Interesting, depressing estimates

[N-Aldwitch]

According to some of the statistics, we kill roughly 9 characters per day.. and in a not-completely-related statistic, we lose over a thousand characters per year.. roughly.

From the day 1500 to today (2100 or something) that's almost two years, and the statistic says we lost about 2,000 characters in that time.

Interestingly, we also lost almost a thousand players in that two year period.

What's the point of this topic? It's really just another bid to remove some of the old rules Cantr has.

What do I mean?

Most of these rules are suited for a very, very small demographic.

Ie, the slowness of everything. Most of the players have time!! We can handle double-speed... hell.. I'm pretty sure we could handle 10X speed.

Lag, well.. I only have a few problems with it here and there. It's obvious it can't be fixed, so let's move on from it for now.

And the rules.. well, after heavy moderator-editing of my 'post your old notes for history's sake' topic... they definitely need some stretching.

Honestly!

Who gives a shit if I post a note about some dead person!

Please, someone reply here, and honestly tell me that knowledge of a dead character 2 years ago will aide them in their plans to destroy a nation... (especially an unknown one!!!!)
...come on. Seriously. That really pissed me off.
These rules are ridiculous.
I'll be the first to admit that many of them are just and fair, as I first-hand have come into contact with breaching them. So perhaps my opinion may be bias but let me remind you that the rules I breached some time ago, I completely agreed with too.

Anyway, there's my spiel. It's kind of my way of getting things off my chest and avoiding pressing the green X button.

[Yo_Yo]

The rules are made for an older Cantr, true. But which rules specificly do you feel need changing?

I did feel them moderating your note thread was a little over the top and not needed. I doubt anyone could ever gain anything from reading that. And I did notice your thread got locked before the one spamming advertising did...

[tiddy ogg]

And how many of those dead chars, N-altwich, were you responsible for? You must have got through about 100 of your own, and many of the others are pretty violent.
This isn't a hack 'n' slash game, and many players get attached, (too much,) to their chars and quit when their favourite is killed.

[sanchez]

The other thread was moderated by PD because maps are not allowed to be published OOC. Geography and resource locations are still subject to the FOIG rule, whether they are presented in the context of a char's personal history or not.

[SekoETC]

Good point tiddy.

If we start bending the rules then it becomes a question of where to draw the line. If it's ok to say that town X is on island Y because everyone knows it, who defines "everyone" or majority? We could say that everyone knows which towns are on Treefeather or Cantr island, well, that's wrong. There are players who have never had an English character and there are people who fail to see detailed maps or don't read them. People might think ok, the majority of people know stuff about Cantr island and Treefeather island so the geography of those can be discussed. Maybe throw in Sring-Sri island as well. And K-island. And Omeo. In this point someone might start asking what are these places? (At least some new player might.) An element of mystery is lost when you see maps showing the position of islands that you will likely never visit, you just know that there are vast lands out there full of strangers who speak strange languages, that you're not alone. And also that most things you do will be very meaningless and someone else has already done them before.

What about history then? Where to draw the line? It's like a question of legal drinking age, would you let a 3-year old drink? Of course not! How about a 17-year-old? (Many people would say yes.) Then we can start haggling, 13.5 anyone? What if it's red wine instead of hard liquor? In Cantr terms, would it be ok to speak of something that happened 10 years ago, 1 year ago, 4 days ago? Is it ok to describe a joke someone told and how that differs from saying zomg this guy just stole a silk dress from the corpse of X and is wearing it and running towards town Y, if you see him then maybe you might pay extra attention towards it. Or that hey, King Z just died and I was gonna pick up the keys but my Internet crashed so you should log in quick. (The examples are fictional but maybe you get my point.)

I agree that on some parts the game is too slow. I have suggested speeding up some basic manufacturing projects, lets see what RD has to say about that. But killing people won't be made faster or easier. Nor breaking locks.

[Cherize]

Since I'm not sure what your post said, I can't really comment on it.

As far as the speed of play, I find it acceptable. After all of these years, it would be a big change to increase the pace. That and it seems like every time some kind of change is implemented the lag increases.

Bottom line is, this is a game that is not for everyone. Some people require more action and there are plenty of those games to choose from. This game is for the more mature, no matter their age. As an adult, I prefer it to stay like it is, but understand that changes might have to be made to keep the game alive.

[Sekar]

In my opinion the rules need to be tightened..if anything.

[Yo_Yo]

I do agree that no fighting changes need to be made. However, I don't know about everyone but this is not the game I was playing years ago. I myself have left several times because of changes.

I was angry. This is a game that punishes hard core players and rewards casual players. It use to be you had to log in once a day to often thwart off attackers or thiefs or to stop drama in the town. Now I could honestly say that I could probably not log in for a week and the only consequence might be that I am running low on food.

Now I know you're saying "Yoyo, the fighting rules have been the same for a very long time. How do you assume this game has gotten slower?" Easy answer. Buffers. This game use to be nice because it was fast. You could pick raw iron out of the ground, and you could make an iron shield easily within the first year of you being alive. Steel was maybe another year off. Swords were singular projects. You got the steel, and you made your weapon. It was easy as that.

Now if I want to make a shield, I have to go out and grab hemitite, crush it on a table (I have to make one if there isn't one around) with a hammer. Then I have to smelt the iron ore. Then I can finnaly make my shield after probably two and a half years. And don't worry about making weapons anymore. It takes too long and too many resources. It is much more efficient to just steal a weapon or wait for someone to die thats holding one.

Also, with the introduction of the skills our toon inheritantly have we may not even be good with weapons. Which wouldn't be a problem if there were some visable way to increase our skill. And for all those that say practice practice practice, I can say right now infront of everyone that I've been practicing hitting a partner with a waster for over three years with no results. Thats once a day I try and give him a whap (which a good third of the time I can't because my skill is so terrible I miss).

It just feels like this game rewards people that want to be peaceful and want to just have emote wars. Not that I haven't become one of those people. But the game quickly gets boring when it becomes more-so work then a game.

Just my 2 dollars.

[Slyder_Glyder_Ryder_etc]

I like the game as it is. If I want to kill people I play Halo 3.

[Sunni Daez]

Yes Cantr changes.. but thats the way the game works.. it will always change.. I don't think there will ever be a 'final edition' People from all over the world play.. at different times... so the actual speed of the game cannot change.. but I do agree, that some things have become harder, others have become easier.. such as a drying rack.. set it up and it goes.. no work needed.


As for making an iron shield... well, It is ok to have to crush and all that.. if you are in a place that hasn't the resources, then use something else.. with the hit rule being 1 time per day, I don't care what shield you carry.. you have a chance to wake up.. there are several give n takes along the way... but thats Cantr.. and YoYo.. there is something that keeps you attached .. isn't there? so it isn't all bad

[Yo_Yo]

I like the game as it is. If I want to kill people I play Halo 3.

Thats fine and dandy. But when you kill someone in Halo3, what do they lose? I suppose I like to kill because I like to take things from people that can't be replaced. I think that the way Cantr is it alienates younger players who want to express themselves. And a lot of people of all ages are angry. It's as I said, this game punishes the hardcore players and rewards the casual players.

And it's true Sunni. Something does pull me back into this game. But it's only one facet of what I used to enjoy. I use to make all kinds of toons. But since fighting is so hopeless in this system, I only made one toon and already decided to make him a thinker more then a fighter. The skill system just seemed to fit so well.

Believe me, I want to have waring toons, pirate toons, and security toons, and all that good stuff. But it all revolves around fighting in Cantr's terrible system. To put it simply, it's just not worth the time investing.

This game used to be so fun when it started. Everything was simpler and while back then you'd get a favorite toon killed, it never seemed to be that big of a deal. People would just start a new toon and go back to making what they needed again. Now the game has gotten complicated to the point where it's becoming a second job. I spend enough time on my one toon that makes me wonder how people do it with multiples. Combine that with the lag, and it becomes a full time job.

I don't know. I've expressed my feelings in the past when such changes were mere discussion, and they fell on deaf ears then. I suppose I never really expect things to stay the same... Only for the hill my toons try to climb to get steeper.

[Idriveayugo]

I want to fight more people. Primitive bone club wars would be fun!

[Sekar]

Yo Yo, very little of what you've said I agree with. But there is one thing I agree with. I do think the process of increasing skills is too slow at times.

[DylPickle]

Screw increasing skills. That totally doesn't matter. What matters to people is that their scrawny little character can't hunt good while he lives in food rich field town, or because their character isn't an expert fighter, when most of the only fighting anyone will do in their lives is beating down a locked up theif (AND when do you see thieves nowadays? Fucking never.)

The skill system doesn't work because the players don't let it work. I bet 90% of the people out there have the whole "well I've a novice at this so I should do it constantly until I get better" attitude when they really should be exploiting their strengths instead, regardless of what they are. Should that be a concrete RULE? Hell no, but it sure should be a realistic general fact right? "Oh, but digging stone is so boring!" Yeah. Like hunting a towns 11 species of animals on a daily basis, glogging up the events screen and filling public storages with mountains of small bones is SO much more damn fun.

Cantr's economy is broken for the same reason. The general free labour kills the economy. The lack of real PROPERTY (owning of resource sources/restricting of resources/land) kills the economy. The lack of SPECIALIZATION and professionalism, mainly due to player negligence of the FUNCTIONAL skills system kills the economy. The economical aspect of the game is destroyed due to the players inability to accept anything other than the bland old pseudo-functioning status quo.

The political and ideological aspects of cantr are fading by the minute. With the exceptions of some lasting unique "civilizations" (ie the Stone Knights, the MacGregor Clan, Order of the Donii, etc) Most locales are EXACTLY the same. This wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't nearly impossible to get something TRULY different, societal-wise, nowadays. It's because of the players that different, unique, and interesting (also sometimes very twisted) societies never ever exist. They never even have a chance, simply because newspawns who haven't lived a truly conscious day of life already have a base set of values and ideologies. An undebatable player error.

Also, if an extremely interesting and new society were to emerge, there would be a near zero chance of any spread of values and idealogies to the dry, monotonous run-of-the-mill neighbouring towns.

I could go on but I'm sick of writing and can't imagine how sick of reading I'd be right now if I were on the other side of the.. er.. internet. But in essence, cantr is dying because of the players. Not the out of character rules. The core of the game is all the different fields of roleplay one can enter in to, the conflicts and interactions between people, groups, cities, nations, continents, (and language groups, though I believe language groups should be spaced even further away from eachother). We players are the ones that are destroying cantr through our retarded closed minded view of things.

I'm done. Peace.

[Arlequin]

+1

And please, don't mix hardcore players with powergaming players.