Thinking about quitting.....

[Optimus Christ]

edit: plenty of us feel that people want us gone, not that plenty feel you should go >.< It's an online forum, you can't please everyone.[/size]

And it's so much easier to piss everyone off.

[computaertist]

Seko, I was assuming when you posted that, you actually knew who your enemies were.

Now I'm convinced you're just being paranoid. But don't let the boogie men win anyway

[Marian]

In my opinion this shows that there is something of value or interest in this game that draws us in, otherwise we wouldn't make the effort to argue about it. There have been some well thought out posts in these two threads.

Hardly anyone anywhere on this board ever seems interested in actual discussion, I always see so many opinions being thrown down as facts with anyone who disagrees being just sort of trampled over.

I remarked to someone recently that the community here was one of the most schizophrenic I'd ever seen, and that's still the case and it's what's been making me have less and less interest in being involved in it, or in playing Cantr itself in the longterm. With such a small player base it really does seem like the staff feels like they have to give in to anyone who complains loud enough out of fear they'll leave the game. (See again: butter. Not singling anyone out but it really is a prime example.)

Except we've got players who insist the game is dying because not enough people bother to RP, because people put too much focus on RP, because there's not enough kidnapping and murder or because there's too much of it, because progress is too slow or because progress has no purpose, because some area of the game is too easy or it's too hard, because your character is forced to cooperate with others or because no one cooperates at all...sometimes I read posts and find it hard to believe we're all playing the same game here, but the problem is still that any change made to improve the game for one group would have all the others ready to click the X. It's a no-win situation all around.

The conflicting messages even exist in the game itself...you can spend RL months or years slowly and steadily building something up following the rhythm of the turn-based ticks, only to have it suddenly turn into an action game where being online and clicking madly during a ten second window is the difference between life and death. There's supposed to be something about building societies but then none of the natural forces that drive the creation of those even exist. Cantr itself doesn't know what kind of game it wants to be so no wonder its players get confused.

Hell, maybe the best solution really is to make Cantr III and start over from scratch. I know that's a pipe dream with exactly one volunteer programmer on staff, but Cantr has been an experiment in so many ways, I can't help but wonder what would happen if a team were able to take everything learned from it, everything that did and didn't work, and balance and apply it all from the beginning while aiming for a specific vision of what the end result should be.

Maybe if I win the lottery someday...

[computaertist]

If you win enough to pay more programmers than have already volunteered, I'm heavily familiar with (which I meant to sound a shade weaker than saying "I know") php, css, html, mysql, a hint of xml (rss), and a wee bit of javascript, am always ready and willing to teach myself more, and am also ready and willing to put aside my own preferences (after airing them if you don't mind) and write code to fit the agreed upon vision as excellently as I can even if that's different from what I think I wanted (so no sabotage from me). I just can't offer to work for free; I do that too much as is.

Because Cantr II is as many different games as there are players of it. That's what we love about it; it's vague enough to be whatever we think it is until other players attempt to correct us, and yet solid enough to feel like we're not just making stuff up when we think it's what we want it to be. I'm sure we could do even -that- illusion better though.

[Uma]

you can spend RL months or years slowly and steadily building something up following the rhythm of the turn-based ticks, only to have it suddenly turn into an action game where being online and clicking madly during a ten second window is the difference between life and death. There's supposed to be something about building societies but then none of the natural forces that drive the creation of those even exist. Cantr itself doesn't know what kind of game it wants to be so no wonder its players get confused.

This to me is the most troubling thing. being able to be stab, drag, boated to death in moments. stab-drag-boat should be disabled until such a time as a town can post a guard, who does a guard 'job' actively, and who must be dealt with before anyone else can be attacked. let people who roleplay town guards guard instead of making potato chips all day and talking about it.

the game is always one murderous sociopath away from ruining a whole town for a lot of players. then those characters loose motivation, then a light in the game goes out.

[Doug R.]

The conflicting messages even exist in the game itself...you can spend RL months or years slowly and steadily building something up following the rhythm of the turn-based ticks, only to have it suddenly turn into an action game where being online and clicking madly during a ten second window is the difference between life and death. There's supposed to be something about building societies but then none of the natural forces that drive the creation of those even exist. Cantr itself doesn't know what kind of game it wants to be so no wonder its players get confused.

I think the game itself had and still has some fundamental flaws making it's goal as a society sim impossible to achieve:

-Lack of deterioration of infrastructure
-Lack of a serious need for food or protection
-Lack of a sense of wonder/lack of discovery/lack of proprietary knowledge/Finite tech scale
-Lack of adequate means of expressing and distributing all forms of art (music, sculpture, et).
-Lack of a need for cooperation
-Lack of a need to achieve (time being unlimited)
-Lack of mysticism/belief in something greater than one's self
-The existence of the wiki, eliminating any in-game need to find things out for yourself.

1,2, 5, and 6 were likely implemented so the game wasn't annoying. Who would play if feeding ones-self was a primary concern? How boring is that! Building castles just to watch them fall? Frustrating! Requiring 5 people to sail a large ship? Too limiting! Having computer-controlled threats to make setting off on one's own seriously dangerous? Nope, the players need to control everything. Animals were never more than a limited threat (but boy did they make things interesting when players chose to be among the dangerous ones).

And of course, we want to avoid anything that would require frequent clicking. Then enters the age where frequent clicking games are all the rage, and our player base evaporates.

I could complain about combat being too easy (instant combat in a slow-paced world), but honestly, the best minds in the game have put serious effort into this problem and all we could come up with is the NDS. Honestly, I feel it's an unsolvable problem unless you eliminate death and dragging altogether.

[Doug R.]

And Marian, yes, we're schizophrenic. I've probably been for and against all the things I've mentioned multiple times in my time playing. It's human nature to want the fastest solution to the present problem. Being far-sighted is the job of the game admins, and an argument can be made that the game has bent too much in favor of player complaints...except the admins are players too, and subject to the same human impulses.

[Friar Briar]

Doug, you've given me a lot to think about.

[Piscator]

I was always rather fond of the idea of having some kind of auto-retaliation (in combination with the need to equip weapons to have some influence on how you retailiate) to make fights less dependant on sheer initiative and more on the actual balance of power. Not perfect in every regard, especially when it comes to dragging, but it would probably have solved more problems than it would have created.

Of course, unless there are more pressing reasons than sheer bloodlust, it would probably have gotten rather difficult to gather a large enough army to successfully raid a town. On the other hand, no large-scale combat at all might still be better than combat that's frustrating by design (and not just because you happen to lose).

[saztronic]

I think the game itself had and still has some fundamental flaws making it's goal as a society sim impossible to achieve:

-Lack of deterioration of infrastructure
-Lack of a serious need for food or protection
-Lack of a sense of wonder/lack of discovery/lack of proprietary knowledge/Finite tech scale
-Lack of adequate means of expressing and distributing all forms of art (music, sculpture, et).
-Lack of a need for cooperation
-Lack of a need to achieve (time being unlimited)
-Lack of mysticism/belief in something greater than one's self
-The existence of the wiki, eliminating any in-game need to find things out for yourself.

1,2, 5, and 6 were likely implemented so the game wasn't annoying. Who would play if feeding ones-self was a primary concern? How boring is that! Building castles just to watch them fall? Frustrating! Requiring 5 people to sail a large ship? Too limiting! Having computer-controlled threats to make setting off on one's own seriously dangerous? Nope, the players need to control everything. Animals were never more than a limited threat (but boy did they make things interesting when players chose to be among the dangerous ones).

And of course, we want to avoid anything that would require frequent clicking. Then enters the age where frequent clicking games are all the rage, and our player base evaporates.

I could complain about combat being too easy (instant combat in a slow-paced world), but honestly, the best minds in the game have put serious effort into this problem and all we could come up with is the NDS. Honestly, I feel it's an unsolvable problem unless you eliminate death and dragging altogether.

And Marian, yes, we're schizophrenic. I've probably been for and against all the things I've mentioned multiple times in my time playing. It's human nature to want the fastest solution to the present problem. Being far-sighted is the job of the game admins, and an argument can be made that the game has bent too much in favor of player complaints...except the admins are players too, and subject to the same human impulses.

This, plus infinity. I think this is the most lucid, concise summation I've seen of the design gaps in the game that contribute both to the problems Cantrians experience, and to the inability of staff and the larger community to confront those problems.

I'd probably focus on #'s 3 and 6, personally, because these weren't always problems. Many can remember when it was actually significant that the Blackrocks controlled the only source of hematite/iron on Noniwrok, because not everyone had massive stockpiles of iron and steel lying around. The tandem bike was the fastest and largest mode of transportation, which intensified resource distributions because it took that much longer to go anywhere to retrieve and transport things. Roads couldn't be paved, so they were slow. There were no drills, which again, made it that much more difficult/time consuming to get to and gather what you needed.

People complained then about how hard it all was, but it did drive political/social organization of one kind or another.

Since then, time has made iron and steel (and everything) plentiful, and if you don't have something it's not that hard to run and get it. A day or two of travel in a speedy vehicle on a series of expressways, a day or two on a drill will solve most shortages. Meanwhile, improvements in technologies and riches have not been offset by corresponding increases in challenge level or social drivers. People want to point to Fu/Laika and say "if you like primitive, go and..." but that island is frankly of ridiculous size and always has been.

Outside of roleplaying, there really is nothing objective to strive for in the game. I'd argue that Cantr is still a sim... it's just a sim of a complacent, technologically decadent society populated by characters who have little to live for apart from manufactured drama.

[Oob]

Outside of roleplaying, there really is nothing objective to strive for in the game. I'd argue that Cantr is still a sim... it's just a sim of a complacent, technologically decadent society populated by characters who have little to live for apart from manufactured drama.

Think 'The Hunger Games' ?

But then.. "it's just a sim" (a unique sim that annoys, frustrates and also enchants us all in equal measure!). I've been away exploring the depths of RPG's on the internet.. there is nothing else anything like Cantr out there, a couple of years ago after my last character died (she was killed) I quit, but now I have returned, I feel I am ready to start again, if only more people could fall under the magical spell of Cantr.. so has anybody thought about developing a Cantr App for iPhone/iPad/Android?

[Marian]

Outside of roleplaying, there really is nothing objective to strive for in the game. I'd argue that Cantr is still a sim... it's just a sim of a complacent, technologically decadent society populated by characters who have little to live for apart from manufactured drama.

I just realized I never replied to this thread. It was going to be a loooong post too, be thankful being stuck using a phone prevented that. But the above quote is pretty much spot on...as is Doug's posts, though I'd put the most emphasis on points 1 and 2...and that need for upkeep and food and protection would lead by necessity to 5, a need for more cooperation.

But the situation now where every town across the entire world is structured almost exactly the same? We all complain about it being boring and cookie cutter but the truth is, that is the only rational end result of the sim. It's the most efficient set up that makes the most sense for the world our characters live in. Anything else...democracy, a bloodthirsty tribe defending an infinite resource, an empire of a feudal system or communism or whatever real life historical period or government somebody feels like copying, all of that is pure RP mixed with OOC influence, with no basis in Cantreality.

[Vega]

Well, I'm not leaving -yet-, but if any of you know my chars, I think it's quite clear, by know, that I'm not playing anymore...
Life is getting busy.

[BosBaBe]

I think I may just be legitimately done...

[Marian]

I think I may just be legitimately done...

Noooo....