Inactive important people

[Snake_byte]

Why is it that people who have important positions within cantr governments are often inactive? Well probably because their players have a life, but if they're going to be that inactive then why strive for such a position?
Before people come on here and start acting all defensive with insults, let me explain. I mean that when they're away A LOT of stuff happens. Then when they finally come back online they try to fill all requests that were given to them over 4-5 days in the little amount of time they're on. It doesn't work like that. Things are overlooked and some are not even seen at all.
Anyway I had to get that out. ty

[nitefyre]

*Coughs* Gary Drenth of the Rangers *uncoughs*

[Doodle_Jack]

Most players don't realize that it is quite time consuming to have a leader amongst your chars. After a while it gets annoying, always having to respond to every crap some villager asks.

So some players get really tired of their leader-chars and let them get the sleeping ilness. Or so I assume.

Oh, by the way. The summer is coming so the inactivity of players will get worse, because a) everybody wants to be outside, not behind their desk, and b) schools are out, whereas a lot of players use the school's internet connection to play Cantr.

[Snake_byte]

A few things came to mind so I edited my first post a little..
.

[mikki]

I know of a few chars that had important roles and went to sleep. That happened not so long ago. The leader of KDF went to sleep. the player checked his account 1 day before the account idled out but then didn't check again. Just took twice as long for his account to idle out. That was annoying because all he had to do was hand the keys over to someone else. People were starving because of that Leader.. But all is well now..

[Dee]

One of my chars was a leader but she got the sleeping sickness, but after a while they replaced her with another councillor

I was so mad at them! But I understood, of course, that they had to do that.

[Snake_byte]

But I don't mean the people who <u>were once active.</u> I mean ppl who aren't that active

[SekoETC]

Because people ready to play important people usually end up playing several of them and there isn't enough time to play them all. And old characters are usually played by staff members who have many OOC responsibilities so they don't actually play the game itself so much. They may have acquired the honoured position earlier and now when the interest starts to fade, they don't know their people good enough to trust anyone with sharing the responsibilities. No children in Cantr and even if you got friends, there's a chance their players quit by the time you're ready to give up the power. So finally you forget that your computer character is sitting on a bunch of keys and a load of equipment from the dead everyone keeps handing to you. People keep feeding you if they remember but then your account gets timed out and some newspawn ends up taking everything you drop, causing terrible chaos.

[Snake_byte]

Then y play so many important char's? Have a need for that much attention? lol
It seems ppl are more willing to check the forums than their charies. I've not left this thread for 5 mins now (since it was started) and look how many ppl have answered...

[mikki]

It isn't necessarily the players wanting important positions. My char Zach was second in command in KDF.. He liked that just fine, but when Jack died, he knew he was the only one trusted... How do I know? Because Jack told Zach before he sent Zach on a mission, who then got locked up in jail for over 2 years, came back a few days before Jack died. Now he has to get everything running again because Jack let everything fall apart.. *sighs*

That isn't my only char in charge but is just one example of power falling into someone's lap..

[mortaine]

I don't know. If and when any of my charries becomes a town leader, one of the rules of the town will be "you don't have to ask my permission to do stuff."

I have a character in Blojt. You wanna talk about bad? For a while there, there was only ONE lord/lady, active or otherwise, and he wasn't that active at all. You have to ask a lord or lady for permission before starting any project.... yeah. Right. In a town of 40+ people, plus all the traders who come through.

[Jetlag]

I don't think it's a willingness to check the forum more than charies, so much as time on the forum isn't limited.

I think one of the problems is people who take on too many characters. It's fine to have lots who do nothing but farm all day every day, but as they all get older, they all do more things, get more responsibility and need more time - which you haven't got, whether you want to be logged on all the time or not. It's not always a case of choosing to play important characters, either. I have two who have quite important and time consuming roles, largely through chance.

[ephiroll]

Then y play so many important char's? Have a need for that much attention? lol
It seems ppl are more willing to check the forums than their charies. I've not left this thread for 5 mins now (since it was started) and look how many ppl have answered...

I can tell you from experiance, that more then likely the person in charge in a town is "it" by default of being either the oldest, the most wellknown, by carrying the biggest stick, or simpily the only one willing to tackle the responsibility. Forget elections, they're just a farce to keep democratic do gooders silent, just like in RL but if such a char where to complain enough they could be put into a position of power, more then one of my chars did so in the past to simpily keep the "oposition" quiet so that progess could be made .

Point is, very few make it to a leader position because they wanted it.

The down side to this, is that the people who play "leaders" normally play their other chars in such a way that they also are most likely to become leaders therefore concentrating the "higher ups" in between a few select players (at one time long, long ago I had chars running or helping to run 5 different towns at the same time and I know that the chars they worked with only represented another 3-4 players) .

Once a player has more then a couple in leadership positions it is extremely hard to keep up with it all and they chars fall silent, not because the player isn't around, but because the player is so tired of listening to the same crap over and over again everyday seems the same and the interest to play fades away. This results in the player only really paying attention to the "leader" char every few days to catch up on things.

[nitefyre]

Now for a more formulated response.

I believe if any town or organization cannot function because of one player's OOC inactivity, it is an in character problem in the structure of the group. An example I'm acquainted with first hand is the Rangers of KDS. The group has a leader, taken from a small group of Guardians (3) and below that, Deputies, the unit of operation for the corps, and below that, the trainees (called initiates). Right now, the leader is in comatose, and the other Guardian isn't that awake. However, all the burden now falls on one Guardian, though the organization still functions, and the Deputies help with the burden. Since this is a lot like the Councils, that's why we probably see so many through out Cantr, along with producing the illusion of democracy as Ephiroll brought up (and I fully agree with).

I tend to keep my account balanced, as I have 8 characters, 6 of which are turning into their fifties. I have one official town leader, one organization coleader, along with a couple of 'lieutenants'. The rest are entrepreneurs or in life for their own goals. Keeping it varied is essential to keeping Cantr enjoyable.

I'll recall one predicament, which I had recently. One of the players that Seko described, dumped a bunch of responsibilities on one of my characters while I was in the middle of exams. This was frustrating. However, now that that's over, I'm able to handle the extra load. Play responsibly and know what you can handle, or don't take the responsibility in the first place.

[Snake_byte]

I can tell you from experiance, that more then likely the person in charge in a town is "it" by default of being either the oldest, the most wellknown, by carrying the biggest stick.

But it has to start somewhere. like "do you want to be our leader?"... A simple no is easy to say when you already have too many important ones.

I believe if any town or organization cannot function because of one player's OOC inactivity, it is an in character problem in the structure of the group.

In some places, too much responsibilties are put onto one char. Like oh say, Senator and banker. One of each, one in the same. Lets say that one person has been "asleep" for going on 5 days.... It would be hard to do anything