a multiplayer game of parenting and civilization building
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The assumption that "desert = hot" is not accurate.
I generally agree with what you've been saying, and like the ideas, however let's not forget we are talking about the desert biome in OHOL - which definitely *is* hot. So the question is should *this* kind of desert get cold, or perhaps some other kind of weather effect. I like the idea of sandstorms from a thematic and gameplay point of view - something like reduced visibility, but you can harvest more sand if you're prepared.
With all these ideas, however, we need to consider how they may be mixed in with the game engine. At the moment everything isbased on the generation and interaction of items, mediated by the kind of tile the item is in or generated in.
A weather even could potentially change the tile biome to an 'alternate' - so the ice thaws and now the badlands family can enter the new biome for a small amount of time, or something like that.
Interested to hear how people think their ideas could be implemented.
Cogito wrote:I was envisioning globally shared annotations, but local only and imports/exports could avoid the pain and mess of user logins and penises.
I can't guess at your meaning on this one. This needs an edit or an explanation as to why the last word got used.
There are two big pains to deal with if you have a canvas that anyone can draw on and that is shared.
The first is managing user logins, so that you can keep track of who did what (for example, so I can see *my* annotations vs other annotations)
The other is that people will draw penises. It's known as the TTP (time-to-penis) problem, and is explained in detail in the Apple TV show 'Mythic Quest'.
You can't stop people drawing penises, but you don't necessarily want to host user generated data because of the headaches that can come along with it.
Cogito wrote:- be able to annotate the map with points, lines, areas, labels etc. would potentially be interested in helping develop this.
An import/export button could allow us to quickly share points of interest.
I was envisioning globally shared annotations, but local only and imports/exports could avoid the pain and mess of user logins and penises.
This gets even more confused when you consider that it's not always clear if the current well was built by this family's Eve.
Two features I would love, based on this chat and others:
- add search terms, search for all of them at once and have a little x do remove the search term
- be able to annotate the map with points, lines, areas, labels etc. would potentially be interested in helping develop this.
Spoonwood, at the risk of derailing further, I think the thrust of the post was on a subset of 'family dying' problems.
While introducing a change that allowed families to persist through server resets, such a change may not help families that die out through avoidable situations in-game - like all babies going to other families.
There are two issues - the family name dying out, and a 'village' dying out due to factors outside the players' control.
Perhaps a solution that solves the first could solve the second. For example, if you were able to do something like Eve chaining where you get born in your old village as a new Eve with the same name.
They are diffferent problems though, so it helps to be clear about which problem we're talking about and trying to solve.
The vanilla game lacks a lot of affordances that would facilitate better trade, and things like that.
It's hard to see enough of the world at once, and it's hard to find things you need. Zoom and search mods helps a lot with those two in particular.
Jason has introduced affordances that make some aspects of trade easier, like the changes that make finding trading partners easier. As it stands today, however, the support for 'local' infrastructure is really lacking - the only support we really have is the meta created by the community. For example, everyone knows that you go to the kitchen if you need food or clothes, and if they aren't there they will be in an adjoining room. We don't have any meta for a trading station, and it's hard to establish one.
I'm not sure what affordances built into the game might make it easier to establish a trade meta, or at least to enable ad-hoc trade, but a bigger field of view and better translation/communication would definitely help.
While I think the idea of long-term family survival is worth persuing, it's useful to separate families dying out due to 'natural' causes (as in the original post, fertility balance issues in the main server) and dying out due to 'unnatural' causes like a server update.
Any solution that helps with unnatural endings to a lineage will likely allow a naturally ended lineage to be rebooted, however a family dying out due to natural causes is about more than just the lineage ending.
The key question is "Could the players do something that keeps this family alive?"
It is frustrating if it feels like the family will die out *right now* regardless of what I do. If regardless of how much food I produce, or water, or clothes, or whatever, that due to 'unfair' factors my family dies out. All the babies going to another family is an example of an unfair factor. The family dying because an update is rolled out is also 'unfair' but it's a different kind of unfair, as at the moment it is necessary based on how the update system works, and it's not a straightforward thing to change. Things like Eve placements and baby allocation can be (relatively) easily changed, hence this thread.
(59 for Lovely is close enough)
59 is not 60!!! #onehouronelifeforall /jk
Thanks for the story, it was a great read.
But this is a one hour game.
My hours played beg to differ.
I vote mushrooms! don't eat them unless you know they are safe.
Regarding the end of world, as long as you are a fertile woman you can get children if there is no more fertile woman or future possible fertile woman then eventually everybody dies and world ends.
If a player cant spawn in one world due to not having any fertile woman available then he is redirected to another world (server), so again no issue here.
Why would there be "just human players as children"? nonsense, as long as you are a fertile woman then you can get children "as advertised"
Spoonwood has an issue with any time someone lives a life where they are incapable of (or perhaps even unlikely to) experiencing one of the things that has been advertised about the game. So Eves not living for a full hour, men not having children, etc.
If a server is being updated new players will be redirected automatically to another server.
Any players who are still on that server, even if fertile, will not have any babies.
Spoon's solution to them not having babies is to give them cute little robot babies that are controlled by code.
I don't hate the idea, but I think it is unecessary because I'm ok with the advertisements being aspirational rather than prescriptive.
jasonrohrer wrote:The world is the imaginary space inside which this thought experiment plays out:
"If we had to start over from scratch, but kept all of our knowledge, how long would it take us to get back to iPhones?" where iPhones are a placeholder for whatever sufficiently advanced tech we can imagine. ..."
...
In recent times, I've been throwing in a few monkey wrenches that make failure more likely. But I've always been somewhat disappointed that the progress up through 3000+ craftable items didn't take longer
https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewt … 896#p81896
Well, when players can easily loot old towns or find old towns and resettle them, that "thought experiment" isn't even possible to execute. And progress up through those craftable objects takes basically EVEN LESS TIME than ever before apparently.
This is true, if you want a new family on an existing server to perform that experiment, but it is not true if you think of the entire server (from the moment of a reset) performing the experiment.
I think my preference would be for families to not die out so often, so they don't need to migrate back to old towns, but in any case the balance definitely feels a little weird.
Do you have any thoughts on how the different phases of the game could persist through a long lived server? At the moment the only real option is to do a map wipe - but that has the obvious downside of removing the 'extreme late stage' phase of the game (which I personally enjoy a lot).
In the interest of moving the conversation forward, because I think we're almost there, let's try and work out what we agree on.
One hour one life. That should be the goal for average new players trying to stay alive, because that would make their experiences more meaningful, and would signal the game as interesting enough for players to keep on playing.
Whole heartedly agree!
It should be the goal, and I think is the goal for many people. It was for me.
It's not much of a goal if it is trivial to achieve, which is why I think it's ok for it to be hard.
You seem to believe that it should be expected that new players can live to 60 on their first life. That they may not always live to 60 on that first life, but if they are dying very young that is a problem. You also seem to extend that to a lot of possible first lifes the new player may have: if they are born as an Eve, born to an Eve, born on a freshly restarted server, born on a busy server, born on an empty server, etc.
If I believed those two things I would agree that making Eveing Nintendo Hard would be silly, counterproductive, and "garbage".
I don't believe those two things, though I do believe something pretty close.
I think that a new player should be able to live to middle age (say 40+) in their first few lives, and be able to live to 60 in their first week of playing.
I think they should be skilled enough to live to 60 as an Eve after ~20 lives, and have a successful Eve family after ~40 lives.
I want each life to be different from the last, and death is a part of that story. Even unfair, frustrating deaths. I don't want every story to be a tale of how I died and could do nothing about it, but I do want to have room to grow. Making an engine is hard enough that it takes a while to even be confident in attempting it, let alone trying to do it in one life. Being an Eve is at least as challenging, in different ways, and it is good that these goals exist in the game.
Cogito wrote:Not sure why you are bringing up skill?
Because by 'average new player', I mean 'average skilled new player'.
But almost all new players have no skill. Any that are not average will necessarily have more skill, perhaps through watching some streamers before playing (I would not necessarily classify these as new players though, depending on how much they had learnt).
This is a game where pretty much everything that is a skill is 'learn how to do something'.
Cogito wrote:Do you think everyone who is commenting here has changed their point of view simply because they have played the game for a little bit?
I don't know. I do know that I didn't have the idea of judging the game as worth it or not on the basis of one hour or one life of gameplay before I played it. But, that is what the one hour one life concept suggests.
Which is more likely?
A. The views of the forum commenters has not changed significantly and is similar to what new players think.
B. Every forum commenter used to think as you do, but after playing for a bit changed their minds.
Cogito wrote:More consistent with what?
More consistent with the rest of the advertisement.
Who cares about consistency with the rest of the advertisement? We are talking about if the game should be the way you think the advertisement portrayed it, ie is the game consistent with the advertisement.
Cogito wrote:Game advertisements list things that are possible within the game.
Time passing is more than possible. Time passing is inevitable. To talk of 'one hour' is to talk of an inevitable length of time.
Huh? This is not your best work.
Cogito wrote:They advertise possibilities, and are misleading only if those possibilities are unachievable. The things listed in that advertisement are possible, and are achieved by players new and old, all the time.
No, not all things advertised for this game are possible. Note that the game is advertised as one hour *one life*. Thus, it's fine for a player to play exactly one life in one hour (given that they can live that long), and expect that what gets advertised should be possible. But, as confirmed by checking the leader board, some players get born male in their first life (. It is *impossible* for those players to have babies, and "having babies" is one of the things advertised. There's also infertility during children of men mode. But, finding a new player and was male who played during that time period is more difficult.
Spoonwood, you don't even believe that players only live one life, please stop repeating this without bring up some new idea.
It is possible to achieve all these things, over the course of multiple lives. That you can't do all of them all of them time may be interesting, and may be worth investigating why, but it doesn't magically make the ad a giant conspiratorial lie (this is an exageration).
Cogito wrote:No it doesn't. As others have pointed out, the interesting thing about One Hour One Life is that each life is AT MOST one hour long, not AT LEAST one hour long. This is what sets it apart.
Setting the game apart from other games does not have anything to do with the consistency of its advertisements.
This point is not related to the consistency of advertisements, it is about how new players are likely to interpret the name and the ad. These things don't exist in a vacuum, they exist exactly to advertise a game to people and why they should play it. How this game is different to others is an integral part of the ad.
Cogito wrote:Just because some other Nintendo Hard games kill you before 15 minutes of game play, killing you before 15 minutes of gameplay is not a defining characteristic of Nintendo Hard.
The design process of "Nintendo Hard" games was such that the designers *expected* players on their first life to die within a short period of time. That's what I think, and I wasn't yet 13 when many of the "Nintendo Hard" games were first released.
So, again, we are not talking about games that inspired the term Nintendo Hard but about a game where an aspect of the game was aspirationally described by the game's creator as Nintendo Hard.
Just because the games that inspired the term Nintendo Hard involved you dying within 15 minutes (even if that is true, I don't know that it is), it does not mean that games can only be described as Nintendo Hard if you die within 15 minutes.
In any case, Jason definitely seems to want it to be extremely hard for anyone to Eve successfuly - good thing new players don't have to Eve all that often!!
Cogito wrote:It is not Nintendo Hard to have a baby - don't be an Eve (or close descendant of an Eve), and you'll probably live to be old enough to have babies.
See above about playing as a male character.
See above about how you don't have to do everything in every playthrough.
Cogito wrote:I am equivocating 'average new player' with 'new players, by default' as they mean the same thing as far as I can tell.
Just plain bizarre. Plenty of new players will have less than average skill for new players.
Not sure why you are bringing up skill?
If you mean 'average' as 'mean', then it is silly to say the average is the max (one hour is the max life, so the mean can only be the max if every value is the max).
If you mean 'average' as 'typical', then the average new player living to 60 is the same thing as saying new players live to 60 by default, or in the typical case.
Cogito wrote:My understanding of your position is that, barring suicide, actions from other players, and potentially other infrequent events, new players should be able to live for a few hours.
What? Maybe I should just stop reading and believe that you're trolling at this point. A few hours? It's a one hour game. After 60 minutes of play there is at least one death for every player. No player n the form of the character is able to live for a few hours. That's NEVER been the case. I don't think it will ever be the case. And most certainly, if any player could live for a few hours via one character, how would 'one hour one life' be accurate? The game is not two hours one life, nor is it three hours one life. One hour one life.
Sorry about that, it was a typo! Fixed in post above. Note that the very next sentence clarified my point so it *should* have been obvious what my intent was - "That is, by default, new players are able to live for 1 full hour."
Cogito wrote:I did not say that "forum users think like new players or the average new player", I said that the fact everyone else here interprets it differently to you is evidence that new players would interpret it differently to you as well.
No. It doesn't work that way, because if it did, then you'd have implied a connection between how players commenting in this post think and how new players think. We neither know that new players would agree with me, nor do we not know that they would agree with me. There is no way of knowing also.
I am, crazily, drawing a connection between how some people interpret something, and how other people interpret something. It is reasonable to think these subgroups (new players and people commenting on the forums) interpret things in similar ways, especially as commenters were all new players at one point.
Do you think everyone who is commenting here has changed their point of view simply because they have played the game for a little bit? I know that my point of view on this subject has not changed simply because I have played the game, and my point of view seems consistent with what everyone except you states.
Also, see my other post above. My position can still work out even if average new players don't agree with me, because the interpretation I've put forth comes as more consistent than "five minutes one life" or whatever "Nintendo Hard" interpretation would be for this game. If the average new player had a one hour one life experience, I could claim consistency with the title *on the basis of their experience*. That just isn't possible if the game gets designed to work as five minutes one life for them.
Again, not two minutes one life. Not twenty minutes one life. Not thirty minutes one life. Not fifty seven minutes one life. One hour one life.
I believe I addressed this in my last post.
Also waiting to see if you can summarise my point of view (or anyone else in the threads point of view really).
Additionally, I don't really need for the average new player to expect to have a one hour one life experience for the above to work.
Simply put, interpreting the advertisements as I have *is a more consistent* interpretation of them than other interpretations I have seen.
More consistent with what?
Game advertisements list things that are possible within the game.
They do not provide a guarantee for what will happen in every single playthrough that every single player (or even the 'average new player') will have.
They advertise possibilities, and are misleading only if those possibilities are unachievable. The things listed in that advertisement are possible, and are achieved by players new and old, all the time.
Cogito and others *avoid* the issue that the game becomes something like 5 minutes one life, 20 minutes one life, or 40 minutes one life for the average new player. They don't answer the question "but wouldn't it be something other than one hour one life then?"
It comes as more consistent to interpret the advertisements as concerning a one hour one life game than anything else.
No it doesn't. As others have pointed out, the interesting thing about One Hour One Life is that each life is AT MOST one hour long, not AT LEAST one hour long. This is what sets it apart.
Lastly, I'm also sure that when the advertisement says "having babies" *that* part is meant as literal in the sense that it's about characters having babies. "Nintendo Hard" doesn't work well with that, because one's character has to live for a certain amount of time for that character to have babies, and "Nintendo Hard" games usually worked out that a new player would not play for 15 minutes before dying once.
Just because some other Nintendo Hard games kill you before 15 minutes of game play, killing you before 15 minutes of gameplay is not a defining characteristic of Nintendo Hard. This is another example of the "A -> B" therefore "B -> A" mistake you've been making in a lot of threads recently.
Furthermore, don't forget that we are talking about Eveing as Nintendo Hard, NOT the rest of the game. It is not Nintendo Hard to have a baby - don't be an Eve (or close descendant of an Eve), and you'll probably live to be old enough to have babies. I mean, if you ARE the Eve then it is extremely likely you will have babies.
Cogito wrote:Furthermore, your ‘literal’ reading of statements always seems to give an interpretation that agrees with the point you want to make. For example, you take the statement “live a whole life in one hour” and the title of the game to mean that new players should be able to, as the default, live for a full hour each life.
I don't think that's what I said, no. I think I talked about the average new player.
I am equivocating 'average new player' with 'new players, by default' as they mean the same thing as far as I can tell. 'average new player' is not a precise term. My understanding of your position is that, barring suicide, actions from other players, and potentially other infrequent events, new players should be able to live for a few hours whole hour. That is, by default, new players are able to live for 1 full hour.
Cogito wrote:You are the only person saying that a 5 minute life is not consistent with the premise of the game.
Five minutes one life is not consistent with the game. Neither is twenty minutes one life. Neither is fifty seven minutes one life. One hour one life.
Yes, you have repeated your point of view many times. Repeating it is not evidence that what you are saying is inconsistent with the premise of the game.
For me, reading what I have and playing the game, the key premise is that (unlike other games) I control a character for their entire life, each minute of my time is one year of the character's, and the character dies of old age at age 60. Dying early is consistent with this premise.
If you don't agree with me you need to show that this premise is fundamentally flawed (the title One Hour One Life is not evidence against this premise, nor is the advertisement you keep bringing up), or somehow that dying early is inconsistent with it.
Cogito wrote:If you think I’m wrong on this, can you find anyone else who understands these statements in the same way you do? This is important, as you are arguing from the point of view of new players, and you haven’t provided any reason to think that is how new players think.
New players don't come here. One has to have an account in order to register here, and almost always I suspect people play for a bit, before coming to the forums, IF they come to the forums.
This is not evidence for what new players think, nor is it a reasonable argument for why what you think is what they would think.
Cogito wrote:Everyone else in these threads interpret it differently to you, so it is far more likely that new players do as well.
No, it is not. The people who come here are not new players. Also, the players that come here AND post on the forums consist of a small fraction of the players. There exist far more views on almost all posts than the number of comments on those posts. Some people just read and don't comment. Additionally, plenty of people who have played NEVER visit these forums. They go to reddit or don't read anything. Furthermore, there exist some people who have played once and that's it. Or a small handful of times and that's it. People you read on these forums aren't likely to have played a small handful of times. There's likely more here also.
It makes for a rather large mistake to think that forum users think like new players or the average new player.
I did not say that "forum users think like new players or the average new player", I said that the fact everyone else here interprets it differently to you is evidence that new players would interpret it differently to you as well. You have no evidence to suggest new players would interpret it as you do at all.
Cogito wrote:Spoonwood wrote:On what matter?
This whole discussion. What is my key point of view (or views)?
I think you can summarize them yourself if you want.
Of course I can! That is why I asked you to try the experiment, as I clarified later:
That is why I asked if you could summarise my point, so that I can make sure we’re not arguing past each other - so far it’s not clear to me that you have understood any of the points I’ve tried to make (which may well be my fault).
This is a technique that is really effective for making sure everyone is talking about the same thing and understands each other's point of view - repeat back in your own words what you think their point of view is, it becomes immediately clear if there is understanding or not.
Not taking people at their word on the other hand is a means of distorting or misunderstanding what they said.
Interpreting someone in an overly legalistic and literal way is the opposite of taking them at their word. It may be appropriate when discussing a contract, but in a forum it comes across as wilfully misrepresenting what the other person is saying. That is why I asked if you could summarise my point, so that I can make sure we’re not arguing past each other - so far it’s not clear to me that you have understood any of the points I’ve tried to make (which may well be my fault).
Furthermore, your ‘literal’ reading of statements always seems to give an interpretation that agrees with the point you want to make. For example, you take the statement “live a whole life in one hour” and the title of the game to mean that new players should be able to, as the default, live for a full hour each life. Nobody else thinks that is what the advertisement or title of the game means. You are the only person saying that a 5 minute life is not consistent with the premise of the game.
Your interpretation of the advertisement, and the rest of it, is not correct. Not in a legalistic way, not in a literal way, not in any way.
If you think I’m wrong on this, can you find anyone else who understands these statements in the same way you do? This is important, as you are arguing from the point of view of new players, and you haven’t provided any reason to think that is how new players think. Everyone else in these threads interpret it differently to you, so it is far more likely that new players do as well.
Cogito wrote:Try an experiment for me? Can you put in your own words what you think my point of view is?
On what matter?
This whole discussion. What is my key point of view (or views)?
Why are you talking about reductio ad absurdum?
I’m not claiming your argument is wrong because the logical conclusion is absurd, I’m saying your insistence on taking everything absolutely literally is absurd. It’s a bad way to argue because it doesn’t make your points stronger and it doesn’t refute the opposing points.
Try an experiment for me? Can you put in your own words what you think my point of view is?
(Taking what you said literally, to the point of absurdity)
It is not possible to live longer than 60 minutes, so if the average life should be 60 minutes than every life should be 60 minutes. QED.
The one life concept means that when your character is dead, that's it.
Good to know that, since you believe this, you have only ever played the game once. Thanks for sticking around on the forums for so long after you finished playing.
Oh and “an entire life in 1 hour” means your character is born and dies within 1 hour, which is very much possible even though it doesn’t happen every life (when you Eve).
Spoon, when you say it’s not possible for anyone to survive, because everyone dies, you’re excluding the use of the word ‘survive’, for no good reason.
I understand the desire to be precise, but you’re not arguing against what the other person is trying to say, you’re trying to find gotcha moments. “Technically everyone dies, so you’re wrong hahahahahah”.
There is so much implied in every single sentence we say, it’s not reasonable to spell everything out every time.
I didn’t weaken your argument, I just didn’t repeat exactly what you said (in that one quote you pulled) because I was paraphrasing you. Replace my point 1 with exactly what you said and my points all still stand. Reading back through what you’ve said from the start, I think it’s an accurate paraphrase. After all it’s not 20 minutes 1 life is it?
But let’s take my (1) literally - are you saying you disagree? If so, does that mean you think the average new player should live for 1 hour but the average experienced player shouldn’t? Or is it something else? What is a reasonable death in your eyes?
Lastly, and others have said it before, the advertisement is a list of things that were, are, or may be possible in the game. A game you can play more than once. No reasonable person expects everyone who plays the game to experience all of those things every time they play the game. You are being unreasonable when insisting that lives should last an hour based on that or any other advertisement. You need to find some other line of reasoning for why we should accept your premise around how easy or hard it should be to live to 60.