Cantr Is Dying. What Then Shall We Do?

[Idriveayugo]

fkjnds

[Idriveayugo]

Other suggestions which I think would make the game MORE interesting.

1) Make cannons which don't damage a ship, but stop the ship thus allowing the ship to be easier to be docked to and boarded. Pirates are quite difficult to defeat because the laws of the game caters to them.

2) Make it so that when someone enters a room or vehicle, they have to lock the door/lock behind them self.

3) Allow for more of a tech ladder. Make more advanced weaponry which is even more difficult to gain and even create body armor. It can't be too hard to program more advanced weaponry and arms races are always fun.

[Shade]

1) Make cannons which don't damage a ship, but stop the ship thus allowing the ship to be easier to be docked to and boarded. Pirates are quite difficult to defeat because the laws of the game caters to them.

Pirates might have less of an advantage than you think. From what I've seen, it usually only takes a small group of alert soldiers, and perhaps a fast boat, to dock to a pirate's ship before they can escape and slaughter them all.

I think pirate attacks are interesting and fun to RP out, and create cooperation, interaction and RP, so I don't want to discourage them any more, because they're already rare (or at least, in the English zone) as it is. Historically, AFAIK, pirates were and are a difficult problem to fight; why shouldn't the same apply to Cantr?

(Oh, and by the way, I don't have any pirate characters myself.)

[tiddy ogg]

Idriveayugo came up with some very good ideas. Especially regarding newspawns starting in their own isolated settlement. There are obvious similarities to the "t5raining ground" thing proposed elsewhere, but this would be better in that once up and running they can integrate into Cantrian society. I don't see a need for this to be a case for all newspawns, but just as the bias now is for new players first char to be spawned in a populous location, (which, admittedly is the precise opposite of this proposal, in that the theory is that there'll be someone to help them,) all new players can learn together, and may come up with a different form of society.
There may, of course, be some complaints from the nearest towns about bunches of nearly-new spawns arriving, but I can see no problem there.

[Idriveayugo]

which, admittedly is the precise opposite of this proposal, in that the theory is that there'll be someone to help them,) all new players can learn together, and may come up with a different form of society.

I think the theory that spawning newbies in established towns will help newbies has been an utter failure. The newbies are not helped and sheltered and taught the ropes of the game, but instead are exploited for work. Newbies do not want to have their first characters have to work for 5+ years to get anywhere. They want to be able to do whatever it is they want to do.

They want to rob, they want to fight, they want to be crazy. They do not want to be good little neoliberals and operate in a boring economic system. Perhaps eventually they may, but think about it...what first brought you to Cantr? I remember what brought me to Cantr. It was the Blackrock-Karnon conflict. There wasn't a chief set of rules operating k isle at the time, those were still pioneering days. That was the time when K isle was at its most populated and Cantr was at its peak. Now how many town conflicts are around like that? Not many. Most towns these days have rational leaders in charge who want to work with other towns to accomplish goals. A newbie town however, may want things to work differently and will make things VERY interesting .


Ship the newbies off to a new continent!

[saztronic]

I like the idea, I would just point out that it doesn't differ that greatly from the one I used to start this thread, back when it was about something else. There's no overt and sanctioned CRB break in your idea, but there's a tacit one -- i.e., that newbs get a special environment all their own, free from the constraints of existing societies, to do whatever they want and set up a society of their choosing.

Plus, existing players would find a way to exploit this, I'm sure.

Again, I stress that I think Idriveayugo's idea is a fabulous one and I would support its implementation, I'm just anticipating the objections of those who wanted to tar and feather me a few months ago.

Any other comments on this or Yugo's other suggestions?

[N-Aldwitch]

YES!

PUT SIMPLY:

THE SLOWNESS OF THE GAME IS FOR A TINY DEMOGRAPHIC OF PLAYERS!

[Chris]

I do think that the spawning algorithm favors established towns (and established islands) way too much. 7 of the 8 characters I've played spawned on either Cantr or Pok. The frontier towns really have to struggle with so few people to do all the tasks necessary to accomplish anything more than subsistence. It's great to feel needed, but when a couple of people go on a resource run, and that's half of your town's population, it's a bummer. They would also be easy pickings for pirates or thugs. Idriveayugo's idea about having to work for a newspawn would help established towns that have a lot of idle hands already. The frontier towns, which need newspawns the most, already have too much work, and lowering their newspawn rate ever further would insure their demise.

[Idriveayugo]

The first six are ideas which I think MUST be implemented in order to ensure Cantr's long term viability.

I can argue why all day if anyone wishes to.

But any ideas I suggest after that are just add on ideas which I would like.

Here's another idea:

Windows.

Working in a building in boring, particularly if your by yourself or with a small group of people. Allow a window to be opened so that people can communicate with the outside without actually going outside.

[Idriveayugo]

The frontier towns, which need newspawns the most, already have too much work, and lowering their newspawn rate ever further would insure their demise.

That's why you establish a buffer time, where for a while, a large portion of newspawns are spawned in these frontier towns. This will equal out populations and I made sure to include that there still will be the possibility of newspawns being spawned in frontier towns. The only towns which I think would truly be hurt by this, are the towns which don't need newspawns like Doryiskom. Their leaders won't sacrifice food for newspawns unless they need it, but right now they have far too many newspawns.

[Zanthos]

i want a K isle war, that will get newbies interested.

Now, I can't go around starting one... but my charrie would sure love to fight in one. Why, just 4 days ago he grinned as he cleaved a thief in half (for 49%)

[nitefyre]

Before I left over a year ago, the mechanics of the game did change to benefit industrialized towns. For example, there was a difference between the primitive and regular smelting furnaces, with the latter producing many times more than the former.

In case you were interested, this article has some graphs on when the player base and player applications peaked:

http://www.cantr.net/e107/e107_plugins/ ... ontent.107

[frenchfisher]

6) Eventually, say 6 months down the line, have people have to work for new spawns. Have them have to make spawning points and throw food into the spawning point to get a newspawn. The more food thrown into the spawning point and "sacrificed" the more likely it is the town will have a newspawn. This will ensure that only towns which really want newspawns will get them, but still have there be a random chance a character can be spawned in a remote location with few residents to be explored.

I actually really like this idea.

[SekoETC]

Or then you could do it like in real life and have sex

...Puritans.

[sem]

Number 3 is tempting at first sight, but there was a time when it could easily have killed one of my characters who was pretending to sleep while looking for an opportunity to escape.