Biggest problem in Cantr

[west]

Root cause of this problem? Probably many, all of which have been mentioned.

1) Too many towns in general.
2) Too much busywork detracting from time spent on roleplaying.
3) Not enough players.

Etc.

Root causes of #3 include #s 1 and 2 (2 especially), and also the fact that it's too easy to start new characters. And there isn't much incentive to keep your old ones unless they've already "made it".

[DELGRAD]

Tool Rot.. When tools are stored.. they should not rot like they do!

Need toolboxes if this deteration while in repair change happens.
Repair time needs to be decreased.
It is a huge pain when you have a character that has a fair amount of tools to keep things fixed. Several of my characters have a dificult time accomplishing anything as they are spending more time repairing than getting anything constructive done.

And toolboxes should be able to be made from wood, iron or steel, but the better the material the more tools can be stored in it.

And same for weapons, but not toolbox. Instead a cabinet like a gun safe.
And more material to make them.
Also be able to make from wood, iron or steel.

Dear god I'm posting. I'll try not to make it a habit. But I respect Jos and since I'm one of the disgruntled ones, I might as well voice my problem.

It's too easy to get new characters.

If you want more "characters" in cantr and better roleplayers, I would suggest this: Let the newbs spawn thier 2 or 3 initial characters, and maybe thier first 5 (total) wouldn't require a background, but if they try to spawn another character they would see a text box on the submit screen asking them to write a background about thier characters ideas, opinions and goals, who the character is, that would have to be reviewed and approved or edited before that character would spawn.

~fades back to the shadows~

I think that would keep people from creating more characters.
I have no idea who or what my character is going to be untill I have played for several days or weeks. I have a few character in their 30's and am still trying to figure out their role and personality.

I do see a point in that. Limiting characters in some way may force players to better RP and in general play their characters better.

A new player, with a week of solid playing, will be lucky to have anything more to show for it than sore feet and a few bone tools. Things are too dfficult for new characters.
Very simple tools should take a couple of Cantr hours, not a day.

The first character on a new account should be given some of the most basic of tools a bone knife, a bone needle, a loin cloth and a day worth of food.
Characters after the first would not be given the same. They would get as they are now. Never see that happen though.

Resources gathering limit should be changed. For example, for now, in a place with gas, potatoes, buttercaps and sand everybody would dig for gas. I think that it should be limited: 2 places for gas, 8 for potatoes, 5 for butercaps and 20 for sand.

Absolutly not.



The fighting system does suck, but I see why it is the way it is. Leave it be.

BTW this is the third account I have created. The first two I tried, I looked, gave it day and did not come back.

Well enough from me. I could go on and on and on and on and on...

[Marian]

The first character on a new account should be given some of the most basic of tools a bone knife, a bone needle, a loin cloth and a day worth of food.
Characters after the first would not be given the same. They would get as they are now. Never see that happen though.

Well I HOPE we never see that happen. It would make absolutely no sense in the game world for someone to pop out of the ground already equipped. Cantr isn't a MUD, thank God. And it's not like it's that hard to get basic tools anyway, even in some place that's really primitive all you have to do is ask, assuming they're not already rotting on the ground and free for the taking.

And at least in the towns I run, if a newspawn shows any signs of life or intelligence at all they can get nice clothes, a shield, and all the basic tools on the first day. Prove you can stay awake and get upgraded to iron. (Heck I remember one time I gave a pickaxe, shield, screwdriver, trowel, and a bunch of iron to a guy that was spawned for barely one day and put him in charge of a warehouse. It's easy to tell who the reliable ones are...or at least the ones you can rely on not to sleep constantly and starve or have a heart attack, I knew there was still a 50/50 chance he'd rob me blind)

And I've seen similar things in a lot of places my chars spawned in. All I have to do is roleplay a little and be active enough to prove they're not going to drop dead of a heart attack and my chars get all sorts of stuff. I've got one barely a year old now with a scimitar and iron shield, and another one not that much older who's just been given a key to the storage building. About half of my chars are involved in running towns, actually...I try to spread the wealth around as much as I can, but I'm sorry, somebody has to at least show some signs of life before I go handing out weapons and things. And it's amazingly hard to find people to give free stuff too, I know a few of my chars are getting so sick of repairs and would be happy to get rid of a bunch of things, but the only active people around them have everything they need already.

[Sicofonte]

The last three posts, and this one I'm writing now, are out-of-line in this thread.

(Please, read al least the first post of each thread before answering anything).

Would it be better for not distorting this thread to move this four posts to another thread?

[Sunni Daez]

Biggest problem? Cantr is a slow paced game, things are taking longer and longer to do... your axe rots before you chop enough wood for your boat...!.. you cannot run a bussiness without paying your worker to repair the tools... which seems to be taking longer than the projects you need them to do...

[Joshuamonkey]

I don't think Cantr is too slow, its just that rot is too fast. Think about real life, how much time do you spend repairing something compared to actually using it? Or, do you even ever repair tools? I know Cantr years are a lot faster, but...

[Nosajimiki]

even within the deffinintion of a cantr year, the rot rates are not realistic. Most tools only last a few years before compleatly rotting and that's regardless of useage... If they were powertools it would be one thing, but most handtools will last 20-100+ years depending on useage IRL.

[Chris Johnson]

The biggest problem in cantr?

We take our own morals into the game. At the rough time period this was set people still thought that death was just something that happened, war was glorious, the only way to settle problems was by dueling, and if you went against religion or the rulers that would be the end of you. The world was -not- split into individual sections, but instead there was the fuedal system with each town being individual, with it's own leaders, but each leader of each town would respond to an overall empire leader. unfortunatly, we've brought our own morals into it, with everyone wanting to own everything, and therefore having small little quips within towns, but unfortunatly thinking it's wrong to try and get it, and your neighbors are instantly your allies rather than enemies to be taken over for power and the kingdom. Giving solutions to everything that everyone else has said might solve this, and give people an incentive to act normally, what we really need is a few great people to gain the highest positions of power, such as the leader of Karnon or there finally becoming one leader of Blojt, people who are inclined to seize their power and spread it as far as they can. For example, Alexilad is surrounded by tiny little towns that it should take over but it just doesn't!

It's a big shame the only two towns I have ever owned were surrounded by powers far greater than it, otherwise I would have begun to bring this culture into Cantr, with the great owning more than the weak
_________________

------------------------------------

We take our own morals into the game. At the rough time period this was set people still thought that death was just something that happened, war was glorious, the only way to settle problems was by dueling, and if you went against religion or the rulers that would be the end of you. The world was -not- split into individual sections, but instead there was the fuedal system with each town being individual, with it's own leaders, but each leader of each town would respond to an overall empire leader. unfortunatly, we've brought our own morals into it, with everyone wanting to own everything, and therefore having small little quips within towns, but unfortunatly thinking it's wrong to try and get it, and your neighbors are instantly your allies rather than enemies to be taken over for power and the kingdom. Giving solutions to everything that everyone else has said might solve this, and give people an incentive to act normally, what we really need is a few great people to gain the highest positions of power, such as the leader of Karnon or there finally becoming one leader of Blojt, people who are inclined to seize their power and spread it as far as they can. For example, Alexilad is surrounded by tiny little towns that it should take over but it just doesn't!

A good analysis, but what you are seeing was a change to the game mechanics producing a longish-term change in the nature of the player base, that is to say the kind of people who play Cantr.

Sorry two lost posts after splitting rot decay from this thread
Apologies - but in general keep discussion off this thread - one post per player as requested

[deadboy]

Oh, thanks Chris, I wondered how my post got into the rot thread :S

[Joshuamonkey]

Everyone keeps on dying. I feel like I should just expect everyone to die from now on, and its almost always for OOC reasons that they die.

[Arlequin]

Age advancement is too fast.

People hastens to achieve their material goals. The day they are finally stablished RP characters, they are at the end of their life. There's too much hurry to work and not so many to talk.

[Doug R.]

Age advancement is too fast.

People hastens to achieve their material goals. The day they are finally stablished RP characters, they are at the end of their life. There's too much hurry to work and not so many to talk.

There currently is no death do to old age, so your argument doesn't make sense.

[T-shirt]

Age advancement is too fast.

People hastens to achieve their material goals. The day they are finally stablished RP characters, they are at the end of their life. There's too much hurry to work and not so many to talk.

There currently is no death do to old age, so your argument doesn't make sense.

But first some rules for this thread, otherwise it becomes useless:
2) Do not respond to others or start a discussion - if you want to respond, start a new thread;

[Pie]

the main problem, i think, in cantr, is that.... well, there are to many to have a main problem. (not saying that cantr sucks... i just cant choos between these)

Lack of comunication, it is partly an in game problem, partly an oc problem

lack of orgonasation: an in game problem

lack of cooperation: in game problem

Lack of trade: mostly in game problem

the fighting system needs to be changed to allow for more RP stratages, and more personalasation of fighting tecneques.

also, lack of ethnic backgrounds (I know we have alot of ethnicities in cantr, it's just that I'd like to see more, and I'd like to be able to see them when looking at a caracter, such as seeing there hight weight exetera, and i'd like to see them more varied)

lack of art. partly in game, but it could be helped out by an OC fix.

The bigness of these problems, ranged frome biggest to smallnes, goes like this.

ethnic backgrounds

art

communication

fighting system

orgonasation

cooperation

[psymann]

Hello everybody. There seems to be discussion about why new players go away, so since I am a new player, I thought I'd best share my experiences. So here is my first Cantr post. Apologies - as you'll find if I stick around - my posts are always too long!

Here are some troubles that I have had. I have one character, though I have been spawned twice - my first spawning was deleted by the server crash.

1) Meeting ambitions.
My character has certain ambitions. They are calm and friendly ambitions, but fairly specific. He wants to collect a particular type of item. He is a collecter of sorts. The problem is that
- Of the four things he wants to collect, only two seem to exist.
- There is no way for me to create the other two.

I am therefore saddened that my imagination for creating a character is limited by the objects that are out there. I can't, for instance, decide to make it my life's mission to hold sheep racing events, because there's no way to make sheep run, and I can't create a racetrack. When the game is focussed on role play rather than competition, there needs to be scope for creativity.

2) "Slow game" - I hear this voiced a lot in this thread
I don't actually think it's too slow. I think the problem is there is not enough to react with. For example, ways to keep it at the same speed but stimulate me more are:
- allow me to multitask. I need food to eat, but farming is really dull. What I really want to do is make a new bone thingumy, but I can't justify doing that if I then starve. If I can farm potatoes at the same time as repairing a knife and making a shirt, then I am more stimulated. This also solves the problem of repairs a bit - if I can do repairs as one of a few tasks, I will be less likely to begrudge doing it. Maybe a limitation on the types of things - eg you can't do three farming actions, or three making actions etc.
- allow me to break off a task. As a newbie, I can do some dumb things. I start farming something without using the magic tool that lets me do it at ten times the speed. Any normal person would think "Ooh, let me start using that now!". In Cantr, I must say "Ooh, that'll be useful for this task. But I've decided to spend the next six hours doing it by hand, so do it by hand I shall." Or I start farming for potatoes because I've read that I need food. Ten minutes later someone gives me fourteen tons of potatoes. But I have to keep farming potatoes!
- better indication of time. I find the times confusing. The funny-length days and hours I can cope with. But the time it takes to do a task is, to me, unclear. So I can get 1000 potatoes in a day. How long will it take me to get 400? Can't I just say "farm potatoes for 5 hours" and see how much I get using the "1000 in a day" as a guide?

3) Fear of death.
I have read that I can be beaten up and be killed. If I do that, I lose every bit of my character that I've spent hours building up. I lose all my contacts in the game that my character knows. I lose the things I've made, found, stolen. In short, my months of effort can be totally lost by someone bigger than me killing me. This worries me.
- investment - how much time do I really want to put in to role-playing a character if he can get killed tomorrow and I have to start again?
- starting again - anyone who has worked on an essay and had the computer crash and not been saving as they went along - how hard is it to start again when you know you've already put in the time and effort once? It's very hard.
So fear of death makes me unwilling to get too involved, and it concerns me that if my character dies, I will lose everything.

4) Reliance on your spawning area.
I can't choose my birthplace. First time I was spawned, I basically talked to myself for two days. Only one person spoke to me, and they then left down a path soon after. Was really boring in a game that should have roleplay. Second time I was spawned, three people all said hello, told me their names, gave me a knife, and helped me farm some food. They interacted with me. This makes all the difference. With text saying that "do anything wrong as a newbie and they'll kill you", it's really annoying if your first words are "does anyone mind if I farm here, and can I take one of the bone clubs that are lying here?" and no-one answers...
The problem would be less if travelling was easier due to
- indication of how long it would take me to travel somewhere
- whether or not I'm going to be killed for trespassing in someone else's precious area (this comes back to (3) )




My overriding problem is that I don't know where I can take my character. There is no "competition" as such, so I'm not trying to win anything. This means that my goal is characterisation. For this, I need room to characterise - ways to invent new objects, new actions, new concepts. Just making the same iron shield as everyone else, getting the same nice shoes as everyone else, and making the same smoked meat as everyone else isn't much fun. I want to be different. And I personally don't want to fight. So is there going to be enough to keep me entertained?

I don't yet know the answer to this - I hope that as I brave the risk of death to travel places, that I will come across stimulation to encourage my continued existance in Cantr. But we'll have to see...

psymann