a multiplayer game of parenting and civilization building
You are not logged in.
Since the life token change the way I play the game has changed. I'm playing a bit less: mostly because I'm worried about "wasting" a life. I have a ton of lives, since Jason increased the base number I have more, but it's that "gamer hoarding" instinct.
I don't want the number to go down. It bothers me. No this isn't totally rational.
But, now and then I've had a mom who left me to starve since the change and it made me feel like "man I gotta hoard these lives, what if this happens a few times in a row and I can't play!"
So, my love of the game and desire to be able to play when I want is making me play less.
I've also been living to 60 every time I can unless something or someone kills me. So, going in to a game is a big deal.
I haven't used "/die" ONCE since the change it just seems so expensive now.
These are all the intended effects of the change. I'm wondering if others feel the same way. If you are just as invested in the game but playing a bit less, being more ... careful. Etc.
How has the change impacted your gameplay?
THOUGHT: What if you could earn lives by having kids who live to 60? I kind of feel like there should be some in-game way to earn lives. They pile up if you play or if you don't so the way to maximize your number of lives is to just not play. Save them up. Hoard them... because... IDK.
Maybe you would earn two lives for each hour of play with some sort of cap. I just feel like the new system is doing good things, but it's also making not playing seem like it's the "right" thing to do... even though I'd rather just play more spontaneously.
Some of my best lives were ones where I started playing thinking "eh IDK if I even want to play that much..." then crazy things happened and it was so much fun. hmmmm
I like the friend idea, though a better name might be /truce. Something like you can form a truce with another person. If 3 people in two families make truces then the family names become aligned. If there are no murders for a generation it becomes permanent.
There isn't any way to make a peace with other families, to build the same kind of (imperfect) trust you have with your kids.
I know Jason thinks a lot about how to make people care about their family, but the current system of having people you can curse and won't probably get cursed for killing is all negative incentive.
Heck, what if your FAMILY could fall apart if there are murders? If too many smiths murder each other you are no longer a family and war swords work, curses don't.
That might address something I've done that lots of people do that's always bothered me: ask some one to kill you just for fun (like when the whole town is empty or if I just need to go to work and stop playing I'm like "hey wanna kill me, don't get mad at her I'm asking her to")
What if killing your own family could add up to you not really existing as a family anymore?
The protection and control through war swords and curses that we have for our families isn't a choice in the game. So, in some ways I think it's less powerful than the simple at of your mother, another player, feeding you and caring for you even though she doesn't have to do that (and might not even want to!) But, why can't I kill my mother with a sword? how was that protection and deep sense of taboo earned?
Another idea would be to tie curses to having been around a person for some amount of time. You can curse the people who live with you and who are around you... people who stay away too long no longer will be impacted by your curse, they will lose the deep feeling that makes use the war sword impossible.
I'm still thinking about this. I'm thinking about my neighbors here in NYC. What keeps the peace between us? Most people might say "the cops" but I live in a part of town where no one likes police but it's still very safe and people just help each other. Mostly, because we live with each other I care what my neighbors think of me. They could "curse" me, when they are hurt it makes me feel like I've been hurt. Something something social contract? How do you make one?
I generally agree guppy, but I also think that there is a sameness issue with the towns and perhaps it feels more pronounced now since being Eve is more rare. I was one of the people who was like "just do bug fix week" so, people should know that there has been less "new content" since people asked for it.
I bet the future updates will be more fun adding new things to do and try. We'll see.
I understand why people do it but I don't think it's an optimal strategy? I mean nasty players can be *your* kids too. Cursing is the main cause of this pre-emptive murder. I don't bother with it. I really don't like the "it must be a one family town" mentality. Towns need people. Killing people kills the town. By degrees. The damage done trying to "prevent" an evil curse-able child being born. (and the fact the people kill because they are worried they will be eliminated for the same reason) stacks up more murders than actual griefers.
Agree. I was playing with a new player recently and all of this stuff I'd forgotten came back to me.
The video is the kind of violence I don't mind much if it isn' the only thing that happens. It's interesting and lots of people are involved and invested.
Getting randomly stabbed or stabbed just because I have the wrong last name isn't as fun. The game seems a lot better in this respect since the last update but I've still been killed twice randomly for no real reason.
If you randomly select people you'd only need to poll about 100-200 people to get a good sample for a given concern. I would be careful to spread the poll over various times of day since different regions and player types are active at different hours.
I wouldn't restrict the poll at all based on how much someone plays or any other factor, but use that data as a filter later to refine the results.
Some "new" players may be people with multiple accounts. Some people who "have not played recently" may be active on other servers, or, like me before I started playing they may have done a ton of research and video watching.
So, I'd say grab it all then filter to see the issues.
The nice thing about a smaller sample is you can ask an open ended question and won't drown in comments.
This is a really neat video essay about how not knowing all the rules of a game or mechanics can change the the story. I think OHOL works well with this feature of game in that as you learn more the story of the game changes. The first few times I played it was a hard game where I couldn't find enough to eat. Now I think about having a lasting impact on a town and keeping the other people in my family from dyeing.
Anyway here it is the video essay it's from Big Joel
I've seen this happen too, just a big region with no animals. Mostly don't mind lol, if you have sheep and a cow it's not a big deal... on the other hand animals seem to cluster near the lower left of their biome in huge numbers at other times... don't know what that's about.
PLEASE tell me you you aren't running around the neighborhood in nothing but one pice of rabbit fur and a raggedy seal pelt...
Here is the problem:
https://www.reddit.com/r/OneLifeSuggest … ike_doors/
Animal pens take up a lot of space, "berry corners" are confusing to new players, fences are rarely used for their intended purpose of housing animals.
One of the reasons people don't use fences to house animals and choose adobe or property fences instead is because fence gates make it too easy for someone to let all the sheep out (by mistake or on purpose) by simply leaving the gate open.
Air-lock style gates are a bit better but hard to enter and exit.
What if we could put springs on fence gates as we do with doors?
It seems like these are both reasonable problems that would be worth addressing. The issue with people having the same name and not being related and people without last names being un cursable is annoying.
As for quad lives getting used up? Hmm that is harder to solve. We can hope that now that it's harder for griefers to be quads and twins maybe twins won't be so hated. Really having twins or more should be *good* thing that makes moms and the town excited to have more people.
All a choice screen would do is further cheapen life. When every life can be Eve, Eve has no significance. Every Eve would be just another player with a vanity project, someone refusing to die to themselves, insistent on their preferred play style. It'd be a game of 1000 Eves and no children. Sounds like a blast. ?
Really good observation, denriguez! Thinking about it were there a choice screen I would have the same hang-up with being the child of Eve that I do with being the child of a fake run away Eve's you are being roped into someone's else's vanity project because they want to be Eve and they want to pick you last name. Feels bad, man.
Part of what makes Eve runs work is the sense that you and your family have been thrown in to this difficult situation and you must work together to overcome it. None of you choose for things to be so hard, but they are and you gotta survive.
I'm really glad that Jason didn't make a choice screen for this reason even though I was supportive of it as a possible solution to the /die issue.
But this solution seems much better. It's in line with the game's core concept "one hour one life" I'm excited to see how well it works.
This is really great work. This would also make a great script for a YouTube video. Writing a good script is kind of the hard part of making a video... pondering using this to make one would you mind?
I was in a nice town but no matter how hard I searched I couldn't find the oil well. I built us a road to a tarry patch, but still... where did the kerosine come from? A little work on horseback helped me find the source. A town to the north with tons of kerosine ... someone really went to town... they had the oil pump right in town and there was all the water and charcoal you could want nearby. Clearly, my ancestors had taken the kerosine (or traded for it? LOL I doubt it.)
Since our pump was running low and our own production of oil involved a long road I ... liberated some more kerosine leaving a basket of ropes out of sheer guilt.
Then I realized that I had been living in America all along....
(Yes I really do live in the US)
No one caught me, but... I almost started an oil war!
I love it!
I've been seeing a lot of people building bad roads. But, what makes a road terrible? The worst kind of road leads to nothing. Maybe the person wanted to make an outpost or town, but there is no sense in making the road first. Roads that are needed are:
1. road to oil
2. road to rabbits
3. road to water*
*this will become irrelevant once you have oil AND engine. The oil road and pump should be made BEFORE the engine or at the same time. Been on a lot of towns with an engine and no oil pump or road. I also have not had the chance to make an engine except on small servers and it's annoying. You never get the chance to learn. Whoever is churning out engines... thank you... but also maybe step back and let some other people gain some skills. You can't be in every village. And making the engine *first* just because it's more interesting and fun than pumping oil is almost selfish.
Many players feel that a road to water is very important. But, it's really just a stop gap. Almost not worth doing at all. I've also seen roads to.... um iron mines? WTF. Think about how much your road will be used. Think about how nearly every person born in the town after you will waste their time going down your road to look at the exhausted well or iron mine.
The road to rabbits and oil will always be needed. Connecting towns is still too dangerous so don't bother. Only build a road to a well if no one is making the engine and no one knows how.
Focus on the road to the oil.
Later if you don't have an adjacent prairie that's easy to find make a rabbit road for the kids.
The problem with building is mistakes are hard to correct. Someone spammed a bunch of building steaks close to the smith and as I was trying to remove them someone else plopped a stone corner in the middle of the damn bakery. I tried to remove the road to the dead well and move the stone to the oil road only to find some one else was building it right back again.
"what is road for"
"IDK"
If you don't know what it's for don't make the road. Don't assume your ancestors knew what they were doing when they laid out stones.....
I don't think needle and thread works to create slot boxes. /sad
Super /sad
I get really annoyed when it's just random... no reason, nothing said ... just nothing.
But if there is a story to it I don't mind it as much. Like if someone gets mad at me even for a dumb reason and then comes after me later at least I can get ready. Or not... so if I die I'm like "whelp should have made knife after all..."
But people who don't interact just stab at random ... IDK. It pisses me off.
git gud
I think the number of characters you can type is equal to your age.
bump.
I don't see how this is better than roman numerals which people already use.
"COOK AT LEAST V PIES"
already means cook at least 5 pies... not eight.
each time spoonwood says "YUM" drink a cup of beer
one shot of tequila for "fertility"
a gin when says "parenting"
RIP everyone who plays this game.
You know what? Never change, Spoon. Never ever change.