a multiplayer game of parenting and civilization building
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Forgive me if it was not your intent, but you are reading as very hostile and I would point out that I have never concretely defined my own stance on this matter.
It was not, so apologies if it came off that way. Text can be notorious like that.
Neutral was what I was aiming for. Like I mentioned at the end of my post - the act itself isn't really a big deal to me. What I saw was a statement concerning the "spirit of the game" which flew in the face of what time in game and time on these forums has taught me. My goal was to point that out.
What about players who live together and can speak to each other outside of the game? How do we handle "real life" voice chat?...It was perhaps Jason's intent that players teach each other, yet he also acknowledged the value of external information...
Some things you can't solve. Voice chat and external organization is one of those things. Nor do I really think it's worthwhile to come up with measures to handle these. But I do think in a conversation about the "spirit of the game", we can talk about them and how they impact it. Alternatively, I don't see external information such as guides as the same. This information is freely available inside the game and doesn't circumvent any of the built in features to violate the "spirit of the game".
What about baby codes, such as the one currently proposed to identify "forum readers"? Would that sort of thing not also represent a pre-organized group of people should it result in the widespread abandonment of "F babies"?
To an extent, maybe, but I'd only say it's a detriment to the "spirit of the game" if it leads to effectively griefing non-forum goers, instead of teaching them. Honestly, "baby code" almost feels like a sort of natural evolution to human instinct. How did "F" catch on? Babies have certain tells IRL to communicate their needs to their mothers. In game, those tells are taught from mother to child allowing the baby language to organically evolve.
It's also fair to point out that Jason has also changed his mind on certain topics.
Which is great. It's necessary for a game to grow and evolve if it's to survive and be successful. I should point out that in the thread I linked, Jason was actually originally open to the concept of making it easy to play with specific people but changed his mind and came to the decision that it would be detrimental to the game. But of course, that's not to say he won't change his mind again in the future.
In the quote you provided, Jason mentions keeping things interesting. So could there be a way to make playing with friends continue to be interesting? Currently, I think it'd be fun at first, but would get boring after a few lives. Maybe down the road that could change though.
On the subject of strategies, I would argue that it's quite difficult to define what is and isn't a "legitimate strategy" in this game because OHOL is and has always been in a constant state of flux.
But all those "illegitimate" strategies you mention are game features that Jason felt ended up stagnating the game experience, rather than keeping things interesting, so they ended up changing and forcing a new strategy. I think it'd be pretty safe to draw a line between "game feature" and "3rd party tool to circumvent game feature".
One of your more recent posts where you play devil's advocate does a spectacular job of summing up any concerns I could see arising from this event. If new game features and systems start to get developed with what a well organized group of players can achieve in mind, what does that mean for players who want a more "pure" experience? Honestly, I'm not too concerned about it happening - I don't think it will. But it's a slippery slope argument for sure. It's also why I view the achievement itself as impressive, but not really interesting.
Re: oppositional posts, I assume the argument is that in order to be considered legitimate, a family line would have had to consist only of unrelated players coordinating exclusively in-game. It is not an unfair argument, but it does boil down to differing opinions on styles of gameplay. Since the game's creator has never expressed opposition to voice chat, it then falls to players to define what is and is not within the spirit of the game and, of course, it is unlikely everyone will agree (for instance, to a purist, all forms of external communication violate the spirit of the game -- including these forums). Once upon a time, the fact that raiding in MMOs was facilitated by external addons and voip was something that also inspired bitter debate.
A statement like this comes across as either insincere or ignorant.
For starters, OHOL has a very specific system that limits communication based on age. Voice chat completely circumvents this. I'd say that very much goes against the spirit of the game and you're fooling yourself if you think that's up for debate.
Next you have the external organizational effort to force a closed group of players to keep spawning with each other. Again, the spirit of the game isn't to play with a pre-organized group of people. Jason (the game's creator) has publicly expressed his opinion on this in the past (playing with friends), and while it seems he's toyed with the idea, ultimately it sounds like he's come to the conclusion that it's not within his core vision of the game and is something better left for private servers. See this topic for his posts: https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=138 - I'll quote a few of the relevant lines below.
There is a chance that you will be born along with your friends, but babies also get spread out randomly. There is no built-in friend feature. That's not really what this game is about... it's about different situations in every life.
This game isn't about playing with friends. You're right about the alienation issue too, with cliques of people who are on voice chat, but who never speak/chat in the game. A bunch of silent, well-organized people who seem to be telepathic.
I agree that it would make the game worse, probably.
So is it a legitimate, "within the spirit of the game" strategy? Evidence points towards "no".
In the end, is it a big deal that's ruining my game play experience? Probably not.
But why not do it on a private server? That's effectively what's been accomplished on a public server in this case with the active player vouching. Just with the added potential of souring other players' experiences and skewing some game stats that could otherwise provide some interesting data on the state of the player base.
While it's an impressive number on its own, it loses much of its luster knowing how it was achieved. A closed group using external tools to organize and communicate while excluding other players seems to go against the spirit of the game as well as defeat the challenge. Realistically, they should be able to keep climbing through the generations endlessly until they get bored and move on.
More power to the players who want to do that, but honestly, it's just not very interesting or at all indicative at how the player base is doing. I'd be far more interested in seeing the data on legit family lines.
There is not only no quarantee. There is server data stored for each player that saves how many of your kids died. If you let to many die you will be flagged as "bad mother" and game will not give you any more kids. It's supposed to be based on server population and can be as low as 2 kids that die or as high as 10. Thats the reason why you sometimes stop seeing kids popping if you left to many to starve.
Interesting. That might explain my own experience. I always seem to have a kid a few seconds after I spawn as an Eve. It also seems to be a girl more often than not. Since I haven't had any time to even formulate a game plan (explore, find a good spot to settle, and get to work), I'll let that child die. From that point, I seem to have a few boys and then nothing. I always let the boys die, because I want to see my settlement thrive.
Seems to me like the algorithm should favor having girls spawn to an Eve over boys, especially if it's going to punish you for letting all the boys die. By the time I'm at a point where I'd consider attempting to keep a baby (I'd estimate probably 10 minutes in on average), it seems like all I ever have are boys.
What I'm noticing is that girls never seem to spawn for me as an Eve when I'm in a position to actually keep a baby alive. They always seem to spawn when I'm completely unprepared and unable to care for them. Once I get to the point where I have a visible game plan, all I get are boys. And if there are no girls to carry on the lineage, it just seems like wasted work which ends up being a bit discouraging, especially on top of the fact that the chances of someone wandering across your camp are pretty slim now.
I like the idea of starting an Eve one year younger, giving them a minute to get their bearings before having to worry about kids.
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