Cantr Is Dying. What Then Shall We Do?

[the_antisocial_hermit]

Link to a past discussion about banners:

http://www.cantr.net/forum/viewtopic.ph ... torder=asc

And one to the wiki banner page:

http://www.cantr.net/mwiki/index.php/Promote_Cantr

[saztronic]

I created a group about Cantr on Facebook and posted a kind of lame/stretched banner pic to associate with it. Yay.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2 ... 088&ref=mf

[Doug R.]

Saz, the existing Facebook group is here:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2255048205

[saztronic]

Hmmm. I knew there had to be one. That's not really the most awe-inspiring group, though...

Description: Facebook group for (former) Cantr II players.

Wha? Former players? And that's it? No description of the game, no enticements, no here's what this is all about?

What is UP, people?

Here's what I wrote for the group I set up (and, should now dismantle?):

Cantr -- www.cantr.net -- is an online roleplaying game unlike any other. It's almost completely text-based, meaning your interactions and progress are governed solely by your imagination and skill with words. There's a world to explore, of course, and things to acquire, but ultimately you're going to have the most fun if you're into creating and playing interesting people -- an intrepid sailor, bumbling village idiot, officious governor, hard-working peasant, or nefarious malcontent.

People who like flash and repetitive monster bashing (I'm talking to you, WoW fiends) need not apply. This game doesn't glitter, but if you play it you'll find it's gold.

[the_antisocial_hermit]

It's not just repetitive monster bashing. <.<

Probably best to not single out a specific game if you want people to at least look at it and give it a try.

[saztronic]

I know, I know, no offense. It's just contrast for effect.

[Doug R.]

I signed up for your group too. Yours could be the cooler unofficial one

[Money]

is it the "underground one"?

[saztronic]

It's way, way under ground. FormerlyHF is the House DJ. Doug R. is keeping the animals in line.

We have to look up to see the soles of peoples' shoes.

[Doug R.]

It's way, way under ground. Doug R. is keeping the animals in line.

The gophers and the naked mole rats!

[Xanalsir]

If I've returned to Cantr at long last only to have it die around my, I will be...annoyed.

Cantr must live! I'm throwing myself into this cause, as much of me as hasn't been given up already. Let's get this place living again.

EDIT: Okay, I've decided to take up the challenge of implementing slavery. I'm not going to try to inflict it on any of the current neoliberal society. I can't go into details here for the sake of breaching the Capitol Rule, but I have devised a strategy...A detailed plan that has multiple backups and contingency plans, made to create a new society which will be groomed to eventually accept slavery. I'm not going to delude myself into believing that I can make the slaves not want to be free, but I have a plan to make them not want to run (in most cases, anyway).

This plan will likely take over a year IRL to work out, as to make this work I must create a new society from the ground up consisting of people who share my basic vision, and it will take time to find people like that. But rest assured, it WILL be done.

Omna gloria in excelsis Maldeus!

[kasuo]

Add Cantr to the pbbg.org site. Sounds like Cantr fits the description.

[SekoETC]

It would be cool if someone could make slavery work in Cantr. I can think of two different methods, 1) abducting people and breaking them, making them believe they have done something wrong and are deserving to be treated badly, then when they turn obedient, they will be given goodies or 2) gathering newspawns and teaching them that they belong to the working class and that's for their own good. This requires eliminating exposition to foreign ideologies until the slaves have learned to embrace the system. I have one character who used to be a slave, sometimes they still think life was more simple back then. Also another character has taken care of a lot of prisoners and made them work, with no specific release date. This could be compared to slavery. At least a couple of people who have been released from jail have been willing to continue working without asking for pay or anything, but since they have lost initiative, they require someone else to tell them what to do next and set up projects, it's time consuming. And a physically free person will eventually wander off if they are not given enough reasons to stay.

[psymann]

And anyone can help, actually: the biggest influxes of players came from Cantr players talking about Cantr on other forums.

My problem with this is that I will be honest.

I love War of Empires (www.warofempires.com). I will recommend that as the best free text-based game I've come across for gameplay, battles, teamwork and adrenaline. It's a great game. But I'll also mention that in order to do really well, or win, you tend to need to be online quite a lot - logging into WoE has to be the first thing you do in the morning and the last thing you do at night, or you'll fall behind. The only other real downside is that since it's a game you are trying to win (unlike Cantr) you get a higher number of people trying to cheat. And it's unsuitable for many Cantr players since there's no roleplay at all - though it may appeal to the people who keep clammering for wars in Cantr.

I also enjoy playing Battlemaster (www.battlemaster.org). Battlemaster is unique in my experience as a game that combines roleplay and battles/strategy. With two turns a day (sunrise and sunset), you only need to log on twice a day to play your character to the full, which is great for busy people. There's pretty much nothing I can say about Battlemaster that's bad - the only thing is that as a new player it can take quite a long while to get really involved in your realm if you happen to be unlucky in choosing one that doesn't have much opportunity for advancement - there are limited positions (a bit like limited number of town leaders in Cantr) and these positions tend to be the more interesting ones since they have more options available. But apart from that, it's a great game, the roleplay is good in most realms, and the gameplay is based more around battles than cooking meat, which is quite good (for me at least).

And then we have Cantr. If I'm going to describe that (and actually, I did, in the battlemaster forum recently), then I can mention that the roleplay is key (which appeals to people searching for games where roleplay is the most important part). I can mention that there is plenty of scope for roleplaying, but still a little fighting here and there, and quite a number of paths your character can take. But I would also be likely to mention that the interface isn't the best, the lag is crippling and makes the game unplayable some days and just irritating to play other days, and the options of what your character can do are a little strange (one minute making bone tools; the next, making radios).

If Cantr can fix the Lag (firstly to the stage where it ceases to be crippling, and secondly where it ceases to be irritating), and if Cantr can then improve the interface (for example so I don't have to click a number of times to stop working on a project when I'm about to enter a room, or where I don't lose the (<CANTR>) every time I rename a character), then that would significantly improve the impression of the game that I present to others on forums on in Instant Messages. In the same way that WoE would improve if I felt that online time was less of an issue, or Battlemaster could improve (slightly - it's still the best one I play at the moment) if new players had more gameplay options without having to first get promotion to a higher position.


Or, in a sentence, the advertising you get from me talking about Cantr in other forums is only as good as the game.

psymann

[Money]

Why is everyone complaining of lag? I have been having next to no trouble these last few weeks. Its was the last week of the month before that gave me trouble.