One Hour One Life Forums

Those are the old transitions for making pine panels, before Jason made it simpler. One of the few instances I can recall of him backing down from  'muh realism!' in crafting objects.

I personally don't think a choice box of this kind is good for the game. If you want to be reborn into the same family, you should be able to arrange something. Living to 60 and being buried with a headstone was mentioned as one way to be able to respawn in the same family, bypassing the (at the time) lineage ban. Or some other thing that needs to be done, like building a shrine of some kind. Some in-game action series that results in your being able to be reborn into the same family.

I believe this would be better for the game in the long run, since it would tie actual in-game activities to the meta-game of keeping a family alive.

The first option - a burial ritual of some kind, for example - puts the power into the hands of the village-at-large or the family. Was this person worth having back in the village? Then let's bury them and put up a nice headstone. Give them a glass of wine to pay the ferryman - he'll become drunk and they can escape. And then a candle needs to be placed on the headstone and lit, to allow the 'lost soul' to find their way home. This also gives burials an actual reason other than RP to exist in-game (since public health isn't a concern unless Jason makes it so).

I personally prefer something like this. It's a useful social bond, requires some complex recipes, and puts the power into the hands of those who will be affected by the result. I realize it wouldn't be easy for an Eve to come back this way, but it could possibly be done.

The second option would require a shrine to be constructed. I'm not going to throw a recipe out there. You build this and can come back to your current family in your next life. I think this option should cost your curse token. I like this option less, but it's still a viable option.

You could combine them - someone needs to build a shrine (or sarcophagus?), then your bones have to be interred there for you to bypass the normal bans. No need for a curse token.

None of this would override curses, or cool-downs, just area bans.

Misquoting anyone, even Spoonwood, isn't something that a person who wants to debate in good faith does, JasonY. By rearranging what he said, you've completely changed the content of what he said.

Or as we used to say when I was closer to your mental age, "Liar, liar, pants on fire."

... was going to ask what happens when you respawn in a griefers body... but I already know the answer. All it would take is one person who was there before, and you suddenly have a bunch of curses. Explaining that you weren't the griefer wouldn't work, because of course the griefer would say that they weren't the same person. So I think this idea needs some rethinking.

Most of the problems we have come from lack of accountability. There's no permanent punishment for people who destroy the enjoyment of others, unlike other MMOs, where going against the community standards can get you banned. This is part of the reason why I think we need a social system in-game, to take the place of the various interactions that happen which we simply don't have the ability to do in-game. It wouldn't even need to be able to ban people, just mark them so you know "This person has done bad things in my presence before" or "This person is someone I approve of based on past interactions". That would give you some idea of who you need to keep an eye on, or in whom you can place your trust.

Don't you mean 'tusk tusk'?

And plants make fruit to produce more plants, not for the sake of humans. What's their point?

I liked the mini-game of picking milkweed at the optimal time (if I needed seeds) or not (if I just needed thread). But I understand why it was changed, since most players don't pay attention to the game for more than 10 seconds at a time. It's most likely they don't even realize that the milkweed goes through three different stages - they probably think they're just three different sprites, spawned at random, rather than a cycle of life.

I'd be very surprised if someone who want to be a griefer doesn't say "I FOLLOW MYSELF" asap. Staying in a hierarchy that can mark you for misdeeds strikes me as particularly unsafe for anyone acting in an anti-social fashion.

Eve Manson of the SLA (Swine Liberation Army), I presume?

I swear, regardless of what Jason does.

Bell towers have always worked this way, as has the clients handling of map markers. The client *has* to know where the destination coordinates are, relative to where you were born, in order to display the arrow. It's the same mechanism used for home markers and maps, as well; changing one requires changing the others. (Okay, technically it hasn't *always* worked like this, but the server stopped sending real coordinates - i.e., relative to the map origin - to the clients a long time ago.)

I can't think of a good way to tell the client where to point the home arrow without giving it at least relative coordinates. Having it all be kept server-side will increase the amount of network traffic needed, as the server would need to either push updates to every client or respond to more data requests from the clients. I suspect that both would seriously increase the amount of weird lag artifacts that are experienced, if it didn't slow the whole server to a crawl. That's not counting CPU overhead, just network load.

I was thinking something along the lines of breaking out various aspects of play - i.e., things that satisfy different 'itches' on the gamer psychology side - and making them individual gene scores. Like so:

1) Longevity gene - personal (+ ancestors) age of death, weighted by family distance over 3-5 generations
2) Family gene - current meme score but only based on descendants/cousins, weighted by family distance
3) Altruism gene - survival of nearby peaceful non-family, like 2 but for all others 'nearby'
4) Capability gene - crafting done, influenced by number of different activities tried and objects produced
5) Fitness gene - Yum and eating habits score, higher scores from more Yum/food variety. Berrimunchers tank here.
6) Socialization gene - social interaction system score (i.e., weighted good/bad votes you've received from other players). More on SIS later.
7) Violence gene - kills + deaths ... maybe inverted? more violence = lower score? Or could just be used as a negative factor, there are bad genes...
8) Exploration gene - tiles seen, maybe bonuses for meeting new families and learning language?

Different gene scores could influence different gameplay aspects - Fitness could extend life (like current genetic fitness), while Capability could influence tool slots (or other skill-limiting mechanic). Or multiple genes could be used as determiners, like the mean of Longevity/Family/Capability could be used to determine Eve status.

The reason I think a system like this would help is that different types of gamers want different things from the game (any game). This helps to give all of them things to do. Achievers can point to their ability to survive, raise a family, or whatever they want to achieve (though it might be hard to get high scores in all areas). Explorers can literally get rewarded for exploring the map, or the tech tree. Socializers get rewards for being social (although doing a few other things than chatting would help, too). Killers get to at least point to one thing they do well, I guess? I only adopt that play style in games where it's appropriate, and it's not often appropriate in OHOL.

We could call the mean (or the sum, doesn't really matter) of all 8 genetic scores your overall Genetic Fitness. Then you can drill down to find your individual scores, and the things affecting it. This will help people to fine-tune their play to improve the scores that are important to them, increasing player satisfaction and (hopefully) retention. Keep the current system of fake names for genetic scores; if someone wants to out themselves, they can do so and others can look at their scores too. This can let you find people whose play-style complements or matches yours, or avoid those who focus on things you don't think are important.

Social Interaction System: I've pointed this out before. Our avatars 'live' at a rate a half-million times faster than we do. With our limited communication in-game, it's like everyone is only able to speak a dozen words or so a year. So a system where we can (non-verbally) acknowledge good and bad actions - even if it's only visible to the individual player - makes sense, as a sort of short-cut for the missing elements of time to communicate, body language, and inflection that we completely miss out on through this medium.

The basic idea is similar to the existing 'curse' or 'exile' token, but instead of only having one, a player would be able to accumulate a total of 13. (I like the number, okay?) 8 of these would be granted on the basis of age lived to by your characters - each 15 minutes of age, you'd get a token. Eves thus would get one by living for a minute, but I don't see that as a flaw. The other 5 possible would be gifted to you by other players. These would be spent last - good opinions linger, while your simple presence gets taken for granted.

What can these points do?

CURSE - 7 SIPs allow you to curse a member of your family, or a family you are at peace with. 13 are required to curse someone with whom your family is at war. This causes them to lose a fair amount of Socialization, as well as area-banning them from being near you for 7 days.

HIGHFIVE - 5 SIPs are spent, and the target gains a SIP. The target gains a moderate amount of Socialization.

FACEPALM - 5 SIPs are spent. The target loses a moderate amount of Socialization.

NOD - 3 SIPs are spent. The target gains a small amount of Socialization.

SHUN - 3 SIPs are spent. The target loses a small amount of Socialization.

THUMBSUP - 1 SIP is spent. The target gains a tiny amount of Socialization.

THUMBSDOWN - 1 SIP is spent. The target loses a tiny amount of Socialization.

Other ways could exist for spending (and possibly earning) SIPs, but this is the basis of the idea. Socialization score adjustments may have to be made ELO fashion to prevent griefers from killing scores with their SIPs, but it's not an unlimited resource... the damage should be containable in the long run. And it would give Killer players an outlet...