What does Cantr look like to new players?

[Snickie]

Some of it was intuitive. Some of it was okay because I had watched my dad play Cantr for a month or so before I started playing. (I used to have this habit of sitting next to him when he played certain games just for the sake of sitting and watching.) Some of it came from the wiki. The a little of it came from interactions like this:

Me: "Oh hey, I can't go inside. I have to finish farming these potatoes first..."
Person: ooc: Oh, you have to cancel the project. The X is above the Objects tab.
Me: *clicks on the project tab and tries that X instead, it doesn't work because progress was made*
Me: "It doesn't work..."
Me: *figures it out like twenty minutes later, and it turns out the door was locked anyway*
Me: "Oh, the door's locked.... oh well."

I definitely had fun though. Though being kicked out after 155 minutes was kind of off-putting.

[Swingerzetta]

I was totally confused. My friend dragged me into the game to start with, but I had experience playing muds (and building one) and so I knew what to expect, theoretically. I just didn't know how to access it. Objects vs Inventory confused me, Locations vs Buildings confused me, and while I did go to the wiki to try to figure things out, but it's a lot of text, and only a few pages on that are helpful to those who don't yet know how to play.

So, I thought I'd take it slow, chat with people, see what the world looks like. I played muds, so, I decided to wander around and get a sense of the map. Like most new players, I walked down a road. After five minutes my progress was '0%'. I pressed the 'turn around' button. Nothing happened. I thought that was because I had walked five minutes and so had to wait another five minutes to undo my 0% of progress. Two hours went by.

I was told by my friend that walking happens in sudden bursts, which is why I didn't see anything happen. So, this was a relief, and I figured since the tick (I had only the most vague of understandings of ticks) was to happen at any second, I might as well continue. I did. 5%. This was progress. I quit and never came back.
Well, no, that's not true. About four months later I tried again, this time intending to actually learn the game.


After I got used to the interface, and wanted to start DOING things (my second first char had big dreams), I was stuck again. The 'tutorial' is actually the 'interface guide', which confused me further. The interface guide explains, very technically, how to read the activities page, but not what to expect. I didn't know how to start an activity. there's so many different ways after all, clicking the Craft button, clicking the use button on machines, clicking gather button on the location pages clicking repair on the inventory page... But I figured out the simple things.

I still felt embarrasingly new for a while, though. Eventually, someone asked me to help drag a person. My attempts were unsuccessful. ((OOC:'s were broken out, everyone in town knew that I was new. Then I found the suggestions forums, and if the game hadn't kept me around on its own, (it would have), I can't resist a suggestions forum! So here I am still.

[Auryn]

I was smart enough to have only one character at first. There were some good first reactions, and I had fun. My character was well developed and had a full backstory (lol) and I managed to muscle through the mechanics without that much difficulty. It helped that I was roommates with the friend who introduced me to it, so she was able to help me through any questions I had. The wiki was also a big help.

The most confusing thing for me was the time system. I didn't understand that the top explanation was solely for Cantr time and didn't have anything to do with RL, time, so for weeks I thought that Cantr hours were less than a RL hour, so I just sat and started at my projects every once in a while wondering why they were taking so long.

[Tiamo]

Before i decide whether or not to try a game i always read (part of) the game guide first. It gives me some idea of what to expect. So i read the wiki before playing. With my online game experience i had no difficulties with the mechanics (although they are not a wonder of handling efficiency).
My first char spawned in a little town, with a leader who tried to keep everything under his control. So my char had to find his own way and started literally by making a bone dagger. He might as well have been alone in the world for the first few Cantr years. That is ok with me, my char soon turned into a hermit and made plans to build a car from scratch, writing down all the steps he had to go through to get it.
I didn't get to the RP part until much later, when i had spawned more chars.

[Majix]

I had never played any RP games or muds earlier. Not very many games at all to be true except for a strategic football game.

I read the wiki and when I spawned I started very slow, looking and listening a lot. It was a small town and my char was sent out with another one to get oil. I learned some from him also, especially after he had told my char he didn't like the way she talked... That was when I realized emoting in third person was the thing to do.

I found it rather easy and if there was something I didn't understand how to do I asked and there was always someone there to help. I also read here a lot and learnt that way. And I'm still learning. That's what I like too, I don't know everything yet.

What new players needs to know the most, is that it's slow game and that things happens in ticks. Also that we try to leave this other world behind when we play.

[kicking jay]

I had never played a MUD nor even an RPG, but I know enough of them to figure what to expect. I found it through the recommendation of a webpage explaining how to read Hangeul, and read the entire wiki before I started. Actually, no, that's not true. I made a character and quickly fit right in. But that char had an extremely flat personality, so I spawned a much more interesting character, and cool RP happened. The notion of a character as a backgroundless person made perfect sense to me - I've been active in several fastpaced RP chatrooms, so I was familiar with RP, although I've made my emotes much, much more descriptive - and I've been a huge fan of character development and writing in general, so I just viewed it as, as somebody so well put it recently, collaborative storytelling. I read the intro and was told it was slow, but three hours for anything to happen?! Yeah, ticks are the only thing that caught me by surprise. I read the whole wiki when I got on the road and I was at 0% for thirty minutes. Then it all made sense and I found joo's tick monitor and haven't closed it yet.

I didn't get the etiquette of most Cantr towns for a while - my second char, when not welcomed by the town in a day, figured it was all overcome by sleeping sickness, and took whatever she could find. Had I known, she wouldn't have - although other chars might - but it's shaped her character into the very interesting person she is today - my oldest char.

[Doug R.]

I found Cantr through a banner ad on another game site. I read the forum for about two weeks before I started (this was pre-wiki), so I was probably the most "experienced" noob that has ever joined. The game was a lot simpler then, so the learning curve was a lot lower. I spawned in Kirinn, and it was a pretty sleepy place. Not a lot going on there, so I immediately got annoyed and started agitating. Finally decided that sailing to Burgeo and making a map was a lot more interesting than sticking around there.

The story of my first character is pretty much the story of my ooc involvement in the game, also. (joined, didn't like how things were being run and started agitating, wound up on staff and started doing stuff.)

Guess that's just my personality.

[NancyLee]

I knew of cantr through a friend and he had a hard time making me register; at the time we both were already playing another MMORPG and I was really reluctant to invest the scarce free time I had in another one. He was sure I'd love cantr so insisted and in the end I registered just to make him shut up. My first character spawned in Kishnakotis, a large town that gathered some great rp'ers at that time (sadly, nearly all have quit), but that also took me a time to know because my first reaction was "meh, I registered but I don't like it" without even looking around. After some more insistence and a bit of blackmail, I finally promised to give it a serious try and of course my character was near starvation at the time. The coincidence was that the character who was leading the town then was whispering to my character at the moment and it hit me odd that a player invested his time (I'll call him "he" because most characters I knew from that player were males, but I really have no idea) with a character who hasn't ever woke up. That made me feel sort of guilty and want to correspond.

I found the interface friendly and intuitive and the interactions going on around were engaging and made me stick around. The only thing that was a problem for me was the fact that I was unable to remember at first which thing was in which building, so I used that to make my character clueless and absent minded. Time after, when she was leading the town, she was still keeping those traits.
The wiki was of great help and I still use it often, but it took me several months (9-12 or something like that) to be curious enough to check the forum and I think it took me longer to register.

[ManyVoices]

I'd quit contributing to the forum as I'm not currently playing, but I couldn't let this topic pass, as I remember my first experience very well.

An online friend from another game we played recommended Cantr to me (she still plays Cantr). I decided to check it out. I kinda checked out the Wiki, but it was too much reading, after all it's a game, I'm a gamer, I'll figure it out as I go ... though I'd never played an RP game before.

I spawned a character named "Telmont" in probably the worst place for someone who didn't do any real reading before starting ... the Stone Knight forest. I was completely lost in the interface, so started playing around and picking things up off the ground ... yes, I picked things up off the ground in the Stone Knight forest ... needless to say I quickly found myself imprisoned, unsure how I even got there. I was ordered to drop everything, but was insulted to be imprisoned for picking up stuff left laying around, so basically I said "Screw You", which was quickly followed by metal and arrows quickly piercing my characters body. I believe this prompted some OOC outbursts by myself, which was followed by OOC retorts by other players telling me not to talk OOC and go read the wiki. I was stubborn and spent the next day or two defiant with daily visits of metal or arrow deposits into my character's body, I was simply waiting for him to die. I don't recall if I started another character, or finally did some Wiki reading, but around day 3 or so as my character was near death (this is before NDS), he finally dropped everything, and I embraced the role as prisoner of the Stone Knights. This lead to an amazing storyline with Stone Knight Zoey (rich RP), until my character had a heart attack after a month or two of playing (as I unsubed) so I could escape the Cantr addiction that quickly took hold of me. The addiction was so strong at the time, that me quitting lasted at most a week, then I started up again ... blasted Cantr!

[Cdls]

This lead to an amazing storyline with Stone Knight Zoey (rich RP), until my character had a heart attack after a month or two of playing (as I unsubed) so I could escape the Cantr addiction that quickly took hold of me.

If Telmont didn't die of a heart attack, he was gonna die from a blade. He took the easy way out, although he/you couldn't have known that at the time!

[JsWill]

My first time playing is rather embarrassing. I couldn't grasp the concept of staying IC and was OOC all over the place. I eventually gave up with the town I was in and headed down the road, eventually realizing very quickly what a wait I was in for, after turning around did nothing I pretty much quit. I did wait a while longer and played my other character until then to see if he would eventually make it back, when he didn't I pretty quickly abandoned the account. I guess the character ended up dying because when I came back for the second time my account had been deactivated due to inactivity, well my second time was my *real* first try at the game and even that was less than eventful. I got most of the game mechanics down, understood the concept of IC but quickly lost interest and left the game again.

I stayed gone for a pretty long time but eventually wanted to give it a third shot and so I came back and I've been here pretty much ever since.

[Vega]

I knew of cantr through a friend [...] at the time we both were already playing another MMORPG [...] He was sure I'd love cantr so insisted and in the end I registered just to make him shut up. [...]After some more insistence and a bit of blackmail, [...] it hit me odd that a player invested his time (I'll call him "he" because most characters I knew from that player were males, but I really have no idea) with a character who hasn't ever woke up. That made me feel sort of guilty and want to correspond.

I must say... Same player dragged me here, from the same other game. With his "Ash, I'm playing a game that you are going to LOVE". And same other player "tied" me to the game at the beggining. xDDD

The thing is, as I had the first one insisting soooo much and always poking me on the msn, I started playing before. He was poking me to make more and more chars so, even if with my first chars things seemed boring, when I arrived to my third, things become more and more interesting, so I soon was quite addicted.

About the interface... It's not so difficult, but it took me a lot of time to understand a lot of things, like cancelling projects before going into a building (because now it's automatic, but before, even after years playing, I forgot almost all the time). In my case, instead of reading the wiki (homework? in a game? nooooo!!) I had this first friend as a guide and I used it as main source of info. How do I...?

[miirkaelisaar]

Let's face one fact: Cantr is a niche game. It's a questless, text-based, permanent death, crafting-centric, RP-focused sandbox game. Any one of those five qualities are typically dealbreakers for commercial games. But it's EXACTLY what I as a player have wanted in a game for a long time. Many people may be turned off from Cantr in the first five minutes because they're looking for the standard "Get quest, do quest, kill stuff, get points" themepark experience that is basically nearly every other RPG. But I'm glad Cantr is different. Didn't take me five minutes to realize that... I knew it before logging in, and I'm just glad the game delivered on the promises.

Hyrle expressed my feelings so well here, I always hated video games and got bored with everything, roleplaying or quest games, whatever, but ever since I started playing Cantr it's been the exact game I enjoy playing all day every day, it has the elements I like in games and not the ones I don't, somehow it's exactly what I always wanted, and in the three and a half years I've been playing, I've searched for similar games to fill in the quiet sleepy times of cantr, and I can't find anything remotely as entertaining to me personally, that has the same functions and everything cantr does.

[Ericis]

It looks like I dunno what I'm doing

[Bmot]

It looks like I dunno what I'm doing

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