Cantr Is Dying. What Then Shall We Do?

[Doug R.]

But anyway, not sure if I'm allowed to leak this but they were suspecting that radios are causing lag.

I already beat you to it.

[BarbaricAvatar]

If it can be proved that the main cause for the lag is the radio's/repeaters, then i'd be happy to see them banished from the game.

[Doug R.]

I'm sure that it's one of many causes.

[BarbaricAvatar]

Ah you mean like the animals as well? They can go too.

[Arlequin]

I wouldn't miss radios.

I'd turn the emitter into a messenger bird cage and the receiver into a messenger bird feeder. A messenger bird would need to be carried from the cage to each feeder the cage will be linked to. Using the cage would deliver messages only to the linked feeders.

[SekoETC]

Meh, I don't think that radios need to be changed or removed, I would rather keep a solid list of connections. Currently it checks for receivers within range every time someone sends a message but receivers are built rarely, so the list could be updated when a receiver building project is finished.

[sem]

Meh, I don't think that radios need to be changed or removed, I would rather keep a solid list of connections. Currently it checks for receivers within range every time someone sends a message but receivers are built rarely, so the list could be updated when a receiver building project is finished.

That would be fine for static receivers, but what about vehicle receivers?

[SekoETC]

Yeah, that is a problem. But I think that the majority of receivers are stationary, so if even those were indexed, that should speed things up.

[nateflory]

Sorry, but A quote from another topic seems rather appropriate here, from Doug R...

I think that we either have reached, or are are quickly reaching, a dilution point where the social mechanics of Cantr will simply fail due to a lack of characters. One of two things will happen in response to this, I think:

1) The existing characters will adapt to form tight-knit closed societies in an attempt to hold onto their newspawns (my character's strategy), further depressing trade and inter-town contact. If the game ever grows again, this attitude could persist, changing the fundamental nature of Cantr completely. I'm picturing a handful of city-states where laws restrict travel in order to keep a high population conducive to attracting newspawns, or just low population towns where the characters are too afraid to travel, because they can't trust that anyone will still be alive when they get back.

2) Characters will retain their free spirits and individualism, and towns will simply die out from migration away of interesting characters, and the boredom-induced sleep of the residents (this is what I'm currently seeing). Its seems nowadays that being the town leader is a curse and not a position to aspire to. I haven't come across a happy one yet in my travels. Eventually, there will be nothing interesting to hold onto any characters, and the game will just die a slow, quiet death.

There are many reasons for this, not all of which are due to server and database problems (although they undoubtedly contribute to some degree).

The greatest contributor, I think, is a simple lack of what I'll call "peasants." In the real world, you have billions of worker bees and very few "great men." Cantr, being a virtual world, is a place where people come to be "great men" themselves. However, "great men" can't function without their peasants. Could Magellan have circumnavigated the globe without his crew? Could the pyramids have been built without slaves? Could Alexander have conquered most of the known world without his soldiers?

In cantr, very few characters want to be sailors; they want to be captains. Why be a soldier when you could aspire to be a general? Why be a slave when you could be a slave owner? Cantr's social caste is extremely top-heavy, and I think, more than anything, that's what's caused the game's decline. Everyone wants to be great, and there simply aren't enough peasants to go around, so people get frustrated and let their characters fall asleep. While I've never been guilty of sleepiness, I am guilty of having a "great character" complex, so yes, I'm part of the problem. I could make 14 peasants, but that's a lot to maintain and it's not much fun at all.

I'm not sure this is a problem that can be solved, short of having tens of thousands of players that flood the system so that being great becomes very difficult (all you need to do now is be awake to be great), or automating aspects of the game, which would change the game entirely..

[Chris]

I don't see ambition to rule as the problem. Many, many people are content to be "peasants," for a long time at least. If anything, the ease with which people can be independent erodes the power of towns and organizations. But even independence isn't a problem. The problem is that in most places most of the time, very little is happening. When very little happens, people get bored and stop playing.

[buddyhall]

I agree not nearly enough wars theres some good sea battles going on but noobs don't get too see much of those more towns should be attacking the nighbors and taking over

[Tiamo]

If Cantr would become a 'war'-game i would immediately quit. There are many, many wargames on the internet, games that are way better suited to warfare than Cantr ever could be. If you want action, go play one of those...

I do agree the game gets boring after a while, if you are playing characters that just live a quiet life as a peasant, doing the same routine over and over again.

Game play stays interesting if your characters have individual goals, and can set new ones every now and then. The game should provide the possibility (and help) for setting those in-game goals.
Becoming a 'leader' does seem to be an all too common goal within Cantr, while only few are needed in a community. So, Cantr should be supporting quite a lot of other, easier goals. Like personal progress (in terms of abilities, knowledge, skills, experience), building up a personal home (not just a standard dwelling and some equally standard belongings), making a mark on the history of your area (are there game chronicles?), building a social network, etc. If becoming a leader would only be possible after having achieved some of thoes goals there would be less (would-be-) leaders and a lot more players actually striving for something.

Maybe Cantr is too much of a 'do it yourself'-game.

[DylPickle]

That quote from Doug R. pretty much hits the nail right on the head, when it comes to problems in Cantr. I just recently timed out my account simply because 8 of my 15 characters were leaders, and I was just burning right out. I ended up disappearing for two weeks in order to focus on school a bit more, and just couldn't summon the energy to get back into the mix of things, especially with those 8 leaders.

I did make a new account a little while ago (about two weeks after I timed out), and I'm hoping to keep my characters down to 3 or 5 well played characters, and I have absolutely no aspiration to have any of them stumble into full-time leadership roles. I'm playing them out with an indirect focus on creating a working class group. I've also been keeping a keen eye out for signs of unique culture in the towns I've been spawning in, and I'll tell you, it's hard. But when I do spot something different through my character's interactions with others, I'm going to try to hold onto that as best as I can. Regional diversity is something cantr lacks, but is something cantr needs for things to be interesting at all. I've seen so many people head out with the intention of "exploring, and seeing what else is out there", when really, it's all essentially the same as the place you just left.

The lack of difference and variety in culture and ideals pretty much makes war an impossibility. I'm against cantr becoming a total war game where people are constantly attacking and defending ALL the time. But it would be nice to have a little more icy tensions around the cantr world. Also, wars do not work in cantr because they are almost always fought as wars of attrition. Lots of towns and nations (though there are very few true nations in cantr) have full time guards in their towns, but the guards have no real purpose as regular citizens (farmers, tavern keeps, etc) and the town's leadership will take part in law enforcement and will go out and fight battles, and will all defend their towns to the death. This essentially makes the full time career soldiers useless in the game. Personally, I think this is mainly due to the players' mentality that see weapons as universal symbols of status. Not symbols of profession, but status.

Really, I guess what I'm saying is that I'd like to see more of an abundance of deweaponized communities where regular folks like you and me won't dabble too much in the political realm of things. But, that won't bring cantr back to life really, and it'll never happen anyways. Which makes this an on going rant that I will put a stop to now.

[DylPickle]

Maybe Cantr is too much of a 'do it yourself'-game.

On that note, has anyone seen a big lull in camaraderie and real personal friendship in-game? I know that some of the funnest times I've had in cantr were building up friendships inside factories. Nicknames, gossip, boasting, exaggerated conversations, all in doors, whisper-free with your workmates... The last time I really managed that was way way back in the Pre-Noniwrok War days...

[notsure]

You could have at least brought the bike back to town before you died.

notsure