User:Seko
Cantr is not a game for the masses
(Just posted at FreeGames.com.au.) --Seko 10:40, 14 October 2006 (EDT)
Review: Since other people have mostly been concentrating on the mechanics, I shall concentrate on the social aspects here.
I would like to emphasize that most of the big players are intelligent people and the quality of roleplaying is high. If someone comes in sprouting chat speak ("sup d00ds? lol ne1 onlien?") they will be regarded as a lunatic and usually ignored or killed. All the interaction in game happens /strictly in character/, so you can easily get absorbed in your role and really be that person, not just a calculative player controlling a puppet.
Naturally every game has the bad eggs, the people who take the game too seriously and cancel their account or go whining on the forums if something unfortunate happens to their character. (I confess I've also been guilty of the latter at times.) But fortunately this sort of behaviour is rarely seen in game (exept for the obvious heart attacks when a player cancels their account). So if you get tired of the flame wars and bickering, just stop going to the forums for a while. But mostly we have a GREAT community, and although people sometimes lose their temper and storm out with slamming doors, they usually come back. - Since this is a very addictive game. The intensity of OOC reactions might actually prove how much this world means to us - it's more than a game, it's a second life - or a bunch of lives, depending on how you look at it.
Personally I've been playing Cantr for about 3 years and as far as I can remember, the longest time I've gone without checking was 3 days. Or maybe a week. Sometimes I've lost a whole night's sleep to intense roleplaying. I've been late from class due to checking events on my lunch break. Many times I've been crying my eyes out over ingame events, and far more often laughed at the witty dialogues both in game and off at #Cantr. - Actually, if you feel ambivalent about joining, you should stop by at our irc channel (the link is found on the site). Hopefully someone will be awake.
Be noted that newbies receive no special protection in game. If you spawn somewhere and break the local laws, you will most likely be punished swiftly, even more so if you act like a jackass.
There is no real gain in hitting a newbie, since people start with no resources. You kill a newspawn and all you get is a mauled corpse littering the beauty of your home town, an hour wasted in burying it, and some more in recovering from the tiredness. The skill boost is pretty much a joke (there's been lots of discussion concerning this) - So if your first character gets killed, that's not because you were easy prey, but most likely you came out as ignorant and distruptive and had to be eliminated before you would mess up the lives of those around you.
An easy tip to survival is "read the notes". In most populated places, there is an established government and a set of laws expected to be followed. (Different thing if you choose to play someone who's illiterate or mentally challenged - in such a case be sure to express it through emoting so that people realize it's a feat of the /character/, not the player.) Also read the background information, at least the article named "Your first Cantr day" that's found in our Wiki.
Much depends on how you act out. If you pick up everything you see and run then you can bet your sorry ass that people will be hostile. But if you show you're an intelligent person capable of playing characters with depth, not just extensions of your own personality, then we'll happily welcome you on board.
