About modern vehicles

[Pirog]

It is really only one thing I find very disturbing about the structural part of Cantr, and that is the modern vehicles.

From my experience almost everyone plays the game as some form of medieval setting, and even when thinking about Cantr not having to be similar to the real world I always find the modern vehicles desperately misplaced and a true eye sore.

I just want to know what you others feel about them

[The Hunter]

Same here, quite out of place. Vehicles driving around while some players use bone knifes, sail around in sailing boats, etc... It just doesnt feel right. They just seem out of place.

I'd really prefer horses and carriages. The bike's ok though.

[Pirog]

Yes, I didn't count the bikes as modern vehicles...although I personally find the cargo capability strange.
But that I can live with

[Cheshierekat]

I agree. The vehicles are a little out of place. I do think that the horses would be a nice way to get around.

[Solfius]

Yes, I agree too. I think it is very odd to have cars etc, not only for the setting, but the amount of technolgy that is required to make them, and isn't present in Cantr

[Jos Elkink]

Hmm, I casted my vote, but was rather surprised by the overal votes. I'm the only one voting for the fuel option so far ....

I really like the modern vehicles, in fact. And I never wanted to create a medieval game ... Well, it's not a disaster, medieval history is also very interesting, but I had a much more modern society in mind when designing the game. However, the problem is that I wanted to have everything developed in-game, and you cannot develop a modern society if you just end up on empty ground without any factories, resources, whatever ... So it had to go gradual and it would take time before societies would develop enough to build cars, etc.

I guess we would have three options:

- Go to a more consistent medieval environment, thus removing cars etc.;
- Go to a more consistent modern environment (what would be needed for that?);
- Keep the current ambiguity.

I vote for the latter, and I see most people for the first, but I'm really curious whether people have some ideas that might help the second ...

[Solfius]

The problem with the second is the complexity of the modern world, with its differing manufacturing methods, medieval manufacturing is simpler and easier to simulate and maintain fun at the same time.

I'd go for the more consistent medieval feel, but that by no means limits the society to medieval style society

[nitefyre]

- Go to a more consistent medieval environment, thus removing cars etc.;

[The Hunter]

Jos, did you mean a slow transgression from a quite primitive setting to a modern world? And if you do, you mean more and more tools, buildings and such will be implemented in the course of time? In that case these vehicles have come way to soon and should only have been implemented when the rest of the game had progressed into the modern age.
The present technology just makes vehicles like van's, limo's etc. look out of place. I have nothing against playing Cantr in a modern setting but at least everything should be more equal in terms of tech. level. Especially now that bone tools and weapons have been implemented which makes cantr a bit more "primitive".

[Jos Elkink]

Well, the basic idea was to have some kind of normal development, but not by implementing things slowly, but by making certain modern things so hard to build that the world has to develop more before they come into place. Apparently, it hasn't exactly the intended effect.

Also other things were intended to modernise. For example, guns have been on the list from day 1. However, if we would allow guns now, whereby one shot can be killing, this would have a devastating effect on the game. Hence, we need weaker weapons, hence we get more historical again.

It's very hard to make something that develops naturally, reaches a modern state in a reasonable time, and keeps a good game balance.

Btw, part of this is also due to the main example for the game - our lego game ... Here we had cars (more common than in Cantr), but at the same time swords were an important weapon. Although guns and rocketry was more important.

In fact, I would really prefer to work out the problems with modernization and then make the game more consistent with a modern environment. With ships, for example, my idea was to wait for the slow sailors to discover the other sea a bit and have them mapping things, and then allow heavier, modern ships to be build. Similar to what I had in mind with the weapons.

Also other ideas that I have in mind and should be fairly simple to implement - radio, trains, etc. - would be really cool, and sticking to a medievel level would disallow this.

Helicopters also have been implemented from day 1 - they are just not allowed to be produced yet. Rocketry would be really interesting if we could implement it (and I don't see why not). So, in other words, I'd like to keep the game as it is, but gradually work on improving both what we have and more modern items.

But it seems there are few that agree ....

[Pirog]

I would think that a medieval setting attracts more players than a modern one.

It would be interesting to have a modern Cantr version, but I would prefer it as an indvidual game in that case...

I think it would be very hard to simulate a society that will progress from primitive to modern. It would be better to put the energy into making either a very stable and complex medieval game or a modern one.

Perhaps eventually the game could progress, but in my view it should go extremely slow...

[The Hunter]

It's an interesting thought tho. but one way to avoid the strange mix (well, partially) is to make certain projects "hidden" untill a certain tech level requirement is met or one has the tools/resources to build it.
This way the younger (more primitive) islands will seem more homogenous in matters of tech level.

I'd also like to see that for those more primitive islands there are at least some alternatives for the high tech vehicles and tools, let's say a horse and carriage instead of the van. Maybe even steps in between to accomplish a smoother tansgression from low tech to high tech. Like from horse and carriage to lets say a steam car ( ) to car, Bi plane- plane - helicopter, longboat - paddle steamer - modern propellor driven ship (any kind).

Or am I asking to much?

[rklenseth]

Actually I think that should be done with all things that can be made in game. Until you have the resources and the tools or have seen one, you shouldn't be able to know how to build one. So common things like hammers and trowels would still be known by most people because we would have seen them used and built but rare things like cars would not be able to build unless we already have the materials on us and the tools or we see one or see one being built. But such a thing would have to wait for Cantr II 2.0, I would imagine.

[Cheshierekat]

Of course if we were to go to a consistent medieval environment, we would have to get rid of other machinery like the cotton gin, not just the modern vehicles.

[Solfius]

Most of the machinery is researched and implemented with non-industrialised versions in mind. I can't recall what a cotton gin is for at the moment though..