Knowledges

[Sicofonte]

People has items, keys, resources, physical skills...
But hey haven't mental skills or knowledges.

I read someone suggesting to build communications satellites.
...
IT'S SURREALIST!
How can get along a stone age culture with a information age?... in the SAME TOWN!


It hurts me each time I see a mechanical machine with lots of gears and mechanisms (harvesters, drillers, cars) functioning just with magical energy and the willpower of the Cantrians. And just besides someone nude making a bone knife.
If one can have a "magical" car, why I'm not going to have a subterranean vehicle that can travel through the planet's core, or simply a teleporter (lots of iron and steel, some rubber and magnesium, a few magical mushrooms, and a screwdriver... ¬¬).

Technologies (such making steel, gold wires, window glass, coils, TRANSISTORS...) should be developed, and each one should require some degree of knowledge in several areas (i.e., for inventing a coil it should be known the theory of electricity, if you don't know about eelectricity, you don't try to use it)

A knowledge tree (not too much complex, and maybe based on the trees used on many PC games) would be grandiose.


PS: I did look for this suggestion, but the words appear in a load of threads. But I know it has been suggested before (it should be suggested!!!).

[Piscator]

How should someone acquire these knowledges?
It would either require performing a research project or you would have to learn it from others. I would like knowledges in Cantr, but I think it will be a really dull thing to learn them.

[formerly known as hf]

This was heavily discussed in the past.

Sociologist discussed the idea of technologies and quests in length in one of his essays (An Essay on Motivation II: Technology & Quests), which was followed by a description of Jur's possible implementation in the form of scrolls (Scrolls).

There are a number of possible ways of introdcing 'knowledge' into Cantr.

We could follow a similar method as EVE has with 'Blueprints', qhich is kind of what Jur suggested, which can be discovered by a project, or by a' quest'and shared - each project requiring the initiator/participants to either hold or use the relevant blueprint/scroll.

Or we could follow a Civilization-style setup, where new knowledges/technologies are 'researched'. Allowing those who have researched it to build projects.

But neither suggestion would resolve the problem of having stone age and industrial age developments in the same town – if anything, it would just widen the gap between the newspawns and those with more time.

To be honest though, any suggestion which limits access to parts of the tech tree for characters just slows Cantr down even more…

[Nalaris]

Yes, this has been suggested before. The big problem is that people don't give things to newspawns. In reality, after all, people would be given a metal weapon to help hunt and just in case the barons come knocking.

[wichita]

This is why I keep bringing up the "benefits" of technology levels. It is up to the players of a society to modernize it. A few have spoken out against the crappy bone tools and tried to push the improved versions. But the stubborn independent newspawns don't want to integrate into a developed society, take a job, work for tools....


What we really have is a massive unemployment problem here. Why do we not have naked people roaming the streets in a real modern society? Besides being plagued by those pesky morals imposed upon us by millenia of evil and bigoted religiosity, it just isn't practical. Why spend time carving out a bone knife when you can pick one up at the store after a few days of working odd jobs or begging on the street.


The technology isn't the problem, it is massive unemployment and rampant homelessness that is ruining the image of technology in Cantr. Damn it. I knew George Bush was to blame for this too......

[Sicofonte]

I know, but I'm a realism freak!

HF, thanks for the recopilation, I'll read it before open the mouth again about this subject.

[viktor]

To be honest though, any suggestion which limits access to parts of the tech tree for characters just slows Cantr down even more…

absolutly!

This is why I keep bringing up the "benefits" of technology levels. It is up to the players of a society to modernize it. A few have spoken out against the crappy bone tools and tried to push the improved versions. But the stubborn independent newspawns don't want to integrate into a developed society, take a job, work for tools....


What we really have is a massive unemployment problem here. Why do we not have naked people roaming the streets in a real modern society? Besides being plagued by those pesky morals imposed upon us by millenia of evil and bigoted religiosity, it just isn't practical. Why spend time carving out a bone knife when you can pick one up at the store after a few days of working odd jobs or begging on the street.


The technology isn't the problem, it is massive unemployment and rampant homelessness that is ruining the image of technology in Cantr. Damn it. I knew George Bush was to blame for this too......

ah yes that induvidualistic plague that runs rampant in cantr.

[Nosajimiki]

hey if I didnt need an outlet to plug my computer into, you'd bet I'd be running around outside naked with a bone knife, screw jobs

the other thing here is that IRL, by the time you are 20 you've already been given or have earned a number of modern bienifits, in Cantr you start with nothing so unless someone wants to give you a steel sabre and iron shield, then you have to earn it starting out with rocks and bones. Think of every newspawn as somone who's just been washed ashore, it takes time to inigrate that new person into your society.

[Gunther01]

I really do like the idea of Research. It would add a completely new level of realism into the game. The blueprint idea is something that I think could work. Think of the possibilities! A patent office, for instance. Intellectual property.

People could trade for blueprints (and I'd imagine that Blueprints could be copied like notes.)

Of course, this will slow the game down, but as this is a game that simulates society, and no society is without it's technology, I really think this is something that shouldn't be overlooked.

On another note, I don't think this should be implemented unless there is a complete game reset.

At the risk of saying something that should be in another thread, things like the skills, dynamic naming, and technology would only work if the Cantr universe was reset to it's base state, with characters left intact, but perhaps shuffled around. This would allow for Skills to be developed from the beginning, and ALL locations to be named by the players, instead of just the newest ones.

I will admit, that is pretty drastic...

[tiddy ogg]

This has been discussed before. Someone came up with the idea of modular projects, but I can't think it's a goer. The only people who can invent anything in Cantr are the programmers. Characters must simply select from menus. All chars potentially know everything from the Wiki, so there is no scope for any brilliant new device, no matter how useful.

[Phalynx]

And yet, when something new is developed is entirely possible to RP it as a discovery or new idea... be a bit more creative!

[Kreed]

The big problem is that people don't give things to newspawns. In reality, after all, people would be given a metal weapon to help hunt

I jointly run a town where anyone who joins us is almost immediatly given an iron shield and metal weapon of their choice. Pity the baron wanabee that comes our way! As a side effect people are pretty loyal to us

[Pie]

I think it should all be controlled manually, with sertain numbers that you imput into a little slot thingy, this slot thingy saying the length of such and such pipe, the thickness of it, were it should be placed, and the like, using a trial and error way to make sertain communities smarter than others, creating heratigeial betterness at making some things.

[Schme]

I say if it isn't broken, do not fix it.

[Phalynx]

And if it is broke don't break it some more!