Cantr Is Dying. What Then Shall We Do?

[N-Aldwitch]

Quillanoi hit a decade high with 12 people in the area, though 4 were membery of another community.

That - is - sickening.

[mtm21]

Quillanoi hit a decade high with 12 people in the area, though 4 were membery of another community.

That - is - sickening.

Yeah, I remember when I was running Tool and Rental in that area the town went down because of a new government way of living. I think Jack or someone was doing it at the time. That is when I started to see new people appear and the old members of the town die.. About the time that Hammer died (still miss that charrie)

Sticking to the topic I have noticed that the minutes haven't been resetting, IRC not working and the forum don't have many people here at once anymore like it used to. I can see cantr lasting for another 6 month. (But only judging on the quick depreciation of players... 400... I wonder how far it has dropped now) I really hope it lasts longer though.

[wichita]

I've tried to write a post to this, and can't. There's just too much to be said. I would like to say that GAC does discuss these issues from time to time, but find it hard to come up with conclusive ideas.

Most of the ideas we have come up with in the past have been regarded as disastrous failures. Most of the ideas from the player base that have been implemented have also been declared to be disastrous failures as well, so I guess I can't feel like it is only the GAC that has an incredible knack for mucking everything up.


We did work on the newbie island idea a while back, but didn't finish it. I wonder if that would provide much benefit. The biggest advantage that I ever saw to it was that it would have more of a tutorial feel to it and help filter out some riffraff. All and all, I doubt it would address our real problems.


We are aware of the lag. We have worked on the lag. The lag got better at times, but it has been recurring. Repeatedly posting about the lag does not raise our awareness of the lag. Repeatedly posting about the lag only increases our angst in thinking about the lag, which reduces the interest in dealing with the lag anymore, which actually adds lag to the response time in dealing with the lag. Lag lag lag. Lag. ... Lag lag.

Kabong!!

I wish we could get it fixed up. It does make it a bit hard for the ten-minute-a-day worker-bee players to keep up with the game and maintain our character infrastructure. I wish people wouldn't equate a lack of conversation with a lack of activity. Even The Sociologist was smart enough to recognize that a quality character in Cantr doesn't have to speak. They just need to work on stuff. Just a handful of chatter in the background is all that is really necessary to flesh out the culture.

I was so sad to see the character of Bruce Campbell die. He was so perfect in the sense that one line a day with an emote could convey such an enormous amount of character without wasting so many words. I wish more could follow that example.


-----------------------

Forcing culture to develop via minor OOC influence is still a bad idea. Just let it happen. That is what the game is about, to see what sort of society and history develops when people are free to do what they want.

Pushing newspawns to lesser developed locations on the fringes of society might have its advantages. I'm just wondering if half of those newspawns get bored where they are and wander off to find civilization anyway, or simply say "this sux0rz" and X out.


I really wish we could find some ways to reduce the game mechanics. I love the potential of free form roleplaying, but it requires a lot of responsibility and maturity on the part of the players, which, by looking over cases in the Players Department, we don't often have an ample supply of. Why is it that the amount of cheating can't be dying off along with the game? That would certainly be a blessing.

[Cherize]

I can get as frustrated as anyone by the lag, but either it is getting better or I am getting used to it.

I play Cantr daily as I have for the past 3 and half plus years and will continue as long as the game is running. I don't feel the need to change a thing. The game or sociatal simulator just isn't for everyone. It gears itself towards the more mature, even though we all have our weak moments. I think it's just a matter of finding the right people for the game.

As stated previously, you can contribute and enjoy the game while investing as little as 5 minutes per day per character.

[Idriveayugo]

The lag is definitely not getting better, it took me almost 8 minutes to get a drying meat project started.

[fishfin]

I'm not experiencing any lag... but maybe that's because I'm in China?

[Crosshair]

I swear minutes are diminishing faster as well...

[bmartes]

I think there is only one problem and that is lag.
When I am looking for a new game and it lags, I'll imediately stop playing. I hate that.

Do we have a clue what is the reason? Is it the abundance of queries on the database and an old machine? When It's an old machine, move to a new one. When the queries are the problem we have to look for some specialists (sorry I don't know the cantr - specialists *smiles*) to look at the sql statements. ( I remember a discussion at my office about full-table scans and reducing that with adding one or two extra indexes.)

I am playing cantr for some years, and I'm used to get a newspawn in a completely different language area as my newspawn. it pissed me of the first time that happened. When I was a new player I would stop playing. I't isn't fun to live in a spanish area and not speak a word spanish. Above that the ridiculus arguments not to use a translation machine to translate what is said.
When you want to stop people to use a translation machine, let them spawn in an area were a *lot* of people speaking their own language.

Besides that, when a language area doesn't has an important resource, i'ts interesting to see how people are coping with that, but it isn't making the game easier and the learning curve of the game much more difficult.

So some advice:

FINISH THE LAG

When you are a fresh player, let them spawn in an easy area with all the resources available and in an area where everyone speaks the same language. At least, let them decide wether or not (misspellled I think) they want to play in an area with different languages.

Communicate with the players when you are making changes on the database. When they expirience lag then it has a reason.

Change the message about backup. I gues you are not backing up at 1500 gmt.

just my 2 cents.

[Chris]

Lag does seem to be better recently. What remains is for the various processing ticks — projects, travel, animals, etc. I heard that canceling partially finished projects was in the works; not having so many projects to check might help a little. I mentioned breaking the processing ticks into chunks. Marol said that's already the case. Perhaps even smaller chunks then? Lag is a matter of turn-taking between players' current commands and the computer's other game tasks. The computer takes a long time playing its turn, and you know how fun that is if you've ever played a board game or card game with a slow player.

[Sekar]

Now that you mentioned it, all those "Cantr Is not Available" screens have stopped coming up every hour or so for 15 minutes. I would agree, lag does seem to have gotten better. I hadn't even noticed, kinda funny..

[Zanthos]

i saw one not available screen

but it could have been scheduled.

[Sekar]

Lol I actually saw one right after I finished submitting my previous post. But havn't had one since.

[Voltenion]

I think there is only one problem and that is lag.
When I am looking for a new game and it lags, I'll imediately stop playing. I hate that.

Do we have a clue what is the reason? Is it the abundance of queries on the database and an old machine? When It's an old machine, move to a new one. When the queries are the problem we have to look for some specialists (sorry I don't know the cantr - specialists *smiles*) to look at the sql statements. ( I remember a discussion at my office about full-table scans and reducing that with adding one or two extra indexes.)

I am playing cantr for some years, and I'm used to get a newspawn in a completely different language area as my newspawn. it pissed me of the first time that happened. When I was a new player I would stop playing. I't isn't fun to live in a spanish area and not speak a word spanish. Above that the ridiculus arguments not to use a translation machine to translate what is said.
When you want to stop people to use a translation machine, let them spawn in an area were a *lot* of people speaking their own language.

Besides that, when a language area doesn't has an important resource, i'ts interesting to see how people are coping with that, but it isn't making the game easier and the learning curve of the game much more difficult.

So some advice:

FINISH THE LAG

When you are a fresh player, let them spawn in an easy area with all the resources available and in an area where everyone speaks the same language. At least, let them decide wether or not (misspellled I think) they want to play in an area with different languages.

Communicate with the players when you are making changes on the database. When they expirience lag then it has a reason.

Change the message about backup. I gues you are not backing up at 1500 gmt.

just my 2 cents.

ahm... i don't understand what you mean with that. WHen you create a char you can choose it's languange. If you pick English it will appear in an area wer at least 2 (male-female) english people have been recently. If those English people were in a spanish island it's normal you'll find them or spwan in one of their town...but I'm sure you can not pick english and spwan were there hasn't been any english people.

Resume: You "never" spwan were there aren't any people of the language you picked...You must have choosed spanish instead of english and didn't noticed.

[Bowser]

After playing for a few years and seeing the "come back later" screen or waiting for the lag to lag away is no issue for me.

But is it an issue for a new player who has not yet become emersed in our world?

I have no solutions, just a question

[bmartes]

What to do in an area with at least two people who speaks your language, where one is having the sleeping desease and the other is moving the next day?

Resume: You "never" spwan were there aren't any people of the language you picked...You must have choosed spanish instead of english and didn't noticed.

You think I am an idiot?
btw I am Dutch

Don't think people made a wrong decision when they have problems with something.