a multiplayer game of parenting and civilization building
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To be fair Leonard. Jason is working on the /die issue which is one of the things from the Dreams deferred list. IDK if that's because he saw it or not. And this forum is VERY active. It'd be overwhelming to keep up with.
But, I do agree that it's not a good move to ask for feedback on an "off the wall" idea... get mostly negative reactions ... then do it anyway. It would be better to either listen to the feedback or not ask for feedback at all and just make the change if you are going to do it regardless of what the players want.
It's true that players can be VERY wrong about what's good for a game. But so can a dev.
I'd rather not deal with that kind of thing while having fun. I don't like being told that I should just try to have fun trying to deal with it when I'd rather not be exposed to it at all. I realize (and accept) that it isn't possible to always prevent that kind of thing from happening. But, I don't like being told it's a feature that makes the game better when it's just not.
It makes the game worse. In an ideal world there wouldn't be griefing and there would still be plenty of PVP and things to fight for and tension and disagreements.
What I'm taking issue with here is saying "this isn't really a problem it's good"
rather than "I understand you see this as a problem and wish it didn't happen, but there isn't a way to fix it without ruining the freedom and other positive aspects of the game."
The latter is reasonable the former is trying to re-define my experiences as something they aren't and just kind of inconsiderate. IMO.
It's clear the Joriom approach doesn't make you wince but I potentially ruined the experiences of 40 odd players since the update and I don't enjoy that at all. I just want to see the sword made fair, war isn't something fought by one man against fifteen; all that ends up being is a complete and utter massacre.
It sucks that it took all that to get the problem any attention at all. What would it be like to be a new player that weekend?
Honestly, it just annoys me that you keep saying this type of thing when it encourages people to grief more. You do have power and influence and it matters how you use it! And coming after your (valid) concerns about people being rude to you here-- it seems kinda of hypocritical.
Why is some kid spouting the n-word and spamming noise at me supposed to be "something to fight for" and "interesting" but people being disrespectful and rude to you is supposed to be a real issue that people should care about?
What if I said you should find people being rude "a challenge" ? Like I'm not going to say that. But can you see how it's just a bad response?
(Also, PVP isn't "griefing" they aren't the same thing at all, griefing is someone ruining your gaming experience for no reason other than it amuses them to get on your nerves. )
Jason how do you define griefing? Because I don't consider most of the kills in the game griefing, or even much of stealing and other nonsense.
Griefing is players spouting racist nonsense.
Griefing is players making it hard for you to play quietly for no other reason than to watch you get frustrated.
Griefing is spamming curses on someone with multiple accounts.
Griefing is spamming gifs in the discord so people can't talk.
Griefing is killing off a town *because* someone cares about it so we have to be careful never to mention family names till after that line is dead.
It's not "something to fight for" it's boring and makes me want to just quit.
Thankfully it's not super common in the game but posts like this encourage it and make me feel disappointed and angry at you. It's gotten worse since your comments as has the taunting in the forums as discord.
Oh and I've been on the internet since 1995, since before it was the internet. I don't think it's gotten worse. There are just more people talking.
And I will always be super suspicious of any claim that there are big generational differences in basic human interactions. People were complaining about "kids these days" in Roman times.
Some of the worst attacks I encountered were on usenet back in the 90s. For me the internet has gotten a lot better mostly because people recognize the importance of moderation of forums more often and in the 90s there was this bad idealistic notion that you didn't need to bother with it since it "prevent free speech" (it dosen't)
I'm probably (a lot) older than you. It's not generational.
I think it's something else. There are a lot of people who play this game who don't play a lot a other game and for me, at least, that's because very few games offer anything I find interesting. I'm not interested in competitive play, wars, or mayhem. I like collaborative game where you can build on the work of others and see your creativity and work helping other people. I like games with teaching and learning and caring. It's OK if there is a little war and mayhem mixed in but I'm personally not here for that.
When I saw this game I was like "AT LAST something GOOD that isn't boring" -- so you have a segment of the player base who are not generally well served by developers there isn't a lot of content for us out there, and we worried that somthing good will go the way of so many other games, another contest type game where the main goal is to pull one over on other people and then brag about it.
This is the only game I play right now. It's probably the 5th game I've ever liked.
I generally think you do a good job, but to me it'd be sad if something unique vanished. So, if I seem kind of harsh and over critical it's just because I don't want to watch something amazing become somthing typical.
And I sincerely think you could tap in to huge number of players by taking people who care about other kinds of gameplay seriously.
Also, I do think you earn some of the complaining. For example, if you have decided to add a sword to the game don't ask us what we think of it. Just say you are adding it.
The personal attacks (and doxing yikes) though have no real justification. Being attacked isn't pleasant or interesting.
Good idea, mofo!
New players start with 8 lives per hour, as you play longer the number falls to just 2 per hour. I would like that.
I do think you are wrong that coming back after a break makes it cheaper. Nah. That makes me more invested than ever in the survival of my line. The one time I nearly cried because the line would die out was a line I'd visited twice. So I knew them so well had had such high hope for them...
For me never going back makes me care less. "I'll never see this place again... what's the point?"
I hate being plopped by a fire as a baby. I would much much rather ride with mom and see what she was doing.
A graph of births in a growing city should show a steady climb, this is hard since people go to bed at night and server populations fall. The solution might be to limit the number of new eves when the serve population is low and make people cycle back through families they might otherwise be banned from. Or not give an Eve option on the list after you die if the server population is too low. But offer it when it's high.
I think at least some of the people who constantly Eve would rather play in a town than not play at all. And those who don't play at all won't be new Eves sucking up babies at times of day when they are most needed.
Another way to help is by tweaking the gender balance when there are fewer fertile women to favor female babies and make it favor males when you have lots of fertile women... this cold mitigate the boom cycle a little.
Point is, these graphs don't look good, it means every town hits bottlenecks due to server population and perhaps area ban too.
This leads to the unnatural feeling of being born in a bustling town then by the time you are old everyone is dead and there are no kids and there is no clear reason why... no murders, no bears, just suddenly no one is having any kids and the town dies a sudden and random-seeming death. Not the best ending IMO
Perhaps look at how many of those babies played more than 2 lives in a sitting versus one to two lives per sitting. I think part of the idea about area bans killing towns is that players that are playing a lot in one go, don't end up back in the same places, and the lineage is left to casuals to keep it up. Even that logic is flawed though, as one powerplayer stops playing for the evening, there are two more that log on and start playing their sessions.
This.
I want to know what happened to the town where I had triplets and made 12 buckets.
And to the town where I made a sheep pen with property fences and worried no one would take care of it.
And I want to know if my great grand daughter who I only met at the end of my life really did become a wolf hunter.
I've been back to towns that I've lived in before only a few times in all of the many lives that I've lived and it always surprises me how much they are transformed. Some of the time it's sad, some of the time, I'm proud. But, it's one of the most rewarding aspects of the game and I feel like I'm fighting the game to get there.
It's so good I think it could be instructive for players who *never* think about going back. The lives where I cared the most were those 2nd time lives.
And don't get me wrong I don't want to just camp out in the same town forever... but I'd like to go back.
What if:
-If your town survives x more generations you get to go back?
-If you are buried by your family you get to go back (after 30 min of real time pass min.)
-If a line that you were in before is down to 1 or 2 fertile women you get sent back to revive them.
I guess picking the name from a list could be OK. But, it's nice when you just end up there again... especially if you are needed.
I suggest rather than blocking people from going back send people back on purpose but only three times.
I'm thinking:
When you are born in to one family and live to 30, rather than getting banned for living and coming to care about that family, you would be *set* to return to the family when one of the follow conditions was met:
1. at least 1 hour of real-time has passed
2. at least 30 min of in-game time for you in another family has passed.
At that point, if possible, you would be sent back for your 2nd life with the SMITHS. Here is the catch: you only get 3 lives with each family maximum! And of course you could still die if you didn't want to go back. I think this would make people more attached to families but also force us to spend time away and let the village take its own course. Lastly, on that 3rd life it'd be goodbye forever!
The times, space between them and number of returns could be adjusted, but I think this would make people plan for the future more. You KNOW you'll see that town again. I think it could curb some griefing and use of /die as well.
Destiny, that's the idea behind the proposal I linked:
Area/lineage ban is a stealth killer of towns and leads to the kind of repetitive ending we've all experiences "oh well no more girls" even when you have tons of food and water and supplies. That ending needs to be a lot more rare IMO.
So what if you got a limited number of shots at each lineage? This would be a rather radical change but here is what I'm thinking:
When you are born in to one family and live to 30, rather than getting banned for living and coming to care about that family, you would be *set* to return to the family when one of the follow conditions was met:
1. at least 1 hour of real-time has passed
2. at least 30 min of in-game time for you in another family has passed.
At that point, if possible, you would be sent back for your 2nd life with the SMITHS. Here is the catch: you only get 3 lives with each family maximum! And of course you could still die if you didn't want to go back. I think this would make people more attached to families but also force us to spend time away and let the village take its own course. Lastly, on that 3rd life it'd be goodbye forever!
The times, space between them and number of returns could be adjusted, but I think this would make people plan for the future more. You KNOW you'll see that town again. I think it could curb some griefing and use of /die as well.
IN SHORT:
Send everyone back to each town they have lived in for at least 30 years three times and no more with real-time breaks between the times you can be sent back. This makes people care about their family more since YOUR family is YOUR future.
But running takes longer.
Jason it’s a problem if players who would happily wait to be Eve if they knew it was special get no feedback from the game that making 300 families named JO is getting on people’s nerves. I know you worry about constraining freedom of choice but I would have used die much less in the past if there were some encouragement from the game now t to do it. The same applies to greifing btw *you* have to power to set the tone for what players do— and you can do that without making acting out impossible.
Tarr wrote:lychee wrote:What if there's an increasing wait time each time you /die.
The first time you /die (or die within the 5 minutes of the game), you can get reborn quickly.
The second time you /die in a row (or die within the 5 minutes of the game), the screen goes grey and there's a 5 sec countdown timer before the game releases you.
The third time you /die in a row (or die within the 5 minutes of the game), the screen goes grey and there's a 15 sec cooldown.
You the see pattern? If you start to /die an extraordinary amount of times in a row, the freeze cooldown starts to get pretty long and is more of a hassle.
Then people start running again instead of using the /die command. When you make /die look less appealing you start getting a bunch of runner babies which are worse overall. You don't get your birth cooldown back if a baby runs off into the wilderness unlike /die where if you picked the baby up at least once the /die will take you off cooldown.
When /die is weak people grief either by just straight running or poking bear caves and the like.
I tried to account for that by saying that dying within the first 5 minutes has the same cooldown effect as /die, so to get around it you would have to go those first 5 minutes at least. Of course, it's bad if people kill themselves after the first 5 minutes, but I also think it's important to have a slight deterrent to /die as well.
Something as simple as a 15 second wait I think is really fair.
If discourages repeatedly /die spamming (no instant gratification) if you have to wait 15 seconds between each die command staring at the screen. It's enough to be annoying to the SID baby (if they try to chain 10 in a row), but reasonable enough to someone who just wants to /die once.
this is a great idea Tarr. It would have worked on me when I was newer and would kind of spam die just because towns looked boring or because I wanted to be black for once. /die has no cost so the reasons can be hella petty. Now I only use it when frustrated since I have not been Eve for days.
Well at least you are doing what you have been encouraged to do.
I’m so glad you are looking at this.
https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=6418
This was my suggestion to address this issue. It’s a pretty radical chance but I think it would change the way people interact with the game.
Lovely! I would love to see more of these.
*loud coughing fit*
https://www.reddit.com/r/OneLifeSuggest … ore_books/
Can you imagine if we could make books out of paper to better manage their clutter? If we could put a photo in a book....?
I love it when things like this happen.
I used to bring a lot of innocence, love and trust to the way that I play this game. Now I'm more detached and play a lot less. That's normal I don't play any one game or do any one hobby forever ... but part if that isn't just the newness wearing off it's realizing that the game isn't as unique as I thought at first. It's not that different from other games where a kind of mischievous let f-s**t up kind of vibe is just part of the "cool" way to play.
I'll find the game someday that taps in to vulnerability and those deeper levels, but this can't be it, at least if we keep riding in the well trodden direction we're going.
And I really do think a game that broke that barrier could be massive, because lots of people don't play games at all because they can't deal with the uh... "culture" of gaming. Which is like what culture would be if it were made by 12 year olds in detention.
I love One City! I've learned so much there!