One Hour One Life Forums

You are completely right, I did find that out recently but totally forgot to edit my post, mind if I update it with your comment?

Thx for reminding me

A Cart can hold 2 straight branches, 1 azde, and a 1 shovel.
BP can hold round stone and stakes (and a pie)

That's your fence making kit right there.

You can either make a cart trip to fence location,
or take some risk and go by horse if you are a fast fence maker catching the horse every 1 or 2 steps of fence making and not forgetting to eat (wouldn't recommend this unless you're a really experienced player tho)

Yes if seeds take too long, 2 or 3 carrot plots can be planted and rotating between them the same way as with 1 plot would be ideal.

I'd rather never feed people carrots, a big berry farm and more wells would feed the young and old without the hassle of carrots.

But... But... You're saying that for those people's "first hour" playing the game, they would be "lucky" if it wasn't their mom's first hour playing the game. That it would probably be their best hour of gameplay. Right? I mean is there something I'm not getting here?

And that's the core of it, you want the best "first (and only) hour experience game", you have to have servers filled with decent seasoned players filling the colonies and new players popping in and being catered to.

I call it catered to, because at this state of the game, you'd have to be saved multiple times from death on your first run almost 100% of the time, and way after growing hair.

And if you do survive just staying next to farm eating carrots from baskets, you'd still die from starvation somewhere between 57 and 59 once the alarm stops ringing "for no apparent reason"

This great first hour experience provided by seasoned players maintaining and developing colonies is what's keeping most people coming back, and very few leaving an awesome review and then never coming back again.

Focusing on those people who "claim" that was the best experience they've ever had ever to then never even attempting to live it again, and wanting your game to aim for that is very weird to me. Interesting, but weird.

The hardest part about discussion in forum threads is "projection" based replies.

By that I mean, replying to someone not about what THEY meant by THEIR post, but about what YOU would've meant if YOU had posted what they did.
(me included btw)

What I'm saying is simple, and even naive in its idealistic reasons:

<< The less "choices" players feel they are allowed to make by game mechanics, the less meaningful (and unique) the OHOL experience would become >>

No argument counters that directly, however it may not always be wise to uphold this principle.

That is why I say frequently "Jason has tough choices to make".

I may not agree with his choices sometimes, but I try to never say they are "bad choices", not even in my mind.

Same with players, if you feel that finding your way back through coordinates is "not a meaningful experience", be aware that what you're actually saying is "this is not a meaningful experience TO YOU".

Cause what is "absolutely" meaningful about griefing then? or tending the farm for 60 mn? or bulding a room in the middle of nowhere? Or writing "DICKBUTT" on a sign?

Players decide what's meaningful to them, and they always will. And that is what fascinates me about OHOL really, not the new hot item to craft.

I played OHOL is many different ways, and that's what makes it unique FOR ME. I would've had to play 10 different games to have all the experiences I had with only one!!

Maybe I want to spend 12 play hours today just to go back to the same colony I started by myself; challenging myself to get to sheep and infinite soil ignoring all babies and not having any help. Possibly making me appreciate other's help a lot more as a result!

Maybe I want to spend 10 hours just spawning randomly in colonies and filling the different gaps in them feeling I "saved" them all. Satisfying my God complex or nourrishing my sense of self-worth.

Maybe I want to only be a mom caring for babies today, showing them around the colony, telling them stories, seeing them type L-O-L or X-D and building bonds with them that makes them gather around me before I die telling me they will not forget me (Possibly even reading a story they wrote about me on the forums)

Maybe I want to be the guardian of the "STAR" family today, spawning over and over in that colony and defending it against that pesky griefer who's determined to destroy it. Making my life a challenge to identify him over and over again, then neutralizing him, or dying in the process and coming back to try again.

<< The more choices you eliminate by design, the more evolution opportunities you miss. >>

The only chance for this game to exceed even your expectations, Jason, is for you to let it find its own way. I may refer to you as God as an analogy, but that's a fictitious one, and I don't think you identify with that role.
A role closer to home would be that of a FATHER; who can get so worried about their child that he may become overprotective and over involved in their life.

I'm the guy on the forum telling you, TRUST YOUR CHILD, you raised (coded) him well. He's becoming stronger with each obstacle he's overcoming ALONE. And the more help you provide for him, the less strength he gains from his achievements.

I do love you all

I agree totally. That's the game I signed up for a s well.

I have never been the player who would suicide to get back to "my" colony (back when I played on the main server), because that's how I like this game to be; a new genre, not another Minecraft or Don't Starve type, where you experience "selfless contribution" to a community whether you ever see it back again or not. I've always defended Jason's philosophy behind this.

But even more important for me was Jason's past opposition to "implementing server side solutions to problems that the community should fix by themselves" (not an exact quote). Like disabling killing other players as a game feature, or moderators banning repeat offenders, or distinguishing between new and experienced players... All ideas suggested in the past and rightfully rejected based on the core philosophy behind this game.

I always admired, and sometimes defended, his stance on this and his statements that "this game would be shaped by the decision of the players, design and restrictions should be minimal, and system intervention should be ideally non existent" (not an exact quote)

But today however, I see a Jason "forced" to start bending core principles to deal with repeat griefers (of all things).

Ideas like making it impossible to find a previous colony by coordinates, and implementing a cooldown to spawn back into a previous lineage were surely one of the first things any designer of such a game would've had to consider withing the 3 years of development. And in my opinion, they were dismissed based on the principles stated above.

That's why in my precious post, I considered that OP's reasons behind implementing them today to be "rationalizations" and not the real reason behind them. I find that griefers pressure finally got to him. And this worries me.

Someone likes to find their old colony using coordinates or whatever else should remain their choice to make.
You want to be born somewhere, wait to be old enough, gather or make resources and tools needed for the journey, then set out on a long journey to find your long lost colony, should remain a choice that some players want to make, and an experience some would find fulfilling.
Even repeat suicide to get there should be as well.

But now both those "decisions" are impossible to make by "game design". This is making the game less and less a experience shaped by players like it promised to be, and we will see more and more of those restrictions in the future.

Just to be clear: those 2 changes are perfectly fine for the way "I" like to play the game, and they may even solve the problems they set out to solve; but I will always defend other players preferred play style even griefers.

Even though I share your mentality in tending the carrot farm and crafting tools for "others" to use and not for me to come back to find them, now I can't feel proud/fulfilled/ashamed/guilty for having that mentality, since now the server is making the decision for me.

I was hoping to one day start seeing posts on this forum with titles like "Playing this game changed me: from griefer, to selfish player, to selfless contributor" or even the opposite. And I honestly think Jason cares about this even more than I do.

But now there's less ownership of your in-game actions and less credit for playing a certain way versus the other: now everyone is "forced" to contribute to a community they might not see again. And the only choice we'll eventually have is to either play this game or not; just like any other game.

Although this makes me sad, but it also interests me: players are not the only one evolving and changing because of OHOL, Jason is as well.
He is learning to become a "god" as I call it; and I don't mean that in an insulting kind of way. But he really has some tough choices to make concerning his "creation", and I sincerely wish him the best of luck.

My signature holds both a description of my view, and a prediction for the future. I'm certain I'm right about the former, and I hope I'm wrong about the latter.

Sorry for the long post, but I'm sure you know by now what a rambler I am

Thank you dude, I appreciate it

Sad to see that griefers are setting the tone of development of this game, same like most others.

Griefers can come back and grief, solution: no one can come back anymore. Brilliant.

Rationalization: OP post

This game started from "I want no inherent restrictions from the server side" to "Now you are not allowed to..."

Still I get it, I see why you made those changes, and I actually expected them.

I was still kinda hoping for a surprise though, maybe a new way of thinking about game design, but maybe it's too much to hope for.

Not being able to stay in the same lineage does not solve the reborn griefer problem in an intelligent way, it simply makes people not even care about someone griefing a colony they would never see again!
I actually predict a rise in griefing because of that.

You'll notice some griefing going on around your colony and you'll go: "Welp, so much for this colony. Guess it's time to quit and go somewhere else since this is what's going to happen anyway. In fact, since I have like 5-10 minutes left to live here anyway, why not join the fun and destroy this place before I go, i didn't like the sheep pen design here anyway."

No more sense of belonging which brought this whole experience together.

Even worse, you wait till the next day, and miraculously find yourself in the place you started the day before, you feel the joy and happiness, only to see your mom saying "SORRY TOO MANY". Awesome experience, great story, would recommend. And no she is not a griefer, she's just a responsible parent who ruined your experience, and crushed your dreams because the "server" would not allow you another chance today.

Anyway, good luck dude. I am really rooting for you (and not just with words btw) and I wish we'll get out of the dark ages really soon.

This has happened to me once when my client was not at the latest version. But from what you said, it doesn't seem to be your case.

My solution was to run the game on the official public servers at least once, once I hit login, I had a "downloading" screen. Took a couple of seconds) to finish, then I quit and connected back to my private server. Everything went back to normal.

Not sure what else could cause this, but also know that sometimes the servers are updated before the client, so maybe it will get updated if you run it again if the patch wasn't roll out when you did earlier.

Still, I'm anticipating a day where we the update would be drastic enough to make me have to wipe the old map and my progress, and restart from scratch.

Sorry couldn't help more.

But take this average case: a griefer kills 3 people than gets killed.
They all spawn in a "lower" server together, now they have a very high chance to give birth to the griefer.
What do you think that griefer would do once old enough? So he kills and gets killed again, and again.

In fact his griefing is even worse now since he's technically burrying his victims in lower and more deserted servers, for ever.
Why implement torture as a feature??

Give it some time and you'd have 10 victims stuck with 10 griefers on the lowest server. While the highest server is a land filled with blissful colonies and abundance?
Are you literally creating heaven and hell??? "cause if you are, well people have come up with much better systems than yours, while equally dangerous. inherently ignorant and fundamentally flawed.

And even worse, I was an innocent victim, but cursed the same as my perpetrator!! "but maybe it's okay and kinda fitting"?

Effectively implementing a ranking system in OHOL is a very very very bad idea.
Cooperation is already a strain sometimes, and now you have a grandma spending her last 10 mn at the farm eating carrots 'cause why would she risk a nope rope encounter?

And more importantly, sacrificing yourself is a strategic decision that wise players would make in some situations. I see my hunger bar size at 7 bars, a lack of berries, only one seed plot and 2 rooting carrots in a colony of 3 women and 1 baby? I get my gear off and start running east until death. They stand a much better chance now. Doesn't have to be that specific of a situation but happens more than you might think. I've even seen streamers doing that. And nobody wants to die from old age as much as a streamer with live viewers, trust me.