Cantr Is Dying. What Then Shall We Do?

[SekoETC]

One problem is that when you have a dream, and know how to talk eloquently, it's very possible to convince people of your cause and make them follow you - but do they truly understand what it's all about? At least with Jaina I have the constant fright that the town will fall the moment she dies, or maybe even if she goes out of town for longer than a year. It's taxing that you try to convert people to a cause, yet they constantly do things that are alien to the cause (like gathering and holding on to personal resources, when everything is supposed to be shared).

Creating a different kind of a community requires a great deal of luck, spawning or ending up on the right region (mainly that there is an empty or low population location to be found) and gathering initial wealth may require working for or co-operating with people who would think your idea is nuts, or dangerous, unless you manage to take over a ghost town with tools and resources.

One thing to consider is starting the society before you have a location. A small tribe can survive wandering around a continent and you can test the people, sleepers get left behind. Also you will get more publicity than sticking to some back lands location no one has ever heard of. It's like Moses on the desert.

Another option is to start off with a longboat, earn some iron, make a sloop, eventually make a galleon and start a floating community. But boats are rarely good for equality and free thinking because keys must be copied if you want to allow free movement and poor people tend to get greedy if they have keys to a big ship and no one else is on board. It would be cool if it was possible to have a separate lock on undocking (like a big chain with a padlock), then walking in and out of the ship could be allowed for more people.

[Missy]

Missy wrote:
In any real society we don't have a group of puppeteers getting together and talking about how a group on earth will or won't be successful and then the puppeteers telling us what to do to make it successful.


This accurately describes 99.9% of societies throughout history, actually. Do you pay attention to current events?

And I'm talking an outside force. I'm not talking about a group of people who have a commander that tells them what to do. Because you can obviously already have a Commander in Game and you can obviously already pretend there's a god that makes you do what you do. What doesn't happen is that you and I are controlled by some outside force with it's own agenda to make what it wants to happen, happen. Everything happens as a result/effect of something else. You're asking to be allowed to play the god and it's just not fair.

Handed to you on a golden platter? Yes. Because you're not willing to take up the challenge. Instead you're asking if someone will please make it so you can do that the easiest way possible.

People will object to the injustice of it, they will reject it, they will overthrow it -- and not because of IG knowledge, but because of their OOC preconceptions.

And so when there were African American slaves in America, they just stood there taking the beatings and liking it? Get real. Do you think that when the white people went over there to round them up that they didn't try to run? Get real some more.

I understood through a post not so long ago here on the forum that there was a slaver who used trickery to get the people inside the buildings to do the slaver's work. And don't you think that that happened with African Americans? Don't you think that some of them probably said, "We'll take you to the land of plenty if you just hop on this ship" So they did and when they got here...:O my word, they were forced to do grueling work and there was no freedom but only hardships and slavery.

And hey, didn't it once get overturned? The slavery? But ask yourself how hard it was to convince people that it was wrong/right to begin with? Not ALL people in the South treated their "slaves" as harshly as others. Not all people in the North agreed with the war over slavery and some of them in the north even used slaves themselves. That's just part of life man. Everyone has an instinctive desire to be free. Some people are more corageous than others and less fearful. Some people are born pushovers and scaredy cats.

[saztronic]

A very good challenge, indeed.

However,

People will object to the injustice of it, they will reject it, they will overthrow it -- and not because of IG knowledge, but because of their OOC preconceptions. That's its own kind of tyrrany, and it's one that cannot be overthrown with the game as currently designed.

If what you said is true, even your OOC collusion method won't work, as anyone spawned into the society from outside the original group of players will not conform to the system. If the characters of the players are truely independent of that initial OOC collusion, then when outsiders start screaming about "justice" and "inalienable rights," even the original characters should stop and give pause.

I agree on both points. Meaning, 1) it would be difficult to get newspawns to play along, and 2) the original characters would be challenged at some point in their thinking and the society might change accordingly. As would only be fitting.

I guess all I'm saying is that you'd have more of a fighting chance of having newspawns slip into the environment if there was a group of people there acting like that's just the way it was. And if the original charries are, at least at first, all set to respond to an assertion of inalienable rights just as George III did (rejecting the idea out of hand), then that lessens the potential impact of newspawns who bring their OOC baggage with them. At least at first, anyway -- plant the seeds of justice, and perhaps they will grow, I won't deny it, but that's societal evolution and it might be more fun to play a society that's evolving in that direction than to play one that's already evolved and has reached an endpoint.

Anyway! Really, this is my last post on this topic. Sorry if I riled anyone, I truly am packing up my soap box.

[KVZ]

No way. It's what seperates Cantr from a ton of other games that don't crack down on that sort of th ing. There's no way I want to see this turn into a Runescape. I think the fact that people already do it is bad. The fact you want it to then be encouraged/allowed is even worse.

Yes. I would rather sign out from this game than see something like this happen...

[saztronic]

BUMP

For those of you who would rather see the game die than something like this happen -- or see any significant changes to the game happen -- from what I've seen, you are getting your wish.

Vive le status quo!

[N-Aldwitch]

Too true, too true. This is a sad fact. I actually just noticed this after posting Cantr History Library. Check it out.. make a contribution.

[Darth_Tater]

Although I do think it would be a very neat expirement, I also think its just a bad Idea. Someone was talking about Charractors understanding the true meanings and reasons behind Ideals, purpose and missions in game. They see it, they are like ..oh yeah, hey, sign me up for some of that stuff yea!....all cuz they see a note or hear someone say..hey we're doing this, or hey its ok to do that..They take the face value. They tend not to believe it. They just see it for what it is and say oh ok..well hell, I'll do it too, sure. I think people will miss understand this whole idea. They will read or learn of this preconstucted thing, disigned OOC, and think..OOC? There doing what? well hell..I'll do it to. And I understand thats not the idea behind this. But I'm afraid people will misunderstand it and in some way abuse it, even if it may state THIS AND THIS ONLY WAS MADE OOC...they will see blah blah blah ..OOC? ah ok. Cuz lets face it, people are stupid, people are greedy, people DO cheat...keep the rules firm and uphelp. Enforce them to the max. YOU BREAK CAPITAL RULE YOU DIE!!!...well..your charries do..heh.[/b][/i]

[Arlequin]

I dunno if it's a particular problem in the English area, but I think it's amazingly easy to build communities with total strangers. Everytime I started one, I was actually overhelmed soon by managing so many people. If someone feels like their community projects don't work, maybe should consider a different approach.

From my experience, this helps a lot:

- Isolate your people. Places surrounded by fierce animals are really good. Stranger lands too. Also ships that gather and plunder far from homeland. Don't give them maps if you can avoid it. Impatient people will try to wander away, but you don't want those at home. Ambitious people won't be lured away if your place is where the best things are.

- Keep the main idea cool, clean and identifiable. Don't make it sound boastful or nerdy, nor make it too complex. It's just a starting point, not the finish line.

- Keep rules simple. Focus on the main idea/spirit of the community and let everything else take its own shape. Bend the details according to the people's opinion so they feel like they have a word on defining it.

- Identify the ambitious people, and raise their rank and responsability from time to time. Teach them how each item earned is a honor. Share with them the reasons and strategies you are using to manage people, and let them lead people when you are asleep; it's a good training.

- By the above reason, put yourself away once each while and force them to self-manage, so they remember not to lay all the initiative on you.

- Identify the impatient or less mature people, and send them away. They are good travelers and like to be on missions. And, they are awful if you keep them at home gathering potatoes; they will confuse people with ideas and plans that stray away of the main.

- Identify the friendly and fun people and put them on special groups/projects. They will self-manage and rarely bother you with problems.

- Speak personally. Adress each one by his/her name, and avoid giving general orders or instructions.

- Employ yourself on manufacturing their rewards, while they do other things. Show them how concerned you are on keeping them rewarded, safe and healthly.

- Keep people involved in plans and quests. Always take advantage of each opportunity to start a quest. Don't put people to work without reason, but more importantly don't make them feel you haven't got a defined purpose for each one of them.

- Give them a place in the community background and honor history. Describe casually why you think they are different and special, and which are their virtues that helped the community. Use Homero's old resource of adding a nick to their name: "the strong Hektor", "the clever Achilles", etc.

- Be evil or warmonger if that's the role, but avoid declaring you or your community that way. Expose it with some philosophical principles, or just don't expose it at all. People get it fast when they are expected to be evil or go to war, and you should counter fast any feeling of guilt with ideas like happiness, being more alive, freedom. Evil must look good and right from inside (déjà vu?).

And so on. Of course it's better in any language area with a regular flow of newspawns.

[SekoETC]

Wow Arlequin, no wonder people want to join your communities. You're a tactical genius. I wish you could come manage my town.

[MakeBeliever]

Cuz lets face it, people are stupid, people are greedy, people DO cheat...keep the rules firm and uphelp. Enforce them to the max. YOU BREAK CAPITAL RULE YOU DIE!!!...well..your charries do..heh.

Yep, now this i totally agree with, if you use multiples ingame people should expect to lose the characters too involved or at least be asked to move them or seperate them to be fair to your fellow player.

I agreed so much with this feeling that it impelled me to quit, even when i reported the multiple use of characters nothing was done about them. They knew the risk when mixing characters, I asked this to be looked into, nothing was done, and nothing was changed ingame. What else was there left for me to do but leave, when reporting things doesn't get really heard or acted upon, your just flogging a dead horse.

[saztronic]

UPDATE FOR NEW TIMES

This thread used to be about the discussion you see above, a suggestion I had for how to liven the game up and get some new users/retain the old. The suggestion was well received by some, widely panned by most, which is fine -- I don't have much invested in that idea in particular.

However, it's clear that some kind of an idea is needed in Cantr, because players are dropping like flies. 400 English players left? Pitiful. And all too close, I would think, to the tipping point that will result in no players. The Cantr world is just too big now and too spread out for their to be so few charries rattling around in it.

The gap between what Cantr is today and what it was even two years ago is as striking as it is dispiriting. I propose that we need ideas -- bold ones, even radical ones, for what to do about this. If we don't get them, if the game just stands pat, then none of us will be here in a few months.

What would be great is to brainstorm a bit and then put together a list much like Arlequin's above, not focused on town management, but on Cantr management. Yes, I know these questions have been bandied about endlessly in the forums already, but it's apparent that it hasn't done the trick yet. Things are getting worse.

So if you like this game, maybe even love it, then let's hear your thoughts. And don't suggest small things, like tweaking animals or speeding gathering rates or something. Challenge the fundamentals. Because if you don't, this game is over.

[sanchez]

The current player numbers don't show the massive turnover that persists. Dozens of new accounts and dozens of idle outs daily. It's true the game will never appeal to some people, but any changes should be geared to getting new players engaged faster. A tutorial might help.

But the Lag is an embarrassment, and nothing's going to improve until the game is truly accessible.

[Chris]

But the Lag is an embarrassment, and nothing's going to improve until the game is truly accessible.

Very true. I have thought about recommending the game, but I won't as long as 5+ minute lag rears its head. If that kind of lag had happened on my first day, I would have quit and looked elsewhere for fun.

[Cherize]

I agree. The game has to be playable to get people hooked. The enjoyment I get is the only thing that has kept me from quitting out of lag frustration.

[Zanthos]

I have found that population centers are beginning to go on the rise again, if only because these are where people are most likely to find interaction. Places like the Xanth Commune and San D'Oria hardly ever leave my toons with a green name. (and this is like, logging in once an hour over the course of an entire day sometimes) While smaller places might have no interaction.

Though, I think im lucky in that all 8 of my remaining charries are in places that things happen. (though one of them i forced into hibernation because another one had to go where he was to get resources)