Rip Van Winkell

[Missy]

Why is it that I feel like half the people who complain that noone wants to do anything IC anymore aren't even the people doing things IC? The problem here isn't that there isn't anything to inspire IC. It's that people have found out if they bitch and complain and yes that is what it is, that programming and resources will eventually give in. I've watched it happen! RIght in front of my eyes I've seen people in IRC attack resources over a problem and what do you know.......Two weeks later there are changes.


Everyone wanted a staff who would listen to the players and look whats happening. IMO Staff is listening way too much to players. When they didn't, did the forum look like this? Nope. When staff didn't feel obligated" to inform players of changes that might occurr, were these problems here? Staff can't focus on what really is important to the game when they have a 1000 voices in their ears.


People can argue with me if they want, but it's the truth. There's no element of surprise anymore when something new is implemented to even learn how to overcome the implementation because everyone knows it's coming beforehand. Noone's even focusing on the game anymore, we're all playing politics with how the game should be instead of having our chars argue over how a city should be IC.

*coughs* Bull***t

Ahem.

On what, exactly, do you base your claims? I still refuse to cop to a characterization of what I'm doing as bitching or complaining. I'm trying to find out what the strategy of the staff is for developing this game. I'm pointing out where certain changes would seem to defy logic, or the existence of any such strategy. It may be the result of what you've said -- that staff are too pliable to peoples' complaints and comments these days. Regardless of the cause, that doesn't change the problem -- that changes are getting made that make people less likely to care how a city should be IC, and therefore less likely to discuss it IC.

My chars are a robust, diverse, and when appropriate, vocal bunch. Some are happy-go-lucky with ne'er a care in the world. Some are taciturn and a bit surly. Some hold positions of power and influence. Some are lucky to have two sticks to rub together. I just don't get how you think you can lump together anyone who dares be persistent in getting to the bottom of something IRL, as people who must not really care about the game or be contributing to it outside the forum.

I base my claims on the fact that "knee-jerk" reactions and loose lists to follow as guides for what should be implemented aren't anything new. But the things I mentioned in my above quoted post are.



The implementation of tiredness wasn't implemented to stop pirates. Didn't we make a list a while back where we were specificially asked to list the order of things we thought should take priority to be implemented? Wasn't a use for beds pretty high on that list? I could be wrong though. Wasn't that list used to begin a "loose" idea of what came next? Aren't there also people out there who were chasing pirates that got shitty skills too? I think there were. I know there were.


On another note, I do think of some specific people when I make statements like the ones I made above... Here's a clue, "I refuse" he said,"Until they fix."

People who have the potential still have the potential, "but why?" they say. That's just incredible to me.

[The Sociologist]

http://www.cantr.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4452

His character Jo Jo created the remarkable bureaucratic system in the Seatown Forest. You still see the IDs around from time to time. An amazing character and an amazing system, not continued and never reproduced.

[The Sociologist]

http://www.cantr.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3848

And his character founded that bunch near Krif. What are they again? MacSomething, I think. Anyhow, once upon a time they occasioned real dread across an entire region. Laws, artwork, a whole kind of dialect. A remarkable culture, xenophobic, but it worked.

Get this, people used to wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and rush to check on their charries because it was rumored the MacGregors were coming! I swear! Someone once told me that.

Things were thrilling then. An Age of Heroes. Histories were written. So you can quit all these apologetics. The reasons why strategic contributions of this calibre declined all together are not hard to find. You should start by reading what those major contributors were good enough to post before they left.

[Marian]

Well, to be fair, the tiredness that last guy was complaining about isn't really as much of an issue anymore. I mean, you still only hit about three people a day, but even with nothing to rest on you recover pretty quickly.

EDIT: Reading the rest of the thread, and wow, I thought people were too cranky on the forums now. Was everyone just really stressed out at the time, or was that normal?

[The Sociologist]

EDIT: Reading the rest of the thread, and wow, I thought people were too cranky on the forums now. Was everyone just really stressed out at the time, or was that normal?

That was the point at which the game pretty much collapsed. Lad Empire had been a vast regional presence. When I reached there a RL month or so later, there were about six people in the capital and the surrounding towns had no Imperial presence at all. Seatown Forest had often had a population of seventy or so...outside! Around then had been the last real moment of history in the KDS region with the MacGregor's threatened attack on Krif and Drojf. Nowadays they occasionally blow hot air in great ponderous gusts, but that's about it.

The game you see now is not what it used to be and this isn't just "oldbie" nostalgia. Compared to those guys I ain't one yet! But a lot of the current gripes are people wanting to go back to those times but not quite sure how.

[west]

I need to invent a Supercookie so I can give it to Soc.

[kinvoya]

I just read those old threads, too, and dayam they were good! Those were the days when we fought and bit and screamed and scratched and threatened and made interesting arguments.

I blame the IRC in some ways. All the discussion went there (I guess).

Nowadays the forum is all about protecting 14 yo boys from reading naughty words and who is sending hugs to who and who's chars are hooking up in game.

*yawn* Excuse me.

Per Marion's question if we were all stressed out...the answer is yes. All of our chars had been crippled by unholy tiredness which came out of nowhere with no explaination. Despite approximately 4 rl months (no exageration) of begging and bitching and good players quitting we still had received no relief and not a word from the programmers. Eventually the tiredness was reduced but the damage was done.

I, too, agree that it changed the game forever. Even though the big shots did start communicating with the players after that and the wiki helped level the playing field, I think the loss of trust and of many excellent players did something....I can't describe it but things are different.

[sanchez]

It's whining like this from oldbies that's more discouraging to new players than any game mechanics.

[west]

kinvoya's not an oldbie.

You kids are subsisting on stale crackers when we used to be able to get cake. Not our fault you have low standards for the game.

Our standards are hardly unreasonable. It's not "Why can't this be better?", it's "Why isn't this as good as it used to be?"

[kinvoya]

I am too! Shut up, west, you crotchety old fart. You have now moved into the ancientbie catagory. I think there are about five of you left.

The rest of us are oldbies and we will put you in Cantr nursing homes if you don't behave!

I'm building one right now.

[west]

Damn whippersnappers.

Get off my lawn!

[Doug R.]

There is nothing in-game now preventing things from going back to the way they were. Ok, so it was ruined by bad mechanics that were subsequently fixed, but the whole TBR war is proof positive that interesting groups can arise in the game -right now-, so instead of lamenting, why not rise up and try to do something about it? I know that one of my characters is. If you give characters incentive to join your clan/tribe/whatever, they will. Sure, things may be harder on the big islands because everything is spread out, but there are ways to stimulate immigration to your location if the incentive is good enough. Give me one year (probably more time than I need), and I'll prove myself right.

[tiddy ogg]

The interesting thing is, that despite the complaints, the recent poll about the quality of Cantr showed, I believe, that most people voting thought it was better now than ever.

[the_antisocial_hermit]

It's never been better.
55% [ 34 ]
Half a year ago (before eating rates began to rise)
3% [ 2 ]
One and a half years ago (before item degradation)
13% [ 8 ]
One year ago (before skills, gathering limits and location amnesia)
19% [ 12 ]
Two and a half years ago (before hematite)
8% [ 5 ]

Total Votes : 61

It would be more in favor of never-been-better only by a little. All the other votes would need to be added together as "it was better". That would make it 34-27 (55-45%). Still a majority but not that big of a lead (though it's more than I remembered.. ).

I agree with whoever it is that stated something somewhere about tedium. It's exactly the word I was thinking of in relation to all of this. Things that are too tedious are the things that aren't fun and make some go, "What? That's crap." There's enough tedium in our real lives, why would much of it be wanted it elsewhere, especially in a game? I'm not overly fussed by most of the changes (I can't think of any I haven't adapted to fairly quickly), but it doesn't mean I don't see the 'blah' and 'egh, this doesn't work well and/or doesn't make sense' in them nor does it mean I enjoyed adapting to them. But then, I'm very tolerant and have a lot of patience. Some people don't. That doesn't make them any less an important part of the game, and doesn't mean that they should be driven away completely by a barrage of tedium.

[Jur Schagen]

Anything fabulous requires long-term planning (in the decades scale), and in my experience, most players don't apply themselves in that manner, and that's not something that can be fixed. They would just rather wait around and grab keys. It's easier.

One of the reasons for deter... if "grabbing the keys" meant "getting hold of a lot of crumbling stuff", the atttitude might change. It would require deter for many more items though - vehicles, buildings, machines, raws, that was never implemented.

IMO Staff is listening way too much to players. When they didn't, did the forum look like this? Nope. When staff didn't feel obligated" to inform players of changes that might occurr, were these problems here? Staff can't focus on what really is important to the game when they have a 1000 voices in their ears.

You probably can't imagine how many times we have told ourselves not to listen to he players... and then, when the riot starts, we give in. That leaves half-finished compromises that negate the intended effect... too litlle resource slots? Well, give them some extra. Now they're not a factor anymore. Shields decreased too much? OK, up them a bit, and iron shields are invincible again. Tiredness too heavy? Punish the one-hits-all char only, and for everyone else, it don't exist.

This is where the wheels fell off, so to speak. I am an always have been in favor of what I call entropy, but large numbers of characters doing nothing but repairs is hardly motivational. You need resources to be used in repair projects, then you can radically cut the times involved in doing the repairs themselves. The current effect is that most newcomers to the game may well experience crushingly boring first experiences, back to the issue of player motivation.

If you are doing "nothing but repair", you are either exaggerating, or you have too many tools. The whole idea of this development was to balance the "game capital" with the "currently alive" chars, as opposed to the integral of the history of the chars. It was meant so chars would re-evaluate what tools were worth maintaining, and which ones to let rot. It isn't a design flaw that everyone wants to repair every single stone hammer in the game.

There is a difference between making the game harder in the sense of more challenging, and making the game tedious. I don't believe people are saying the game should not be challenging. I for one find it in some ways insufficiently challenging. But it has become in many respects tedious. Tiredness, skills and repairs all added to tedium. Which means there was a fault in the philosophy behind the implementation.

We agree here; it should be about challenge. I don't agree that the tedium is in tiredness, skills, or repairs; as I said, tiredness isn't really a factor anymore; skills failed to be adjusted to the history of the chars when introduced, but otherwise (and I stress this) Jos implemented them as a request of players, not being sure himself what effect they would have (and you could say they are "defendable" though I see the problems many have with them as well); and repairs should be about choice and destroying excess wealth.

That is what I've always used. Never created a suicidal newspawn in my life. But now I am being punished by 40 days in purgatory every time (eg after the Burgeo death). In what way does 40 days in purgatory enhance player motivation?

It _should_ enhance the value of life of the char, and it does. The fact that suicide is accepted is based on pragmatism (you can't do anything about it), and not on ethics. If over 75% of the deaths (HF, correct me if I'm wrong) is either sleeping disease or intentional famine, I think there is a reason to fight it, for the good of the game. If you wanna kill your char you still can, but you're facing some consequence now. It might be just that little bit of extra incentive to create something for him. And besides, don't exaggerate the effect either - if you intentionally kill an own (young) char every six weeks (which I'd say is quite a lot), you still have 14 slots to play.

Of course, we all accept that there will always be such a thing as the sleeping sickness. However, the current turnover is simply too high. It has destroyed what is called "social capital". No more regular newspapers, no more complex bureaucratic systems like the Lad Empire "Citizen Pay Statements" or Jo Jo's Forest ID, no more MWS price lists, no more... The list is endless. Why no such imposing efforts any longer?

Could it just be that that kind of activity is _so_ intensive, and the player can't maintain it forever? I managed that MWS list (and some associated documents) you refer to, and I tell you, it was hell... at some point I just couldn't do it anymore. But that has nothing to do with repairs, tiredness, skills, or any other development at all.

Jur.