Low Population Theory

[N-Aldwitch]

Well here is my theory for why we have low populations in once-populous towns.
And this isn't a doctrine seeking a solution, so don't think of it that way - the solution is just to get more people to play the game, not OOCly influence and change motives in-game.

With the uprisal of armies, pirates, clans, empires, tribes and so on during the 1200 to 1700 era, many people signed up for the thrill of battle. If you weren't in one of these groups, you were usually either a businessman, or some worker who worked for these businessmen. Ie, a minority.
During this 500 period between 1200 and 1700, many wars were of course fought. Many, many lives were lost during these battles and they were intense - we all know that the main English continents - Cantr Island, that other big one, and K-Island, always had at least 1 war going on at a time, if not all experiencing a war. And then there were little disputes, little battles, and acts of vengeance between towns. So there was consistent death.
During this period, though, we experienced the advent of technologised boats. As we knew land vehicles were revamped, and soon would require fuel to use, and were harder to build, people looked to the ocean- an exciting prospect that offered three things- piracy (which was rare), exploration of new lands (very exciting for most boat-builders) and colonization of new lands (even more exciting). Of course, there was also shore trading. This desire to be off the war-torn, leader-corrupt, poorly-lead mainlands pushed many (surviving!) Cantrians to the world's edges, where they found new lands, died (seriously) or just ended up coming back home.
Take Kwor for example.
In it's prime years, this town situated on a small isle known as K-Island to many, was home to a record 70+ people (not including those inside buildings - I think it was about 80 in total on one census day) in the early 1200-1700 period (the post-war battles for the K-Island were around this time, where weak battles of pushing and shoving occured between the main forces). Now, however, it is home to a mere 25 people (not including those inside buildings). This is a pathetic comparison.
The explanation? Simple, we all know it, and we know it's true - most of these people were either killed or went to Burgeo - and died there, lol.
Heart attacks you say? Correct - many players quit too, because their loved characters or a majority of their characters died due to accident and uncontrollable circumstances (ie War.. or, accident, forgetting to eat for example).

So perhaps it's a good thing that Cantrians migrate out. With less people in towns, sure, there is less technological advancements, but because everyone is so focused on their own thing and not trying to interfere with politics, there is little opportunity for war.
And because all the elderly people have seen war, are sick of it, have lost friends due to it, they are against it - a great thing for young Cantrians as the elderly are the decision-makers and have the biggest say in things - purely because they are respected.
We hear 'I want more war'.. but it's a bad thing.
For example, my own character and people around her are actually wanting to leave their beloved hometown because a war is possibly impending. They want to disperse, and migrate away. Ahh that's the word- disperse!

Like I said at the beginning, this wasn't a solution, but rather an explanation. Sure, if you want, take it as a solution and OOCly influence others to stay put and not start wars. The two essential problems are obvious though - one, that is cheating. And two, don't worry.. I believe the war-time and exploration-time is over.
Why?
War time is over because:
- We get newspawns who are mainstream ideologists: "I want to be a good, loyal hardworking citizen who hates killing".
- We have lost all our crazy leaders in battles (thank god) and are left with the ones who didn't want to go to war (peaceful ones)
- We are technologically disadvantaged, we now need to make fuel for cars and are constantly repairing things.
- No one is sanctioning a war anymore.. by this, I mean no leaders are giving the green light, or okay'ing wars now days.

Exploration time is over because:
- We have maps that show us clearly where the trio of English continents are. This means were are content with the knowledge of where the continents are... we have no desire to find out where they are.
- The explorers have already explored and most of us realise that, as they're either already on the continents or coming back visiting us.
- The colonization of new lands has already begun. No point doing it again, it's like turning a computer that's on, on again.
- Most of us older players.. and many new ones too.. have either already built boats before, or have been part of a crew on a boat. We know what it's like and are bored of it now.


This theory does not suggest that Mari-time and War-time are over for ever.
Instead if you read into the subtext of what I write, you'll see that I imply that this is like a loop, wartime and seafaring time will come again (ie we'll want to taste war, we'll want to explore again).

In the meantime though, our populations will steadily rise if my theory is correct and if the amount of players slowly and surely increases. Why? Characters far out will die, and respawn back in local areas - and of course new players will spawn in local areas. Eventually the main areas will be built up to normal, there will be so many radically leftwing and rightwing newspawns that new leaders and new wars will be popping up everywhere, and we will have vast fleets of boats engaging in some serious naval warfare sometime soon.

The prime years of 1200 - 1700 are over.. but I predict that 2600 till unknown will be the next phase of War and Mari time.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to discuss, of course.

[Zanthos]

Not everyone who fought in war hates it.

Some of them like the thrill of battle, I know my K islander rubs his battleaxe every day, waiting until he can use it again. He even cuts his hand every so often, so he keeps his mind fresh and is prepared for the pain of getting struck with a sabre.

[Chris]

Interesting theory.

Exploration may not be as attractive as it once was, but I remember someone saying that a lot of people are living on boats. If a character doesn't want to join a town's established government or business, building a boat is a relatively easy way to live an independent life. You can build a longboat with only wood, no iron. With a boat, you get mobile storage with a lock and faster transportation than walking, at least for towns next to water. The land vehicle equivalent is a small wooden cart, which is laughably slow. So, even though these boat owners aren't sailing into open water, they aren't a permanent part of any town.

My guess is that after a war, some people may have felt that they had done it all in Cantr. They had seen town technology rise from nothing to bone tools to steel. They had gone from walking to fast cars and ships. The storage buildings were full of resources and items accumulated over the generations. In war, they had taken PvP to its Cantrian limit. So, maybe they got bored. I once read that the average player of a MMOG stays for about a year. Sooner or later, both content and process feel old, and people move on, to other games or other uses of their time.

[DylPickle]

It will build up again. I've noticed there is starting to be a few more multi-town unions creeping up here and there... It could be "the-next-step" in Cantrian life.

- We have lost all our crazy leaders in battles (thank god) and are left with the ones who didn't want to go to war (peaceful ones)

I don't care who agrees or disagrees with me. Any leader that is 100% peaceful is 100% boring. Not that they should all be crazy warlords, but they should have a little something to fear. I wonder when the first cantrian revolution will happen

[15454]

I am sure there is a big war out there that is coming, that many have seen but refused to believe. You may want it to come, and when it does you'll only wish it hadn't.

[Voltenion]

yep it sucks when the char dies...but till it dies it normally is a good rp!

[Zanthos]

I am sure there is a big war out there that is coming, that many have seen but refused to believe. You may want it to come, and when it does you'll only wish it hadn't.

*please be near my warrior please please please*

he so misses the bloodshead of the blackrock war, he overkilled a thief running on the road, cleaving his body in half with his battleaxe. (I say half, because he did upwards of 50 damage to someone with 70-80% gone)

[CantrFreak]

Maybe all the big wars are still in planning. ;-D

I know of a few wars and battles too come.

[Arlequin]

Good post, and I agree about the shorter lifespan of characters that go out of the way.

I personally think that most Cantr societies are what you could expect from healthy, instructed, skilled and well fed populations. Change is hard to promote when you can't offer a greater reward than the local mining company, for example.

In real life there were and there are still many kinds of people that would go out of the way to find their opportunities:

1. people without enough education that can't access to a job that fully rewards them;
2. unskilled people with the same problem as above;
3. people that lack some social skill and feel marginated;
4. people that choose a life path that is socially censored;
5. people that lives at a place with economical or healthcare problems;
6. people that attach to a convincing enough phylosophical system that significally strays away from the mainstream phylosophy of the society.

To what extent those happen within Cantr?

1. Apart from a few characters intentionally roleplayed as dull or ignorants -which I've seen a few, and I admire whoever put that effort on them-, Cantr people is born alphabetized and with a good average education. There is no "hey, this city hasn't got a school, a library or an academy, my newspawn character must have still a lot to learn".

2. Everybody is born with some good skills. Even if they are awkard, they aren't disasterous at doing anything. In real life, when people doesn't feel like progressing through the right way, they sometimes try the cheating shortcuts. Some of them often manage even to attract lots of people to their easier way of life and become leaders of people that would try hard to keep their position gained through some sort of unfairness.

3. Cantr societies don't have many tabooes or social rules. So, whenever someone doesn't fit in the town, he can just stop talking and nobody will care. There's no social education -as there is among children at school, high school, etc-, no pressure to wear cool clothes -when was the last time you heard someone trusting someone else more than anyone because he/she was better dressed?-, no need to have a nice haircut, to be pretty/handsome, to have an entertaining conversation, to do exercise, and so on. So most characters don't feel aggraviated by society and don't carry those feelings to actions, beliefs or politics.

4. On the other hand, styles of life aren't deprecated too often in Cantr. You know, nowadays, if you told your family or related even something so harmless like that you wanted to be an "artist" you would get at least one "hmm...". I think it has something to do about many people would be quick to censor the personal socioeconomical failure, as somehow a relief of their own worries. I don't think that really happens in Cantr. Are you annoyed by vagabonds that sleep outside when they could work to buy or build a house? Do you think poorly of characters that work on art or bone tools when they could have a job paid with iron and steel? Are your characters afraid of strangers? (Not like it would be really interesting to replicate most of the XX century bullxxxx that made it so eventful... I'm just noting it).

5. People isn't really poor in Cantr. At least, people around them won't make them "feel" poor (which would be nice in RL, actually). Also, they usually won't need to work or struggle to get food. I didn't see land property very often in Cantr. You know, half of the problems during the last twenty centuries have been about land, nomad groups and limited resources.

6. The last one is self explaining. It's not easy to simulate a group follower of nietzschean, nihilist, communist, budhist or anarchist ideas, to say some, because it's not even easy for the player to simulate something too much away of his usual way of thinking. You may need a player who's actually in that kind of readings, and then, it's not easy to make other characters understand that point of view.

So, I think, once many of the easier RP options have been played, it may be understandable to see things a bit stuck, as it's difficult to move on on high level society simulations, you know.

[Shade]

The reason there's a lack of piracy, war, bandits, slavery, oppressive governments? Mostly because people can't keep their RL morals and beliefs out of the game.

Hell, just fairly recently, a naked, unarmed newspawn mouthed off my elderly, well-equipped character, shouting something about how killing is so wrong. The worse part was when he, without even so much as flinching in pain as my character cut his loud-mouthed, pompous arse down, was spurting off how he had the freedom of free speech. Remember, people, Cantr is NOT America. It should be a pretty barbaric, dangerous world.

Also, people are afraid of losing their precious character (understandable), and starting things. Many people are simply content playing the (often flat and 2D) character who is rather always smiling and happy, or depressed and melodramatic, but really have no flaws. No greed, no power hunger, no ambitions, no nothing, either. Just a flat character.

Interesting theory though. I'm sure that sooner or later, this era of peace will end, and there will be more bloodshed again.

[Chris]

I bet that there will be major wars if different language groups expand enough in the same area. I don't mean just occasional contact but many characters of two or more language groups in the same town. When communication is minimal, misunderstandings and suspicion become much more likely.

[Cherize]

Or maybe people just get bored to death waiting for the fricking pages to load. Less players equals less people. Eventually there will be a handful of people playing a game that has been "perfected".

Yeah, I know I'm a bitch, but I do really love playing Cantr. The key word is playing.

Patience may be a virtue. Just not one I possess.

[Sekar]

What is worth alot to players is the plot, and usually war is the most interesting plot of them all. Or causing any sort of conflict is interesting. If rules are always followed, yes, no one dies, but then, cantr would be extremely boring. Sometimes I wish something could be implemented into the game that could entertain players without disrupting the growth of a society. Because although, we have to be aware that Cantr is not the real world, we should also be aware that Cantr is trying to imitate a society, and in a real society, there is more security, and there are less people looking to cause trouble.

[Chris]

Because although, we have to be aware that Cantr is not the real world, we should also be aware that Cantr is trying to imitate a society, and in a real society, there is more security, and there are less people looking to cause trouble.

I don't know about that. The idea that war is hell has become widely held only relatively recently, starting around World War I. In most of human history, war has been seen as noble and glorious, by aggressors and defenders alike. Look at violent crime rates around the world, and you'll see huge variation. I think it's fair to say that violence and peacefulness are both part of human nature, and which one dominates a particular time and place depends on complex circumstances.

[Sekar]

I'm not talking about war. Wars are fought between two civilizations, or two very large groups of people. I'm talking about how in cantr, people fight way more in a single society then they do in real life.