a multiplayer game of parenting and civilization building
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When there are 30 people playing, how do you think that's going to turn out?
You sold the game as a parenting simulator; people want to care for each other, and you're going to let the ones that kill people turn them away. Then you'll be left with another dead game, like all the other garbage you've made.
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I'm sorry but the property fences and the weapons are the wrong direction for this project.
You should have stuck to making food, clothing and the technology for people to keep each other alive. That way new people would have felt welcome and needed and the game could have grown with the growth of the player base. Now you're just going to turn people who want to care and work with each other, a goal we all already wanted, away from one another.
You can't run a simulation meant for thousands, or even millions of people, with ten. What happened to humanity over the last ten thousand years just cannot be reproduced this way. Even if 1 in 10 people decides they are going to murder people, the ratio of murderers to mothers is already orders of magnitude too high, compared to that which gave rise to mankind.
Forget your lesson, make a good game for people who want to do good things.
That is what has kept me playing for over 2000 hours now, and that is what the vast majority of players wants to do.
That is what the vast majority of people throughout time, have wanted to do.
As a new player with probably around 30 hours, I agree 100% with what you've said, except the part about the other games he's made being garbage (because I don't know anything about them).
I will post this again because it bears repeating... it is taken from a blogpost about getting criticism by one of the most erudite game designers for multiplayer games ever, Raph Koster.
Bold and italics added by me for emphasis:
You often have to choose between your ideals and your message.
One of the commonest pieces of feedback I get is that I am choosing some philosophical ideal over the player’s experience. It might be getting wedded to an aesthetic or visual I love that is just confusing the issue. It might be sticking with PvP for too long in order to serve an ideal of virtual citizenship, not paying attention to how many players are being chased out of the game.
The irony here, of course, is that if I can’t make the player’s experience positive enough, my ideal is failing to reach them anyway. And what good is it then?
It doesn’t mean I have to give up on the philosophical ideal. But it does mean that there are many many ways to compromise, and not all of them leave you compromised. In fact, being uncompromising may be the least successful way to achieve your artistic goal.
I really want to know what is the point of "muh vision" if it drives away a core segment of the player base, turns off noobs from playing your game, and leads to less people being around to experience, enjoy and react to your game?
How many people are really going to "Come Together" if the changes you make trying to force them to build fences and band together against enemies actually drives them away?
If your players aren't using a particular feature, if you're players aren't happy with things like war swords, maybe that is because something else in your game appeals to them and things like war swords, genetic homogeneity, and not being able to communicate with strangers is killing the very thing that makes your game special. There are a great number of the players who enjoy parenting and cooperation, in working together and chilling out without contrived drama and some cynical simulation that attempts to mirror the darkest and basest of human impulses.
Finally, Raph Koster has a recent book called "Post Mortems," over 700 pages where he discusses many of the lessons learned from his various experiences working on games like UO, SWG, Metaplace, and more. I highly urge Jason to read it, at least the parts where he discusses playerkilling in UO and laments his stubborn decision to permit freedom and FFA pvp in the name of emergence and the simulation at the expense of the game's playerbase.
The "You red, you dead" part of this MASSIVELY OP ARTICLE also discusses the book and this mistake, and I think it's something for Jason and the OHOL community members (who think war swords and property fences are great) to really consider if they don't want to be a pack of wolves hunting for sheep in an empty wasteland.
UO lost a huge number of players to unchecked player killing and griefing, and it wasn't until Trammel (a PvE only mirror of the game world) was created that subscriptions numbers doubled. Many people view Trammel as the beginning of the end of UO too, but Koster has repeatedly mentioned that they lost huge numbers of players to EQ pre-Trammel because they dogmatically put the simulation and freedom above the enjoyment of most of their players, and their attempts to allow the community to police griefing and playerkilling was a failure that drove players away in droves.
Relevant quote:
“The result of UO’s PK environment was an exodus driven not only by the more modern 3-D graphics of EverQuest but by the safety. Everything I had thought about the impossible admin load of having a PK switch with a large-scale game was disproven in short order, and players wasted no time in telling me bluntly that I had been drastically and painfully wrong. In the name of player freedoms, I had put them through the slow-drip torture of two years of experiments with slowly tightening behavior rules, trying to save the emergence while tamping down the bad behavior. The cost was the loss of many hundreds of thousands of players. Ultima Online had churned through more than twice as many players who quit than EverQuest even got as subscribers that year.”
By the way, this is NOT meant to be a combat game. Obviously, the controls/latency/etc were not designed for that.
Yeah, okay. It's not meant to be a combat game, but you put weapons in the hands of griefers that have the sole purpose of killing strangers, letting them mass murder whole towns for fun, and then limit meaningful communication between the different groups (while creating racially distinct tribes who can't communicate with each other and will come to inherently distrust strangers after associating mass killings with outsiders). Not to mention taking away the anti-griefing "curse" mechanic which is pretty much your game's only remedy for players to address bad actors.
All of that is a recipe for xenophobic conflict and, by proxy, a need for combat and to always be on edge.
War swords, distinct racial groups, and language barriers prime the pump for conflict and the inevitable result is going to be a combat-centric experience. If anybody wants to accomplish anything and not see their hard work and time spent wasted in the blink of an eye, they will have to be ever vigilant and capable of fighting at a moment's notice should any stranger approach... They will also have to rely on their lineage to be equally vigilant, which leads to internal strife and blame casting for things like nobody being willing to go on watch or building fences/etc
Resources, time, and effort that were devoted to building things and just enjoying the unique experience that your game provided will be spent instead on building war swords, erecting fences, and obligating people to spend boring stints as sentries and "defenders" against attacks that might never come (not to mention the time, effort, and resources that will go into feeding these specialized "defense forces"/militia who won't be able to fully devote themselves to farming, trapping or other productive activities that people enjoy doing in the game).
Some people might think that sounds great, but as somebody who has spent hundreds of hours watching towers and tracking the movements of enemy zergs in GW2's WvW game mode, I can assure you there is a reason VERY FEW people scout any more after years of playing WvW (the chief reason being it is boring, often thankless, and you get burnt out on doing the same activity all the time.. although the same people often wind up scouting because they realize how important it is and would rather be bored to tears scouting than play on a map where enemies can take upgraded structures without any response or resistance).
All this war sword/language/racial-lock update does is empowers people to grief and kill for fun, and the kinds of people who get off on ruining other people's fun won't mind dealing with the idiosyncratic controls of your game if it means they get to slaughter people, but those of us who find the simple controls cumbersome (especially when it comes to combat), or those of us who were attracted to the game for reasons other than conflict and killing, will simply give up and not even bother.
Seriously, if I wanted to feel this kind of antagonistic dread when a stranger approaches in a FFA pvp type situation, I'd go play a game with a much more robust control scheme that makes it very clear you are going to be in for some FFA pvp, like say RUST or ARK (and even those games have the option of pve servers for the very reason that the devs understand that not everybody is looking for their time spent gaming to stress them out and reinforce their worst fears about humanity).
Furthermore, I have the real world to look at if I want to immerse myself in barbarity, senseless violence, xenophobia, and racism. Why in the world would I seek out entertainment that emulates the same kind of toxicity that I think has stunted human progress?
The description on Steam and the OHOL homepage, as well a the trailer on Steam, doesn't communicate ANYTHING about xenophobia or racism or war swords. It comes across as a very sandbox building-centric type game with an emphasis on rebuilding society (and a novel hook of your life being brief and your contribution being more about passing something down that makes things easier for the next generations to come).
How war and killing and building walls to keep out outsiders fits into any of that is beyond me, but as others have said here, you have your creative vision and somehow all of this fits into that vision.
As a person and a gamer, I have no interest in exploring the cynical and baser aspects of the human condition while playing a game like OHOL. I get enough of that from the real world or from playing games that are very clearly advertised for being just that kind of experience.
I apologize for the wall of text, but this is my genuine take on all of this. I only recently purchased this game and have only even started to scratch the surface of what it offers. To say I'm disappointed with such an abrupt change is an understatement. I was barely getting my feet wet and it feels like you just grabbed me and threw me into the deep end because "muh vision" or something.... I understand that people who have been playing for a year probably welcome the change and the new content, but this is pretty shocking from a new player's perspective, especially considering I saw no indication on Steam or in Twisted's YT videos that this is the direction you intended to take this game.
This was the village I talk about toward the end of my post here.
I had just barely spawned in and gotten situated when I decided to take a little look around town. I was happy to see how much progress this place made after having been a part of it 15 generations earlier. Didn't get to see the northeast, east, or southeastern part of town yet.
I was standing up by the top left of OP's screen shot when a raider appeared and stabbed me, then stabbed another person, and more radiers appeared and got into the nursery and killed everybody in there.
It's so fun to be 7 and defenseless, just literally having a look around (and not aware the war swords were in the game yet), then getting ganked and watching everybody around me die just so people can have "fun" murdering people. It totally matches the description in the "This game is about..." write up on the home page. I'll be sure to keep playing! I love racism, xenophobia, and senseless violence all for the sake of drama, especially in a game with very simplistic controls that make combat clunky and imprecise! It's awesome! So glad I spent $20 on this, especially because the Steam description talked all about how the game was going to be centered on conflict and killing! I don't feel misled at all!!! /s
This is the point where I think it's becoming obvious that Jason has some sort of creative vision for the game that doesn't line up with some of the more vocal players' opinions. Personally, I've always thought killing is a super interesting part of the game because it messes up the status quo and allows for some cool rp, although I'm afraid to kill anyone myself because I don't want to end up in Donkey Town. Then again, I'm a theater nerd who's always been a fan of stuff like Hamlet and Macbeth, so of course I'm gonna like war and murderers as part of a survival game. Clearly, though, there are a lot of people who want to use it as sort of a building sandbox, which is great and all, but I'm not sure if that's where Jason wants to go with it.
The fact that there even ARE griefers who kill people for "rp shit" like making dresses as I saw someone say on another thread shows that some people really just want to build as much as efficiently as possible, which is great, but...I don't think that's where the game is going. This is a RP game at its heart, and I honestly think Jason wants that RP to include war and murder.
Then again, what the fans think is a crucial aspect of the game's success, so if most people are against it then Jason will have to figure something else out. Like FeignedSanity said, I think it's just a vocal minority who really hate it, but I could be wrong.
I just want to quote something from that blog post I linked to earlier that I hope the dev will consider.
It addresses what you are saying about his creative vision and the problems if it conflicts with what some players want, especially a lot of players.
Emphasis added by me:
You often have to choose between your ideals and your message.
One of the commonest pieces of feedback I get is that I am choosing some philosophical ideal over the player’s experience. It might be getting wedded to an aesthetic or visual I love that is just confusing the issue. It might be sticking with PvP for too long in order to serve an ideal of virtual citizenship, not paying attention to how many players are being chased out of the game.
The irony here, of course, is that if I can’t make the player’s experience positive enough, my ideal is failing to reach them anyway. And what good is it then?
It doesn’t mean I have to give up on the philosophical ideal. But it does mean that there are many many ways to compromise, and not all of them leave you compromised. In fact, being uncompromising may be the least successful way to achieve your artistic goal.
@ FeignedSanity
Fair point about the putting words into your mouth. When I read what you said to Spoonwood, and then your post to the dev, it just struck me as cheerleading. I can see you were just praising his work ethic though (in response to what spoonwood said). I'm honestly salty about the update, having only recently bought the game and feeling misled, so I'm not thinking clearly tbh.
With that said, using quotation marks indicates you are relaying the message exactly as it was said or written. You don't paraphrase something and then throw quotes around it. The correct way to paraphrase is to come out and say something like so, in other words, you are saying xyz.... (and then writing what you think they meant). That way, it is very clear you are offering up an interpretation of what they said.
When you throw quotes around what you think they were saying, it comes across like you are willfully misrepresenting what somebody said to make them look bad, at least to somebody who understands that quotes must be exact.
For example, political candidate says "I do not support a tax increase to pay teachers more. We just can't afford it right now." Then a newspaper prints that quote, but underneath it puts in quotes "I hate children and want them to be stupid." The paper could certainly feature an editorial about why the candidate's response means he doesn't care about kids or their education, but even then, it wouldn't include a fake quote which implies he or she said something they never said.
Doing it that way just seems like you are creating a strawman to knock down.
Anyway, I need to step away... Like I said, I admit I shouldn't read that much into this because I am pretty upset by this update and feel misled. Based on things I've seen in posts here, it seems people feel those who want this game to be a "sandbox building" type game are in a misguided minority, so when you said "vocal minority," it just pissed me off because I wasn't exactly sure who that was directed it.
I think my criticism is valid, even if I'm just a new player and the dev has some awesome creative vision and there are many people who love that he is following his vision and won't kowtow to the criticism. I see you meant something more specific in response to somebody, though. So, please disregard.
Just not happy that what is found on the Steam Store page and in various YT videos doesn't seem to highlight a vision that includes war swords and the racial/language/xenophobic b.s.
I wouldn't have bought this game if I realized it was going to be based on conflict, griefing, and building walls to keep out strangers. Some of my first impressions of this game were being born into a village where everybody was black and players shouting "BLACK MASTER RACE" and people saying the N word.
Seeing this kind of crap when I'm trying to chill out is soooo fun. Hard to care more about my lineage or any of that stuff when I don't even feel like playing anymore.
Spoonwood wrote:Nope, I'm not buying it. Jason has done nothing about the lineage ban in spite of people informing him that it would persuaded people to play more for their families. Also, it requires a bucket of water to make a sword, something that only griefers will do. He knows that water makes for a serious issues.
"Oh, Jason isn't just mindlessly bending to the will of a vocal minority telling him how his game should be made/how I think his game should be made, therefore he isn't really trying". I mean, you've said a lot of stupid shit, but this one I actually feel obligated to comment on. Really not a good look.
Throwing quotation marks around your own version of what somebody said is literally putting words into another person's mouth. That is really not a good look.
Also, characterizing critics as people who are "blinded by ignorance" (and setting yourself apart from them) is questionable.
Genuine criticism is vitally important to a dev improving both themselves and their game.
What's more, downplaying the concerns of others by telling a dev that they are great only drowns out what might be really useful feedback.
See: On getting criticism (Raph Koster)
(FYI: Raph Koster was the lead designer on the grand daddy of all MMORPG's, Ultima Online, as well as Star War Galaxies, pre-NGE)
I just bought this game recently. I'm relatively new and still learning.
I have enjoyed what I've played so far, but I got this game because I was interested in the warm fuzzy feeling and optimism that Lychee describes. I like building stuff, working cooperatively with people (but doing my own thing), and I find the brevity of a life really interesting (and have been happy to be reincarnated in places I was much earlier and see all the progress people have made, more on that later...).
Most of what I've played so far has seemed really chill and I have been impressed with the community, with their willingness to teach and be patient with somebody who is new. It's been a great change of pace from the typical online interactions one can expect in a video game, excepting a few of the asshats who are always going to be encountered in an online setting (but that's still a pretty good ratio all things considered).
Anyway, to the dev... I know you have your particular vision for what you intend for this game and what you desire, but I personally didn't buy this game for a bunch of pvp griefer nonsense. There is enough of that kind of thing out there already. You might think this will make lineages mean more or something, but I just don't see that happening. All I see is frustration and stress, which is a shame because what sets your game apart isn't the things that will make it a griefer paradise: it's how it allows people to socialize, work cooperatively, and enjoy seeing the progress made from their collective effort; and it's a good feeling of accomplishing something amidst the challenges put in front of you. Allowing a player with a war sword to show up and just massacre a whole community is antithetical to this feeling of collective accomplishment.
I hope you really reconsider what kind of game you want this to be, because as Raph Koster points out, pvp players play to crush and shame others and those kinds of games attract far less players and drive "average players" away because "shame sucks" and "humiliation online is a lousy game that you don't want to play!"
At the very least, if you are deadset on this war sword nonsense, you should consider implementing different servers with different rulesets so pve "carebears" can play in relative peace. Let the wolves eat themselves. I guarantee they won't stay on a pvp server for long because time and time again, every game with FFA pvp shows that wolves don't bother showing up in any great number unless they have sheep to slaughter. They get off on being jerks and raining on people's parade and all you are doing with the war sword and eliciting racial conflict and xenophobia is enabling this kind of predatory behavior.
It's a real letdown to see this change. If this is the direction this title is going and you think it's a great idea, I feel like I wasted my money and I'm pretty salty.
Finally, I was 15th generation born into the "Queen" family. I had a good life, but my lineage depth only went to two. I wasn't sure if that line survived because of how the family tree displays info, but I was delighted this morning to get born into that family again and was amazed by how much the town had developed. It's probably nothing to seasoned players, but having seen it at a much earlier stage, it was really cool to see what 15 more generations had accomplished.
When I was only 7, just barely having a look around the town, a group of war sword wielding players showed up, stabbed me and killed everybody in the nursery. This was traumatic, nobody was expecting it or had anything to defend themselves with. I realize you and others will say "well, then players will learn to adapt," but again, many of us aren't playing this game to feel on edge. To be inherently distrustful of every person we encounter. I don't want to play a game that makes me suspicious of other races, other people, and hate strangers. I deal with enough of that kind of bigotry in the real world and I'm playing a game to relax, not to be on edge.
If I wanted FFA pvp and griefing, I'd go back to playing ARK on a pvp server (over 400+ hours there), or just pvp in general, I'd go WvW in GW2 (thousands of hours there).
HUMILIATION ONLINE SUCKS AND IF YOU WANT TO DESIGN A GAME WHERE GRIEFERS CRUSH PEOPLE AND CELEBRATE DEFEAT, THEN I THREW MY MONEY AWAY AND YOU SHOULD BE MORE UPFRONT ABOUT WHAT STYLE OF GAME THIS IS ON THE STEAM STORE PAGE. I had no impression of any of this from Twisted's YT videos or the Steam Store page. Yes I saw some murders and things, but the cursing system seemed to be enough of a deterrent to deal with some of that. Now, all bets are off and you are going to drive away a lot of your players in the long run.