One Hour One Life Forums

I'm down for Jason trying whatever new ideas he's inclined to give a go.

It's taken me some time, but I see how this can be viewed as a form of art, and Jason, the artist.
As his work of art, and us, players of it, I think our suggestions should be secondary to his expression of what he sees is happening, or has happened, to the world, and his solutions being in the game for us to find through cooperation.

I'm okay with this being a puzzle game for us to solve, as long as it's Jason's puzzle that comes from his mind, and not our puzzle that he makes for us. I don't want to see the solution before putting the pieces together, although, the solution will always be the same; a Utopia. Even if we never manage to achieve that state, we can always strive to be more; more efficient, happier, challenged, and, interested, in the outcomes that our actions lead us to.

Why should we have that if we don't want it or need it? We understand that every player is one of our past children or parents, how are we supposed to assume to hate them the next hour? Wasn't that good moment enough to want you to crave greater of just that?

Good, but it could be great. Why settle for just more than anyone else when we can have the best possible experience and completely forget having to compete with each other for things?

The best moments I've ever had playing this game, all these years, have been ones of complete selflessness, and not just for hours, but for days, weeks, even months on end, where I wanted to do nothing but give to all of you. Look at the road projects for example, or the great cities I made in the corners during the arc, or the great wall I ran up the middle of the map to divide the east and west, that would have, if completed completely keep the families from killing each other, but, still could have lead to people choosing a side and making any opportunity they found themselves born to the other, as destructive as possible to that side, had they chose, and you know what, we didn't choose to do things like that, most of the time. Lotta commas there, let's get a period in. You liked the arc, did you ever use one of my roads dodge? That X the map the corner to corner? That connected all the villages to the center, where, pretty sure it was whatever aka hetuw, who first proposed branching roads outward? I thought, what a great idea. How bigger a project than the whole map?

But those weren't anywhere near the best examples of the work I did, to connect villages, to start greater villages in better biome arrangements; so many of us, were lost in those moments in the idea of being purely helpful to one another, and that was the absolute best thing about the game; getting lost in those moments of pure altruistic intent, as we all grew together and took on each of our roles.

I remember many times, meeting up with Tarr in the game, while we'd be working on the same village together. Each of us doing the greatest things we figured would benefit our family, and the town. We both recognized each other as extremely dedicated workers, he, often going out for iron, I, often making roads, out of wooden floors, to connect the towns together and aid in the sharing of resources, not any sort of competition, and people were absolutely devoted to getting just a little bit better at the game, so they could be just that more helpful to their families, or other families in other towns. That was the best, BUT, we didn't need those forced restrictions to help one another back then, we did it voluntarily.

If one town was near a lot of deserts with a lot of horses, and another town needed horses, we got them there. We didn't need to 'trade' because we knew where something was needed, because we'd just been there. It was the right thing to do, and we did it, with great enthusiasm, by choice. Not out of necessity, it didn't need to be forced on us. I even told Jason, in one of our last exchanges, before the families were divided, before the bands, back when anyone could birth anyone else, of any other race (that was kind of odd but, interesting) that if we were ever going to have conflict, war, trade, or people were ever going to want to feel unique, as different families, that things would have to be rare enough to be valuable to one family over another.

I kinda regret having said that.

No matter how little of a role it played in the division that ensued, I wish I'd had less of a part in that becoming the way of things.

And fuck, not because I don't want to have them in games what-so-ever. It's fine that we have our Ages of Empires, our Sid Meier's Civilizations and our Warcrafts and Starcrafts. That's fine that those things exist to give us pause and consider if we found ourselves, once again, at war. And it's not even like things are really peaceful around the whole world now, but they are so much better, thanks to the internet. Thanks to people, from all over the world, being able to relate to one another and communicate; to keep those tensions down and for all people, with, but a 56k modem and a chat room, to be able to communicate with real people, from nearly any country on the planet.What people on the news were saying about people in Norway, or Egypt or the Ukraine, just didn't compare to the impression you could get of a country, by just talking to one of it's citizens, on the internet.

We all have history, great armies, great empires, great nations, they have all risen and fallen, over the land, everywhere on this Earth. And we are the descendants, the survivors and benefactors of our ancestor's successes, in those conflicts. I don't want people to forget that aspect of humanity's past, I just want us to take the opportunity we are afforded, the live in the most peaceful, loving and selfless scenario, that our technology will allow.

This is important.

That we understand just how compassionate we desire to be towards one another

--
(I had to leave here, so, rather than try to pick up where I left off, I'm just going to post this as is.)
((Eventually I may reread this and figure out what I was going for, if I feel that necessary, I'll make an addendum in another post.))

But what about the part I could love more than anything I've ever loved before? What about that which we don't know we love yet, because it hasn't been tried? What if, love an compassion, were even more relevant to the outcome of the game, than ever before?

Or they always have been the most relevant things, and they just deserve more recognition.

Dodge, I love you.
Have a great day.
Thank you for sharing your passion for the game with the community.
May you be happy.

Eat another that life and it's effect overrides the old one.

You all bring me tears of joy.

It lightens the lead weight in my heart when I come back here and see this sort of alleviation of pressure I imagine my brazen comments have put on the community. I don't want anyone to feel like they don't belong here. I don't want any of us to feel like we can't help each other. We do help each other. We can help each other. Anyone, can belong in this community.

--

I can't thank Jason enough for giving me this place, this game, or this feeling. Even though I know so much more fuels these things; the feelings in me, the thoughts I've juggled all my life, the desperation, like I feel I'm nearing some end and now may be the last chance I have to say what really matters. All of what I was before this game, was like tinder and kindling, building up in a stack, while Jason has afforded us the atmosphere for sparks, to survive in the air. He merely put the flint and steel on the ground, and stepped away. He left it up to us to care for one another, and the sum total of compassion I have received from everyone has had a tremendous impact on the kind of person I, at least, want to be.

I still have a lot of, habits, that I often wish I didn't.
I wish I didn't know, for instance, how much a throat could hurt after shouting at someone for ten minutes straight.
I wish I never knew what it was like to want to hurt people.
I knew those feelings in the past, I'm afraid of knowing them again in the future.
I don't want to feel like those are ways that I can resort to.
I often regret testing them out as options.
But, there is a kind of respect people gain from one another, when they are in conflict.
I can't pretend it doesn't exist, when I know it from experience.

It's not a deeper kind of respect than that you get from loving someone, it's not better, it's not worse, but most of all, it may not even be necessary. With enough compassion and communication, enough trust and respect, ALL conflicts can be avoided. I understand that now. And it's not just those 4 things, it's not just love, though that is a massively heavy word on the scale. Like a tablespoon of neutron star, there is so much meaning condensed in those 4 letters. It is everything - the thing that can help us to be better, it's everything. Effort, must be exercised. Attempts, must be made. We can not, we should not, leave it up to others, to bridge our minds for us.

But we are born blank. We learn. We learn, really, really well.
We learn love.
We learn trust.
We learn hate.
We learn disgust.
We have the potential, to be the greatest beings the universe will ever know.
We have the potential to end it all.

When two people care about each other, they are so much stronger than either of those two could possibly be alone.

I want you to imagine if everyone cared for everyone that way.

I love you all so much.

I want you to be healthy, because we need you. I want you to care for one another and to feel the responsibility of caring and the rewards, when it comes back around to you. You are needed. You are invaluable. You are shining examples, of why life exists, at all. Fountains of beauty, each and every one of you.

I can't tell you enough, how much I care.
I can't share enough, how thankful I am that we have this chance to exist, together.

Thank you for holding me, when I needed to be held.
Thank you, for letting me hold you.

I love you.

Totally not attractive, also fake hate from someone i dont even know or havent even talked to personally, seems disingenous, is that a way to get some type of spiritual low ground on someone?

Like "oh i hate you, all your words make perfect sense, i'm now in a lowwer position and going to engage in every discussion"

You have the tools to teach, you have the tools to plan, you could help to make more wonderful cities than we've ever seen before.

You won't get cooperation without compassion, or at least, it won't be as rewarding unless we do it as a family, as a collective; a community, a, cohesive organism.

Your posts lead to vitriol, why is that Dodge?

Where does that hate come from, that is the root cause of this problem, for you, and each of us. What leads to you not caring? What leads to Americans not caring for each other? What leads to the people of the west, not caring for one another? What leads to people of Earth, not caring for one another?

These are the aspects of the game that you gloss over, that you fail to address, that you fail

This is why Design Club failed, because people failed, to deal with you. You, Dodge.

I need to help you. Where is this fuel coming from in your past that is destroying the game's community?

It is an attitude, Dodge, we all recognize it when we read your posts, but it's rare that I see people trying to address it; to talk to you, to try and save you from it, to save ourselves from it.

We each have passion Dodge, the sense of a patheon that we must act upon. But it is the will to act, again and again; to see our mission to completion, which is the thing which requires the most determination. You are determined to state the failures of "the game" time and time again. As if Jason is every player but you. Where are your plans, Dodge? Where are your blueprints for the town of the future? What are your ambitions for the family of the future?

While Jason is focusing on the needs of his real family, what are you doing for your family, Dodge?

I want people to recognize what this character you are playing here on the forum is causing. The problem of talking about you, rather than to you. We are all guilty, to some extent, of talking around one another; of talking past one another. I don't to do that, Dodge. I want to talk to you. I want to listen. I want to take all the weight off your shoulders so that the ambition child it was heaped upon, is free to play, and explore the world, once again.

Don't rush to reply to this. We have time. Read and reread this post and if you are sure you want to defend the person you have become, if the desire to just state that I am wrong, rather than address the most personal aspects of my post, is too strong, then state that again. Use the hate to push the keys once again. Afterall, if you feel you must bear the weight, then others should bear it as well, shouldn't they? Isn't that how it feels?

I really don't want to cripple you, Dodge, I want to help you heal. I want to kill the tiger stalking you through your life. I want to illuminate the darkness behind you, so that when you look back, you can see a clear coast, and when you look ahead, you see open arms eager to embrace you. We don't have to be strong, alone, when it's obvious we can be stronger together.

--

Do you understand why I love this game, Dodge? It's not because of the contents, it's the opportunity to spread love, that is so important. To feel it from others and to spread it to others, and what better love than the love of ones family? And what greater family, than all of life? When you have this idea, that all of life is your family, it goes against so much that we have been taught. The competitiveness, the divisiveness, the persecution and the enslavement. All the ways that animals take advantage of one another, humanity included, the ways we contribute to each others suffering, we can avoid it. We can negate it. The balance between light and dark does not apply to good and evil, it doesn't apply to life. Everything alive is good. Including you. If it's one belief I have, it is that all of life is a beautiful thing. The light and dark thing, that's just physics and astronomy. If we lived in another kind of star system, a binary for instance, it wouldn't be a 50-50 thing, and so many of the things we try to make seem that way, would never even have become a thing.

I want you to see that and I'd like, for you to spot people misapplying these same sorts of dichotomies. I'd like you to stop applying them yourself but I know that just by saying that, makes you want to consider putting your ideas on defense, which is exactly what I'm talking about. See that everything we do, is, working together. Everything Spoon says to you, he's just saying to himself. Everything everyone says, is just, Earth, talking to itself.

I really want to talk more with you Dodge, but even more, I find myself caring what anyone could be reading into this, anyone from anywhere, anytime from now into the future. So, it's very difficult to keep thinking like this, but to want to narrow my address to you. I need a reaction from you, Dodge. I'd love to be arguing with you about this stuff, face to face. I'm sure we'd treat each other, these reactions we have to one another, with a lot more desire for insight, into what the other person really wants to say.

Sometimes I wish I'd said more in the past, to maintain, and help grow, the things I found most valuable from the experience of playing this game with people, all over the world. I didn't, because I enjoyed doing it so much. So as people were expressing their feelings about Jason's choices, about the game mechanics, or about each other, I was missing out on throwing my hat in those conversations. And I'm sorry that I didn't say more. And I'm sorry I didn't plan more, that, I didn't share my desires, and my discoveries, more often with each of you. I'm sorry for the times I wasn't listening, when those of you here on the forums were making your complaints about things. I read most of them. I just, hoped, you'd sort things out yourselves. And like each of you, every one of us, does, I let some coals I picked up along the way, stick to me, and smolder. Many times I let those embers burn me, yet I did not produce the water, I didn't find it, to put them out.

Then, there were times I did try, and I certainly tried to put them out with the wrong chemical.

Analogies. What else am I supposed to use?

I just want a chance to care for people, and to be cared for in return, in a video game setting, I suppose, because I see it lacking, between people in reality. I see it falling off the tree, like dying leaves, and I just want to keep it alive. I really do just want all of life to be immortal and never stop growing, but it's really weird tying that message into every aspect of life, so, here I am, talking to you, seeing you as the source, in the change of the weather, like, some kind of characteristic of a god. But there really are no gods, just us. Us, and the tilt of the Earth. Us, and us, revolving around the Sun. And air, and all the fluids, spreading out when they get warm, and contracting when they get cold... except water, that stuff is evil. It doesn't obey the laws. It doesn't care, for our conventions.

Did Jason tell you he wanted friends too? That he wanted to be, friends?

I'll bet he has. I'll bet he's said that to just about every, one, of you, that has ever questioned him, or made an argument with him, or complained to him, personally, about choices he was making, for the game, or, even more interestingly, choices he was choosing not to make. Isn't that puzzling? You'd think if he was trying to be a good game designer, that he'd be implementing more of our suggestions, wouldn't you? Didn't it make you wonder, when you felt an idea was really good, but yet, it didn't ring the same way it did for him, as it did for you?

That, is why love is so important, Dodge. Trust, understanding, symbiosis... grogging. These are all offshoots of love. These things, and so many more, they all travel along with one another, like molecules of air in a hurricane. A Great Red Spot, around Jupiter. A planet. A star. A galaxy, itself.

Design Club could have become a company.

It still might. If you could just work together, like gusts of winds, moving together, in the same direction.
But it has to be a good direction. And in order for you to be a storm, you have to be, unusual.
A person, is not so unusual, when they are compared alone, to 8 billion other people. But we are an unusual planet, when you compare us to any other. Maybe, try seeing what Jason has done with this game, as a sort of butterfly in the chaos theory. The drop of water, that hollows the stone. And we understand, that we ourselves, are each one of those drops as well, one of those butterflies, one of those people, and someday, one of those planets, one of those fractions, of the universe as a whole.

Things can be anyway we want to make them, if our gears meet together. But how would we know, if we didn't care enough to look, where they meet?

If you want people, to enjoy finding the best interpretation of what Jason's reasonings are in the future, for the game he's made in the past, well you have to give him a good reason to make it.
A good reason.

Those are the words I'm going to end on.
A good reason, Dodge.

A good reason.

Be, a good reason.

This forum is not a game.
You and I, discussing it, is not a game.
My feelings for people like you, are not a game.
Your feelings for yourself, are not a game.

I see the game as a subset of reality. What occurs in it, happening in reality; people caring for each other, providing for each other's characters, gaining respect for one another as they work together.

It has been so refreshing, to play this game with you and the others. To finally have a game where I feel like caring, doesn't just matter, but is the focus. I flooded guild banks with my best goods in World of Warcraft, playing to make others better. It was nothing like this.
In UO, I hunted PKs, recalling to nearby towns to inform people of who was online and where they were hanging out, it wasn't as rewarding as holding a child in my arms, or even being held by a mother, in One Hour One Life.

Nothing, no game, has been as rewarding as this.
No digital experience, meant so much.
And I felt that same feeling, resonating in my mothers and children, so often, that I knew how meaningful this opportunity was for them, as well.

I watched, as men nearly twice my age, cried playing this game on Twitch.

I saw it, in the faces of women from Korea, that this was something special.

I've read nearly 100 articles across the web of personal accounts with this, not in regards to the game, but in regards to the feelings the people playing experienced, because of the opportunity it afforded them, to be dependent once again on the compassion of another person for their life. To feel it, once immersed.

I've felt it. Thousands of times.

I have no doubt you've felt it too, creeping up on you like the warmth of a fire across your skin.

It's pretty obvious you've tried to dismiss that feeling and instead just want to see the game as another survival crafting game with the potential to be, what, another war simulator? I know you'd like that. There was a time I liked games like that too. But I know better now. It's pretty obvious the adrenaline from games like Warcraft, Quake, Goldeneye, Streetfighter 2... that feeling you get, all those neurotransmitters, they are nothing like the warmth of oxytocin (not oxycontin, -tocin), or any of the other NTs you produce when you are in love.

The more it hit me, the more I realized how much it was missing in my life, and how much better everyone's life would be if only they produced more of it. If only they had reasons to do so. The game is an encourager to find those reasons, in our daily lives.

I have told so many people, so many things I otherwise wouldn't have had the courage to do so, if it weren't for my experience with each of you. I work my way, casually, but gradually, to the point where I can tell people how much I value them. I'm not the kind of person to just come up to you and say "I love you." in real life. I'm a pretty big guy with a fairly imposing build, I know that would scare people, and that's the last thing I want Dodge, is for you to be afraid, of anything, let alone me. Let alone any member of this community. But don't leave alone, people in your real life. Don't leave your friends, or family, alone.

Be there for them.

They always need someone. They could always use, someone, and who better in your mind, than you?

You can tell them you love them in every way, simply, by being in their lives.
Make them a meal.
Clean their yard.
Share their living room with them.
And when the time is right, hold them in your arms and say what you really want to say. Let them know how much you appreciate them in your life
and how much you appreciate the opportunity to be in theirs.

No situation is so bad that a visit can't amend.
In those cases, the smallest effort has the most power.
You need to be willing to make it.

I want you to understand how important it is that people care about you.
And just imagine how much of an impact you can have on others by being that person in their lives.

And I encourage you to start with the most difficult case. Make the smallest gesture.
Just remind them, that you are still alive, and let them know you care.

Help us to make our lives better.
Let them know you care.

I don't want to take this away from you.
I want to build on it.
We can learn from it.
Maybe we can ask, some of those who have stopped playing the game since, what made them happy, before we were split apart.
And if they'd like it to be that way, once again?
Perhaps, a combination of everything we've been through so far?
Races, living together, but the individuals of those races, with the abilities to provide unique resources to their town and the descendants of mixed families? Would you be okay with that? Would you be willing, to give it a try for awhile?

Would it make you want to play more? To be more involved, personally, with the, unfolding, of the future?

Do you have a wife or a girlfriend?
Any children?

What would you like to discuss, while we're both here?

Woah there Spoon, I was being humble. My actual success rate was a lot higher with one or two children. I was thinking of the most exciting times when the game dumped 3+, sometimes 10+ children on me while I was out looking for milkweed or seeds that our families life hinged on. A lot of times it was just a better home than the one that my mother had started in.

I looked for that place to start, because I wanted her to survive, and because I knew, that at any moment, I too could start having children, and I didn't want to subject them to the confines of the 3 berry bushes and 1 pond that my mother had brought me up in.

We could have always found a better location, that's what going out and exploring as a child was about; the chance for a greater home. That was the MOST possibly rewarding thing I could give to all of my mother's decedents. That was where courage and compassion paid off. And if I had a child in that process of exploration, all the better. They would be born to me and I would be there sole teacher in that moment. I was setting an example for every single person that played the game and, I was, undoubtedly, the most successful person at that job, as I experienced, day after day, ten hours a day, on average, for fucking months, what it was like to be born a child to every player in the game and to be the mother of every player of the game.

In short, I was the game.

If your choice of home location wasn't good enough for me, guess what, I found better, nearly every, fucking, day. Every day of my life, MY REAL LIFE, I was making this game better for everyone. Jason has all the numbers, he could share them with you if he really wanted to, he could tell you just how much traveling I did, how many children lived in my arms, and just who the cowards were who abandoned their kids, or their mothers.

Jason, you have my permission, my encouragement, to dredge up those numbers and compare me to the average player, compare me to Twisted, Dodge or even Tarr, and tell the world how much I failed or succeeded, how much food I produced, how many new homes I started, how many families I was successful at Eveing to any degree of longevity. Or how many families died, as a result of me being the final woman and not, managing to find or create, a good enough place for them to call home.

And any of you that want to be compared to me, I suggest you give Jason the same permission to dredge up your numbers and compare yourself to me. Let's compare who abandoned the most babies, never picking them up, or who abandoned their mothers by moving away from their coordinates. That data, exists. Compare the the x and y coordinate changes of the mothers compared to the children. Let's see just how many times all of you ran away from your mothers as babies, or left your babies in the dirt, as mothers. There you will see the disgusting behaviors of people like Twisted, for certain, and, I suspect, the habits of the other people that I failed to inspire to be great players, as well as, perhaps, even those who's habits I changed. Those who I encouraged to work harder and harder, to provide for every family they found themselves in, no matter how rich or poor their starting conditions.

Do it.

Give Jason the permission to put all your data on display. I will show you where you were greatest, and where you can be greater.

And if that ain't fucking interesting, I don't know what is.

Let's each have our own baseball cards, and see who is the Black Lotus of the game and who is the Swamp.

I'll even give you a freebie, have engines created be a stat. Cuz just about every one of you beats me there.