Smaller world

[Jos Elkink]

I think my chars trust maps better than you ...

But you're certainly right with your point about trade and protection of resources ... You usually see either totally free gathering, or gathering limited to citizens or something; I don't think you often see trade requirements . Like, if I have this wealthy resource, others should be paying well do dig here ... that's rare indeed.

[Phalynx]

Oh my characters trust the maps implicitly now, epsecially after I downloaded them all from that Yahoo website

[Missy]

Soda for window glass?
Oil for roads?

There's not much of either anywhere on the old islands...

The old areas are rich - very rich. In steel, wood, stone...
There would be busses making regular travels if the roads and busses were made of steel and wood.

I am sick and tired of hearing this shit.

One particular region which shall remain nameless:
town a: oil and limestone
-> one location: gas and limestone
-> one location: soda and sand
-> two locations: coal and wood
-> three locations: hematite, clay, potatoes, stone
-> four locations: bauxite, wood, rubber
-> seven locations: magnesium, hematite

Granted the walking distances are a bit long there, but it is nothing that can't be overcome. People walk it all the time. There is still relatively little development here, despite the concentration of "PROHIBITIVELY" RARE MATERIALS!!!!!! It isn't the resource distribution! It isn't the requirements! You want to build every fucking thing out of wood go right ahead and vanilla it on up! Just admit that the player base is mostly to blame and stop asking to get something for nothing!!! It's right there!!!! YOU DON"T EVEN HAVE TO TRADE FOR IT YOU JUST HAVE TO PLUCK YOUR HEAD FROM YOUR ASS AND GO GET IT!!!!!

I agree.


I don't understand where people get off saying that the game is still the same in the manner of roads, but apparantly people aren't where I am. In AKypor, the Heaven's tavern is building roads so they can take their bus down it.

In Baaak hills south we're completing roads.


In Siom, we're finnishing up roads in and around the region and granted it isn't happening very quickly there, but one was finnished up just about 5-6 ic years ago. I'm also remembering recently, a question Sheriff Reynolds from Lake Village asked, and once i've done my rounds to see that I have all the oil on the roads in my more immediate surrounding, .....wellllll.....


Bullshit that this is how it has always looked.


Doryiskom before Little John died was working out a deal about a road.


Pok worked their asses off for a long time to get the roads they do have. And yes it is a damn far walk for them to get to the right places in that area, even now, but it takes dedication. (And my apologies, I say even now, noting that I haven't been in Pok for some many many IC years.) Dedication's something that the people who were doing it at the time, had. It tooks years for them to do what they did with that area, but they did it. And back then? Noone was complaining about having to do it.



Edit: And weren't the MacGregors working away at some roads recently?




That's not to count the ones I don't even know about.

[Marian]

I think my chars trust maps better than you ...

But you're certainly right with your point about trade and protection of resources ... You usually see either totally free gathering, or gathering limited to citizens or something; I don't think you often see trade requirements . Like, if I have this wealthy resource, others should be paying well do dig here ... that's rare indeed.

Of course if the nearby towns your chars are used to don't have gathering limits, there's no reason to expect the one you're headed to will. I usually take something to trade anyway just to save time, but then again that's not as easy for someone on foot.

And the only map I really trust is the Treefeather one. My other chars are stuck with, for instance, a crappy confusing map from the 600s, with everything sideways because it has north as up but doesn't include a compass rose to actually show anyone that, and tons of towns not listed, several of the towns that are listed don't have any resources mentioned, etc. Not fun at all.

[formerly known as hf]

So, it's the player's fault?

It doesn't work because the players don't play it properly / don't put enough effort in / etc. etc.

That's not a really good attitude to take with a game. Unless you are happy to play with a small handful of people?


If not playing it 'properly' means not wanting to have a character spend 40+ days doing nothing but walking. Well, then, I don't play it properly. I play Cantr to have fun.

Walking, driving, sailing for days - is not fun in real life, it's even less fun in Cantr.



So much of what people want to improve in Cantr - trading, exploration, cross-locational powers and businesses require travelling. Travelling is not fun, and given the time lengths involved, it is doubtful your character will return home and recognise anyone.


I don't want to pluck my head out of my arse and go get it, because, frankly enough, it's not worth the effort, and I can have just as much fun, if not more, RPing where I am.....

Those are my sentiments, and I would not be surprised if it's the sentiment of many other players.
That's not the players to blame. That's not use 'playing it wrong'. That's the game being not fun in certain areas.


No wonder precious few people bother to do it, and that despite having been settled for a year or more, the majority of locations missy listed are 'only just' finishing their roads...



You cannot blame the players.
If you released a commercial game, and it wasn't a success, but you had an opportunity to re-release it after improving it.

You would not go to your boss and say 'it's because the players didn't play it properly'

You would find out why the players didn't like it. Why they were ignoring what you were trying to get them to do. Why they aren't bothering to explore all the options.





You know, from experience wich, that players will, like people do in real-life, just take the path of least resistance - they will pluck carrots from the ground rather than bother with anything else. They will have fun in the easiest way possible, and even though a bit of effort and perserverance, they could possibly have more fun, it's just not worth it.

The solution? Either try to force them to play in more interesting ways - make raw food untenable - require local powers to control resource gathering - promote the hiring of staff by making caches of tools impossible..

Or - you make the option more appealing, more accessible, more fun and interesting - improve the clothing descriptions and increase the options available - create more and varied recipies...




And I have said this before, but I think the attitude of much of the changes, which follows the first route of forcing players to play a certain way, is desperately the wrong path to take.

You want to encourage trade? Make it faster and easier.

You want to encourage cooperation? Don't penalise people for not cooperating, reward them with increased efficiency and productivity from cooperating

You want to encourage cooking and preparing food? Make cooked food so damned enticing, in terms of ease of production and small amounts required, that a character would be stupid not to cook...



Travelling is not fun. It needs to be made fun, or, at least, it needs to be made less of a timewaster. That's all it is at the moment.

Days-long roads so no other purpose than to annoy, frustrate and slow or deny any inter-locational dealings of any kind.

[Marian]

You know, from experience wich, that players will, like people do in real-life, just take the path of least resistance - they will pluck carrots from the ground rather than bother with anything else. They will have fun in the easiest way possible, and even though a bit of effort and perserverance, they could possibly have more fun, it's just not worth it.

Well, okay...but what's your point? If some characters find the simple life of growing food and going for swims in the lake and finding a boyfriend/girlfriend to whisper with constantly, they can already do that. It's easy, and lots of people choose to live that way. Nothing's stopping them.

Other characters enjoy a good challenge, including overcoming the travel and communication issues. They're self-motivated, want to get out there, find a couple of people to work with them, go trading, start a business, build a nice vehicle, build a radio, own their own town, whatever. And they can do that too...it just takes dedication, and you need to be more active, and plan ahead and be organized and know how to work with people.

Some people find that whole 'effort and perserverence' part fun. I find it one of the main points of the game, actually, and I don't see why I should have my fun ruined by everyone just getting everything dropped in their lap as the game gets easier and easier in a doomed attempt to make carrot farmers who are already happy with what they have take an interest in governments and trade and war.

All that stuff is already possible for the people who want it, just like the 'doll's tea party' is always going to be possible for the people who want that, and I just don't see why we need to drastcally change anything to force out one side or another, because either way you're going ot lose a good part of your active players. (Well okay, it would be nice if we could lose all the sleeping farmers, even if we still had to put up with the annoying whispering ones...at least until a good strategy player comes along, conquers their town while their leaders sleep and the citizens cant defend themselves because they never bothered to make something better than a bone knife, and makes whispering punishable by death. )

[The Sociologist]

Skills: yeah, I know. This is always annoying me a bit when people complain. First they keep asking for skills when I refuse to implement them; then there is finally an approach that I get along and implement; and ever since I get complaints why we have skills. To be honest: I couldn't care less about those skills - I think they are an unnecessary element to the basic design of the game. As a player I totally ignore them, and as a game designer I don't care.

So take them out. Turn us back to when there weren't any. Why are we of the impression that just because we put something in, that it has to stay and we have to tweak it until we have a "proper balance," when maybe the answer is going back to before that implentation existed?

Yep, that's the attitude needed to get anywhere at all on the executive corporate ladder, is it not? Knowing when to cut loose. Those who don't learn it are ciphers sitting at terminals.

[The Sociologist]

Repairs: that really is a difficult issue. I must admit that as a player, I'm also quite frustrated with it. But if we do too much to ease it, we make it pointless again, just like many other things we implemented. So I'm not really sure what to do to be honest. How to avoid that you can gather so much by just being patient - you should have staff to own a lot. That's fair enough, but the result is boring gameplay, which is bad. So I'm not sure.

I don't consider it a difficult issue at all. In the real world, repairs require parts and labor. You are missing the "parts" element of the equation. I've noticed the following. In most towns people drop old bone items on the ground, either to rot or else to be picked up by newspawns. They don't do this with steel tools since they still rate the steel content as worth saving. But if each time an item was repaired (the repair time being minimal), it also used up some of its constituent materials, then more rational decisions might be made as to whether to repair or melt down. Which is more or less what happens in the real world. It was all covered in my first Essay on Motivation.

However, I should add that ameliorating the effect of the skills system on the repair times is a critical factor too. Whether he or she repairs items expertly or awkwardly may be the difference between a successful or failed character in more than a few cases. And therefore also an effect on whether some players continue playing the game or not.

[viktor]

well having a conversation in chat earlier i have a rough idea now on skill trainability, which was basically the only issue i really had, now that i finally have an understanding on how much work it takes to raise a level at least it's a tangible idea now so we as players shouldn't run out of patience anymore not knowing if anything we do gets us any skill increases, i believe i was told there are 10000 points in a skill and 5 levels so that's 2000 points per level and i believe that for gathering and working projects it's each tick gets you a point and for hunting and combat they are 2 points per attack. so we don't need to be impatient anymore or at least not as much as we were skills do increase
this is what i heard neways
(ps for the tick based skills that's 12.5 years constant work per level, and for combat/hunting that's 1000 attacks full strength)

[Phalynx]

Depends where you heard it Viktor, normally such things are top secret!

[Chris Johnson]

and the realiablity of your source viktor ... because a lot of your figures are much too low - skills increase is much faster than than you say , as I've posted before on this forum

[zisked]

Other characters enjoy a good challenge, including overcoming the travel and communication issues. They're self-motivated, want to get out there, find a couple of people to work with them, go trading, start a business, build a nice vehicle, build a radio, own their own town, whatever. And they can do that too...it just takes dedication, and you need to be more active, and plan ahead and be organized and know how to work with people.

Some people find that whole 'effort and perserverence' part fun. I find it one of the main points of the game, actually, and I don't see why I should have my fun ruined by everyone just getting everything dropped in their lap as the game gets easier and easier in a doomed attempt to make carrot farmers who are already happy with what they have take an interest in governments and trade and war.

Having played different characters who've spent a good chunk of their lives building roads . . .it's still a damn pain in the ass. I think the amount of effort put into roads should be modified. I'd rather have a road require a greater variety of resources and less construction time - or create a tool/machine that lets you work faster. An asphalt paver or something that does the job automatically. It'd be more fun to travel around collecting the resources to build a machine and then just letting that do the hard-core paving work.

It's too easy for a player to be part of a group working on a road and end up having everyone starve because, let's face it, people sleep or grow bored with endless construction. Yes, this is meant to simulate a society, but it's also a game and there needs to be an incentive to do the work. The game would benefit from better roads - it would help trade, travel and RP. But it's hard for three or four players out in the boonies to want to spend a great deal of time and effort on a road especially when they sure as heck don't have the resources for a bus and probably never will.

"Effort and Preserverence" is a great ideal, but when you actually spend three IRL months trying to slap down some sand and oil that you know you'll never get anything good from . . .it gets very tedious and very disheartening very fast.

Realistically, at this point, I don't think there are many players willing to put that much time and dedication into improving in-game Cantr. Those who initially are will most likely grow bored and find other games, creating a cycle of stagnation and attrition.

[viktor]

and the realiablity of your source viktor ... because a lot of your figures are much too low - skills increase is much faster than than you say , as I've posted before on this forum

really? hmmm, somoene should really put it in the wiki then
i wonder what the true values are, not sure where to look this forum is big and the search well i expect a long list, wish me luck

[Sho]

http://www.cantr.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=206661#206661

[Nosajimiki]

"create a tool/machine that lets you work faster."

Wheelbarrow I believe serves just this function.

"it's also a game and there needs to be an incentive to do the work. The game would benefit from better roads - it would help trade, travel and RP. But it's hard for three or four players out in the boonies to want to spend a great deal of time and effort on a road especially when they sure as heck don't have the resources for a bus and probably never will."

There is incentive. I have several "boonies" players and I often see people from larger towns coming through such places and actually helping us improve our roads, either by trading us the resources or by building them up themselves. Also, if you cant get anything better than bikes, then it wont matter how easy the upgrade is, you probably wont do it just b/c you have better things to worry about, and if you can afford a van or bus, then you are probaly rich enough to get those roads upgraded.

Also, if roads were more easy to upgrade, then they would get over upgraded, then you wouldn't have any more need for dirtbikes, tandems and tractors cus everything would eventually become nice and paved and there would no longer be any fronteer feeling places left, not to mention, no more road upgrade projects. What if someone want's to RP a road paver but can't 'cus all the roads are already expressways? It wouldnt be fair.

and in response to the Skills rants, I like them actually. It feels more natural to not have prefect control over what you are or are not good at. So what if you spawn a charie who you want to be a guard but winds up with weak stregth and awkward fighting skills. Then you can play a napolion complex, and have even more fun with whatever RP you can get out of that.