a multiplayer game of parenting and civilization building
You are not logged in.
Lol, Jason - nice troll update ;p. You make me wish i went into more detail with my taco recipe. Hope you enjoyed your vacation
Wait, i looked at the picture again. Is this real?
The problem with graveyards is that they're actually a negative in general. They use up valuable resources for something nobody really takes the time to look at, and i assume are usually built by one person gathering every pile of bones they see without any particular emotional significance.
I'm really flattered when someone tells me they'll take the time to bury me properly... but i'll steal a gravestone or two if i need them to make yum foods, lol. Not for some pointless road to nowhere though.
Do bait bags decay? I found there were usually a lot more of them than necessary laying around towns a lot of the time. For maximum efficiency with a regular cart, you can head out with 4 full bags and a large yum-chain with a hearty piece of consumable food (usually cooked mutton), and bring back 12 rabbits and all 4 bags. I thought rabbits still respawn? Why would you run out of bags?
That said, I would be in favour of a cloth back-pack!
I always imagined that ideally an unlimited number of players could all live on the same server at the same time, so if the game became really popular we would have one main very-populated world with a sprawl of developing towns and families.
Now we just need a cool and popular, new dedicated user to arise by the name of forkmetal to butt heads with Spoonwood in one mega containment thread, where other users can pop in to spectate, shake their heads in disbelief, and occasionally contribute a minor point to change the trajectory of discussion so it isn't completely circular.
Back to reality though, I think Spoonwood has firmly entrenched himself in the role of devil's advocate for some reason (probably finds it fun on some level). Even though his opinions about the game are very negative, he makes the forum a lot more active lol, and is probably good for the game.
I had a similar concern that language would be an issue (it will!) but it's regular white's claim to fame now, or they'd never survive with no specialty! It makes the translator necessary.
Wow Jason, I'm impressed! After reading the speculation in main discussion a few days ago about the update i thought it was going to be a non-fun, albeit ingenious, way of forcing trade into the game. I know sometimes people say you don't listen to what the community wants, but i see that you do listen, you just need to put your own spin on it. You came up with a solution here that presses forward with the changes you've implemented that makes them more successful and palatable, and i think is a very smart progression! Great Job! <3
In real life a person could learn and master many things, but the need to spend a lot of time to master each keeps them from doing so. Perhaps a skillful person is capable of learning to be a medical doctor, an astrophysicist, a psychiatrist, an accountant, a teacher, etc. But they don't because there isn't enough time to master all these things. In-game though it doesn't take any time to master a profession, you are at the maximum skill level the first time you use a skill, so you end up filling up your skill slots very easily with time to spare that could be used to "learn" more if you weren't blocked from doing so. I think this may be one of the sources of frustration with tool slots. I actually like Dodge's idea of levelling up skills as you work on them or observe others doing so, as it seems like it would alleviate that source of frustration since it would keep players preoccupied with mastering the skills they already know, rather than having spare time they spend wishing they could do more. It would also help create a division of labor that seems like it would keep more people feeling involved in a town's upkeep. It maybe could accomplish this even in the absence of tool slots attempting to force it.
Now I don't have any major qualms with tool slots anymore. Initially, in practice I found them quite stifling due to needing to make major adjustments to my playstyle, but after some adjusting I didn't mind it too much. I still wouldn't call it a success though, I think of the positives it was supposed to introduce like encouraging villagers to communicate and work together more didn't really happen in a major or very enriching way.
For me the big turn off of this game is the race restrictions. It seems there are many players who also dislike race restrictions, and many suggesting to remove the system. I suspect many players would potentially be ok with an adequate reworking of the system that feels more fun. I think the reason for suggesting removal is it is the easiest and most obvious solution to the problem of finding the restrictions are not fun. In some posts by Jason I've seen him make suggestions that assume towns are all working together to solve the (usually water) problems. In my experiences though a lot of players don't know/don't care to help with the town's problems, and a player trying to work hard to save a town still feels a lot of the weight of trying to do it all on their own, with now a lot of the tools and resources necessary to do so restricted, which is partially responsible for the helpless feeling I've mentioned before.
Me: "need water"
Me: "need blacks"
Me: "for rubber"
Other player: "yeah" *runs off* ["good luck with that, I'm gonna go start some drama because that's more fun than running aimlessly through the wilderness"]
As for the suggestion in op by Coconut Fruit, as much as it would draw me back to play some lives for that week, I don't know that there's really a lot of information to be gained from it. I think there would be a spike in players because of the novelty factor (even though it's something we had before it's not currently accessible), so more people playing wouldn't necessarily indicate that people prefer it.
I'd be curious to see the result of an in-game poll of what people think of race restrictions.
I'd still rather throw out the whole system
I agree!
Improvement in culture war ammunition stockpiles, you mean
It would still be more beneficial for everyone to move to one town and work together, it would just be easier to get a town started. We'd probably see a larger number of active towns, and more players willing to work on building a new town.
Even though it's not particularly exciting, it would probably be an improvement.
Total helplessness is not fun, for sure.
However, I don't think you're actually ever totally helpless, even with the biome restrictions in place.
I mean, helpless in which regard? To the point where you have no choice but to starve for lack of water?
Even if you send out a search party and don't find the necessary specialist for the next step in water production, that doesn't mean you're helpless. You're in a tense situation, and the clock is ticking for sure, but there's nothing inherently wrong with that.
What about moving to a new primitive water source and making an outpost there as a stop-gap, or even moving the village entirely, and leaving a way stone behind so that wanderers have a better chance of finding you in the future?
My goal, in general, is to give you trans-generational problems that don't necessarily have "textbook solutions" available. Problems that require you to think on your feet, and make do with the situation that you're handed.
The problem isn't that there's NO chance of success. There is a chance of success, but the chance is low, and feels more helpless than challenging. Spending a life running through the wilderness looking for a town/family is not very interesting or engaging, and failing most of the time allows for little feeling of progress or accomplishment. It's why there's been complaining about living in the same big towns, and complaining of relying too much on bell towers. It's possible to get a new town started, but unlikely to the point of being unrealistic, and knowing that, a lot of players won't be willing to stay and help.
Fun can mean a lot of things. I think Jason and Spoonwood are both right in their contrasting opinions of what fun is.
For myself I would say fun is making progress against a reasonable challenge.
another thing I find fun is having positive social interactions.
These two types of fun don't describe each other though.
There are some things about this game I don't find fun when I last played that leave players feeling helpless in some situations to reasonably make any progress.
The problem isn't that you removed a solo players ability to do a needed tech grind but you removed a bunch of fun gameplay options without putting something to fill the gap.
Racial specialization should be about improving someone's ability to do something instead of being a lock no one can break.
Gingers should be good at getting oil because they have natural hot springs they can (only) use to fire the oil rig which makes doing oil easier for them. Give them breedable worms so they fish better, woolier sheep so they can be better tailors or shrimp catchers. If you want to be fancy let them make premium ice creams.
Blacks get extra horse types and horse breeding. Put normal ass horses elsewhere and give them faster or strong, or just aesthetically pleasing horses. Make their alum longer lasting, let their paints be better, make their trees free to cut so they can even specialize as hot weather lumberjacks.
Tans should have even more food recipes to make them unique. Cakes, banana nut bread, different fruit trees, more fruit trees! Definitely give them a way to kill mosquitoes as keeping them around in a livable area is asking for trouble. Maybe give them a way to make cooling clothing such as palm leaf skirts, coconut bras, or even fancy fruit hats. There's endless fun ideas to throw out for each and every race.
Cutting out the fun is the problem of the racial specialization update not just nerfing how fast players can climb the tech tree.
It would be nice if there was a hard way for every race to klimb the techtree.
And the easy way if all work together.
These are the type of ideas that could make racial specialization fun.
There are too many times playing after the current racial specialization update where lives feel completely pointless, or just boring, and this update is the reason why.
It's exasperating living in a town that needs something only another race can provide. It feels desperate and pointless, and it trivializes all other aspects of the game when the only thing that matters becomes finding a knowledgeable player from the necessary skin tone.
It puts players in a position where entire lives are spent just wandering around looking for the right skin tone to invite back or migrate too. It's tedious and uninteresting.
It forces players back to the same big towns over and over again which gets boring and repetitive, with either the same problems or no immediate need for anything.
Crafting some recipes became less interesting because now you can just harvest and dump resources in town rather than actually being able to make something.
Travelling outside of town feels like walking in a maze due to biome restrictions.
Overall a lot more in-game time feels wasted on either tedious or nearly hopeless endeavors. I want to help build up my village and care for my kids, not try to figure out a way through the maze of an inhospitable biome to probably fail to find the race I'm looking for anyway.
...and then back to that huge town that doesn't need anything again.
Edit: forgive me if I seem out of touch, I haven't played since November - because of this update.
This seems like a good update! Would like to see the racial specialization changed to feel more fun.
Your banana peel has grown a serious amount of mold
[That's the biggest flaw with the current system right now. You can't tell me this dude is supposed to be able to tend to 28 kids (the sister had more but they properly SIDS instead of living in this nightmare.)
He can't completely but a high variance system functions as a long-term system, not a short-term system. Over a large sample size helping people survive by providing accessible food and clothing and generally increasing the productive power of your village will help a player hover at a higher score, making the top of the ladder reachable when that player experiences a positive swing in variance.
Curse Snow Gay
That's some bad parenting.
The idea of having cursed players marked for you in future lives seems useful
Question: should names be universal? Should we both see guy X as DOLL KING if we both have him cursed? So we can conspire on Discord about this DOLL KING guy?
Seems like it could be used by griefers to target and harass. Whereas if we saw the same guy as a different name each, we couldn't use it to group-target someone across lives.
Universal names seems like a bad idea for the reason you stated. Individually randomized names creates a level playing field where the name would just function as a personal note for a player to use as they see fit; without creating a follow the leader situation where everyone's heard "Robert Pie" aka DOLL KING is a bad guy, but don't know why.
I haven't played since this current score system was put in place, but this sounds like the best score system we've had so far. Sure there's a lot of variance involved, but rather than focusing on short term changes which will be highly random, focus on playing in a way that supports other players in general and the small positive impact this has will gradually snowball over time. Everyone is going to occasionally get players who tank their score for whatever reason an approximately equal amount (though cursing can help improve this too), but as a simple example, say you have a baby that is, unbeknownst to you, going to die young from starvation. Say at age 8. Now say you put some clothes on that baby while you were still caring for them at the fire, and instead now their food bar runs out slower, and they die of starvation at age 10 instead. They still have a negative impact on your score, but not as much. And consistently taking actions like this help your score in the long run even though it might be annoying at the time when that kid subtracts 3 points from your score.
My solution is to reduce the number of lives people have
Jason said before that this was the most protested change he ever made though, to introduce a life limit. I imagine (perhaps naively) that the majority of these were new players who recently bought the game, died a bunch of times, and then couldn't play anymore for a while. What if instead, using the /die command costed multiple lives (say three to four), but otherwise the life limits remained unchanged. Would this effect the game in a positive way?
1.5x and possibly 2x zoom should be part of the standard game to improve player experience. Current 1x zoom is too limiting and regularly requires you to basically run in a spiral searching for any item that isn't in the exact location you last saw it. And stopping to ask someone is often fruitless and usually a waste of time compared to just continuing in your spiral-search. It's painfully tedious.
After downloading a zoom mod for the first time i got the same excitement i get after buying a brand new game i already know i'm going to like.
After playing with zoom, using vanilla feels like using a microscope to view a regular sized map. Or having your eyeballs pressed directly against the computer screen.
Sounds like a good update. And it slightly helps to rebalance the races a touch, though i think much more progress is needed in that regard.
Why is it all the rage to /die to be ginger if people don't even know how to make oil.
Also happy holidays to everyone! May your family successfully construct a feast table with all the necessary ingredients!