Spark Society

[Kreed]

I'm starting this thread as a collery to the Spark Invention thread.

Sure I'd love being able to experiment with building new things but is it the answer to people becoming bored with Cantr...I think it'd help but the same situation will exist.

We face problems in the setting up of societies, without some resolution to these problems, manufacturing more "things" will only be a short term salve.

I think we need to inspire more loyalty by having families that newspawns are "born" into, there must be a way to do this even without the implimentation of babies. Perhaps peoples last names are chosen for them, to match people where they are born?

Also there needs some movement towards making peoples charies more valuble to the player.
These ideas already have there own threads but they are all related to making the game more interesting so I bring it up here for discussion.

[AzzY]

Every newspawn is basically the "baby" of 2 of the people in town, and kind of inherits a mixture of both his "parents" skills, right?

Let the parents atleast know that the new guy is basically their descendant.

[Hellzon]

Let the parents atleast know that the new guy is basically their descendant.

I approve.

[Mafia Salad]

I don't know how much that would solve. In game, people spawn up with all sorts of goals and personality traits (not adapting to the ones of the people around them), and that wouldn't change if they were noted into a family of sorts when they spawn.

What really needs to happen is for characters to have the same goals and work together. (notice this is what happens when someone cheats, and how in most cases a cheater group can do much bigger things then a group made up of character from all different players) Whether this would be implemented or not, I have a few characters working on this problem IG from different angles, but progress is slow. People are pretty stinkin’ stubborn when it comes to their goals.

[Kreed]

Let me expand a little.

We keep the system just the same as now with dynamic naming.
We have the peoplecentric spawning system, now we add a namecentric system. So when you start a new charrie the name is chosen to fit in with the spawning location. If all the last names are different in a location then its random otherwise there is a bias towards the more common names.

I'm not saying that the newspawn has any parents and this gets away from the whole baby problem, so its not necessary to alert anyone.

So what happens when you create a new charrie is you just pick a first name, 'Jack' then on the characters screen you see your last name is 'Jones'.
Now its up to you to announce your name and you still have the choice to change it as normal and call yourself whatever you wish.
This might seem a pointless but it would have a dramatic effect;
families, dynasties,family fueds, brotherly love and hate, pretenders...in fact all the things that come with normal dysfunctional families.

I think it would also have some effect on spawn thieves also, a little less stealing and running away when you might be related to a powerful family! Of course some will say that we cant do this because people will cheat and claim to be from a family just because they are powerful, sure that will happen, would it happen enough to ruin things? If it did seem to become a problem maybe some sort of divination or dna kit could reveal a persons original name. I dont think that would ever be required and I think it would be a small price for all the potential in the idea.

The spark invention idea is great but its pushing towards more individuality when Cantr's already a world of complete individuals only bound by trade. We need family ties and lineage and we cant wait for all the problems with spawning babies to be solved, this would be a great middle ground.

[Chris Johnson]

Let me expand a little.

We keep the system just the same as now with dynamic naming.
We have the peoplecentric spawning system, now we add a namecentric system. So when you start a new charrie the name is chosen to fit in with the spawning location. If all the last names are different in a location then its random otherwise there is a bias towards the more common names.

I'm not saying that the newspawn has any parents and this gets away from the whole baby problem, so its not necessary to alert anyone.

So what happens when you create a new charrie is you just pick a first name, 'Jack' then on the characters screen you see your last name is 'Jones'.
Now its up to you to announce your name and you still have the choice to change it as normal and call yourself whatever you wish.
This might seem a pointless but it would have a dramatic effect;
families, dynasties,family fueds, brotherly love and hate, pretenders...in fact all the things that come with normal dysfunctional families.

I think it would also have some effect on spawn thieves also, a little less stealing and running away when you might be related to a powerful family! Of course some will say that we cant do this because people will cheat and claim to be from a family just because they are powerful, sure that will happen, would it happen enough to ruin things? If it did seem to become a problem maybe some sort of divination or dna kit could reveal a persons original name. I dont think that would ever be required and I think it would be a small price for all the potential in the idea.

The spark invention idea is great but its pushing towards more individuality when Cantr's already a world of complete individuals only bound by trade. We need family ties and lineage and we cant wait for all the problems with spawning babies to be solved, this would be a great middle ground.

Whilst I agree that the concept of family ties and lineage are sadly missing from Cantr , I'm against this proposed system. The concept of a last name or surname is very much a western cultural concept and as such is too much of an OOC influence. before the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Arabic naming , for instance , had no specific family component nor any specific surname concept, and even in modern western society, different systems apply, such as in Spain where both the paternal and maternal surnames are used .

I really think this should be something developed in game and left to local areas as opposed to forcing a system on all characters

[Kreed]

Who's forcing anything? The ability will still remain to pick your own name and call yourself anything you like. There will just be an added inpetus to group together.
This still leaves everything in game, I see no ooc influence from this anymore than calling an axe an axe or having boats be called boats.

[Kreed]

Could I also point out that when you create a new character at the moment it actually says:

It will be appreciated if you use a bit of a `normal` name - a firstname and a lastname, just like it could be found in the real world.

So I cant see any validity to your argument.

I think this is a elegant and simple solution to several problems Cantr suffers from, the other touted solutions eg babies and having a cooling period after losing characters have a myriad of problems in themselves and if the best argument against my idea is that its too western then I think I'm on to something.

[tiddy ogg]

I see what Creed's getting at. There are places where people change their surnames to fit in with the clan/group, eg de Dannans, Blackrocks, McGregors?. If this isn't happening naturally, then maybe a nudge as suggested might help. If you don't like the patronym idea, name them after the place, as Saddam Hussein al Tikriti... But I guess Fingal Quillanoi Forest South, is a bit of a mouthful.
*grins*

[Kreed]

Ok, so currently whats happens when someone spawns....

In my experience and from other comments on the forums nothing happens, we all spawn as individuals and as such are normally ignored. Sometimes we are abused sometimes we are asked to sign this or that note to become a member of that town... and thats pretty much it!


So now some ramifications of this idea;

You spawn you announce your given name and immediatly you have a releationship with at least one person in the place you spawn.
Now some might be thinking, oh great some newspawn is going to have a relationship with me the great town leader and I'll have to give up something....thats not what will happen at all....

Those that support their new bretheren will find that their families will grow because those people will stay and survive making it more likely that newspawns will share that name, those that choose to have nothing to do with these newspawns will be scattered and wont grow as families.

So instead of spawning into a void people will spawn into a family, sometimes good sometimes bad...sometimes welcome sometimes definatly not, imagine the role play possiblities of spawining into the middle of a family fued or finding you share a name with local pirates, youd get towns run by a family and others a complete melting pot.
You can start your own dynasty, just pick your name and hope for some offspring to help and nurture. Of course current places with people giving themselves family names will beget more offspring straight away.

Cantr has trade and power relationships and is almost completely devoid of family ones.. This third realm could galvanise the game.

Additionally this suggestion has practically all the pluses of the various baby suggestions without the minuses and as a bonus should be much much simpler to implement. Also it has the possibility of giving charries more value...in the real world we value the young, its the opposite in Cantr.

Sure people are sometimes going to find they hate their relations but thats as it should be, we dont get to choose them!!! Better that than the current void that Cantarians are born into.

This suggestion adds choice and takes none away, it gives a whole new avenue for role playing and even addresses some of the current problems inherent in the game, please speak up if this sounds good!

[Jos Elkink]

I really don't like the naming idea, to be honest, since that should be a social thing, organised differently in different societies - as someone already commented. In some places last names might be inherited; in others last name should refer to the town; in yet others there's a middle name the denotes decendency (e.g. in Russia the second name is the father's name, father Nikolay Yeltsin had a son Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin, etc.).

But the one idea that might be interesting is when the newspawn indeed gets a notification on spawning about which two chars caused the char to spawn there, and if the 'parents' indeed got a notification that their presence caused another birth. So that way chars would know who they inherited their physical treats from.

I suspect that although this could make things somewhat more interesting, it could also lead to a lot of irritation by players, to awkward situations (e.g. you're suddenly co-parents with your enemy in the location ), to spawning in a location where your parents already left, etc. So although this is a nice straightforward implementation, it's probably too awkward.

Nicer would be if couples decided to have children and create spawning points. That would make more explicit 'policies' - or more romantic terms for that - towards reproduction possible. But that could too seriously reduce the number of spawning points.

So, I like the general idea, but it would require some thinking before we have a suggestion that could actually work properly ...

Perhaps it could be combined with existing baby ideas. When you spawn a char, you can choose between spawning as child or as grownup, whereby the former ends up in a queue from which spawns take place whenever a reproduction project finishes. Children will be born younger (as baby? as tenager?) and their age would increase fairly fast to 20 and then go at regular speed. These would know their parents, while grown-up spawns wouldn't. This is more or less how I always intended to implement the babies system.

I think I could rant a bit longer on the subject .... but nah, better things to do ...

[Kreed]

So when babies are implimented they will still get to choose their own name? I understand that Cantr and reality are related only slightly but who names themself? I understand of course that parents name their children and sure it'd be great if that happened in game as a social thing...but that rarely happens because theres just no reason for it to.
As I said this idea gives choice and enriches the possibilities for role play. I'm dissapointed because the argument that this should happen in game is rather flimsy compared to the possibilities it would open up...specially as it could be used ad hoc by players. This is a yes for babies and a no for family
Cantr is using false advertisement, it shouldnt be Cantr the society simulator, more Cantr the economy simulator.

Guess thats rejection all the same

[Jos Elkink]

:shock: So when babies are implimented they will still get to choose their own name?

I didn't say that. I have been thinking before to remove the whole character naming before playing - so that you start nameless. That way the environment can play more of a role when you choose your name. But I definitely will not implement some form of automatic naming.

This is a yes for babies and a no for family

That's a very strange conclusion to draw from my post ...

Guess thats rejection all the same

Rejection of automatic naming, yes, but not of pretty much everything else said in this thread. Maybe you really should reread my answer ...

[Kreed]

Though it is "some form of automatic naming", as it would be optional and sympathetic to the spawn location I thought it a good "patch" till the changes you describe could be implemented.

I see where your coming from and I have trust in your vision for the game, loving it so far. Guess I'm just a little impatient

[Rusalka]

Rejection of automatic naming, yes, but not of pretty much everything else said in this thread. Maybe you really should reread my answer ...

well, I never give a name to my char when I create one. I usually enter something like "hduibasdi" or "xxx" Then i check the location, and everything else. It is good to give your char a name like "Marius Corellus" when It spawns in a big, old society. But when it is a wild empty place? It's pretty sure that such char will be a tribal, so we can name him "Ti'raan", or more funny "Dongo Bongo". So in my opinion, we don't need to change anything with naming. every player should think about naming his chars, according to thier place of birth. Maybe we should just add an article about it to the Cantr wiki?