Voluntary Character Caps

[Agar]

I've been finding myself out of minutes to play more and more frequently, but I keep making new characters every chance I can, just so I can have a new character in a new spot (hopefully)

I have an addicitve personality, but I'm also playing an addictive game. You'd be surprised how long it can take to use 200 minutes...

I still have my wife and one of my businesses, but it is very hard not to spawn a new character and keep taking up that much more of my life. Less minutes wouldn't help, it would just aggrivate people and lead to the frustration of waiting for the reset. But, less characters to get involved with might.

Think of all the things we do offline that involve cantr. Or at least the ones I do. Format and error check text maps, paste and airbrush visual maps together, write journals and diaries, notes, poems, stories, sermons, plan on how a psychopathic killer will make people "dissappear" and get away with it ... even handle the newb players breaking the CR by looking for thier old chars.

All that takes up a lot of real life, 200 mins or no. Characters get involved in the communities. More characters means more offline character involvment.

To help those of us making more characters than we should, and to help the Players Department out, I suggest the option to set ourselves a lower maximum number of characters. What I picture is a drop down box with the numbers 15 down to 1. They could then set themselves a limit of 15 to 1 character Maximum.

Some error checking would have to involve people trying to set themselves a lower number of characters than they currently have, or giving themselves a higher limit than they have set. In the first case an example would be someone who has 8 characters trying to set themselves a limit of 5 characters maximum. They should write PD first on which characters they want removed, then set thier new limit. In the second case, they've already set themselves a limit of 4 characters and now decided they want to try to spawn on Aki, so try to raise thier limit to 8, so they can spawn 4 new chars and hopefully spawn where they want or turn into spawn and run thieves.

The limit should only work one way, to reduce your limit or keep it the same. If you could give yourself a larger number of characters, that kind of emilinates the usefullness of not being able to have more characters.

If you want to raise your character cap, you should have to write Players Department and they would have to review why you want more characters than you limited yourself to. Then they can give you a higher limit or not.

This would allow some of the players here at cantr to keep jobs, wives and families, lives outside cantr. Sometimes, this addicting game can get TOO addicting for some of us. This would help us control our own urges, develop our characters more, and keep the number of spawn and run thieves down some.

How do you feel about your own characters? Do you have any that aren't really doing anything? Just malcontents wandering without any big plans? Don't you have some that are in charge of something, starting a business, protecting a town, waging a war? If you had to choose which ones to keep, could you?

[Nixit]

I personally am able to resist the urge to make massive amounts of characters, so I only have five and that seems enough for me.

[creepyguyinblack]

I have 15 characters currently and now rather regret having so many. I created most of them when I had more time to devote to cantr, but now that I work fulltime, attend college and live with my girlfriend not to mention head the resources department, I find that I have little time to spend on playing cantr. I usually try to squeeze in half an hour to an hour a day depending on my schedule to make sure my characters are all alive and are keeping up with what their goals are, but somedays I barely get ten minutes. I ought to delete some but at this point, all of my characters are in their thirties to sixties and have developed goals and personalities which makes it difficult to simply will them away, and due to experience, few of them seem likely to perish anytime soon. Some of them I have considered deleting though since they are superfluous in their region with other characters of mine, but that is a step I still have not actively taken, so I continue on my playing in a half devoted manner. I'll have to stridently resist the urge to create new characters when any of these ones perish.

[Pirog]

The trick with having 15 characters is to not have all of them as very active social beings.

I always have a lot of characters travelling, some loners who live in unpopulated areas etc.

The only thing I'm afraid of is being without empty slots when children are implemented...

[Where are all the monkeys]

Is that definite then? I though that was just a possability

[SekoETC]

If kids are coming then I hope they don't blow it with this thing I heard, that they'd be automated for ten damn years. Now that would be insane. Anyway, it's all silly to trick around spawning loads of characters just to get one where you want it. I've had three spawned around Brunoi area, four if counting Tircqi, but I ain't complaining. I've never spawned two characters on the same day exept for the initial characters.

[Agar]

The trick with having 15 characters is to not have all of them as very active social beings.

I always have a lot of characters travelling, some loners who live in unpopulated areas etc.

The only thing I'm afraid of is being without empty slots when children are implemented...

You illustrate my point nicely. You're burning minutes in and out of game on people doing nothing much worthwhile. What are they doing wandering all over? anything constructive? Map making? mailman? wandering fix it guy?

Now before this turns to kids like so many posts about cantr do:

THIS ISN'T ABOUT CHILDREN, IT'S ABOUT CHARACTERS!!

Drop the babies.

[nitefyre]

I think the voluntary caps is a silly idea and is a waste of time for the staff, who I'm sure, are busy enough with serious problems and bugs and investigations and such. A drop box is just one more thing to load- and it's pointless.

Utilize some self restraint and responsibility.

[Agar]

Utilize some self restraint and responsibility.

Not if I can help it.

[SekoETC]

LOL What do expect from a silly topic like this? People should be able to restrain themselves.

[social moth]

Looks like someone needs a little addiction therapy...

[Thomcat]

I've only been playing since late November. If I lost a character, I'd want to replace them, so I voted "no" above, but it's a qualified no, you see.

I realize I haven't explored all the geographical regions, but unless I learn other languages, I probably won't. Not that my Russian character has yet found a single person that will reply

(Yes, I for one would love to see a map of the whole world. Perhaps when Cantr III is launched?)

[Agar]

Just like in real life, all the geographical regions are on the same planet. Make a couple boats, stuff them full of food, and go conquer the french. As soon as you find them, that is.

I am going to be thrilled when ever I actually get to start spouting bad american english in some other languages land. I'm just a sick bastard like that.

[Pirog]

Agar>

You illustrate my point nicely. You're burning minutes in and out of game on people doing nothing much worthwhile. What are they doing wandering all over? anything constructive? Map making? mailman? wandering fix it guy?

Actually, you couldn't be more wrong. All of my characters have their own personalities and goals and if they meet an interesting person they all have much to say and do.

I merely pointed out that having all your characters in towns like Quillanoi or Blojt (or at least what they used to be like) and being very active by talking with everyone all they time etc. is a good way of spending your minutes.

I'm usually amongst the most active ones anyway though...but I guess I just know how to stretch the minutes. Typing fast is of course also a time saver...

What are they doing wandering all over? anything constructive? Map making? mailman? wandering fix it guy?

Well, for example one is travelling with his girlfriend just exploring the world. They have explored all the locations south of Siom by foot, and had a lot of interesting encounters. When they find a place they both will fall in love with they will probably settle down there. (hoping to be able to have kids ...nah, they don't, just the players behind them.)

I had another one travelling around seeking a violent but glorious death in combat, since he was heartbroken after losing his beloved...but he has now changed his mind and settled down.

Other ones are simply travelling for resources etc.

[swymir]

I used to be able to use up all my minutes, back in the day of my original characters, but recently I haven't even come close to getting under 100 minutes. I don't get home until 6 and if I'm in bed around 9 I could have spent my entire free time playing Cantr and still had 20 minutes left over for a quick check the following morning. The trick is to not play for an extended period of time. I do about 3-4 checks a night each lasting around 10 minutes. The only time I'm on for a long time is when I'm in a conversation with another person who happens ot be on at the same time.

CD EDIT: DOUBLE POST DELETED. You seem to be the only person doing it, Swymir! Please don't click more than once when posting. (Revanael)