How many people will still be here at relaunch?

[Abe]

Ah, spawning...
It has happened to me at least twice that I had a spawn in the same region where another character of mine is. In both cases that I remember the old characters had significant connection/plan with the towns where the new chars spawned.
It would be great if you could specify at least the island for your newspawn (or even a region of an island if you already have many characters).
It is really bad when you've got to come up with excuses/reasons for your newspawns so that they do not interfere with your older characters who live in the next town...or just let them starve. But then what do you spawn them for?!
The worst thing is that my last two spawns were like that, so I don't really feel like clicking the green smiley face again in the future.

[Doug R.]

I had once suggested being able to spend points to choose your spawning location (generally), but I don't believe the points system is operating anymore with the votes.

[DylPickle]

But the surprise is part of the fun.

[Arenti]

The surprise part is fun yes, but for new players it often is the reason they stop. As in spawning in the wrong part of cantr in a town with either aggressive people who kill chars for looking at them the wrong way. Or spawning in towns where no one cares about new spawns and just ignores them. I hate those two types so much.

And yes Snick your char is also the reason things are going well there, as when it's just my char trying to make things active it's almost impossible but when there are more to be active it makes it a lot easier.

[Snickie]

And yes Snick your char is also the reason things are going well there, as when it's just my char trying to make things active it's almost impossible but when there are more to be active it makes it a lot easier.

The one thing that worries me about that, though, is that with it primarily just being the two of us being active, I really hope nobody says that nobody decides that they don't need to create activity since yours and my characters do a lot. I do it because that's the way the character is set up in personality, and because you amongst others interact with her. It's much more fun to talk to people than it is to just babble while people just read it, nod, and move on without even an emote. Yet that's what people do. It bothers me, especially since it's so easy to just reply somehow, even if it's with agitation at her antics.

And that reminds me. He still hasn't taught her anything beyond 1-6 yet. Nobody has. She may not be intelligent, but she remembers that.

Speaking of spawning:
I have a character who spawned in a town with a population of two. She's the one who creates activity: sparring, hunting, random comments, announcing when she's going to help with cooking, et cetera. The other two characters sleep a lot, though. Well, they sleep-work, but they add activity when they can, which isn't often. I'm okay with that; they at least make an effort to stimulate activity.

Another time, my Fu Island character, her fiancée, and their male friend (important) were in a remote location in the mountains, and another guy spawned. My character has this random hypothesis she came up with about characters and how they spawn (she came up with this in her spawnplace after watching a lot of people), so she applied this hypothesis to the newspawn guy. She and her fiancée (who was in on her idea) discussed it and debated (friendly) and whispered about it while observing him a lot at work as we travelled into a remote forest region, and we came to the conclusion about him, which I won't reveal here. Yeah, I'm a meanie head. But anyway. It generated a lot of activity from all four of us, and it was very amusing to watch and roleplay.

Things like that in the second paragraph under spawning make me want to keep playing the game. I wish more humorous things like that (not exactly, of course, but things to make you think and laugh about) would happen more often IG.

[Chris]

There are only a bit over a thousand active accounts left. The amount is very low. If some people want a fresh start while most people won't, one way of doing it would be to switch English to fixed spawn locations and have some on islands people haven't seen before (or there are also empty locations in the middle of known islands), so people spawning there would have a chance to start from scratch, while established characters would remain untouched. Towns could request to become spawning locations if they were willing to give newspawns a good start. Sleepy spawning locations would have their spawning rights revoked and newbies would thus only appear in active places. Although it would be good if upon spawning, people could choose if they want to start in an established community or a frontier one. Usually when people spawn in the middle of nowhere, they'll end up being alone because the random number generator just happened to toss them there, but it would be interesting if a group of people spawned in the same place over a short period of time because then they'd all be in the same life situation and more likely to make friends than if the older ones were already established.

+1! A very elegant solution! A true restart would be a disaster, but there is so much empty land in Cantr. We might as well use it in a creative way to satisfy some people's desire for a fresh start without destroying so many virtual lives.

[DylPickle]

The surprise part is fun yes, but for new players it often is the reason they stop. As in spawning in the wrong part of cantr in a town with either aggressive people who kill chars for looking at them the wrong way. Or spawning in towns where no one cares about new spawns and just ignores them. I hate those two types so much.

I thought they already had measures in place that put new players original 2 in high activity regions? Or was that never fully carried out?


@Chris:
Spawn up to eight characters, and you're bound to get one in a desolate, primitive area anyways, far from the original continents.. That was my experience with my newish batch of spawns. There have been enough life long sailors wandering around for this to happen.

A reset will never actually happen though, and I'm starting to regret mentioning it here a week or so ago. Didn't expect people to get all panicky like it might actually be followed up on. But since we're talking about things that won't happen anyways, might as well mention that it'd be great to have the old cantr revived, along with a second, separate cantr with a new map and obviously a brand new map. Admit it, we'd all eventually have characters on both. One advantage of a new world that I would love to bits would be a map crafted around the current game material. Resource allocation is really odd right now, as the areas where the bulk of the english populations are were originally mapped out for a game that didn't have half the resources in it, so it's grown up kind of oddly, but a new map could be designed in a way that could more easily bolster trade and politics, the parts of the game that may not be overly appreciated by the more sentimental, relationship style players. (The last bit is not meant to be taken as a slight in any way, by the way).

[EchoMan]

I thought they already had measures in place that put new players original 2 in high activity regions? Or was that never fully carried out?

Every new players first two characters have a higher chance of spawning in towns with many characters in it. That doesn't mean there is high activity though, they could all be sleepers.

[Arenti]

Yes new players get the first char or first two in a town with many chars, but that's not a guarantee for getting in an helpful town. I mean a new player getting the first char in Doryskom. No way you will be helped there. And there are other towns like that. Maybe for spawning to be on your town will need some special status that is given by staff about that the town takes care of people. And good helpful leadership. Though this might only count for new players and first two chars. As I know small towns who do everything for new spawns. They would gladly have more new spawns.

[DylPickle]

Somehow it feels fundamentally against the game to straight up choose a place to spawn, for yourself or a new player. How do you select which places would be newbie friendly? Does staff go through and pick and choose which places are considered friendly, automatically spawning new players' chars there? Or, players can freely select where to spawn, and a help notice for new players advises them to spawn in certain areas?
A) These hand-picked areas will have way more of a chance to thrive, in terms of manpower, with the natural random spawns + the noob spawns filling their ranks.
B) If and when other places feel as if they aren't getting enough spawns, they may oocly shift into a style of place that would fit the parameters of a "newbie-friendly" zone, which means more of the same smiley places.
C) If everybody could freely choose where to spawn, there would be more of a chasm between forum users and non-forum users. It's great to play with good roleplayers, and it's very easy for the forum cliques to figure out, directly or indirectly, where their good roleplaying forum friends' characters are. This might leave some of the great RPers that stay away from the forums to be stuck in stagnant, decaying places, with a smaller chance, even if only slightly smaller, to land an awesome, random but good, and active roleplayer.

[Arenti]

I'm against choosing yourself where to spawn. As that would certainly encourage crb. By several players deciding to spawn in a town together to start a group. And yes if a town would want more chance on newspawns they have to make sure the town becomes friendly and helpful towards new players. And the first two chars. As very important is that Cantr keeps more new players interested.

Best would be to get rid of some towns. As a lot of towns just exist with a few people in it who don't really do anything themselves and need a good leader. If there are less towns there might be more active ones.

[Joshuamonkey]

Best would be to get rid of some towns. As a lot of towns just exist with a few people in it who don't really do anything themselves and need a good leader. If there are less towns there might be more active ones.

I think in most cases if someone wants to find a big town they can reasonably do so. Some people probably like having room for small towns. Anyway, we'd want to avoid changing the game map as much as possible; it would cause problems in game, such as maps and the fact that a permanent natural disaster would have happened in random places, as well as resource considerations.

I can see having hand-picked spawn places going bad very quickly. For one, that would have weird ramifications in game. Two, it would mean that the judgments and activeness of staff have a more direct influence on the game. And three, players would complain; well, we would certainly have to ask all of the language groups about it. I wouldn't try to get away with only changing this for English characters either, or any group in particular, unless perhaps we determined that that's what they wanted and is what should happen.

Changing how the game automatically picks and places people in spawn points however might work out okay (it's been done already, in the case of new players).

[Arenti]

Yes I do know that people like small towns as well, and I think its more that there are too many islands for the current player base. Though what's hurting cantr the most is that there are just a few good leaders. Leaders that really want to achieve something and not just standing around and working and hoping something will happen.

[CrashBlizz]

Yes I do know that people like small towns as well, and I think its more that there are too many islands for the current player base. Though what's hurting cantr the most is that there are just a few good leaders. Leaders that really want to achieve something and not just standing around and working and hoping something will happen.

Agreed.

And yes, I'm still around, if anyone was wondering.

[Arenti]

I have seen several towns with many chars passing through that have no goal in life and also chars spawning, but because of bad leadership and sleeping and not wanting others to help those towns die out.