a multiplayer game of parenting and civilization building
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I'd love to see an official marriage system and an official child adoption system.
The big zoomed in square is the question mark "?"
The tab markers blocking the bells is annoying. The way to fix that is to zoom all the way in and type / to reset your search then zoom back out again.
IMO the way to solve this is to make babies not be able to run fast and add a short cooldown to jumping out of a parent's arms. Not only is it realistic but if babies cant outrun parents and slip out of their arm so often then using /die is the better option.
You suggested marking every member of a family with a star, so I was instantly reminded of the members of a certain lineage that were marked with six-pointed stars. It would be totally in line with other flamebait mechanics.
Fine make it a diamond, any shape. That was an arbitrary shape that I picked, that wasn't the focus on this post. I want to be able to easily identify my family.
sorry, we cannot also do the fifth thought crime until we get proper gas chambers
wtf....?
I wish we had a badge system for immediate family, lets say a Star by the player's name or on their shirt.
Two stars means it's immediate family: Mother, Mother's spouse (if we ever get a marriage system), Siblings, Children, (if we ever get an official adoption system then add adopted children, adopted parents, adopted siblings).
One star means close family: Grandparents, Grandchildren, Great Grandparents, Great Grandchildren, If male then this also includes nieces and nephews.
Anyone more distant than this isn't really relevant in day to day family dynamics when playing.
Thoughts?
Gogo,
I was your sister that life. I spent much of my life chasing Bilbo to get you free. I wanted him to give access rather than killing him because I didn't know if others owned the gate so maybe it wouldn't fall after killing him.
He was a crafty griefer. He behaved as if he was a normal kinda noob player that inherited the fence and didn't know. When I found him and explained that he needed to follow me to the gate, the just ran off in your direction but kept missing the town. He'd go too far and say he was lost. He even ran right past you on the stone road. That's when I decided he probably wasn't a noob and that I'd just kill him. It took a while but I eventually stabbed him and he died on the road.
I might have also stabbed the woman who stole your horse "as a joke" and perhaps I overreacted but I've been griefed far too often to not stab on site when someone from another family gets on your horse. Especially after the trapped life you had. Glad you made the property yours and died happy.
And with a response like that from the dev, I'm done. I'm moving onto better games. OHOL deleted.
Cya
PS no need to reply, I won't be checking.
So the Hammer family has a cage (far south and slightly west from one of their cities), it's a huge property fence owned by a very limited number of people that are on discord. It has farms and some things, big enough so that people can live there. BUT if you aren't among the few to have access then you are trapped inside. Children born to you are trapped.
They call it the slave cage. They call it a human zoo. If you are trapped inside, they bring people to the door and laugh at you and your trapped family.
I died inside with Edith Hammer laughing at us all as we were trapped. There was maybe a dozen people trapped inside, kids were born trapped. I was reborn and saw Edith's daughter so I befriended her and she took me to the cage.
I stayed quiet the whole time with the intention to free all those trapped. I quickly found a bow and arrow and killed the owner and the door broke. Unfortunately a few bad people were still left alive and they started rebuilding the cage door and then stabbed me.
I hate this game more and more.
Your son was a prodigy. Lived to 60 in his first life?!
"How do I make more bowl"
Cutest last words ever
The nice thing about having a successful town but with few people is that teaching is uninterrupted and there isn't a scarcity of food. He was male so he didn't have to stress about babies. Plus the kid was great, he was perfectly happy to spend that first life just learning and practicing farming.
My dear Cloud,
We met as babies around the fire. You were playful and flirty. When we grew up we flirted some more, often meeting for special moments. This was one of the few lives where we really were a family. You gave me all your clothes and you didn't have to. When a bear threatened the town you made arrows and we went after it but you were not confident with a bow. But I was, so I became the hunter.
We returned to town and found it almost deserted, everyone had died. I was thirty years old and had no children. There was no question that any children I had would be yours, not because of us being some of the only people but because you were my partner that life. I warmed myself by the fire while you brought me yummy food. You cooked eggs, and rabbits just for me. Soon we had a girl! We stood on either side of her, smiling down on her as loving parents in a quiet town. That was a rare moment (especially since the rift update).
Our first son died so young but we were quickly blessed with another son. Cloud, you were an amazing man and father. You ensured our entire family was clothed. Our son told us that this was his first life! So we had to teach him. I still had all the arrows so you stayed behind and walked our son through farming berries and carrots while I hunted bears and wolves.
Later, I gave my backpack full of arrows to a young man who was going to kill a boar south. I was 55 when that young man was mauled by the boar. The hunter in me had to find it. I stupidly left town with an arrow in hand, a tiny stomach, and no food.
I quickly found the boar and the bow and arrow. I killed the boar but on the way home I realized I would not make it home. There was no food for the long journey back through the swamps. That life was too nice to go chasing a hunt at that age. I write this to you now from the swamps where you might find my corpse. I'm 57 and won't make it back.
I'm sorry Cloud. I shouldn't have left you and the kids. I should have stayed to say my goodbyes.
-Ophelia Bison
PS: I'm happy to see that you lived until old age but saddened to see that our daughter was murdered by another family. She was only 12! Our son may live out his life but I fear for him in this cruel world.
I wish that when you died, you had the option to write anything. Like this. And it could be added to the family tree as an icon. You click in and it opens up whatever they wrote after they died. That would be fun.
Now that we are all close together, its nice to be such good friend with our neighbors.
My family had a little farm and another Eve came and started eating everything. She was very hungry and we were happy to give all of our limited food to her. She was clearly grateful. When my mom came, my mom tripped and accidentally shot the woman with an arrow. I was so scared I almost cursed the Eve but thankfully I can't curse outsiders.
Soon after we had another lovely Eve visitor who must have heard how skilled my family was with a bow. I think she wanted to learn how to use a bow so she brought her bow to us. Since I was aware of how easy it is to trip and accidentally shoot someone, I picked up our bow to show her how to use it, but that's when the eve tripped and accidentally killed my only daughter. Unfortunately I was so startled that my finger slipped too and shot the Eve. My brother was so happy to have visitors in town that he forgot to feed me and I died so happy and proud to be the last fertile family member.
Lum, as best as I can tell things are being adjusted but yes we've seen no indication that this isn't the way things will be.
As far as I understand it's still a work in progress so the size of the square we're all trapped in might get larger as ,we, the guinea pigs report on the game play. Jason is still make adjustments but the biggest issues are that:
1. Limited space means limited resources. Iron and milkweed quickly became a rare commodity and once we're out, that's it. And if you don't have iron, then you can't upgrade your well, your town will die.
2. Griefing is still just as bad because now people are using the milkweed to make bows to kill others to steal their stuff. It's more PVP now.
3. Starting a city is VERY hard and food runs out fast. Which also means that you can't just give birth and feed your kids. You have to choose which kids to let die, which is most because you can't support them and they will eat up more food than the town can create. Most due to limited iron (causing very limited water).
4. There is a short window when eves spawn then once that closes, you are only born into a current family which also causes more and more kids to have to let starve.
Or imagine paying for a city building/parenting game and it's actually a survival pvp game.
That's awesome! Your attempt worked out way better than mine. I had decided that I would make a BP before going on my nomad journey and making that from scratch tool too long because it included creating finding enough milkweed for string and a rope for the fire bow drill and hatchet needed to cook a rabbit to get the needle. As I was building the BP, I had a daughter who kept asking "where is home?" and I'd tell her we don't have one, I'm a nomad. She wanted a city life so we wished each other luck and she left me. As I finished off my bp and headed out I ran into my daughter and her two children. I tried to warn her that there wasn't iron or much food in the area that it was better to keep moving but they wanted to stay with their tiny berry farm. Which they quickly depleted and starved. At this point I was too old for any more kids so I think if I try nomadism again then I'll wait till I have kids and they are older and we can slowly work on building clothes on the go.
I lived in that town a few lives. Or I should say I died in that town a few lives. The initial issue with many towns I'm seeing (besides very limited supplies) is that too many babies were feed. The few "towns" can't support the huge numbers of people wanting to play the game all as children.
The women must cull the herd and choose to let most of their kids die to have any chance at feeding the working adults.
If you have 10 berry bushes in town, the town cannot feed 4 babies when they grow. So it's better to keep 1 that is male and knowledgeable (they tend to be a workhorse) and maybe after ten minutes then allow 1 girl to not starve. Can't keep the first girls because then they will have babies too soon and again their kids will eat up the berries.
I say this because the toddlers eat a TON of berries so sorry but if the family and town to have any chance currently, you have to let more babies starve before they can walk and eat up the limited food.
God I feel like a monster writing that.
Yes, I did a VOG survey and currently, there are 4 family lines going. Anna, Wolf, Afifi, and James.
Since there are no Eves, that will be it until the last fertile woman ages out, then it will reset again.
Part of what we're uncovering here is just how much of the game was "covered up" by the infinite map. It's a huge bandaid that makes everything okay, because you can just keep finding green territory forever. Griefers can't ruin an infinite area, and so on.
But these problems in the game exist. An infinite map hides them from view. Now we can see them for what they are.
Also, the game wasn't fundamentally challenging before, because resources were infinite. Yes, you could mess up short term (by wandering too far without food), but not long-term, on a village scale.
Getting a city off the ground is actually really hard, or should be. But infinite resources auto-correct all your mistakes along the way. Nothing really matters, because you can always "fix it" by wandering a bit and getting more of whatever you ran out of.
I think Wolf will die out soon. They had a shallow well but no iron to upgrade it and when I was there just a few min ago they ran out of water, and soon after will be food. Afifi will be more successful (potentially) because last I saw they had 5 iron and were growing milkweed but they live in the area with no maple so they can't use their iron.
"The game wasn't fundamentally challenging before" no but it was FUN before. I was binge playing OHOL almost every night since I bought it. Tonight I'm going to play something else for the first time since buying this. I'm not saying that as a threat "oh I'm going to leave" I'm saying I did not have fun today. I hope things change.
The game currently plays more like a survival game than a game about building and parenting. I hope the cities grow though I really don't see how without ways to replenish supplies.
After another two failed lives I was born again to the baby death-fest so I decided to leave. As soon as I could carry a basket I left town. I quickly found that this baby-deathville is in the upper right corner of the map. I walked from that edge to the lower left corner. I arrived at the opposite corner of the map when I was 18 years old.
All I saw along the way were corpses, the occasional naked person, occasional baskets, about 5 seal capes, a section of the map with all the maples cut, 3 pieces of iron (these were stacked at a dead camp).
Here is the worst part:
There were no cities. There weren't even towns. No one was successful. There were two "villages" that I saw. Let me describe them. They were surrounded by property fences which is probably why they are "successful". However those only had like two rows of berries, maybe some pottery. No real clothes. And most of them let their male children and new players die for the sake of not running out of food. I didn't see a single tool, sewn clothing item, floor, nothing to indicate a successful city.
So I am very curious. Jason you said "There are a bunch of prosperous settlements." What does that mean and are they on a different map or something?
I wonder if things settled because others (like me) ran out of lives from this.
I know there was an update which was bad but now it's really bad this evening. Maybe it's because everyone is getting off of work and school or something. But this evening every life I've had looks something like this:
Multiple babies popping out over and over and since there is no food, we all die and corpses pile up in a mass of screaming babies and adults trying their hardest to actually build a village.
Anyone having better luck?
Yes please!!!! +1
Including allowing no text limit on curses so that children can still curse people. Kids are griefed so often in this game.
I'm glad you are enjoying the update. I'm not a doom and gloom person and we each can only go off our own experiences.
Up until this update, I LOVED the game. I was playing it 5-8 hours a day. LOVED it! I wrote stories about some of my most pleasant lives on the forums, followed my family trees. Each life was (mostly) an interesting story, time spent teaching newbies, killing griefers, or trying to build something that I hadn't before. Even with the griefers I was happy to keep playing.
Since the latest update, every life I starved mostly because so many eves and their kids were spawning in the same regions, eating up all the local food then dying out so when the next eve spawns there was no food left. So you are left with the choice of support your family or ditch them in the hopes of finding food elsewhere.
Or the life were I was still a baby unable to pick things up when someone from another family shoots my mother with a bow and my brother raised me with the again outcome of us starving due to lack of resources.
Almost every life after that had similar stories of starvation and lack of resources. I was then born into a prospering town, they had floors, pies, you name it. Except iron, I took a cart and went far and wide. I think I roamed for about thirty minutes and found zero iron. That city will not survive.
Even when I tried to do a life as a nomad where I stayed long enough only to make a backpack, my daughter and her kids starved due to lack of resources. So for me, since the update the game has been much harder and a lot less fun. To the point where I'm definitely not going to be playing as often daily due to the lack of fun. Living as a struggling eve family gets tedious fast. The parts of the game that I used to enjoy (learning new things, roleplaying stories, raising a family, teaching newbies) are now all luxuries that get in the way of survival.
If things don't change then I'll be much more tempted to play other instead of this one and recommend those to my friends. I don't want that to happen but it could now. I really am glad that you are enjoying the game but not everyone is since the update.
Poking many bears and bringing them to a city
- Cause: Poking a bear cave does not kill you.
- Effect: Griefers will poke multiple bear caves in an area and bring them all to a city for the purpose of killing everyone.
- Possible fix: Poking a bear cave is an instant bite.
- Possible fix: Bear caves not spawning within X tiles of each other.
- Possible fix: Bears already die with 3 arrows but maybe if can bleed out, maybe 3 minutes with 2 arrows and bleeding out in 8 minutes with just 1 arrow.