Races

[Jos Elkink]

There have been various suggestions to implement eye, hair, or skin color, or otherwise races in Cantr. Currently, we only have two types of ethnic distinctions: language zone, which is quite a strong division and indeed leads to some pluralistic societies as well as some racial ones; and inherited characteristics, but those distinctions are too small to be noticeable. Race, however, can lead to very interesting social dynamics, and I for one would like it if all chars looked less alike.

One problem, however, with setting races by color features would that there are only two options: 1) players can manually set those for their own characters, which will lead to a totally heterogeneous and mixed Cantr world and thus with very little chance of any ethnic identification; or 2) all characters get randomly assigned features, but players are going to be very upset when what they thought of as a large black man suddenly turns out to be white, or whatever. And fair enough - it would really be strange to suddenly get forced a description of your character. Even when spawning a new character, I'm not sure I'd appreciate it.

So, until yesterday, I assumed that further implementation of race would be pretty much out of the question. But yesterday it struck me that an alternative method might be possible. Since it's only a text-based game, and you can't actually see the character (unfortunately), we could make a description that is far more neutral. Just like you can say that someone "looks Asian", or "looks African", you could do something similar in Cantr (with, obviously, different regional names).

These 'looks' would be inherited from the 'parents' (the two chars that you inherit your genes from). For all already existing characters, we can base the looks on the island they are born on. We have this registered for all but 117 characters and for those we can simply make a guess and allow the player to correct us. So this is doable.

The question is, would people appreciate such an idea? And what descriptions would work? What kind of variations on this idea would be possible?

Currently, islands have various in-game and out-of-character names and it would be nice not to interfere too much with that. We could just invent new names, unrelated to existing names in the game. Or we could use the original, out-of-characters names of the islands (e.g. 'Pok Island' rather than 'Treefeather Island'), but that would not be the nicest solution, perhaps.

Anyway, I'd be happy to hear variations on this idea.

[SCUBA]

How would it be than a character is spawned and has an 'African' and an 'Asian' 'parent'? Would he look Africanasian?

Is the 'parents' of characters recorded?

I do not like the idea, that lets say, an english character spawned on the russian island would look more like the russians than his 'parents' spawned on the original english islands. This is ofcourse only a problem for implementation. Later they would have the 'english' look even if they spawn somewere else, as the parents have the 'right' look. So! I would like that all existing characters get a look from an island that is originally the area of that language group. If that is not possible, I would like that the implementation of this is made based mainly on language group. But to have diffenrences in the language groups based on spawning location. Like all turkish characters looks Hgorian, but the once spawned on the Hgorian island would look pure Hgorian, and the once spawned on the close island would maybe look a bit Hgorian. Or turks will all be Hgorian, but differed by distance from a center spawning place so some will look westhgorian, others northhgorian and if spawned far away to the east, he will look far east hgorian.

[the_antisocial_hermit]

Still restrictive to the imagination.. and would still cause players to have to imagine some of their characters differently. I mean.. if a person imagines their char is African, and then when this is implemented it says the char looks Asian.. same problem still. I just think that any way it's done, it will be too restrictive. Unless I'm understanding the suggestion wrong.

[SekoETC]

I like this idea, but how could we make characters from a certain language group look distinctly alike when there is supposedly a large difference even between two English islands, or even the parts of a single English island? There seemed to be a lot of redheads on the Krif region, and not just the MacGregors, also others. I also assume that Pok-islanders have a darker skin than Cantr-islanders due to the lions and cotton. One of my characters is a dark person originally from Reniov forest. I would appriciate it if he could continue to be black, or at least tanned. Many people on that region tend to look Asian as well, but in the east there are a lot of blondes. A difficult situation...

Maybe outlooks could be selectable within a certain range? That for Pok island everyone would be at least tan in skin colour due to the heat, but you could choose to be darker as well. And black/dark brown or red hair would be preferred, but some cases of sunbleached ash blond could be allowed for those that have imagined their characters to be blondes. There are a lot of people who have never stopped to imagine what their characters look like, so they could represent the dominant features. I have the feeling that the quirky ones are only a minority that will soon vanish in the masses of newspawns.

Edit: I'm sure the words Asian and African were just to give a hint of what was meant, and they won't be used like that ingame.

One thing we could do is have the Mongolian eye fold (or what's it called?) dominant in all English characters. I don't think it would be a big spoiler, you could still have blonde hair and look mostly Western, or have black skin and look mostly African. I wouldn't mind if my characters had it, and if everyone had it then it would be natural that no one has paid any attention to it.

[Antichrist_Online]

I think this could just be a mine field of fighting if it was more pronounced a difference than your intitial suggestion Jos. Otherwise we'll incite problems and conflicts for OOC reasons, and not for in game reasons.

[SCUBA]

As I understood Jay's suggestion, the thing that would be added to the description of the characters should be something like...

He looks siomish. (spawned in Siom region)
She looks knatrian. (spawned in Knatr region)
He looks pokish. (spawned on Pok island)
She looks kishnakotic. (spawned in Kishnakotis region)

In Siom, most newspawns after the implementation of this will spawn as siomish too, because most possible 'parents' will be siomish. But maybe there is a knatrian character there too. Then some of the newspawns will, as I understand it, be knatriansiomish or something like that. What will happen when a knatriansiomish and a kishnakoticpokish pair of characters result in a newspawn I cant tell.

I like the thing that you will be able to differ characters by race alot. But I see the problem with implementing this now, and not from the beginning, when all characters spawned in a place associated with their language. Now if this will be implemented right as Jay said. Characters spawned 'abroad'. Will look more like the aborigines than their actual parents. This I do not like at all. My idea of how this could be solved is that when implementing this is, if its possible, to use the spawningplace of the grand gran grand grand parent. If that is not possible, use one of the original spawningplaces of that language group, possible the closest to the spawningplace for that character. Or use just one name for each language group and differ the characters by using eastsiomish, southwestsiomish or the like. Just dont make characters from different language groups look the same. As they have no common genes at all!

[Surly]

It should definitely be based on spawn area, not language. Otherwise there will be no kind of integration, which is stupid.

I think the tags SCUBA used would be the only ones that can be used. Have the "location sense" like the "age sense". Don't tell people how their chars look...

[SCUBA]

These 'looks' would be inherited from the 'parents' (the two chars that you inherit your genes from). For all already existing characters, we can base the looks on the island they are born on.

If this will be the case. Language has alot to say, as 'parents' always are from the same language as the newspawn. There is no character languagemix in Cantr. A swedish character and a french character cant result in a newspawn. Two french characters on a swedish island can result in a french newspawn. If this already happend, please dont make the french newspawn look like swedish characters also spawned on that island. He should look like his french 'parents'. This is my one and only point.

[the_antisocial_hermit]

Alright, if it's like what SCUBA was saying, using tags based on Cantrian areas (and I did misread the initial post >.< sorry, it was early for me), then I guess it's okay because it doesn't define the way the char actually looks, just where they're from which they couldn't change anyway, though I guess now they can't lie about where they're from because a lot of people will use the tag as set knowledge and proof rather than just a possibility or similarity. I don't know. Those could get messy. West Olipifirovashian? Or plain old Olipifirovashian for just the whole area?

[Jos Elkink]

Indeed, I definitely wanted to avoid touching people's looks. So Seko, those ideas I would avoid, since it would lead to many, many frustrated players ... And for good reasons.

And yes, I did think of making languages separate in any case - I should have mentioned that. So a split by language and by island, at least for the English zone. For the Polish zone, I think some islands are very close to each other and small, so they might be more alike.

Scuba (btw, my name is Jos ...), you quite correctly understood my idea, although I don't get your point about 'chars spawning abroad'. What do you mean there?

And if parents are from the same language, but different race, the new spawn would get one randomly selected from the two. Making them 'creole' or something would lead to complications in terms of programming. Imagine the Siomish-Knatrian having a child with a Pokish-Kishnakotic. We get a Siomish-Knatrian-Pokish-Kishnakotic newspawn?

About different areas on the same island ... hmmm ... yeah, it's quite possible, and perhaps also makes it more interesting, but the question is where to put the borders ... Although it might not be *that* difficult. E.g. on the Cantr island, the contacts between east and west have always been much less than between north and south (on both halves). And on the Pok island you can also reasonably distinguish a southern, middle, and northern region, I think. Yeah, I do like that idea more than just the whole island the same, I think.

It will also make it possible to recognize a language group before they say something. I think that's a positive consequence, but do people agree?

And can we use in-game names (like, indeed, Siomish or Pokish), or is it safer to come up with entirely new names, so that we don't prefer one city over another? I kind of like that idea as well - just taking names that neither exist in real life (like Asian or African) nor in game (like Siomish or Pokish). I'd be happy to make up names - as you all know I quite enjoy that ...

[Jos Elkink]

Alternatively, we could use symbols or colors or something to identify the race, so you can immediately recognize them, while leaving the actual naming dynamic. That is, you can set a dynamic name just as you can for the character or building, but you also see something distinguishing beforehand.

[Liljum]

Alternatively, we could use symbols or colors or something to identify the race, so you can immediately recognize them, while leaving the actual naming dynamic. That is, you can set a dynamic name just as you can for the character or building, but you also see something distinguishing beforehand.

That really is an option that may be agreed by most. Using colors and a possibility to name that race by dynamic names. Then everyone can name the race as they like it to be.

EDIT:

But how does that work with getting genes from different parents? Blending the two colors may give the result of becoming a race that already exists. And that color will become black to every character further on in the future.

[SCUBA]

Scuba (btw, my name is Jos ...), you quite correctly understood my idea, although I don't get your point about 'chars spawning abroad'. What do you mean there?

Sorry about that. I used to play Warcraft II and Starcraft alot using Kali. ( http://www.kali.net ) The creator of Kali is named Jay.

As I am eager that chars from different languages will never be the same. At least if the look will be inhereted from your 'parents' and characters always have 'parents' from their own language. Using a pure spawningplace for all existing characters as base for the implementing of look will make e. g. existing polish characters spawned on pok island, look the same as english characters spawned on pok island. I think the polish characters now living on pok island and spawned there, should look like their polish 'parents' spawned somethere in polish zone. The same with all french characters spawned in netherland zone, netherland characters spawned in french zone. Germans in spanish zone, swedes in turkish zone... Today characters from more than one language spawn on some places, and in some regions. If just the spawning place as you first said...

For all already existing characters, we can base the looks on the island they are born on.

...then all characters spawned om that island would look the same. Most spanish and german characters would not differ. Even their genes have never mixed. But some germans spawned on a different island close to the turks will look like all turks and swedes, also spawned on that island. The looks of existing characters can therefor not only be based on the island they were born on. Se my earlier posts for ideas how to solve it.

[the_antisocial_hermit]

And can we use in-game names (like, indeed, Siomish or Pokish), or is it safer to come up with entirely new names, so that we don't prefer one city over another? I kind of like that idea as well - just taking names that neither exist in real life (like Asian or African) nor in game (like Siomish or Pokish). I'd be happy to make up names - as you all know I quite enjoy that ...

I think it'd almost have to be new names if it's fixed, since towns and regions can change names. I kind of like the idea of some way to make it dynamic. The racial differences between people would become more relevant to individual characters that way.

[SekoETC]

Dynamic naming would be a must have... because if someone has never seen a foreign person before, they wouldn't know the name of their region and it wouldn't mean anything to them. Also no one should be 100% identifiable to a certain language group by the traits they possess, because people were saying that would make spying impossible.

Edit: Would it be so that different regions of the same language group would generally resemble each other more closer than other language groups? That for example English in general was the colour blue, and Pok island would be turquoise while Cantr island would be middle blue and K-island purplish blue?