Cantr Is Dying. What Then Shall We Do?

[nitefyre]

Here're the total headcount of players trend, which I believe captures the Polish boom:

http://www.cantr.net/graphics/cantr/use ... _trend.png

and another nice indice of marketing's effort is a 10 day moving avg of player applications, which captures both the English peak as HF mentioned (1200s) and the presumed Polish peak(1600s) :

http://www.cantr.net/graphics/cantr/use ... titled.jpg

The data's from this Zine article that was following the early setbacks for Cantr: http://www.cantr.net/e107/e107_plugins/ ... ontent.107

[formerly known as hf]

Thanks Jon, I knew the 'zine had something in it, but I couldn't remember where and didn't have time to trawl.

The mid-1200's seems about right - in my experience - for the Cantr boom. I'm glad, in a way, that it's decreased - the player levels weren't sustainable really. Problem is, with such a reverse of fortune, we're having entirely the wrong problem.

I'm hardly playing anymore, but I just logged in to check my charries. Kwor and Blojt, which I both know very well, had seemed to me to be bustling places still for some time.

Unfortunately, that bustle was only noise. People shifting things around, people dying, people wandering, people getting on with little things.

In both places there are, at the most, five or so characters which are still largely active. And they are usually the exact same characters which have always been active (sometimes from before I was even around), plus a couple of newish faces.

Those bustling townships have become almost backwaters. I dread to think what the rest of Cantr is like...

[SekoETC]

What then shall we do? Play Kingdom of Loathing, of course.

[Redbeard]

I usually avoid engaging in conversations like this because I tend to say more than I should, but I want to ask a question.

Is there a need for more players? less players? better players? more active players? I can't say for sure.

Is the reasons for your choice based on better role playing? more financial stability for Cantr? something else? I don't know that either.

I think the answers are not the same for all and to get a concensus for actions to take when you have a diverse set of reasons for taking them is never going to be easy.

If we can really land on a goal, there are lots of processes to make it attainable. Want more players? If we agree that is what is needed then we create an incentive system to rewards people that bring friends in to play. Low or no cost activities that get movement towards the goal defined.

What about keeping players? There is little or no real reason for new players to stay. The learning curve is steep and the investment is low; so when someone gets frustrated they just leave. no muss no fuss. So if we want to keep people around until they have invested into the characters they create, we need to look at a way to do that. There have been lots of suggestions around that like a newbie island and a mentor program for the new players... Why not just pick something easy and try it to see what happens... I know I like spawning in places like QFN or Kwor where the leaders acknowledge the new arrivals and help to get them started. I have a newspawn in a town that has one leader according to the other people there and that leader has woken once in 5 years... I am still waiting to be acknowledged as a citizen.

Shutting up now.

[Pie]

Amen to that.

Seriosly though, if cantr does go down the hole we need to redesign it. Smaller this time, and with faster traveling times and resourses convineantly located, and instead of a newbie island, we can have a newbie cantr. just another site just like cantr, except easyer, and with a limit of characters down to one, and with on old age death set at 35 or so, so that people join the new cantr.

the new cantr world order will be GREAT! (and ruled by me)

[Voltenion]

Advertising is the only way... Can't even imagine what would happen in the English world. In English it's so much easier. There are more sites and forums, more irc's, more players available to advertise. It would be like KABOOM... It works by the way, 28 players to 60 players in very few time, when we did this in the Portuguese forum... Not going to do it for you though, if I can't even continue the Portuguese one... But it's easy, start a topic to call people. Ask for a sticky thingy to, and then talk to people about the devasting effect we have been having because he have few players. Say that it worked in another forum, say that it's your time to act. And then people with a good heart(and time) will come... All you need to do is go and advertise it yourself, no money needed. Go, register in other forums and talk about Cantr. Same in irc, geez you can even try Hi'5! Then post the forums you've been to, so that other people see that you are working too and not just talking. Then more will help... Really it works... As for keeping the players, they keep themselfs. Really, Cantr is different. So many will just quit. Some will come back and other will stay. All you need to do is call them and play the game, they will decide if they want to stay or leave. There's not much you can do, unless you change the game. And that might screw the game a bit more.

[Tiamo]

If you want advertising to have any effect in the long term your 'product' will have to be attractive enough. I think Redbeard is asking the right type of questions.

What is the goal of the Cantr project? What type of game do we want to play?
Is Cantr currently meeting those goals? If not, why not?
Do we really need more players? What number of players does Cantr need at least? What number would be optimal?
If we do need more players, what makes Cantr an attractive game? What is keeping new players from starting to play? And what makes players quit the game?

Leading to the most important question: How can we improve the Cantr game experience?

[TerribleTadpole]

I enjoy the place very much, but there are some hurdles I had to overcome when I started:

Ignorance of the game cost me the life of my first character, and could easily have cost the life of my second. That was discouraging.

The game imposes no goals or standards of success, which leaves new players in limbo until they come to terms with what the game is really about. My early characters took ten or fifteen years to really decide on something they'd like to do. This is more of an issue now that the populated lands are quite well mapped. By way, the decision to make the world so huge was a very wise one in my opinion - it lends an air of mystery and challenge to the game. How exciting must it have been in the early days when people sailed off into nowhere hoping to find other lands?!?

The pace of the game, especially until you learn who is active and who isn't.

It certainly helped a lot to have characters spawn in places where the town people took an active interest in the newspawns and take care of them and give them some direction.

The thing I find most frustrating now is the sheer difficulty in trying to instigate and sustain any coordinated effort. This is not so bad when you're working on a project. You just start and everybody else joins in when they can. But when travelling it's a nightmare to keep everybody together, even when you're going in the same vehicle. You can start a drag project but then you have to wait for somebody else to wake up and help with it. In my opinion this is the thing that prevents any kind of corporate activity; large businesses, regional government, and policing or military operations.

Small-scale, individual activity becomes tedious after a while. I'm sure that's why we see so little activity. People log on for 5 minutes to catch up on the event log. Maybe they do some things in response to what they see; help with a drag, start a new project, answer a questions. Then they're gone again and you won't see them again for hours or even days!

[Razorlance]

This is one of the problems that I can see. We have two player types:

The first has most if not all the available characters slots filled and uses most if not all their minutes each day, some or most of their characters will be active for long periods and are usually town/business/pirate leaders. These are the ones who get the most frustrated due to the lack of awake players to plan coordinated events such as Tadpole mentioned. These are the hardcore players

The second has less than half their characters slots filled, they will usually log on maybe once or twice a day, maybe only playing a few characters each time and never run out of minutes. They will not generally do much unless another character specifically asks, and even then might not bother straight away. These are the casual players.

When a town has all casual players characters and no hardcore it's usually very sleepy and probably dies out as players get bored and let their characters die or simply quit.

When a town has at least one or more hardcore player characters it can be a good place to be for both player types, not too much going on that makes some casual players skip entire days worth of events, but enough to peak the casual players interest and keep the town alive. The hardcore players are usually satisfied that enough people are awake and helping out.

When a town has mosly hardcode players characters this is usually only good for them, they can get much more done than any other town, and usually grow the town quite quickly. Unfortunately this isn't so good for the casual player characters, some might get more interested in the increase activity, possibly even display hardcore player traits, (but only for that character) but others will shun it and become overwelmed and leave or let their characters die.

Both these players are part of Cantr as defined by how often they can play, some are looking for a full time game to occupy their time, others are just looking for a diversion when they have a spare bit of time.

I think with the exodus of most of the original players, who tended to be hardcore or the conversion of these players into casual players is what has hurt the game the most. With once great towns like Siom becoming smaller and quieter as hardcore players characters leaving and thus decreasing overall productivity and RP. And new players arriving and finding not much happening and promptly leaving.

I also believe, (but I didn't when I first started playing) is that sailing was far too easy and that this meant the population of the time was spread over too wide an area. Now we have once prosperus town's becoming quite small and lots' and lots of empty towns, thus hampering coordination as already mentioned.

Marketing is one thing, but retaining anyone or comes by is another, idea's previously mentioned like a newbie island with a small number of locations and several experience characters to help out while new players become familiar sounds like a good idea to me. Keeping spawn points for the first two or three characters a players starts to the biggest populated areas is another (I've no idea if this is the case or not)

Just a though, I think I might put a poll up to see how players judge their playing, hardcore or casual.

[formerly known as hf]

It's all well and good asking those questions: What does Cantr want to be, where are we going etc.

Anyone can sit down and write a design document for a game. not anyone can make it. Cantr is not perfect, but I think it still has that something. But I doubt it will ever be much more.

The major changes Cantr, maybe, needs - require more dedicated people than we currently have.

I'm glad Cantr's even running. So many games fizzle out entirely. But we're deluding ourselves to think we can overhaul it entirely and make something appealing to more people unless we all teach ourselves a bit of programming.


I would be happy if the focus is on maintaining Cantr - getting it running smoothly as it is. Ironing out and balancing the game as it is, and only adding to it things which have been well thought out.

I'm very glad for the people who keep Cantr ticking over. As long as we're getting a smallish number of new players - net even necessarily to break even with those leaving, but to stem the haemorrhaging somewhat, Cantr will be fine for a bit longer.

[Solfius]

Anyone can sit down and write a design document for a game. not anyone can make it. Cantr is not perfect, but I think it still has that something. But I doubt it will ever be much more.

The major changes Cantr, maybe, needs - require more dedicated people than we currently have.

A rewrite is a frighteningly epic task.

Even writing the design document would take months because of the scale of Cantr.

A fresh rewrite would take many man-years.

[PapiSido]

Maybe I can give my impression here as a past player. ( In fact it took me some time to find what my username was, fortunately I remembered posting once in the French forum, allowing me to track it back )
I came here from Unilang, interested by the ability to practice a language while playing, thus combining two of my major freetime interests.
And I left 6 months later essentially due of lack of time and imagination.
I started 4 characters
1/ English, I found a very (too? ) active community but not very open to newcomers. each time I logged in, let's say once or twice a day, there were quit a list of new sayings but I never really understood what was going on around and what I could do to take part. I really felt like a little child always annoying grown-ups "Mummy, what can I do ?" I never was explicitly rejected, but i felt completely useless and transparent
2/ French, This was indeed my best experience I become involved in an active and welcoming party, but again followed ( hence the lack of imagination I mentioned earlier ) without bringing much. Practising French ( my native language) was not a strong motivation either
3/ German, I spawned in a not very active place, and quickly started moving around with the idea of completing the map of the island, but that probably was not a good idea since it gave me in fact few opportunity to exchange with other people
4/ Russian, but this was really boring due to the lack of players ( and also my difficulty in cyrillic typing, but this I can overcome )

So finally I left some 6 months later.

In the future I shall have more time ( retirement) and I consider reentering but I still wonder: creating a character without a specific purpose does not have much sense, but I do not have much idea about what purpose I can think of. Language is a motivation of course, but their must also be some reward from the game itself ( once you have learned how to say "dig carrots", and "eat carrots" , some more motivation is required)
By the way previewing the message recalls me my signature
I am obviously very obsessed by carrots

[marginoferror]

I would support, and participate in, a fresh rewrite. We should start looking at the very long term. But as far as I know we do not have enough programmers interested in the task to make it feasible.

[Tiamo]

I'm in for it too. I am a programmer as well as a games designer.

[T-shirt]

Creating a character without a specific purpose does not have much sense, but I do not have much idea about what purpose I can think of.

That's the major problem of Cantr for me. I still have several characters, but what's the purpose? You can build a state of the art sailing boat. But for what purpose? Sailing to unexplored lands, only to discover the places are exactly like home... only empty or with people you can't communicate with, but who have the same resources as you had at home.