Selecting tech level of spawnpoint

[N-Aldwitch]

Sorry guys. Just playing devil's advocate.

Decided it's not a bad idea, but you're putting labels on a 'customisable' game world.

For example, let's pretend the suggestion was to be spawned under a Tyrannic government or Democratic government. It's all opinion / bias view / judgement as to what is what in Cantr... I don't know how to put this to words but, some places might be called primitive wrongly just because it lacks a certain requirement to be better..


Also, I think some of you think this is going to drastically increase populations in places most needing a bigger population. It won't. People will spawn characters when they are ready to, when they have a free slot ready etcetera..

[more important argument below]


Also don't you think this is starting to sound like a Fantasy MMORPG? I mean this is the first step in that direction, selecting what kind of town you want a character in, (ie medieval). What's next, customizing your character, then weapon specialisation? Then a healer class?(edit, the healer class isn't already done, my mistake) Oh wait, two/three of those are already done. *sarcastic* Lol but seriously! Let's leave Cantr to be customised by the players!

If you spawn a character where you didn't want one, tough luck. Or aren't you guys good enough Role-Players to RP the situation?

[tiddy ogg]

Must agree with most of that. And when does a primitive location stop being so? There is development all the time This means some staff member must monitor the situation all the time, or do some fancy programming decreeing what is what.
It all comes back to the question of whether you want to decide before creating a char what you want him to be. If, like me, you adapt to the circumstances he finds himself in, which surely is the more realistic scenario, the whole idea is pointless.

[deadboy]

Must agree with most of that. And when does a primitive location stop being so? There is development all the time This means some staff member must monitor the situation all the time, or do some fancy programming decreeing what is what.
It all comes back to the question of whether you want to decide before creating a char what you want him to be. If, like me, you adapt to the circumstances he finds himself in, which surely is the more realistic scenario, the whole idea is pointless.

Again, if there is a random option, isn't it better that we cater for everyone instead of just you? If you don't want to know where your characters will spawn, then click random, but for those who might want to spawn somewhere large, click developed, or small, click primitive (I still think that people is a good sign of the development of a town, how about less than 10 is primitive, 10-20 is medievil and 20+ is developed?)

[Crosshair]

I like this a lot. Mostly cause it would indeed encourage cities to grow. If you want to be part of a city, and are prepared to do so, you should be able to choose, and therefore make the city better, and benefit as a player, cause you enjoy it all much more.

[Redbeard]

I think the idea has a lot of merit... but new players should not be able to choose for the first (5) five characters... they should be random to give some taste of the options... Us old folks should be able to pick so we have more fun... I know some days I wished all my characters were in the jungle... but I do love K-Island too.

[Frits]

Undecided. I think you ought to do a survey of players to judge their preferences. If too many want one particular scenario, it will skew the game.

Good point, not that wichita didn't give that some thought but what would be the players preferences? Do we want two choices or more?

[Jos Elkink]

It's an interesting suggestion where it is very difficult to foresee the consequences if it were to be implemented. So it's a bit of a scary idea.

I don't like the categories "primitive", "medieval", "modern", because it makes no sense in Cantr, imho. We don't have such distinct eras present. Besides, once we make some progress to, say, transporting vehicles on boats, you'll get people spawning in a "primitive" area and encountering cars. They'll look surprised now, but if they explicitly asked for a primitive area, they'll be upset . So the names are wrong . If we do this, the names should be based on the algorithm used to classify locations, e.g. "densely populated" vs "sparsely populated".

If we were to do something like this, we need a very clear, implementable algorithm. We're definitely not going to manually classify locations ... Some suggestions are possible, like simply looking at the size of the town in terms of population, or looking at the animal/human ratio. (Or, taking into account the type of animal, the "total attack force" / char population.)

One thing that makes me slightly uncomfortable with this is that now we kind of have a natural growth of cities. Unexplored areas are reached by the very few that spawn there or by cities sending out exploring teams. With a different spawning system, a lot of the exploring will simply be done by chars that decided to be explorers before spawning. So the division city / wild will become more artificial and not grow naturally like it does now. I would find that a serious disadvantage, but perhaps only because I like to observe how Cantr develops, rather than only thinking from the perspective of a player.

I don't like restrictions like "only 5 per category", because that would skew the results probably more than leaving it up to the player. I think - not sure. As I said, the consequences are very hard to predict so I'm very wary of this suggestion, I must say.

[SekoETC]

Yeah, Mulof north is pretty damn primitive, yet we have cars and bikes coming through ever so often.

[deadboy]

Yeah, Mulof north is pretty damn primitive, yet we have cars and bikes coming through ever so often.

And yet somehow Mulof South managed to lose to them . Anyway, population is the thing I think.

[Frits]

Not regarding this suggestion but related, my chars in densely populated and/or well-developped locations see spawning almost every day. Gathering spots are sometimes limited and up to 20 new spawnings per year is just irritating. In locations with 10 or less inhabitants i notice about 1 newspawn per year, also irritating but cos it's too static. Is it structural or coincidence?

[the_antisocial_hermit]

Fewer chars= smaller chance of spawning (I think)

[Frits]

That's what i thought. It will lead to overcrowding of treefeather island and a few other scattered big towns. If chars are expected to go travelling from these locations ships should be faster, it's not very tempting the way it is.

[Sparkle]

Love the idea. I hope a way of implementing this will come to mind.

When I agree to decisions like this, most of the time, I think of myself 25% and the other 75% I think of the new people I introduce to the game and the complaints I get. I think this may solve some of the issues they complain about.