One Hour One Life Forums

There are entire posts dedicated to his talking with the community. He makes them every few days. "Is the drama gone?" is the most recent. There was one about iron ores, and there have been plenty before that. He has responded to people often, both in positive and negative ways, providing reasoning and feedback.

That being said, I would have to agree with the main point. Advancements in the tech tree would be very nice, because once the new steam players figure out what's going on, they're going to start getting bored without the much hyped and often touted "staying one step ahead in the tech tree." Although, Jason has said that much of the tech tree later on is purely cosmetic, with the reasoning "you can only get so efficient at producing food," which makes sense.

Which brings me to the main point of this long post: how are we to create more of a tech tree without going all factorio/max efficiency?

An idea that was mentioned in this same post about later tech tree ideas was that new technology brings new problems, as old inputs become incredibly scarce. An example from the real world for this:

Problem: Food takes a long time to make.
Solution: Create technology which is more efficient, allowing for specialization, and increased productivity.
New Problem: I have no idea how to grow enough of my own food from scratch to feed myself a balanced diet.

Except in the game, knowledge isnt something that goes away. No matter how big the tech tree gets, there is always someone who will have the entire thing memorized. However, there are already examples of this in the game.

Problem: Being a nomad is highly dependant on what biomes you are in, easy to starve if you're unlucky.
Solution: Settle down and form a camp.
New Problem: Resources around the camp become more and more exhausted, can lead to mass famine.

Or, a much more real one where the created technology to solve a simple problem has obvious and immediate downsides.

Problem: I need to slice this bread.
Solution: Make a knife
New Problem: Little Timmy just murdered half our town.

If we wanted to take that even further:
Problem: Little Timmy is going on a rampage
Solution: Have someones job be to hunt down little Timmy.
New Problem: The hunter's productivity is decreased, due to their time investment being finding the murderer.

New stuff in the tech tree is hard to make when you don't want to just increase the efficiency of everything like other games do. (Think minecraft, where the only difference between a stone pickaxe and an iron pickaxe is the quality, having a iron pickaxe doesnt make you have new problems to solve.) Stuff like the knife are prime examples of what good technology can be for the later parts of the tech tree.

Related ideas:

Anything that increases specialization is important. However, currently the towns are basically cooperative. I make a pie, anyone can eat the pie, whether or not they do anything for me or the town in return. There is no real way to change this that doesnt involve an astronomical amount of work and coordination outside of a single lifespan (ie, would require a coordinated effort across multiple generations, which I feel violates the spirit of the game). Trade is nonexistant, both interpersonal and between towns. There is no incentive to do so. Why give up anything in my backpack when I can wait for the guy to just drop what I want?

Changing this might require new systems to be made. A rough idea might be as follows:

Job: Manager
Requirements: One room, full walled off with a door, and flooring everywhere. Along with clay table and paper and charcoal pencils.
Ability: Be able to assign each person a job from a list (berry farming, compost, etc...), which appears above them, either visible to everyone, or to only them.

There is nothing that makes anyone follow this, but in the same way if my mother asks me to do carry on what she did in tending sheep, I'm more likely to do so then if nothing is said. Likewise, this is another person not making food, so the efficiency of food production must be sufficiently advaned enough to accommodate this person. But, since this is a social job, there should be a better way to talk with each other which brings me to my last point...

Coordination is HARD. We have an hour. Each minute represents 1/60th of our total time. We can't even form complete thoughts until were teenagers (not saying this is bad, as I actually really like it, just that it makes things harder). Taking five minutes when you're 20 to talk to round up 3 people to do a complex task is a massive amount of your time. There is no way to easily coordinate with others. If we want to develop more complex communities, we have to be able to communicate as efficiently as we are able to produce food.

Jason has a very specific vision for this game which is commendable, he could easily make another cookie cutter survival crafting game. This vision though, means that the tech tree has to be designed carefully, and is much more difficult to do so.

Hey Amos Town! I was there during the big murder fest. I took one of the daughters and ran south and raised her there away from all the stabby stabby, and the town survived another day.