a multiplayer game of parenting and civilization building
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Spoonwood, how are you even human.
You're all so fucking insecure, you can't see the fun anymore. I'm not seeing anything creative from anyone of you on this forum.
It's just fucking moaning, about Jason, and griefers, Jason and griefers, just shut the fuck up already about your problems. Have some good ideas for once, would you?
I spent several weeks researching and writing up an economics paper for OneLife, and the community seems to care more about opposing any and all change versus discussing fruitful ideas, building up a framework for discussion and understanding where the game is etc. So I think perhaps discussion of ideas are unproductive on the forums?
Wow. It's sad how many people are actually defending it. I thought ohol had a more intelligent player base.... It is not just a word. It is morally repugnant, akin to the word "nigger." It's not ok.
Yes words regardless of the context decide morality, makes perfect sense.... in a niggardly world.
The thing is it's not just a word, it's hate speech.
Anything you say I define as hate speech. Which now means I have the right to kill you with your own logic, make even more sense.
A mature person knows how to handle different personalities and knows how to avoid conflict.
Okay reasonable.
If you have weapon, you are free to use it however you wish.
And the mental hospital now awaits....
communism is also producing for money, they had plans on expansion, 5 year plans, increasing population, etc.
I don't want to dive to much into the weeds of politics especially communism because it's not really even economics (as it basically denies scarcity the most important aspect of economics) .But let me just say 5 year plans are centrally planned socialist economies not communist. Communism is for all purposes, is an unreachable utopia of a stateless, classless, moneyless society. Also I'll remove the word, communism and just say egalitarian tendencies and communal ownership from the post, as it seems to be the point that is getting latched onto when there's much more important aspects of the post I think.
i think the best way would be a premade AI controlled market, you build it from some resources, then you can buy and sell stuff for profit
I disagree strongly, the best way would to let the players solely go about it, in the same mindset of civilization building. AI will push the players to a predefined path for the game, when it should really be open ended and end up in the decision of a player.
but as i said, we need more focus on processing items, less on gathering them, the map could be more compact, but with more stuff, maybe completely useles biomes and useful ones, some exotic materials, like 8-16 types
I agree another distinction that is important is a change from production for self use to production for exchange. The changes quoted would indeed move the needle more towards a market. Specialization of land also having the pro of exploration regardless.
Well first off the discussion is fantastic, I'll try to go through points that I think I may be able to help increase the potential of this.
TLDR: The current state of game is communism and people share resourses. Create weapons that work and git gold. Ability to subdue others.
Hey arkajalka the TLDR has an overview of the command economy, but misses out an overview of the market one.
I dont want any of this capitalism in my experience and will revolt hard against any move towards capitalism. I like my communism pure and clean. This is the utopia that i cant have in real world cause people are too stuck on current idealisms and fear of change.
"people are too stuck on current idealisms" = "I like my communism pure and clean."
"fear of change" = "will revolt hard against any move towards capitalism"
I repeat 100 times - what we had in the game was a tribal community and not communism.
Do you Americans do not know this concept?
The concept primitive communism was developed by Marx to describe how primitive societies act in accordance to communism, feel free however to learn about it, as I wouldn't know I'm an American.
And to have the satisfaction that I am the owner of this virtual wealth?
It's illogical ...
I subscribe to the STV (Subjective theory of value) so I leave whether a desire is logical or not to the philosophy department. I do however from all of the case studies of markets in video games know, virtual goods can indeed be valued. Which you later say is possible with Luxury items, fantastic. And that scarcity needs to play a part in order to bring value, I agree as well and a suggestion of scarcity should be in the post.
Only we live in it for 1 hour, so it does not make sense.
And most importantly - I do not know why players are playing this game, but probably not to build their empire?
Well the 1 hour is the cause not necessarily the problem, if there was some way to carry on life connected resources, even if you only have 1 hour for a life, I think from a viewpoint that is pro-market, push the incentives more towards individual self interest.
"Build their empire", I'm in the current understanding that an empire falls more in line with a command(planned) economy, My other model that I put forward is a market system, which I believe gets a lot of it's strength through decentralization.
I apologize for being negative - you put a lot of work into it.
Good luck in solving unsolved problems.
No worries, and thank you Ilka! I understand, I am passing over alot of other important elements to the game and I apologize. Those elements as I said in the notice are still as important and I appreciate the discussion around them. However for the time being I want to spur all of the economic points for now.
There is no trade because:
1) Everyone can do everything so nothing has real value.
2) Everyone shares everything so no need for trading.
I think your first point is better said here "It takes years to learn a new profession" as it's not an issue that everyone could hypothetically learn anything, it's the incentive structure for diving deep into a single or related fields is there. Which you are right is currently not the case in OHOL, and mechanics would need to added/changed in order to move in that direction.
The second point seems to be addressing the symptom not the cause for it, which I believe is scarcity, but you are right that no trading can occur with out some type of ownership norms.
The only way to have meaningful trading is by having jobs,skill, specialties etc.
Yes exactly! You are spot on, the division of labor is needed for trade as well as market economies and larger societies.
The [/die and random spawning and life limits] completely dissasociate a player from a location/family WHILE reincarnation is the in universe norm.
there is a clash of the reincarnation mechanic and the "you only live one hour" base concept.
Yes disassociate is a fair word to use for the lack of motive of a single individual life. I don't want to touch on the rest yet Ollj, I appreciate the discussion immensely though and I understand where you are coming from.
The purpose being that the subsequent times you were born then if any of them were in the position of a fertile female (and they weren't in your banned map zone) that you could be prioritized to be born to them.
Great idea, to add to that, have it so the player's ages are offset in order to have the lineage continue to pass down with the same players effectively.
This could strengthen the bonds between some players over repeated game sessions. And thus might further encourage the passing on of goods and setting up properties.
Hey The_Anabaptist, I agree! Persistent valuable resources for a coordinated group will want to protect them, and passing goods makes sense with a group that you actually have a bound with like you said, compared to a group of strangers.
the focus should be on processing resources, not gathering them
This is an essential point for an interconnected market, that incentives persistent, over looting.
If no increases to processing occurs and scarcity increases you get walled off castles where factions battle and pillage cities for finite resources.
Compare that to an open market with a high level of processing where players specialize and as such looting players carries a major disincentive, market players will no longer make/accept exchanges with problematic players that threaten the order and diminish production capacity for everyone. Not to mention there's even a lack of potential value from the looting it's self via specialization (only specific people have the knowledge to operate the production facility effectively) and decentralization (value is spread across locations and exchanges bring it into existence which would not be possible now). Keep up the good work Pein!
If I missed anything please let me know, and again I really appreciate the discussion, let's keep this going. (I'd love for someone's take on the roles I laid out, or the societal cycle)
Notice
I welcome all productive discussion and feedback. I will try and take as much of it to modify and continue to expand on the analysis. The analysis is broken up into 4 main parts, overview, road map, roles, hypothesized changes. Please take the road map to be a compressed and expanded overlook, that is not intended to discredit any of the unique and intricate details of an individual player's life that should be valued.
Overview
One Hour One Life is a multiplayer survival game by Jason Rohrer, that has the potential for strong economics and market incentives. Currently however, the majority of players exist in a state of communal ownership and egalitarian values. Property norms only exist in so far as what people can carry on them (backpack, clothes, food).
Resource Scarcity plays no real role in production capacity. Most production is completely dependent on human labor (eg. scavenging, arbitrary wait times from object transitions). Even on the human labor front, the incentives to maximize it, in order to advance technology for instance, are quite minimal as players are not able to reap the rewards during their lifetime. The game suffers from progression that is multigenerational, preversing incentives for a grand scheme ordeal that does not factor in individual motives enough.
What occurs as you’d most likely expect is a Garden of Eden, where most players engage as caretakers for future generations, with no real system incentive to do so besides role playing.
Road map
From the overview, a standard societal road map is produced every day across multiple game towns. First Eve appears, the experienced, ambitious, and lucky ones survive with a couple of experienced enough offspring. After about 4-5 generations, a sustainable town exists that can manage new children and only a few food shortages occur now. Two generations after and the city now has the ability to support a majority of players no longer participating in agriculture.
Roles
This allows players to take on the following roles. Adventurer/roleplayer, trolls/griefers, smiths, cooks, lumberjacks, cleaners/builders, caretakers, scavengers and finally innovators. Players also switch around their roles in order to fill town needs.
Adventurer/roleplayer role is common. They allow players to live a memorable life with few skills, and serve essentially no purpose economically.
Smiths/cooks/lumberjacks is a set of roles with mundane tasks that rely on abundant materials that scavengers supply to minimally increase societal progression. These tasks increase the efficiency of scavenging itself. For example, a stone hoe unit takes less time to produce than the equivalent twig unit. Another example is a fertilizer unit requiring less labor time on average than the equivalent dirt unit.
Innovator is a rare late game (big city) role against the design of the game. Because of this, these types of players exist in order to engage in an experience, such as building a car, camera , or even a radio. These engagements because of little subjective use value, have no bearing on the rest of the society and serve the equivalent outcome of an adventurer.
Cleaners/builders role is uncommon, and forms by necessity in locally resource abundant large cities.
Caretaker role is also uncommon, and is filled in order to have better odds to continue the lineage by providing resources and/or teaching players.
Scavenger role, the senior role that supports all other roles, with no grounding motive besides role play, hold the majority of the foundation to support a town.
In conclusion, because of the scavenge system almost all senior/experienced players are outside of the town’s perimeter and no meaningful coordination occurs within the town. Stagnation almost always occurs. People get lazy/bored by lack of potential progress, shortages occur, towns produce needless conflict with themselves and their neighbors. Players simply allow the towns to slowly diminish to ruins, opening the floodgates to trolling/griefing players accelerating the process. Killings in retaliation begin and any type of previously perceived order disappears leading to emigration and chaos.
Changes to a Centrally Planned System
Central planning requires the use of coordinated force. With the current PVP system the game incentives retaliation attacks, as once someone has stabbed another player, both characters move incredibly slow and are delayed from attacking. This system with three or four experienced, coordinated players and enough resources makes the group unstoppable against an uncoordinated much larger group. In order to move the game closer to the potential of a planned system, the following steps need to occur:
Lower production time to produce weapons and medical supplies.
Ability to retain control over a given region across lives either by setting spawn, or allowing players to relocate past towns faster.
Ability to incapacitate, move players, and take the items from a player’s body.
Having vital rare resources that can easily be centralized, such as gold throughout history or castles.
Changes to a Market System
A market system has the benefit of producing spontaneous order by individual incentive. Thereby a market needs no central planner or authority to function effectively. The game currently is heading away from this direction, these are the changes that need to occur to move it towards.
Allow players to easily secure/hold resources across lives.
Increase scarcity of all resources in order to shift production away from direct use towards production for exchange.
Add technological progression that would decrease the local scarcity of a material.
Make labor tasks hold a greater efficiency with the division of labor (specialization over generalization)
Tweak land to uphold to the division of land (certain land has specialized uses)
Increase the effectiveness of property protection.
Increase the effectiveness of weapons for defense.
Increase the required tasks/steps for both capital and consumer goods.
Allow players to locate each other if both players desire.
Increase the subjective use value for advanced technology.
Increase the incentives for taking care of children.
Make tasks exponentially more efficient with a group of players versus the same amount of player individually.
Terms
Unit: Quantity of a good or service.
Division of Labor: Separation of tasks in order to specialize.
Division of Land: Separation of specialized land.
Consumer Goods: Products or services used by a consumer.
Capital Goods: Products or services used by a business or partnership in order to obtain more allocated resources.
Property norms: Norms relating to ownership.
Credits
Editor - Mofobert
Reviewer - Tarr
The game is completely authoritative, both the zoom out mod and not being able to see things behind trees could be changed on the server.
Power-gaming/macro based clients will be the future of the game, the open source nature allows it to a very high degree. And the mod development will hopefully keep pushing the game to the limits, and I think personally that's a great thing. As for the unfair complaints, The rules are set by the server, everything else by the clients is fair game. I think quasi rule setting by the community is not how the game grows and adapts. I'm right there with Jason with letting things play out and having rough edges.
How is that an abortion that's straight murder. The reason why abortion is socially acceptable (or should be) Is because a person has the highest claim to their own body, so if an adult human was inside of you it'd be the equivalent, you'd have the right to evict the person from you with as much required force to remove the person. If the person did not survive the removal, you hold limited liability as they had violated your rights first.
2. I would never EVER be convinced by Jason to try to force such a change on this game like getting players to use fences. I am classically one of Jason's hardest critics with being one of the only players in the highest play time reviews to have a negative review most of the time. I am just trying to get Jason to change the game the only way I personally know how at this point and that's by breaking things as much as I can where he is forced to take action against whatever I can come up with. I don't want to see fences just as much as you Morti
I personally think the issue with the game's PVP is that it's in a limbo state, with a poor compromise between a peaceful primitive society. And societies with roughly designed technologies such as the war sword and fences. The best thing to do now would be to push for change, as either direction is currently better than the middle. Either Jason reverts back on the war sword, or he improves it even more there by the demand for solid defenses becomes even more needed.
and I certainly don't want this game to be a bunch of fenced in hell holes where people are just trapped waiting for death to free them of their cells.
I think there's ways to make defenses more beneficial and alleviate that worry, looking historically at castles would be a good change of pace for defense at least early on (build a moat have a draw bridge, storing surplus food). Let me know what you think.
Wow that's quite compelling I agree. On another note with regards to baby suicides, It truly gave a historical sense of death in the early years of life for primitive societies. I think a good change would be possibly to expand on the potential of death early on, and thereby mix in baby suicides with actual death as to make it not so black and white of a baby choosing to die. As a philosophical hypothetical imagine a baby in real life could choose to press a button in their heads to die within a year, no one would ever know, as you have no memories as a baby that early on. Much in the same way a baby in One life, there is a disconnect between action states and outcomes, I would like for that to be expanded on, as I can see the frustration of knowing a baby chose to kill him/her self rather than be with me. With this change now it's an unknown and as such less aggravating from a player perspective.
Problem is settled now.