How would you fix Cantr?

[Rebma]

Wind should affect sailing speed, and high winds should damage sails and require them to be repaired.

Was just thinking this. If I'm sailing north and the wind is coming in from the south, why -shouldn't- my ship with sails go a little faster? And the opposite for sailing into the wind.

[Bmot]

I really like Doug's idea about manufacturing and skill affecting item quality. Personally, I'd even make it more extensive, making some (not all) items available just for people that have a certain minimum skill level.
Say I'm constructing tools, I'm quite sure I could make a fine stone hammer, but no chance I'm building a soldering iron, at all. Now, I'd say a soldering iron is one of the most complicated tools in game, so lets say you can only build one if you're a skillful toolmaker.

I think that would really stimulate game economy, and make the game feel more realistic too, which is good in my view.

Also, it might not be a bad idea to make ticks happen a lot more often, (without changing the total speed of progress). If you double the number of ticks, but half the advancement each tick, the game balance won't be disturbed at all, but it would make some things more interesting, maybe. It would make it easier to "micromanage" if you want, without making it a need. Also, this would make it less of a problem if you miss a tick. I think ticks are too exploitable right now.

[*Wiro]

I really like Doug's idea about manufacturing and skill affecting item quality. Personally, I'd even make it more extensive, making some (not all) items available just for people that have a certain minimum skill level.
Say I'm constructing tools, I'm quite sure I could make a fine stone hammer, but no chance I'm building a soldering iron, at all. Now, I'd say a soldering iron is one of the most complicated tools in game, so lets say you can only build one if you're a skillful toolmaker.

I think that would really stimulate game economy, and make the game feel more realistic too, which is good in my view.

Also, it might not be a bad idea to make ticks happen a lot more often, (without changing the total speed of progress). If you double the number of ticks, but half the advancement each tick, the game balance won't be disturbed at all, but it would make some things more interesting, maybe. It would make it easier to "micromanage" if you want, without making it a need. Also, this would make it less of a problem if you miss a tick. I think ticks are too exploitable right now.

It would certainly encourage cooperation and trade. I make you a shield, you make me a soldering ironm

[Uma]

I think if you allowed groups of 5-20 real life friends to conspire to play together. to 'form a clan', then you'd get more social interest. more facebook friends trying to get together to play. more 'forum guilds'

There's a huge market for survival simulation / challenging game play, we just don't allow people to play socially or brag/compare stories so we have less social network based players.



I think rot is good. I think working while driving car/boat is weird. I wish crops grew in seasons so your town had a vested interest in crops being planted. winters should have almost no food harvestable and summer has a bonus.

Character models. I don't mean a map you can see them on, I just mean a paper doll. even if it was a little pixel person that is shown wearing a ball gown or hide loincloth. people would be come interested in looking a certain way.

Remove stab/drag/drive off. it undoes years of work in minutes. I don't think the game should be about sneak attack combat.

Allow people to 'work guard duty' where they intercede in ANY conflict, counter dragging, or block wild animals at the expense of using that player's 'build time'. This would let a town be protected from stab/drag/drive off as well as reasonably expectation of safety in exchange for team work.

I'd make weather more meaningful (some jobs slower in summer, faster in rain, maybe you get sick in the cold if not garbed well. freezing to death!)

I'd also make more stats and everyone gets the same number of points. or big stats eat more points. like a point buy....anyway i could see strength as now. endurance (longer to starve), brains (learn skills faster, start with some extra skills), agility (advantage to shooting / avoiding?) awareness (more chance to overhear things or to notice hidden things).

[Doug R.]

I think if you allowed groups of 5-20 real life friends to conspire to play together. to 'form a clan', then you'd get more social interest. more facebook friends trying to get together to play. more 'forum guilds'

There's a huge market for survival simulation / challenging game play, we just don't allow people to play socially or brag/compare stories so we have less social network based players.

I don't disagree with you, and I think a game like this would be awesome, but I don't think it would be Cantr II. Cantr III? Perhaps.

[Cdls]

but I don't think it would be Cantr II. Cantr III? Perhaps.

That could be said about every response posted here, though.

I think if you allowed groups of 5-20 real life friends to conspire to play together. to 'form a clan', then you'd get more social interest. more facebook friends trying to get together to play. more 'forum guilds'

That is basically what I touched upon in my earlier post as well.

[Uma]

I thought about it a little. and I mentioned the 5-20 'clan size' but I think if you were allowed to have just 5 people who were allowed to know each other in real life. and even spawn near each other on purpose. you would see something magnificent happen. In my experience most towns have a core of 2-3 active people, and then more actives seek actives and they grow.

I think 5 real life friends who want their town to grow, or their knight-company, or university to work, more, non-RL friends would end up flocking to them and you would see vital cities where now we have sleepers.

something of a compromise between "conspire in RL wantonly" and "no RL conspiring"

[Doug R.]

but I don't think it would be Cantr II. Cantr III? Perhaps.

That could be said about every response posted here, though.

Cantr has a lot of features, but there are a small core of them that are responsible for making Cantr unique, and the no ooc is one of those core features.

I agree that allowing RL conspiring would certainly increase in-game activity, but not all of that activity is going to be positive. Cliques already form when there's not supposed to be ooc conspiring, and it would get a lot worse if it was formalized. It might prove harder to get new players that are independent of a group, and we'd wind up in the same boat with no growth. You'd also see a serious degradation on the ooc player community when the accusations start flying back and forth of cheating and unfairness. This already happens, but if collaboration was allowed it would get a lot worse.

Edit: If players were only allowed to play one character, and they all had to play for the same IC group, then it would likely work. I don't think you can have ooc collaboration AND multiple characters unless you also allow information sharing between characters of the same player.

[Uma]

one character is interesting.

You'd have to enforce roleplay to make them not turn away 100% of non clique-ies as well or you'd end up with them turning into barbaric monsters

[saztronic]

I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

[Auryn]

Zombie apocalypse. Or other world-wide "disasters." How about a nice hurricane or kraken attack to shake things up and keep people's interests?

[hyrle]

I've often thought about what would happen if the game somehow had sleepers who could become zombies.

[Alladinsane]

Living in Florida.
I have never connected the terms "nice" with "hurricane".

[EchoMan]

As a reply to the first paragraph of the first poster... No, I don't agree. I have (an) explorer(s) on Fu, and they(it?) still love exploring it. If you need a well populated town, with all there is to have in town storage, just look to some other of your characters. And also, I have come across a lot of towns (on Fu) that were obviously visited by one of the smaller (Finnish) language groups, and I have yet to meet one of them in person. Let the game "slide" as it has always done, there is no need for change. If your character feel that the area is too spread out, make him/her move.

[SumBum]

FORCE COOPERATION
-Big ships being sailed by one person? Get rid of it.
-Same with most complicated machines. The higher tech, the more people needed to use it. (but with significant output bonuses)

I would change that to "FORCE INTERACTION". Along the lines of a skills rework, I will kick this horse again and again: make skills mean something. The DIY culture IS a problem. One way to eliminate it and make skills/careers mean something is to require skills to create stuff. Let anyone make and gather the very basics. Anything beyond that requires skill. You'll see, for example, Joe specialize in a job that Bob can't come along and do as a novice. Bob will have to do work that he is good at and trade for whatever Joe is making. Interaction and cooperation.

I don't know how many times I've been disheartened when I see (not even when it happens to my own chars) that a char has a true interest in being a chef or tailor, gets appointed as the "designated" person for that job, then Jane Doe comes along and decides she's going to cook her own food just because she can and that dedicated chef loses out on a chance to do their job of choice. People like to feel important and have some level of responsibility. Right now that pride in their work is meaningless when -anyone- can do it.