Some ideas to prevent newspawns from quitting.

[Hammy]

No boats allowed on the sea.. if you allowed that the island could be found by pirates and invaded getting rid of the whole purpose.

[Oasis]

I worry that if we make the newbie island too easy, new players will be quite miffed when they get to the real word to find out it's not that way at all. I also worry about encouraging the use of ooc for teaching purposes, and then discouraging it when they start playing for real. I think we might have a problem with an increase of ooc in the real cantr after that.

[ilumino]

I really don't like the newbie island idea. I am a newbie, I just started playing a few days ago and I picked it up in about an hour. Granted, I have played a lot of MUD's and other text-based games before, but it's not THAT hard to learn.

I really think that a newbie island takes the realism out of the game too. It reminds me too much of the newbie locations from runescape, or tibia.

I would much rather like to see a tutorial video with a user moving the mouse around in real-time clicking buttons as he completes tasks (showing off the different screens as in the 'Game Mechanics' screen from the wiki). A final message can tell people about how this is a role-playing game and must be treated as such.

[ADM598]

I'm new...just started today. If you don't mind a bit of a long story...here's how you'll keep me...

I've played A LOT of games. My longest ongoing game was WoW, which I just quit because my friends left and I the grind there is REALLY a grind when you don't know anyone.

I was looking for a different kind of role playing and stumbled on Cantr through Google (yeah I actually typed in 'role playing different' and a few random jumps later, here I was). I read the FAQ and the Wiki and I was so scared to get killed on my first day for picking something up, I almost changed my mind!

I announce my name and then I root myself to the ground and read 30 different notes and then the Sheriff hands me a stack of spuds and tells me keep my nose clean or I'd have to do time. Then the Ambassador notices me picking them up before I copy them and drop one (now I realize lot of unnecessary event fodder) and tells me I can copy them without picking them up. So I wait to get killed and when it doesn't happen I finally settle down and start actually RPing. I can actually see my character being fun to integrate into this town if other people actually RP and not play this like CIV.

I don't know what to expect yet, but I'm not dead so that's good. I think mature players can find something to like if they're looking for more than just phat purpz (sorry RIP WoW).

Even the thieves, and maniacs, and killers could have fun here if they REALLY play their char to the full. Like actually make themselves suffer through "normal" townie stuff and then do their deeds and not get caught (talk about engaging) Rouges in WoW can kill a whole bunch of people and never pay for it...Let's see them do that here.

It's really the mindset of the new person that determines if they'll stay and actually become interesting not only to themselves but their villagemates. This game (from what I've seen) is really up there in depth...so I ask my fellow RPers to bring depth as well.

[SekoETC]

Aww, maybe it should be specified that people usually won't get killed if they avoid sudden moves, don't fall asleep while holding stuff that's not theirs or leave town after picking things up (or running through buildings). Talking is good, talking lets people know you are aware of the other people present (some people might not check the people tag or might imagine them being NPCs). But if you play the game like it was single-player then you're often making it less fun for the others. I remember my first day, coming from a background of first observing talented rp'ers in a click-click-kill-monsters-buy-better-weapons-kill-more kind of game, then moving on to an rpg chatroom where everything about your character was defined by yourself and if you didn't provide others with enough information, your character risked appearing flat and boring. So when I started Cantr I felt obliged to have background stories and also know what most of my characters look like. Does the wiki specify yet that Cantrians are spawned without history and should not have a background story?

[the_antisocial_hermit]

This is definitely not CIV. Not even close in the way it's played. It's all about the RP and doing things. Some places have less going on than others.. all depends on where you end up.

[ilumino]

This is definitely not CIV. Not even close in the way it's played. It's all about the RP and doing things. Some places have less going on than others.. all depends on where you end up.

And the nice thing is that if there is NOT something going, you can make something happen.

[DylPickle]

You sure can Ilumino. People who say cantr is boring are usually boring themselves

It's not like CIV, but there is an aspect of empire and civilization in the game, if you choose to play that way. The beauty of it is that each character has a personal life AND a large-scale life (if they choose to). You can fuse Personality RPing with strategic RPing anyway you want to.

[Doug R.]

I was leaning toward supporting the newbie island, but I'm against it now. It's a lot of work that would have no proven benefit other than creating a barrier between suicidal newspawns and the main game.

Much more useful and less infrastructure cost would be to set up a kind of helpdesk or mentoring service where players could IM or email staff to ask questions and preferably get quick answers. New players could even have an option to click a box if they want to be assigned a mentor.

In regards to ADM598's post, I have two comments:

1) People tend to adapt to their environment, so if no one in a town is RPing, then a player that typically does will tend to stop. Silence is contagious, and it's hard to break.

2) The 15 character limit actually is inhibitory to RP in that players with that many characters will find it difficult to rp properly on 200 mins and tend to leave minor/less favorite characters silent to compensate.

[ADM598]

Hi Doug. I agree with both of your points:

1) People tend to adapt to their environment, so if no one in a town is RPing, then a player that typically does will tend to stop. Silence is contagious, and it's hard to break.

*This is very true. It's really hard to RP if everyone else refuses to talk with you. RP is my #1 goal, weapons, armor, buildings, cars...keep em. Eventually, I'll get em. I can play WoW for items. I quit WoW because underneath, that's all it is. RP is a two-way street which makes things interesting for you and me. If my town doesn't RP with me. I'll leave it and try to find one that will...if I don't die in the trip

2) The 15 character limit actually is inhibitory to RP in that players with that many characters will find it difficult to rp properly on 200 mins and tend to leave minor/less favorite characters silent to compensate.

*That 200 min limit is a kicker. I only have one char (I want to make sure I know how this works and if I can do this before I go nuts) and I know I'll run out of time. But I can see how 15 chars could kill your clock real fast.

On a completely unrelated note...WHERE ARE THE TRASH BINS??!! What am I supposed to do with all old notes?

[the_antisocial_hermit]

Make an envelope that says trash and put them all in it. And it's difficult to die in Cantr, especially travelling. Either you have to have horrible luck and hit no places with food and people for about 20 days or you have to live in a place where there are horrible animals or you have to come across a particularly evil character, but there aren't many of those around. Those are the ways you die without breaking a law and causing problems in a town.

[Voltenion]

2) The 15 character limit actually is inhibitory to RP in that players with that many characters will find it difficult to rp properly on 200 mins and tend to leave minor/less favorite characters silent to compensate.

Unless some of your chars are in those suposed quiet towns and the time you would use on them you can use to rp more the others

[Leo Luncid]

I really think that a newbie island takes the realism out of the game ... It reminds me too much of the newbie locations from runescape, or tibia.

I agree. This idea is too cliche for it to be used by a game that sprouts so much creativity (despite Dakkon Blackblade, Axel, and the indestructible Bag End).

Much more useful and less infrastructure cost would be to set up a kind of helpdesk or mentoring service where players could IM or email staff to ask questions and preferably get quick answers. New players could even have an option to click a box if they want to be assigned a mentor.

A much better alternative.

[Voltenion]

...and the indestructible Bag End).

You and your anti-bag endism

[kinvoya]

Sorry, tripple post, please delete