Is there anything more depressing In Game???

[psymann]

For me, Sicofonte hit the nail on the head.

Lag -> less RPing -> more innactivity -> boredom

At one point, I had about 12 characters in Cantr.

Dead already: 3
Starving as we speak: 3
Lost on a boat and hopefully will starve there: 1
No longer RPs at all, just makes stuff silently: 1
Only do anything if the lag is not too bad when playing other chars: 3
Actually being RP'd properly: 1

I now find that on laggy days, I haven't the energy, time or enthusiasm to deal with more than my one best character. On less-laggy days (bear in mind that no days are un-laggy, they're just a bit laggy or a lot laggy), I'll play 3 more. Until three weeks ago, I was playing 3 more than that as well, but there were so few good days, it was a bit pointless me bothering with them. And I have one that just makes stuff so doesn't really count anyway.

So I've gone from having 12 characters a few months ago down to having probably just 4 in a month's time, once they rest have starved. And of those 4, three of them are pretty silent a lot of the time.

For me, there's a bit of a "I've done this now and novelty has worn off", but the main issue by far is I don't have time to get involved because the lag always seems to let me down part-way through what I'm doing. The other day, it took me 4 hours just to move a pile of potatoes, because I had to do it in stages, and each stage had so much lag, I'd get distracted and only remember 30mins later that I was meant to be playing Cantr. That not only means I don't have time to RP, but also that I'm less immersed in the game (by always having to have something else to do while it loads pages) so I'm less in-character and less interested in what's going on.

psymann

[Phalynx]

Not that this was was what I started the topic for but I agree.

I can only give some time at particular times of the day. In 30 mins at any selected time I used to be able to keep all my characters on track with work and conversations and even manage some real time stuff, with a little more time in the evenings.
Now I was finding that thirty in mins I could do 1 or 2 things with 1 or 2 characters and spend so much time waiting that I would end up doing other things and losing minutes and acheiving nothing, often in tense situations IG.
I started to starve characters as I got a nasty reputation for unsubbing a couple of times before but then when I heard about more PD dodginess I just did the X.
I will be very suprised if when I come back for my next fix, Cantr for english speakers will even exist...

[Phalynx]

Not that this was was what I started the topic for but I agree.

I can only give some time at particular times of the day. In 30 mins at any selected time I used to be able to keep all my characters on track with work and conversations and even manage some real time stuff, with a little more time in the evenings.
Now I was finding that thirty in mins I could do 1 or 2 things with 1 or 2 characters and spend so much time waiting that I would end up doing other things and losing minutes and acheiving nothing, often in tense situations IG.
I started to starve characters as I got a nasty reputation for unsubbing a couple of times before but then when I heard about more PD dodginess I just did the X.
I will be very suprised if when I come back for my next fix, Cantr for english speakers will even exist...

[Joshuamonkey]

What's depressing...

You decide to make a note about the history of a town that you have a high position in. You put your notes and recorded conversations in it. Unfortunately, you didn't read them close enough and one of them showed a weakness of the town leader, the one person who could kill you. You're locked up with the help of a friend and kill yourself to avoid just starving to death. The town never knows.

The Karnon Cemetary is a good example of seeing a room full of dead bodies that you recognize...

You're the leader of a small wealthy town. All of your citizens are dead are gone who supposedly should be coming back, but one loyal friend.
A boat thief who kept coming back and stealing resources has finally convinced you to do a boat chase. You sleep and get off track, and then make your way back to the town. Three new people are there. They took the keys from the dead body of your last citizen. You work on an old drilling project you started and they lock you up for breaking the laws. They either don't believe you or don't care, and you are killed for trying to break the lock.

You tell a bad town of their errors, fall asleep, and don't wake up the next morning....

Everyone is dead. You are abandoned.

Everyone is dead.

Times that by a hundred.

[SekoETC]

You decide to make a note about the history of a town that you have a high position in. You put your notes and recorded conversations in it. Unfortunately, you didn't read them close enough and one of them showed a weakness of the town leader, the one person who could kill you. You're locked up with the help of a friend and kill yourself to avoid just starving to death. The town never knows.

What do we learn from this? Don't copypaste. If you got a story to tell, write it with thought. Although you might not realize people could be sensitive about some things in their past, if you have to rewrite every word you might stop to think that hey, this might be embarrassing or be seen as a threat.
I dislike copypasted events in game. People tend to take such things as a solid fact even though they can be altered. (In fact the note mentioned above was quickly edited and put back into circulation because making it vanish totally might have raised some questions.) Also they are tedious to read and show no creativity. They are like a video film rather than a story. You can "fast-forward" if it's boring but this is harder with text than images.

[Voltenion]

yeh i don't like it...it's like telling the chars they are game or something like that

[sanchez]

I think psymann is exactly right.

Any long-term goals right now require unreasonable tenacity just trying to log in. Getting resources together, building infrastructure, coordinating labour should be what drives the game, keeps people together and promotes RP. But it's not happening like it should because most people can't be bothered with the effort now required. The incentives are not there for the wealthy chars who could actually manage, and the hurdles are too great for everyone else.

And you'd have to be insane to start conflict involving coordinated violence right now. Expecting that the game is most likely inaccessible during ticks you can't see when your locks break, or your boat docks, etc... Lag should not be the deciding factor in a battle, and right now it is. Whomever can log in first gets the advantage. And RP is the victim for all this, because the shared goals just can't be developed now.

I would like to see a cut in non-use-based decay as well. There's nothing more disheartening than to finally log in and realise you have a dozen small repair projects to start. And even if they only take a few hours each, if you can't log in to start work, it takes weeks to repair a standard tool set that hasn't even been used. There is absolutely no sense in which that fosters cooperation nor motivates play. And anyone who says the game has gotten too soft either doesn't really play himself or has way more patience than most of us.

[SekoETC]

I agree that non-usage-based deterioration should be eliminated from durable items if not all of them.

[Arlequin]

Heh, it's depressing when your jailed legendary pirate builds an awesome defense for his case, even candidating himself for town major, just to be uncovered by a young recruit who gave up and revealed that not-so-pinky version of your ship logs.

And then you are dead before you could use the crowbar and the carefully gathered kilos of cooked eggs.

[Shade]

You tell a bad town of their errors, fall asleep, and don't wake up the next morning....

Lesson learnt: don't wander into an enemy war camp, insult a group of heavily armed people, and fall asleep.

What do we learn from this? Don't copypaste.

Yeah, I've always hated copying and pasting. It just seems too... cheesy, uncreative, lazy and completely OOC. I mean, who really writes logs in a second person perspective, carefully time-stamping every single little event, IRL? If you go through the effort to change the event log into first person and past tense, and remove some unnecessary events, I guess I'll tolerate it, but I still dislike it.

And I don't know why people tend to believe copy and pasted logs, either; I think that's kind of using OOC info, and encouraging that kind of behaviour. Not to mention it's easy to fake an event log.

[Sekar]

Hmm it seems like the complaints about copying and pasting happened right after I made one...interesting..I have suspicions that I'm being watched.

[Proudmonkey]

I guess there are about 5 threads going on I could post this in. I'm trying to think what makes the game interesting and I guess even though it may be frutrating at times the drama caused by other players. And I really only have one character that is remotely involved in a town where there's any drama going on.
The more people the better oppourtunity of this I think so I started looking at my characters that are alone or travelling or in a small town with only 1 other person and wondered wouldnt this character slot be better off if it was in one of the larger towns where it could add to the excitment that happens there and keep things interesting for other players? So I'm basically evaluating each of my characters and looking to see if they make the game interesting for the other players in their town if not I'm thinking they either will or they will leave to do so or they will die so that i can.
And then i thought well if everyone did that yes there's probably be a lot of places out there that are abandoned. And yes I know it would be a crb for everyone to intentionally stay in crowded areas, but for the time being wouldnt it be better for the game because there would be more happening instead of checking a character once a day to see that the other person in your town made an attempt at killing some animals.
Any thoughts on this?

[Shade]

...but for the time being wouldnt it be better for the game because there would be more happening instead of checking a character once a day to see that the other person in your town made an attempt at killing some animals.
Any thoughts on this?

It's up to you. If your character has a decent IC reason to go to a populated area (it's not so difficult to come up with a decent reason), then I don't see why not. But I don't think the game is that bad, I'm still having a lot of fun even if the game's 'Golden Age' is over.

Hmm it seems like the complaints about copying and pasting happened right after I made one...interesting..I have suspicions that I'm being watched.

I don't know about the others, but my post wasn't directed at you specifically; it was just constructive criticism for the playerbase in general.

[SekoETC]

Only a few towns offer interaction so I'm just gathering "e-penis" by building stuff out of resources that dead people leave behind.
One thing that's depressing is being a stranger, alone in a strange town and knowing that you could most likely crawl down a hole to die and no one would care.

[I_am]

Yeah, I've always hated copying and pasting. It just seems too... cheesy, uncreative, lazy and completely OOC. I mean, who really writes logs in a second person perspective, carefully time-stamping every single little event, IRL? If you go through the effort to change the event log into first person and past tense, and remove some unnecessary events, I guess I'll tolerate it, but I still dislike it.

I’m not a big fan of copy/paste but I believe it is acceptable form of recording and communicating in Cantr society. In RL transcriptions of court proceedings, live television broadcasts, radio talk shows, etc. are the norm and available to the public. Sometimes the time constraints of the player or the perilous situation of a character leaves little time for anything but a copy/paste.

That being said, I agree that a well thought out recap of events in your own words is preferable. But it is time consuming. I recently spent a half-hour looking over and encapsulating a lengthy event.