Things that annoy or puzzle you about Cantr

[Rebma]

It always puzzles me that some players find something utterly outrageous when it happens to their own characters while showing no problem in doing it when the victim is played by someone else. As if the time and effort someone puts into their characters means more than what other players put. As if there were first class and second class characters.



I guess that the thing that annoys me the most about cantr is hypocrisy when taken out of character. It is definitely the thing that is making me say goodbye to the forums, at least for a while.

Take care all, keep on ranting when you feel like doing it, but please remember also to stop and smell the roses sometime (or something that sounds less stupidly mushy).

Well said. See you when you come back <3

[Marian]

It always puzzles me that some players find something utterly outrageous when it happens to their own characters while showing no problem in doing it when the victim is played by someone else. As if the time and effort someone puts into their characters means more than what other players put. As if there were first class and second class characters.

I guess that the thing that annoys me the most about cantr is hypocrisy when taken out of character. It is definitely the thing that is making me say g
odbye to the forums, at least for a while.

Take care all, keep on ranting when you feel like doing it, but please remember also to stop and smell the roses sometime (or something that sounds less stupidly mushy).

See, I usually enjoy your posts, but unless you have some kind of OOC knowledge of all the characters of the people posting here this seems like a huge generalization to make, and in this case kind of mean spirited. (And also simply incorrect...I think I'm on the record as saying I don't play violent psychos because I straight up think it's bad for the game, and I don't have any reason to think the other s who've been posting on the topic do either.)

[Swingerzetta]

looks like someone took our complaints a bit personally...

[Marian]

Folks, I've identified the culprit, it was NancyLee, in the Dining Room, with the Candlestick!
G G
... Seriously though, I guess the part that con fuses me most about this kind of situation is what the captor even gets out of it? I mean at least they're RPing, but if it's in such a one-sided way that no interaction from your victim is required then it seems like you might as well be attacking a sleeping newspawn or saying nasty things to a straw doll...

BosBaBe, hate to say it but I agree that you might as well turn on all the filters and let that character go, if you don't get any say in what happens to them anyway and it's not a situation where RP will do any good you might as well stop upsetting yourself reading the events.

[BosBaBe]

Post has been edited by Players' Department
The reasons is that it is not allowed to discuss ongoing events OOC to avoid OOC manipulation of game events. If you have a problem with another player’s gameplay, contact PD.

Raynus

[Chroma Key]

It always puzzles me that some players find something utterly outrageous when it happens to their own characters while showing no problem in doing it when the victim is played by someone else. As if the time and effort someone puts into their characters means more than what other players put. As if there were first class and second class characters.



I guess that the thing that annoys me the most about cantr is hypocrisy when taken out of character. It is definitely the thing that is making me say goodbye to the forums, at least for a while.

Take care all, keep on ranting when you feel like doing it, but please remember also to stop and smell the roses sometime (or something that sounds less stupidly mushy).

Well said. See you when you come back <3

Quite. Some people (conveniently) forget this simple maxim, or simply ignore it: "Those who seek equity must come to it with clean hands." That's why we see the instigators of certain behaviours play the sympathy card over and over again. My char has been a witness to this so many times... People coming to her crying about x, y, and z, and a simple checking of facts, and listening to the other side of the story quickly showing that the so called victim is just as guilty, if not wholly guilty of the offence. Unfortunately it is more common than I would like to deal with, as the Cantr world seems to be full of characters who don't bother with checking the facts, and are more concerned about bending over backwards for the so called victims & their one sided sob stories.

By the way, I don't see how Nancy's post is a generalisation, when she never said/implied that it was all players who complain here engaged in the same behaviour. She doesn't need to know what each player get up to in order to specify that some of them do it, and for some reason I don't believe that she would say something like this without any grounds, especially knowing exactly where she is coming from.

In any event, captivity isn't the only way you can ruin someone else's character. There are so many other things/ways that I could count here (with first hand experience/knowledge), but I'm hoping that I'd only be stating the obvious, and that is why I will be refraining from doing so.

Nancy, as saddened as I am (I appreciate your wisdom and insight a lot), I do understand. Been there, done that, came back OK, and I wish you the same. You will be missed.

[Calyx]

In my opinion, there are two classes of player here. Those that are involved in these things and allow for RP to change or evolve the character’s/events path, true to the game and life, and those that do it without (such as certain despised pirates.) or just ignore it. Even a rush three strike attack from well co-ordinated players should have a moment to RP the final blow or an ‘Any last words?’ or something like that… I don’t care what language it’s in. Just make it count! It’s this kind of destructive non RP play, alone, that hurts the game…

There are players that actively go out to make changes in this world, and we know that fear and control play major parts in this, just as it does in the real world. Most of us have had dealings/experiences with the Blackrocks and events that leave us seething. These things stay with you and is part of what makes this game great. I have been on both ends of this treatment recently, and in both cases I have found that now, the other party seems incapable of or unwilling to change their character based on the events played out by myself and others. I feel that this is the real problem... These events are supposed to change and shape a character’s life, views and behaviour, not just wash over you… Get bitter, get righteous, be stubborn, be malleable… I don’t care, just get or be something in return!

In case one, my victim refused to adhere to his captor's wishes… I played everything through, tried to reason for his release, got the back story and started to figured out why the behaviour was the way it was… He even tried to council the character, make her see that her ways were only a continuation and that she could change her own course in some kind of messed up balancing act… It could have been an in depth story. But she didn’t want that… I gave the player many chances, but no… When it didn’t go her way she just shut down and didn’t say a thing. So I killed him off.

In case two my character has been changed so much that he is now indistinguishable from the character I spawned. He had no goal, he let the characters he met shape him, to breaking point, and now his reformed self is capable of things that he would never have been before.

Both cases were met with OOC, either disruptively in game, or indirectly via the forum, or both. Why?… is the real question… It’s a game and everything has been role-played throughout. Any attempts at conjuring sympathy or veiled threats will not change my gameplay, as I do not dictate my characters' standpoint on the matter. Only your character can do that… In fact any attempt to do so OOC is a direct violation of the game rules!

This is making me think of ‘This be the verse’ by Philip Larkin.

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

Such is the culture in game and on the forums… We are breeding players that are incapable of dealing with darkness, and just run and cry when something doesn’t go their way. Are we really so scared of losing players that we have to mollycoddle the ones we have to such a wet and lacklustre end? Take a moment to think about the characters that were over two hundred years old, founders of cities and worlds that were taken while they slept and killed without a word. What are you complaining about, really?

There are things in this world that cast shadows… and everyone has a shadow that follows them. Whether you dwell or put other’s lives into your own darkness is a personal choice. But you should always expect, and learn from, the repercussions.

[SumBum]

looks like someone took our complaints a bit personally...

I hope you're joking. You do highlight one aspect of the forum and this thread in particular that annoys me. I like that we have a way to vent and that people mostly keep it vague and don't discuss ongoing events. But.... The frustrating thing is that it seems to often involve a player spinning events or telling only part of the story to gain sympathy. Ironic that they fail to mention their own chars' role in the conflict. Either way, they "win" because they get the sympathy they seek and/or the other player involved outs themselves by posting in their char's defense. I've not singled out anyone - just offering a vague observation from posts that were made even in the previous "rant" thread all the way through this one.

This whole subject of violence in the game will go round and round indefinitely. I'll admit that I play a violent char. *gasp* Go ahead and hate me. My char has its reasons and it was the game that shaped its behavior. My point being: you and your char often aren't privy to those background stories so it's a bit unfair to say "All violent chars are played by immature trolls."

If you truly want to play with as little chance for violence as possible, there are plenty of ways you can safeguard your chars. Don't live on a coast. Probably shouldn't sail around either. Don't attempt to backstab other chars. Don't ever do more than *smiles* or give another char a semi-unpleasant look. Don't get involved in love triangles. Don't steal. Don't swear. Don't abuse the radio. Be kind to everyone and bend over backwards for them. etc etc etc.

I'm actually amazed sometimes that much violence does manage to happen anymore. In the past few months I've noticed that players can't even handle a minor disagreement without one char leaving town permanently. Minor tensions like that can create very interesting gameplay but even that small amount of conflict is apparently too much.

[Marian]

The approach I'd have to playing a violent character is that they'd actually have to develop that way through events instead of just being 'born an evil psycho but easily able to hide it completely until it's time to make their move' or whatever, and I'd always be sure to get 'OOC consent' in a way before going all the way in killing another character. Not as in literal OOC consent, but as in, 'okay, I've made it perfectly clear what it would take to save your character's life, it's now your choice whether you want them to cooperate or not'.

It's the random dragging + murder for no reason that really gets under my skin, and there do seem to be players that still enjoy this even though over the years this has been consistently one of the things that makes people just straight up quit the game in frustration, which is a lose/lose situation for all of us. (how many players did we lose after that whole thing with the Barons way back in the day and did the game ever really recover?)

You don't have to agree with me but it's just a decision I've made, that since the only reason people play this game is in order to play the game, I'm not going to be the one to stop them from doing that. A character is the only thing you can lose in Cantr that you can never, ever get back, and I figure if other people get half as attached to theirs as I do to mine it would be an incredible dick move to go and make another human being feel terrible for absolutely no reason. I'm not going to be the person who sees someone enjoying a story and then just randomly slap it out of their hands and throw it in a fire. If you've got the power IG to lock someone up, you've got ALL the power and plenty of options besides ruining the game for someone else...unless that is, in fact, the part that you get off on.

And when someone comes here to talk about how upset they are and how it's hard to keep playing the game and they're losing interest in their other characters because of it, I just don't think it really helps things for people to be jumping in to call her and everyone who posts in support a hypocrite or saying they must be twisting things or they're just being a baby or whatever else. Especially when we know enough about the situation in question to know that the player doesn't do that kind of things to other people's characters and has been toughing it out for three months now despite not even getting any chance to RP with their captor.

I'd say coming here to vent in that case is perfectly understandable, moreso than with like 90% of the other stuff that gets posted in this thread, and I don't get why people are being jerks?

[BosBaBe]

Post has been edited by Players' Department
The reasons is that it is not allowed to discuss ongoing events OOC to avoid OOC manipulation of game events. If you have a problem with another player’s gameplay, contact PD.

Raynus

[BeepBeep]

Bos, when I read your initial post about the capture I felt a sense of deja vu. I assumed it was because this topic has been discussed so much. Then I did a search for past thoughts on the capture/torture/evil thing and came across the post below. I'm not speaking for Nancy, just wondering if this is what she was thinking of when she posted?

As for killing, I think it's best to play an evil character that just tortures their victims, getting them to NDS, then back down, healing them. This can lead to all sorts of issues like Stockholm syndrome, which I'd love to see in game. I'd love to play a relationship where a victim fell for her capture in a dark, twisted and destructive love. It may not even be love, just the victim starving for comfort and finding it in the one person they should despise.

And wouldn't even mind SOME of my characters getting murdered, as long as it was rped very well, not just some blank noobs running in, killing my character without even a single text log. >:C

People talk about this so much, but I've never come across it beside for two randoms who never stood a chance, attacking my characters with nothing but a bone weapon. One had a sword, but she didn't rp at all, just attacked everyone till we killed her. -.-

I just want more evil in the world man! *sobs and flails around*

[Snowdrop]

Yeah, I think the emphasis in that post is on the idea of it being roleplayed well though... And it sounds like her character's current situation is really lacking that vital element to make it fun.

[BosBaBe]

Bos, when I read your initial post about the capture I felt a sense of deja vu. I assumed it was because this topic has been discussed so much. Then I did a search for past thoughts on the capture/torture/evil thing and came across the post below. I'm not speaking for Nancy, just wondering if this is what she was thinking of when she posted?

As for killing, I think it's best to play an evil character that just tortures their victims, getting them to NDS, then back down, healing them. This can lead to all sorts of issues like Stockholm syndrome, which I'd love to see in game. I'd love to play a relationship where a victim fell for her capture in a dark, twisted and destructive love. It may not even be love, just the victim starving for comfort and finding it in the one person they should despise.

And wouldn't even mind SOME of my characters getting murdered, as long as it was rped very well, not just some blank noobs running in, killing my character without even a single text log. >:C

People talk about this so much, but I've never come across it beside for two randoms who never stood a chance, attacking my characters with nothing but a bone weapon. One had a sword, but she didn't rp at all, just attacked everyone till we killed her. -.-

I just want more evil in the world man! *sobs and flails around*

My opinion changed as I stated before, I tried making one myself. That, and Snowdrop is right, something that gets rped well is totally different than what I've experienced. Some characters I also don't have much attachment to, and something like getting murdered wouldn't really be that much of a damper, at least they went out in a way that wasn't just starving to death or suicide.
I admit that looking at the posts in context, it does seem ridiculous, but as I said, my opinion changed. I tried making my own psychotic character, she was going to capture and torture her victims, but never kill them, always keep them under her thumb, she'd even play mind games till they ended up liking their own captivity and the master they were kept under. But the first victim she got hold of, I found I couldn't go through with it. I chickened out, and I never intend to produce a character with the same aims after I realized I couldn't go through with it. Even then, I only intended to use the torture part if the player consented to it.

[Marian]

If I ever kidnap someone I promise I'll just strip them naked, whip them with a wet towel, and then dump them off on one of these huge empty islands somewhere. Should be a positive experience for everyone involved.

[BosBaBe]

If I ever kidnap someone I promise I'll just strip them naked, whip them with a wet towel, and then dump them off on one of these huge empty islands somewhere. Should be a positive experience for everyone involved.

And that character will be all, "Oh you, you so silly!"