a multiplayer game of parenting and civilization building
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Remember: this is a game that is being actively developed. By one person. Working alone. Doing everything. 12-16 hour days. It's Saturday. My family needs me. But here I am.
Your family must take precedence, anyone that disagrees can *expletive deleted*.
I must have the freedom to try things, dangerous things, game-breaking things, in my endless quest to make the game better and more interesting.
I would truly hope that nobody would disagree with this, but would it be possible to have a chat before the game-breakers to weigh pros/cons and think of other potential options?
In the mean time, 14,000 people own the game. They are not playing. For a reason.
And it has nothing to do with the apocalypse.
This might be partially correct. I cannot speak for everyone, but I myself have not been playing specifically due to the constraints of work. (See, some of us do understand what it means for you to be pulled from family. And I am sorry to have contributed to this.)
When I found out about apocalypse though, that literally became the one cause behind the multitude of reasons that made me decide that I didn't want to play anymore.
Griefers are a symptom, not a cause. If you are struggling to survive, you have no time for griefing.
Griefers will always have time to grief. What's a few minutes of downtime as a baby between doing what you are enjoying. A bathroom break... So they will die because they aren't focused on survival. That isn't the point. Griefers play just to annoy, and sometimes infuriate, people. That is it. They don't care about the mechanics of the game. They don't care about what others think the point of the game is. They care to grief, and will play the game long enough to be able to ruin someone elses. Struggling to survive? Make sure someone else is too. They will always have time for griefing.
Thus, the game sorely needed a hard reset. I decided it would be more interesting to put that power into your hands and see what you did with it. I also wanted to create a shared collective event.
Why not host a server(s)wide event then? Announce that due to the nature of the game, a wipe would have to occur. Think up the rules for a game (or ask the forum to do so) and have a social event out of it. I would much rather feel like my voice is heard than to one day be told "Random anybodies can wipe the server now. Have fun wasting each others time."
And the result, for the time being, is a game that is much more interesting again.
Building a village from scratch is the interesting part, and making a contribution that really matters is the most meaningful way to leave a legacy. Making another bearskin rug in a village that already has 20 rugs, because there's nothing else to do, is far less interesting.
I'm sorry, but just because you find something interesting or disinteresting that does not mean that everyone agrees. The social experience is what I found interesting. We had built the city, now to maintain it. How long until people get complacent? And to find out that there are no more seeds? How will society change when food isn't around anymore? Instead we get wave after wave of Whiteouts followed by a group of people too busy to even talk. Although I thoroughly enjoy the survival aspects, the experience I found most interesting was going to be even harder to find.
In the place of the apocalypse, I have added a new placement algorithm for Eves that will have a similar periodic cleansing effect. Not server-wide, but at the lineage level. Your chance to continue living and working in a given village will end when the lineage in that village dies out. No more wandering back later and starting over in the same spot with everything already done/built for you. Each new line will start in the wilderness.
That said, pilgrimages to the old village locations are still possible, but they will require a concerted group effort to pull off, Oregon-Trail style.
This actually excites me quite a bit.
If you experienced this today, I'm sorry about that. I've fixed it now, but the source of the problem was surprising.
I'm sorry that you felt the need to apologize for this. Things break, especially after a change is implemented (at the request of the community no less). Thank you for fixing it. The explanation was good enough for me, no apology needed.
The long-term solution is to re-write the database from scratch as a stack, so that the most recently-accessed elements are the fastest to access, while the forgotten parts of the map slide to the ends of the chain. I'll be doing that work next week.
Wow dude. I wish I were more deeply involved with coding. I do have a novice understanding though, and that just seems rough. If I can offer any assistance, don't hesitate to let me know.
So I hope you'll stick with me as I continue working to improve the game.
It's not over yet. We have years to go, together.
Jason
So long as the everyman isn't in control of the end of the world, I'm sticking around. These things should really be discussed by the community as a whole. That's just my opinion though.
Holy wall of text Batman! Sorry for that guys.
It's been turned off now.
I am finding this out now. Work has kept me away for a few days, and trying to catch up is an arduous process. Unfortunately I saw something that I greatly disagreed with, and joined the conversation before I had caught myself up 100%. This was my mistake and I hope that nobody was put out due to it.
That said, I still stand by my previous post. I am all for change. I usually embrace it, and I typically enjoy it. That wasn't a change though. Change is whitewashing a house and painting it a different color. Change is not ripping the entire house off it's foundation and putting up a house with a self-destruct button that is located at the curb.
And if any landlord did either without speaking to the lessee beforehand they would be in court very quickly.
So literally any player that I have never had any interaction with can completely end my current game, along with any progress that I had previously made (even if I am no longer progressing in that "village" due to character death). Yea... That's pretty crappy. Not at all what I paid for.
I have never once asked for a refund for a game that turned out to be something other than what I expected. This isn't the same scenario though. This game WAS what I expected. Then a random change has the potential of completely invalidating every single second I have played... Poor form...
That said, I am not asking for a refund. The powers that be should really start just offering them if they are going to make such drastic changes without talking to their investors. And investors are EXACTLY what each and every one of us that paid for this game are. We give money to the "company" and expect a benefit in return (enjoyment). That literally every decision or move I, or any others, have made in the game can be invalidated by ANYONE is just asinine.
Yes, I know that no refunds will ever be given. This is the modern day. These things just don't happen. But instead of just taking investor money and then metaphorically telling them to "shove off" maybe you should speak to your investors. A Happy playerbase is a growing playerbase. And from what I have seen in game (and on forum, on YouTube, on Facebook, etc.) the overall consensus that I can see is that people are no longer happy. And why would they be when they see what amounts to a griefer successfully undoing the progress of the players ENTIRE time in game.
I must say. I've only been playing for a few days, but the fact that Mr Dev listened and promptly fixed.... Can someone pinch me?
Yea, me too. It's quite frustrating.
This is happening to me today. I can't seem to play as the game crashes a few minutes in each time. This makes me sad...
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