for a single thing in return for his work in Heaven's Tavern building the bus. But you can't say he adds much to the social aspect of the game. But that's because I don't have time for him. He's merely a pair of hands on projects which is incredibly hard to find anymore. Espeically a loyal set.)


You're talking about wanting to create economy by using repairs, but most towns right now can't even find people to fill positions that have existed in their towns for decades upon decades. You're not going to create an economy. You're going to crush the government entirely. It's like this: We have resource collectors to hire, outpost men to hire, law enforcement to hire, harvester operators to hire, blacksmiths to hire, and even replacements for our own positions-------But I can't find anyone to do it anymore. They run off with their tools/weapons, they die two weeks into being a police officer, they sleep for three years straight at a time so I have to do their job myself. Or another words, noone wants to ~work~ to become a leader. They want it handed to them, or they want to stand out in the middle of the town badmouthing the current one.


What I think is funny, is having seen so many people on here say that they hated the people who were in power of certain towns because they hoarded everything and slept all the time.......Then I watch new people get into these positions, and they're 10x worse the person that was there before them. That's another problem I had with people complaining about oldbies had it easy. How many of those people ACTUALLY ever ran a town before? To know exactly how damn hard it is to keep things going....It really bothers me that people even felt like they knew that people were "hoarding" things. How do they know? It's not like that most places, if you ask to borrow something, that you're told no. lol


I have been saying and still say that wars are possible. They indeed are. But they are a waste of time. Who wants to bother with starting a war? You have to find people who are loyal to enlist in an army, knowing they won't run off with your only stash of sabres. You have to make sure that you can travel to your destination and that your shields and sabres wont be crumbling by the time you get there. You have to pack so much food just to survive now, that you dont' even have room for healing food. Especially if you actually find 10 people to go on the trip and figuring you need enough healing food for each person, because you don't want to risk any casualties. And don't forget that not only do you have to worry about your shield and sabre but you have to worry about your crowbar. Come on already. Are we really going to bring a person along with us that devotes his entire life to repairing weapons and giving you a brand new shiney one when you hand in your crumbling one to be repaired? He's likely to be needed to be fighting in the war himself, because people who would want to participate in something like that are HARD to find! Lets not forget we're going to have to stop in the next town and wait for everyone to catch up so that we can point out roads to everyone. Noone knows their way around anymore. I can't even think about a war at the moment, because I don't have but a single deputy. And it's not because I haven't been trying to find more or that I haven't been trying new things to find more...Not only that, I see a lot of this: "Hi, I'm new here. Is there anyone looking for a crew mate?" "Hi. Do you know where the nearest source of wood is so I can build a long-boat?" (Can't you require large rope for those damn long-boats?) Sea travel, has taken a LOT away from what goes on on land. Period.


You're creating problems and implementations that I don't think the Cantr world is ready for, to be truthful. Maybe at the time they were implemented it seemed 50 people in a town could somehow manage these new tasks. But think about it. 50 people is not really all that many.

I remember it being said at one time that a goal was to make it so that people could devote more of their time to one particular job instead of being everywhere and doing everything? All these changes? Have had the opposite effect. I've given it enough time IMO to fairly state that all these changes are the cause of many incredibly bad things and including the loss of many players. Noone has the time to do anything amazing in cantr anymore.
ME? I'm always going to be here. Sorry for those of you who wish I wasn't. I do have the time to spend two days on a speech and another two weeks revising for the sake of insuring that my characters personality is portrayed properly. But not everyone else does. I understand that, completely. And so I also understand that spending so much time worrying about these mechanical changes, take away time from developing plots/major government changes/ things that involve the social aspect etc. Which in turn, thus takes away from people having to speak to other people. Which also = more individuality and less overall group activity.


About six months ago I spawned a few characters. The one in particular spawned and asked what he could do to find food, he waited for a while with no answer and asked again. Along with it, he wanted to know where he was, but noone could answer him. So he went down the path to the next town where THEY told him the road names, so he in turn learned where he spawned at. I should add he arrived in the next town, three quarters starved. I can see how spawning and not knowing where you are would be discouraging to newspawns. *Shrugs.* You don't know where you are, you don't know any of the people in your surrounding. And because you don't know where you are, you can't pick up a map when noone answers you about food and go looking for some. This certainly makes things more realistic, because I'm sure not everyone would have the knowledge of where they are when they're born, much less to pick up a map....But I don't think it's neccessary. You can call a place whatever you want to call it without this change.


I have a trader who doesn't own a bicycle but is working toward one. He collects his goods and travels two towns away in order to get food for his goods. He needs the food to survive, seeing that his hometown has restrictions on hunting and no local farmable goods to eat. By the time he gets two towns away, all the food he has packed to take with him, is eaten. He trades his good for his food and starts the trek home. By the time he gets home, he eats half his profit. With the food changes, this made things incredibly worse. How is this guy supposed to get anywhere? Ask for help? Who wants to help anymore with a simple promise of what's to come in the future? Very few. People want fast results and we're not able to provide them anymore....He could opt for a change on the hunting restrictions, but even then, I don't believe we get much dung. Wood's a town away. Maybe I'm just not trying hard enough, I don't know.





I still believe that people are just a bunch of whiners, because these changes are able to be overcome, indeed.

But you do have a problem.

Noone wants to overcome them.

I don't think that there's any way that that can be denied. Not when long-term players have just said.."Not worth my time." I'm telling you, it's not worth my time anymore either, to play fifteen characters. Some people argue that it's just natural to get burnt out on a game. Blah blah blah. I'm not burnt out on cantr. Things have changed. I think I can recognize my differences with being burnt out and my some changes in the game that have made it less fun. If you have people saying that it's "not worth their time." Then things have become way toooooo tedius.

[SekoETC]

"Who hasn't seen Braveheart?"

*lifts hand*
But I had a nice rp experience being a Mac Gregor, especially because of the unusual background story of being first imprisoned by them, having my friend killed (and having to finish off my other friend myself to end his suffering). Strict govermnets are good, to create drama like this. Usually people wouldn't give a damn of someone hunting on their provinces, especially in a location outside the one they're currently at! An empire of three locations is a nice archievement, even if the population concentrated on one spot, Also the tension between the Mac Gregors and Krif made things worth living through. This is the only time I've really had a patriotic character in Cantr.
And I had some pm dialogue with griogal back then, he was explaining how the culture is not a total ripoff of Scottish clichés but most of the ways come from the samurai. The Scottish outlook is merely an exterior shell.
A funny thing that Nitefyre was so much against Mac Gregors OOCly and getting mad at me for letting my character get brainwashed by them. Then he sends a character to check it out and ends up being their next leader. So I'd say most likely the people who're complaining most about Mac Gregors being a CRB have never had one among their ranks. Maybe they got a Kriffian, or maybe they've just read all this crap from the forums.

[Phalynx]

I've had a MacGregor.. a fave character... the same I'm sure was/is true of Stone Knights, TBRs etc. if you aren't in the gang there is an element of sour grapes...

OOC influences, in my humble opinion, can be really positive and will give cantr life where it may well be failing.

[SekoETC]

Missy: Wow, that's a good post. A very good post. I never came to think that sailing might be the problem causing the lack of action in towns. It's true that nowaydays people tend to be building boats a lot, but at least for my characters (and only three of them have a sea going vessel) it's only a means of getting around fast since it is clear that in Cantr if you want a bike, you will have to build a house and a smelting furnace and gather all the resources for making iron, since no one is going to sell you enough metals to make a bike. Not to mention the rubber. Well, actually... getting steel and iron through trade is possible, it just requires a lot of long term thinking, which most ADD players are not ready for.

My probably most well-off character spent years sewing clothing (awkwardly) from tens of kilos of hemp cloth he had woven before skills became visible. He also had two apprentices throughout this project, one vanished and the other one fell asleep half way and died. Anyway, he travelled perhaps over a year to get to a town he had never visited, not knowing what to expect but having heard that there might be someone to trade with. Well, he found this person but the person had a sleeping sickness and he died. So he sweettalked his successor into completing the trade with him, and returned home a rich man. He also found a girlfriend on the road. They finish the boat, although one bastard had claimed the pile of wood as it had been lying on the project for ages, started before this person was even spawned. So he was very mad when we claimed it. Swore to kill us even. But then we set sail and have not had time to go back ever since. Followed by meeting a lot of people and going through lots of delightful rp moments. My character was flourishing, after years of sitting inside and sometimes even contemplating suicide. But the sad thing is the girlfriend died, and although this character of mine has now completed his lifelong dream of getting enough cotton and iron to make a bed, I cannot know if there will be a home to return to. And what would it matter if he never has time to be still. He will build a cabin... I will see wether it's possible to put the bed in there. But loneliness... loneliness is heavy. He would've given up anything just for love (ok, sex). He was flirting with a lot of ladies when his girlfriend was still alive. But now that she's dead, he'd dejected, wouldn't even glance at other women.

[Doug R.]

it is clear that in Cantr if you want a bike, you will have to build a house and a smelting furnace and gather all the resources for making iron, since no one is going to sell you enough metals to make a bike. Not to mention the rubber.

What about T&T automotive?