Darwinism at it's finest

[returner]

If they did that only, very old people would become expert at everything (or at least a lot of things).

And? So they should be. Weakness at old age is an OOC concept. If you've survived 80+ years in the Cantr world, and you are expert in almost everything, so be it. You deserve it.
Of course those spawning under these elderly will be super-strong. Not necessarily a bad thing, and it'd be uncommon due to the lack of elderly people.. but imagine an elite club forming in Cantr of all old people in a town, spawning newspawns who are the elites of the land. That'd be awesome.



However, you go on to explain your idea of a balancing skill system, whereby you are skilled in one area of things and less skilled in others, which is a great idea. If you're a farmer, and you only practice skills in farming-related activities, it would make sense that you'd be poor at anything else (ie carpentry or home-building). Which is very similar to real-life.

[Ruby]

I'm pretty sure that is basically how the skill system works now. It's certainly the motivation behind having a skills system.

Whereas before everyone did everything equally well giving exact value to every resource in the game.

[Saalko]

If both "parents" have a efficiently skill level at the same thing, the newspawn can be novicely at this.

It is not that the parents give her the exact skill level.

If you have with one of your chars an idea, it could be very boring, that Cantr is slow. But when it is done it will be great. I know from one expedition. The provisions take 10 or 20 years. And only to survive the way. They wanna build up a new town. Dammit when you see after one year RL after you had an idea that you have solved only a small piece of the adventure. It could be annoying.

But if you really wanna enjoy Cantr you must be really, really patient. or learn it.

The game is not a game where you should wait that some project is completed. You have to enjoy the time in the project.

The way is the goal. And in Cantr is the way very, very long.

Be patient.

[SekoETC]

Inherited skills are based on genes, in other word the basic level someone had when they spawned (or when the skills system was implement), not the level they have reached through years of practice. Thus someone who is in their eighties and has a lot of expert skills but started off as novice or efficient, the newspawns they sire are likely to be novice or efficient as well.

As for awkward fighters and weak individuals dying off, violence in Cantr is not always random. There are pirates who attack whole towns, and kidnappers who drag who ever they can, but mostly fighting happens between people who are talented at it. It's the expert fighter criminals vs. the expert fighter town guards and soldiers, and their skillful buddies and maybe some efficients who happened to spawn much stronger than average. While the awkward, novice and (much) weaker than average people mostly accept that they will never be noteworthy fighters so they lead quiet lives, avoiding conflicts and are ready to run down a road if someone comes to threaten their town.

[Ruby]

Ah, I was wondering about that too. It's certainly puts more realism into the notion of genes passed down while simultaneously erasing my earlier claim to any kind of evolution appearing through stat accruement.

Oh how thorough our programmers are.

[FiziKx]

Wouldn't it be fun to be in a Sparta-like city where only the most elite and strongest are kept alive and the rest of the newspawns are put to death?

They could rule the world!!! Test every newspawn for strength! If they are good enough- they shall live! If not- be it the axe for them!

[returner]

Ah, I was wondering about that too. It's certainly puts more realism into the notion of genes passed down while simultaneously erasing my earlier claim to any kind of evolution appearing through stat accruement.

Oh how thorough our programmers are.

That'd be less realistic then. If the genes of a newspawn are based on your skills when you spawned, and not your current skills, that doesn't reflect evolution or realism at all. Evolution is based on valuable and advantageous mutations which allow for the survival of the fitest.

Let me put it this way. I'm sure you've heard of how evolutionary scientists believed fish grew legs to walk on land (or something to that effect, for the sake of explanation let's go with that). They are different to their legless brothers and sisters back in the ocean. However their offspring are spawned with the legfish's mutations, ie the legs. If it was based on the Cantr spawn theory, then the legfish's offspring would be legless, as that is how all the other fish in the ocean are. The legfish's newspawns in the Cantr world NEED to have offspring which are based on their current qualities, otherwise their legness would become extinct when they die.

So to summarise: At the time of spawn, the spawnee's qualities should be based on the spawn-parent's current skills and qualities. Right?

[returner]

Wouldn't it be fun to be in a Sparta-like city where only the most elite and strongest are kept alive and the rest of the newspawns are put to death?

They could rule the world!!! Test every newspawn for strength! If they are good enough- they shall live! If not- be it the axe for them!

Hahaha this is exactly what I was thinking!

Of course those spawning under these elderly will be super-strong. Not necessarily a bad thing, and it'd be uncommon due to the lack of elderly people.. but imagine an elite club forming in Cantr of all old people in a town, spawning newspawns who are the elites of the land. That'd be awesome.

How cool would that be!

[Ruby]

There is a lot I find wrong with your statements, Returner, but I am going to argue the only one that really bothers me.

Your legless fish didn't grow legs because it wanted legs. It wasn't staring out from water saying "Hey if I just practice walking then I'll grow legs and everything will be great" Somewhere along the way a regular legless fish gave birth to a mutant fish that happened to have legs and that legged fish walked out on land and had babies of it's own. That is reality, and that is how Cantr is set up.

Now the biggest reason I would argue that you are not likely to ever see an increase in cantr evolution is for the same reason geneticists think humans are no longer going to evolve. In a civilized society we have no mechanism for weeding out the weaker of us. In Cantr especially no one is competing for resources and therefore (except for animal attacks which if the rate of attacks and the damage caused were increased might be the only thing that could provoke an evolutionary changing in Cantr) everyone has an equal capacity for survival in the game.

[returner]

There is a lot I find wrong with your statements, Returner, but I am going to argue the only one that really bothers me.

Your legless fish didn't grow legs because it wanted legs. It wasn't staring out from water saying "Hey if I just practice walking then I'll grow legs and everything will be great" Somewhere along the way a regular legless fish gave birth to a mutant fish that happened to have legs and that legged fish walked out on land and had babies of it's own. That is reality, and that is how Cantr is set up.

Now the biggest reason I would argue that you are not likely to ever see an increase in cantr evolution is for the same reason geneticists think humans are no longer going to evolve. In a civilized society we have no mechanism for weeding out the weaker of us. In Cantr especially no one is competing for resources and therefore (except for animal attacks which if the rate of attacks and the damage caused were increased might be the only thing that could provoke an evolutionary changing in Cantr) everyone has an equal capacity for survival in the game.

I agree with this. You say 'in civilized society we have no mechanism for weeding out the weaker of us', which is absolutely correct. In fact, the weak control the strong - otherwise a lot of us would be dead in an anarchistic world (which, thanks to society, doesn't exist).

However, my belief is that Cantr has no society. It sure has the technologies and the capabilities to create one, but all we see are micro-economies and micro-societies.

In saying this, I'm not arguing for or against my original point but rather making a comment.

When I say Cantr has no society, the evolution and successful survival of only the fitest and strongest relies on the Cantrians themselves acting upon the elimination of the weaker. There are too many benefits in keeping someone alive and working, though, than there are killing them. (especially considering new players may hold a grudge against that character OOCly, and act out these grudges in camoflage).



In closing, I guess I'm just trying to justify my proposal of enhancing the evolution style of Cantr. It would be nice to have newspawns' skills based on current skills of their spawners, but I guess the departments have chosen otherwise (which is fine, it's a much of a muchness).

[joo]

its

[Voltenion]

Ah, I was wondering about that too. It's certainly puts more realism into the notion of genes passed down while simultaneously erasing my earlier claim to any kind of evolution appearing through stat accruement.

Oh how thorough our programmers are.

That'd be less realistic then. If the genes of a newspawn are based on your skills when you spawned, and not your current skills, that doesn't reflect evolution or realism at all. Evolution is based on valuable and advantageous mutations which allow for the survival of the fitest.

They've tried it in real life. If you cut off a rat's tail, his child will be born with one no matter what. You keep on trying and trying but every single baby is born with a tail. Later on they realized that DNA can't be changed in life. You're a born with it and it doesn't change no matter what, so Cantr might be more realistic than what you think.

[Ruby]

If you cut off a rat's tail, his child will be born with one no matter what. You keep on trying and trying but every single baby is born with a tail. Later on they realized that DNA can't be changed in life. You're a born with it and it doesn't change no matter what, so Cantr might be more realistic than what you think.

Poor rats!

I propose we use Cantr to settle all future RL science disputes from now on. It's the closest thing to RL we've got.

[returner]

Ah, I was wondering about that too. It's certainly puts more realism into the notion of genes passed down while simultaneously erasing my earlier claim to any kind of evolution appearing through stat accruement.

Oh how thorough our programmers are.

That'd be less realistic then. If the genes of a newspawn are based on your skills when you spawned, and not your current skills, that doesn't reflect evolution or realism at all. Evolution is based on valuable and advantageous mutations which allow for the survival of the fitest.

They've tried it in real life. If you cut off a rat's tail, his child will be born with one no matter what. You keep on trying and trying but every single baby is born with a tail. Later on they realized that DNA can't be changed in life. You're a born with it and it doesn't change no matter what, so Cantr might be more realistic than what you think.

Interesting.. I guess I'm satisfied with the current Cantr mechanisms then.

[SumBum]

In a civilized society we have no mechanism for weeding out the weaker of us.

I'd love to see a society in Cantr that asked newspawns on arrival what their strength and fighting skill is, then kill (or banish) any that were "substandard". It's been discussed many times on the forum, but I think it would be difficult to get it started in-game without a lot of controversy. I'm sure it would be awesome once started, though. There are harsh societies in Cantr, but I don't know of any that are THAT harsh.