One Hour One Life Forums

Normally I would agree with you, but this game is in development and, as I understand from reading elsewhere on the forums, was marketed as a game a bit different than it currently is. As someone who joined the game just before the new update, I bought it because I had a $20 gift card lying around and it looked like a bit of calm, collaborative fun. I knew the game received updates, but I thought they were minor updates to fix bugs or add minor new items, or something like that. Because I like roleplay and because the $20 I spent on the game was a gift, the update hasn't really annoyed me that much because my attitude toward the game has always been "yeah, this looks fun, I guess," rather than something I'm super passionate about.

All that to say, as a new player I was unaware that the game was subject to massive changes, and I understand people who feel like they've been a bit cheated. When you buy a book or go see a movie, you usually don't go in thinking it's a romance only to find out it's horror, for example. The only video game I can think of that breaks this rule purposefully is Doki Doki Literature Club, and that game is free.

If the fact that the game is still subject to major change were more readily apparent in the advertising and on the download page, I would agree that asking for money back is a bit ridiculous. As it stands, the game seems to be undergoing something of a genre change without warning, which people are right to be upset about. At least in my mind.

@threudorf, I applaud you for reading through so many forum posts...I lived in Spain for a few months last year so I sort of have an idea of what it's like to have to communicate entirely in a second language, and it's exhausting as all heck. If this game were in Spanish I'd definitely have the same issues building and communicating. I hope you find a way to play that's as rewarding for you as the game was when you bought it.

Like I said on the other thread, DaTruf is giving me interesting ideas for villain characters...except I wouldn't make them quite this annoying. Villains are more fun when they own up to what they do.

Same! I love how Twisted occasionally gives his babies tours of the village, and I think that'd be way less of a pain in the butt if I could carry the baby with me. So far I've never been able to stay with my babies throughout their childhood, because I was in the middle of something that I needed to stick with (like carrot farming) when they were born, and/or because there's already a nursemaid at the fire, so me sticking around is kind of dumb and a waste of resources.

I understand why you don't want to add them, but so much of this game's logic is based on "well, in real life I could do this, so maybe..." that I think a baby sling would fit right in, since it's one of the first solutions I thought of to the problem of having to carry the baby everywhere. I agree with the others who have said that not being able to do so just because of game tension and for no other in-game reason feels contrived.

Babies are one of my favorite parts of the game, so I'll probably always be having ideas about them.

So I posed this question to my sister as a type of riddle, in order to get an outside opinion, and...she says she doesn't think there's a solution. She says that if people had infinite lives IRL, there would be a massive increase in suicides because you wouldn't be able to convince people to stay in one situation when they know they have a chance at a better one. So that's cheery.

I was initially a fan of life tokens, but as people have noted above, I think that's not going to work. The more you try to force people to have fun or to care, the less they will do so, just out of spite. Again, I've seen this IRL in summer camps. It's not a great time.

The only thing I can think of is trying to figure out how to entice people to stay in unfavorable situations. As a player, I try to convince babies to stay right away by using /LOVE or /JOY and saying something like "Yay!" or "Hi!" and naming them as soon as possible, so they at least know I'll be sad if they die. It sometimes works, but clearly we need a larger solution than that.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but /DIE is only a real problem for small towns/Eve camps, right? I mean, it sucks for legacies in big cities, but from what I'm seeing on here, most people seem to prefer playing in a large town or city rather than building up a small/abandoned town or playing in an Eve camp.

So the question becomes, WHY are Eve camps so much less popular? And what, if anything, can be done to change that? What don't people like about Eve camps? Is it the difficulty level of staying alive? Is it standing in front of the fire for minutes on end in hopes of having a baby? Is it the lack of resources?

Once you figure out the most common situation in which people /DIE, and from there figure out what they don't like about that situation, you might be able to come up with some fixes.

So...maybe a poll? Something like...
-How often do you /DIE?
-In what situations do you /DIE?
-What are the top five reasons you /DIE in those situations?

Something like that...maybe more specific.

Oooh, ghosting would be great too! Especially if maybe you could just go back for like 15 min of real time or something...I also like the idea of being able to interact with items in a very small way as a ghost, like maybe you can wiggle them without being able to move them from their location, or make a basket or a bucket float for a second. Maybe animals could react to you or people could see you when they're high on shrooms...just to make it spooky.

I'm probably getting to far into this, but I think being a ghost for a bit would be a fun way to check on your town's progress without diverting human resources from other towns.

Would it maybe work if the babies got warmth from "wearing" the backpack?

I mostly just like the idea of how it would look...probably wouldn't be super useful unless you were trying to start a breakout civilization since Eves usually don't have access to backpacks and people in towns wouldn't really need a carrier, like you said. I just like the idea of having another use for an item already in-game.

Same. Although, yesterday when I watched one of Twisted's OHOL lets-plays, there was a guy running around being racist...he got shot, and no one retaliated against the justice bringer. Just as it should be. So I'm hoping that the racist players get treated this way by everyone else until they learn that this sort of behavior is not okay. That's the sort of cathartic feel-good gameplay I'm here for.

I think a lot of people want this to be a simulation of the better version of humanity, and I hope the game will keep developing this way. I'm fine with wars, but I want them to be fought over resources, rights to the crown, revenge...not gross stuff like racism. Hopefully that's how it goes.

I also am enjoying the new update, and I just had a brilliant experience with the languages (https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=6440). Haven't run into any wars yet, though, so I don't have an opinion on them yet.

I can see why a lot of people don't like it, and I honestly don't blame them...although I'm relatively new to the game, it seems as though until recently it was heavily building/sandbox focused and was marketed as such, so I understand why some people feel upset/betrayed. It seems to me that Jason is taking the game in a very rp-focused direction, which is right up my ally, but whether or not it keeps going that way probably depends on whether or not the established player base is overwhelmingly against it or not.

tldr, love the new update, but don't blame people who don't

omg XD thank you for this

I agree with @Spoonwood here...that's on the individual players and there's really no way to force people to care about their lives. Even though I lean really heavily into the rp aspect of the game, and I think I've only /die-d for technical issues, I still don't usually get attached to my person until about 5 minutes in, once I see what sort of town I'm in and what sort of person I need to be to progress the life/story. It takes a bit of time to get attached to the life, much longer than the 30 or so seconds it takes people to decide whether or not they're gonna /die.

Honestly, I can't think of any way to incentivize people to stick around rather than making sure gameplay is fun in any given situation, but "fun" depends heavily on the individual player. I like to try to rescue towns from the dead (I have been a determined carrot farmer more than once), but as @Spoonwood says, a lot of people don't. The only way I can think of to make it more probable that people spawn into their gameplay preferences is...well, a preference screen.

I think having an available selection screen would be nice... based off @lychee 's suggestion, it could be something like:

Select a preference:
- I would like to spawn as Eve
- I would like to spawn in a small village (low gen)
- I would like to spawn in a medium town (mid gen)
- I would like to spawn in an advanced city (high gen)
- Surprise me

But that does leave the issue of taking away the mysterious aspect of birth...maybe the screen doesn't pop up until after the player's first five lives? Or maybe there's an option to turn the birth preference screen on in settings? Then you'd just have to find a way to make sure new players know that this option exists rather than /die-ing repeatedly.

I enjoy the mystery involved in the spawning process, so I think it's worth preserving...but it would be fun to be able to select a preference now and again, and it'd be nice if a lot of Eve babies didn't /die on the spot.