List of differences between Cantr and other games
Contents
No background stories
In most roleplaying games, characters tend to start with a background story. However in Cantr, this is discouraged because it would involve imaginary characters (family members) and objects that never actually existed. There have been some newspawns with background stories involving being robbed of all possessions, but this would generally create a need to hunt down the robbers, yet everybody has to ignore it because they know OOC:ly them to be imaginary and thus unreachable. It's perfectly acceptable to act like you appeared out of thin air with no memories of a past life. This is even encouraged.
No starter equipment
Most games tend to automatically generate a basic starter inventory, but in Cantr, all the objects are created by the characters. There's usually an excess of items because the inventory of dead people doesn't get deleted, so most communities hand out things to newspawns, but some might expect labor in return.
Traveling is very time-consuming
In most games, characters can move between locations instantly with a single click. In Cantr, however, locations are spaced wide apart, so traveling takes an average of three days. Some desert roads might even take about a year. This is to encourage characters to build or otherwise acquire vehicles.
Traveling happens in ticks, which happen every three real-life hours. If you start traveling mere moments before the tick happens, you could arrive at your destination within seconds, assuming the road is short enough, but usually only if you're in a fast vehicle. On the flipside, you might step on the road, turn around and have to wait almost three hours to return to where you left from because you started traveling right after the tick had passed (or while it was currently ongoing).
What is and isn't possible while traveling
If a character is traveling on foot, he or she cannot engage in projects, drop things or hand things to other people, but traveling in a vehicle allows all of these things. It's also possible to talk to other people on the road, if you're close enough, but it's easy to lose sight of someone if they're traveling at a different speed.
Perma-death
If your character dies, that's final. There's no way to resurrect him or her. Assuming your email address is valid, you will receive an email with the last events. This email is sent automatically, so you shouldn't reply to it because that's pointless. If you did not receive an email and want to know what happened, you should contact staff straight away because the events get deleted after seven days and after that there's no means to retrieve them.
What happens to your character's inventory when (s)he dies
In most other games, inventory is deleted, but in Cantr, it falls to the ground in the location where your character was at the time of death. If you're considering to go there with one of your other characters to pick it up, don't, that's against the rules. Your characters shouldn't benefit from the work of your other characters because that counts as using a "mule". So basically if one of your characters dies, his or her possessions will either be picked up by another player's character(s) or left to rot.
What happens to your account when you unsubscribe
The account will remain in the database, but in an inactive state, and if you want it reactivated, you need to contact support. Cantr won't sell your email address to third parties, so it shouldn't bother you that it's in the database.
Different languages
In other games, different languages generally exist on separate servers and won't interact, but Cantr is a multi-lingual environment, so it will be possible to run into members of other language groups. No character should be spawned bi-lingual, even if they spawn in a bi-lingual town. Instead you should roleplay a language learning process for a minimum of four in-game years before you'll be allowed to use OOC knowledge of the other language. Before that time has passed, you're only allowed to use words you have learned in-game, from characters and dictionary notes, so you shouldn't for example use Google Translate.
Feel free to expand this list.