The Need To Survive

[Sparkle]

All of my characters are spawned with a purpose and work hard toward their goals. If everyone gave their characters a goal or as they grow give them a purpose then really worked hard toward that goal or purpose they would really value that characters life rather than letting them die then starting from scratch.

[N-Aldwitch]

All of my characters are spawned with a purpose and work hard toward their goals. If everyone gave their characters a goal or as they grow give them a purpose then really worked hard toward that goal or purpose they would really value that characters life rather than letting them die then starting from scratch.

Yeah, exactly. Especially parenting children, you would not want to die and leave a parentless child- all in all it keeps characters alive more rather than them taunting prison guards or pirates etcetera. You can't tell me that you wouldn't taunt your character's captor if you had no valuables and the character wasn't even known that well.

[glitterdown]

Pardon the cynicism, but why not just try harder to talk to people instead of killing them? And spawn chars you expect to live to be very old.

Sure, that's all good and well to say, but I can tell you it's not happening in the Cantr world.

Perhaps not by-and-large, no. But I've never had a character die before 40, and I'm sure there are others like me.

Or maybe just because so many newspawns have always just been brutally and upsettingly obvious in their suicidal urges to end their life in an RP-less conflagration of idiotic decisions.

There are many "children" (goals for a character to live for, whether material, RP, social, exploratory, etc.) already in the game without trying to make people related to the majority of idiots who mass-create foolish characters.

[Arlequin]

If only 50% of skills were inherited, and the other 50% learned during the first ten years by performing the tasks (so after ten years you would get the other 50% you didn't inherit but it would be as hard as now to progress beyond that), people would be more afraid of losing their trained characters.

[Pie]

And now life is more important 'caus you can't replaice them easaly.

[N-Aldwitch]

If only 50% of skills were inherited, and the other 50% learned during the first ten years by performing the tasks (so after ten years you would get the other 50% you didn't inherit but it would be as hard as now to progress beyond that), people would be more afraid of losing their trained characters.

That's definately a good point...

[Skulty]

But I've never had a character die before 40, and I'm sure there are others like me.

Erm... I never even had a 30 years old char... This might be because I've not played long enough yet, but having them killed in their 29's is pretty frustrating too...

[deadboy]

Look, you are forgetting that to have no characters die before they are fourty you have to keep every character alive for 400 days, and keep interested enough in them to play them for 400 days. That is rare. Most characters, if you look at the stats, I think you would find are in their twenties and thirties, as the majority of a characters life happens in this period (I tend to never have a character go far above 30 (200 days play), and very rarely above 35 (300 days play) although of course the odd character just keeps you on your feet and enjoying yourself and involved in them permentantly, so I have others older than that

[Jos Elkink]

The older chars are often much more fun to play, though. They have more status, so they're taken more seriously, and they have a history etc.

[Zanthos]

my goal is to have all my current characters (that matter) live to over 60. And im about a fourth of the way there! (cantr time wise, as in 30+)

I've only had one charrie die that i cared about before 30, well one charrie on this account die that i cared about as a whole, and i think 3 have died total.

[deadboy]

The older chars are often much more fun to play, though. They have more status, so they're taken more seriously, and they have a history etc.

Honestly this is actually one of the reasons I don't like many of my more "In-power" characters anymore, instead of towns growing, nowadays they just decline, and it is quite sad as a player to see one of your towns declining into nothing

[glitterdown]

I think the difference here is that I've only ever made one character I didn't care about, and even after playing him as an obnoxious sot for a bunch of days, I grew to enjoy him, and he's in his mid-60's now. I had another character who started his life as a thief and used his ill-gotten gains to become a successful trader and then a successful business man.

If you care about your characters, you're interested in their lives: both living them and extending them as long as possible. I don't spawn a character and immediately check to see if he's strong at hunting or hurting others, and immediately discard him if his skills aren't up to snuff. I've had weak characters in positions of strength and strong characters who refuse to use weapons, because I'm already vested in my characters and allow their personalities to determine their goals and objectives, not their abilities. I think about the sort of character I want to play before I create it, and then use the charcter I create to play the sort of character I want. Skills and abilities are just icing on the cake, they're just the sort of things that flesh out your characters and bring them realism and life.

If you had a RL child who loved math but struggled with it, would you tell him to just give it up and try something he's good at? If you wanted a brilliant son, but got a socialite daughter instead, would you put her up for adoption when it became clear she wasn't what you at first intended?

Yes, I recognize this is a game and not real-life and my examples are a bit extreme, but still... If you don't value what you have, if you don't put value IN what you have, of course you're not going to respect it, and no one else is going to respect it either.

A lot of people who like to complain that "only old characters get respect" fail to recognize that it's really: "only serious characters get respect." If you want to have characters that are respected, stop throwing them away. Your 200 day old, indolent, lifeless characters will never amount to anything unless you make it happen, so stop waiting for handouts and set to work earning them. Begging, insulting and constant arguing is unbecoming on many levels, but if you're annoying, no one is going to want to have anything to do with you. Either recognize it and deal with it yourself, or change your style and start earning your rewards.

It's not about role-playing per-se, although solid role-playing will help you achieve respect quickly. There are many other methods to achieve respect as well.

[deadboy]

I think the difference here is that I've only ever made one character I didn't care about, and even after playing him as an obnoxious sot for a bunch of days, I grew to enjoy him, and he's in his mid-60's now. I had another character who started his life as a thief and used his ill-gotten gains to become a successful trader and then a successful business man.

Of course everything you just said is completely true, for example refering to this small extract I have one man who was once a thief, and a note bomber, and he is now highly successful, one who was a budding "bandit (With a small "b", I don't mean one of the Bandits) who ended up as a -highly- successful businessman, of whose business is becoming more and more successful by the day. Characters don't live for one story, of course, they live through many, and each should change the character. However, saying this, that doesn't mean that you, as a player, have to like each character enough to play them through permentantly, as the game is about having fun in the end, and if a character is particularly boring and shows no signs of perking up there is no reason not to set out in search of a new one.

Also, please read your timelines here, a 200 day old character is not even slightly considered a newb character, at 30 a character could have been through endless amounts, and in my case I usually find they have been. A 200 day old character is by no respect lifeless, in fact it is almost impossible to play a character for 200 days of your life without developing somewhat of a character with them, and having that character change and develop

[glitterdown]

Also, please read your timelines here, a 200 day old character is not even slightly considered a newb character, at 30 a character could have been through endless amounts, and in my case I usually find they have been. A 200 day old character is by no respect lifeless, in fact it is almost impossible to play a character for 200 days of your life without developing somewhat of a character with them, and having that character change and develop

I didn't say, ALL 200 day old characters were lifeless. I said, "[a] 200 day old, indolent, lifeless character will never amount to anything unless [the player] makes it happen." And the concept that somehow ALL 200 day old characters are somehow automatically well-developed is ridiculous to me in terms of the way this game is played. There are of course exceptions, and I don't doubt that your own 30-year old characters are very active, but assuming someone logs in once a day, every day, their character has done 200 things, taken 200 actions (at most). How can that be well-developed?

[deadboy]

Also, please read your timelines here, a 200 day old character is not even slightly considered a newb character, at 30 a character could have been through endless amounts, and in my case I usually find they have been. A 200 day old character is by no respect lifeless, in fact it is almost impossible to play a character for 200 days of your life without developing somewhat of a character with them, and having that character change and develop

I didn't say, ALL 200 day old characters were lifeless. I said, "[a] 200 day old, indolent, lifeless character will never amount to anything unless [the player] makes it happen." And the concept that somehow ALL 200 day old characters are somehow automatically well-developed is ridiculous to me in terms of the way this game is played. There are of course exceptions, and I don't doubt that your own 30-year old characters are very active, but assuming someone logs in once a day, every day, their character has done 200 things, taken 200 actions (at most). How can that be well-developed?

I'm sorry but in 200 actions many things can get down, especially since within those 200 actions there could be 1000, perhaps even 2000 things said, and so perhaps 15000-50000 words said, and that is enough to make a character well developed