SHould we be able to choose where we start?

[Revanael]

I think it might be better to have some control over what sort of area your characters start in. I would like more of my chars to be in the less advanced areas, but about half of them started within an easy walk of Quillanoi - which makes traveling there difficult if I want them to avoid each other!

So. A few options for you.

[boomhaeur]

I understand the frustration of having your chars pile don top of each other. I've had a few spawns where a bunch of my chars have been within a location or two of some others.

Rather than letting you choose I think it'd be interesting if the "spawn engine" took into account the location of your living characters and tried to position your new spawn in an area you don't have a char nearby.

(Although I suspect programming that would be absolutely nightmarish.)

[Solfius]

Ah, that would be a good solution to your chars being in the same area, but even thinking about how it might be done frightens me, and I don't actually do any code crunching, so I dread to think how hard it actually is.

Still, would be nice...

[Anthony Roberts]

Although that would be interesting to have, if one knew how the code worked, they might be able to plan out where to position their characters to get one in a specific location. Although that's highly unlikely, there's been many highly unlikely things happening on Cantr, and so, it's completly and utterly possible.

I like it the way it is, honestly.

[Revanael]

I don;t want another Quillanoi or surroundings char though!

Ah well. At least I'm not resorting to killing them off.

[nitefyre]

I think letting the player choose where or near where they start will help encourage cheating, though the current system does seem to have a nack to put chars in the same area. I think this could be overcome if the spawn engine should do what was just suggested- placing chars where you have the least of which or none in (but only if that region has a high enough populace rate to allow for spawnings).

[boomhaeur]

"Although that would be interesting to have, if one knew how the code worked, they might be able to plan out where to position their characters to get one in a specific location."

But jeez, if someone is going to go through all that effort they almost deserve to get the char where they want -- at the same time though they'd have been better off walking one char to where they wanted.


I think if the solution were implemented it would need to adjust the probablility of getting certain locations based on proximity to other chars.
In a nutshell the way the system currently uses the population level to adjust how often a spawn point gets used I would also use proximity to other chars as a factor. So a location far away from all your chars would be 10x more likely to be a spawnpoint for your char than one that already has your char in it.

It wouldn't guarantee that you wouldn't have chars spawn there, so every location would still be a possibility (eliminating people trying to play the system - or at least doing it successfully.) but it would greatly reduce the instances of having your chars spawn close together.

[Lone Wolf]

I voted no. I can understand that some may want their char in a less advanced area, but many would chose the more advanced areas to try and gain power or such, leaving more and more areas empty. I kind of like it the way it is. Right now if you are in an area that is advanced, you can travel to an area that is not as advanced. May take awhile, but you can do it

[Solfius]

I have to agree, ultimately changing to the code to stop spawning close to your other chars is going to be phenonanomally difficult. However, if it were done I don't think you could "work" the system to get chars where you want as Cantr is so big you can easily have 15 chars no where near each other.

[Ash]

I think centralised spawning should be re-introduced, as there are more locations to be spawned at (I think) then those with larger populations, wich would increse the chance of your characters ending near to eachother, or in the same place.


[Edit: Or even randomise the spawning system, between the population spawning, and the centralised]

[Solfius]

no way should centralised spawning be reintroduced. The current method of spawning allows natural settlement to take place, towns form where people live, whereever they live. Centralised spawning puts people in set places, so towns grow up around there, artificially. It hinders one of the most important aspects of social development: where people choose to live and settle by restricting the natural population growth.

[Jur Schagen]

I voted "other" to support the "distance-to-other-chars" argument just to find out that I'm the first one... what did you guys vote then???

Anyways, like it was suggested before, the system should decrease the "spawn chance" for locations where other chars are nearby, increasing the penalty as characters are numerous and nearer, like:

one char, one loc away = -20%
one char, two locs away = -10%
one char, three locs away = -5%

and add these up, so
one char, one loc away AND one char, two locs away would be -20%-10%=-30% on the current spawn chance.

[Solfius]

Ok, I think you've just embarressed us all by making it sound so simple to implement

I think most people voted to stay the same, but a change like you said would definately help I think.

[Sho]

I support Jur Schagen's idea. I'm against giving players any control over spawn locations, but this idea would largely eliminate the problem Revanael brought up.

[SekoETC]

I voted for something else. I think you should have an option to choose where you start, but with the exception that you cannot have two characters in a same location. That would solve the baby turning to an adult problem. And there should also be an option to make the selection random if you don't care where your character is born.