The bigger biomes idea

jasonrohrer · 2018-06-19 23:12:36

Splitting this off from this reply:

http://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewto … p=2#p19190

Here's a big one, which I think could make a world of difference.
TLDR: Much more variation in the game, by making biomes larger and making it possible to survive and thrive in each single biome.
Players are bonding together in the face of common challenges. In OHOL, the challenge in young settlements is to have enough to eat. This works quite well, but once the settlement grows to a town, the mutual challenge largely disappears. Also, the hunger challenge follows roughly the same script in every settlement: each camp has green, swamp and desert biomes, plus savanna nearby.
I suggest your next content package should focus on making it possible (and interesting) to settle the Snow biome: ways to eat seal, penguins, fish. Build igloos. Dog sleds eventually, but that comes way later in step three. In the Snow biome, clothes and shelter should come first (and be easy to make, at least the entry versions). Focus on hunting/fishing rather than farming, and on keeping the calorie requirement down. Quite different from the regular farming, I think, which is why I suggest to start with Snow.
After Snow, maybe take on Rocky, then Desert, Savanna, ...
Once all six have survival potential, you make the biomes much larger than they are today. Increasingly, being born into a new settlement will not be the same experience over and over, but a varied one. Settlements on the borders between biomes would add to the variation, but would no longer be the only possible way to build.
As the second step, make each biome have certain resources and higher tech opportunities that are exclusive to one biome, or to a minority among the biomes. These should serve to make the developed towns also differ from one another, and to make the third step possible:
Third step: Transportation together with higher level tech/upgrades which require components from two different biomes. At this stage the towns build roads and/or carriages in order to come in contact with other biomes. Hopefully they find neighboring towns, but otherwise they can create new settlements themselves. Trade and conflict can happen at this stage.
The beauty is that OHOL already has almost everything needed for this in the code already. Mostly it's just about adding more branches to the tech tree. The large plan is to make every type of terrain add more to the fun than what is the case today, but it can be implemented through the weekly content updates. It doesn't all have to come at the same time. And every week there will be something uniquely new to experience, for many weeks to come.
(The one mechanic which requires improvement is weather/environment conditions of each biome, and how houses/shelter and clothes could play a clearer role in survival. I will write about that in a different post)

jasonrohrer · 2018-06-19 23:18:31

I've avoided doing this mostly because of a duplication of work issue. If I have 6 biomes, this essentially means 6 primitive tech trees that can be explored in relative isolation.

But now that I'm thinking about it more, I'm seeing another huge problem:

One biome WILL be the best one. The optimal one. The preferred one.

People currently wander around until they find the best intersection of biomes and resources (desert near the swamp or whatever) and start their village there.

You're saying that making biomes bigger would prevent this, and therefore each biome would need to be survivable on its own.

But what would force someone to settle/stay in their spawn biome? I could make them so big that you'd never make it out in one lifetime.... so you couldn't "nomad" your way out.

But wouldn't Eve just keep suiciding until she spawns in the preferred biome?

Why would anyone start in the arctic if they didn't have to? Just for the challenge?

YAHG · 2018-06-19 23:18:46

What about like 10 times as big? Real real real big ones.

Always gonna be villages in the middle of three biomes but the little mini deserts that are like perma-free fires are kinda OP.

itzzgarrett · 2018-06-19 23:29:20

Ancient humans always found a way to harness their biomes to their benefit, so maybe you could add more items in each biome that they could use as a substitute for the preferable object.

Uncle Gus · 2018-06-19 23:40:47

It's not just about making them bigger, because regardless of how big they are, they will always be next to each other. Bigger will help, because it will be harder to be closer to everything, but what's really important is having resources separated from each other, without making basic survival impossible because of this.

jasonrohrer · 2018-06-19 23:53:22

But people in real life who are "spawned" in a given biome can't just suicide to get another roll of the dice...

Why would any Eve settle in a less-than-ideal area?

Uncle Gus · 2018-06-20 00:11:26

I had an idea about industries and trade that kind of lends itself to this discussion. What if every biome was capable of sustaining a settlement in terms of food, at least up to a moderate size, but in order to advance up the tech tree, resources were required from combinations of biomes. You already have this to some degree, but mostly it's just iron that's needed. If you built on that kind of diversity a little more, then Eve and her descendants would be able to setlle anywhere, and then once they got established, set out exploring to find the other resources needed to develop further, possibly setting up new settlements in those areas, possibly coming across other already existing settlements, and establishing trade routes.

Of course, this all does come back to the fact that food is everything in this game at the moment, and there is no other need. If you want everything to be driven by need, then we need more needs.

jasonrohrer · 2018-06-20 00:16:50

What kind of needs?

Uncle Gus · 2018-06-20 00:19:57

Exactly

Uncle Gus · 2018-06-20 00:22:01

What do we need in real life? Food is the most obvious one. Warmth, which you already have, and which affects food consumption. Shelter is just warmth, which is already in game. Other needs are more emotional/mental, but that's always really difficult to implement as a game mechanic. I've seen games with mood meters and things like that. The Sims comes to mind, but really? Do you want to recreate Sims?

Anshin · 2018-06-20 00:30:22

Replace biomes with seasons.

Uncle Gus · 2018-06-20 00:31:38

Another game I keep thinking of is Factorio. You build things in that game because you "need" to. Why do you need to advance the tech? To get to the next tech. And why? To build a giant rocket at the end. This takes ages but the journey is satisfying and the end result is too. Maybe eventually there will be some grand monument to build.

This was kind of where I hoped the apocalypse would come in. The apocalypse trigger always being at the very top of the tech tree, taking ages to get to (longer with each update) and triggering something quite cool, but also somehow resetting things so that we can build another one. Or hell, maybe it doesn't reset anything? But it just takes ages to build each one?

TheRedBug · 2018-06-20 00:36:36

Wouln't it be fun to have to trigger the apocalipse before having the new update every time?

Uncle Gus · 2018-06-20 00:43:07

Yeah, that has been suggested too, and I love the idea. Would probably lead to people building the trigger up to the last step, and waiting for the update to be ready, then triggering it. And I can imagine some cocky noob coming along and triggering it too early, just before the update, so that we have to rebuild it from scratch to get the update now ARGH! Drama

sc0rp · 2018-06-20 00:56:23

jasonrohrer wrote:

I've avoided doing this mostly because of a duplication of work issue. If I have 6 biomes, this essentially means 6 primitive tech trees that can be explored in relative isolation.
But now that I'm thinking about it more, I'm seeing another huge problem:
One biome WILL be the best one. The optimal one. The preferred one.
[...]
Why would anyone start in the arctic if they didn't have to? Just for the challenge?

To simplify going into multiple biomes direction without redoing all the work six times, there may be preferred biome for the start. But to access higher tier technologies, you will need resources from the middle of different biomes. And extracting those resources shouldn't be simple - one guy with cart can't make it. To extract them you will need to set up smaller satelite towns in different biomes using resources from there. Or relying heavily on transports from main town with all the hazards that it involve.

startafight · 2018-06-20 01:24:52

personally i dont see myself starting in the arctic unless there were some essential changes made so that life in the arctic could be survivable.

for example:

- we could start eating raw meat for less hunger, but still gives food
- another option for string other than milkweed is created (or milkweed grows in the snow too)- maybe we can start making hide strips out of seal fur to use as string and rope instead
- seals can be eaten and cut up using flint, or maybe a new object like "sharp ice" that only spawns in the snow
- warmer clothes can be made, or maybe the addition of mittens to up the heat
- a few more sources of meat and fur are added to the snowy biomes

this would make sure that we can survive exclusively in this biome and rely on meat as the main source of food rather than crops, which we currently cant grow exclusively in that environment because of lack of dirt/fresh water. with the addition of more recipes for food that are meat-focused and the expanded use of animals, yes, i think i could see myself trying to start a life in the arctic. of course there needs to be a new way of making fire too since there will be no maple trees.

and id do that just for the fun of it. even if it would be easier to live in a swamp or whatever. even now i sometimes just settle in an area with a lil less food than i would like b/c its that or just wander forever.

i think u might be underestimating the stubbornness of ur players. only the newer folks wouldnt want to start by themselves in the snow. but for ppl who have put in the hours? thats a challenge we'd love to take on, as long as its possible to thrive.

edit: honestly the more i think about this idea the more i like it. if we had access to specific resources that only existed in the area and was a part of a different tech tree it would start giving us an actual reason to trade with villages. like lets say that only ppl in the desert had access to horses, but the prairies were rich with furs (of animals more than rabbits). they could start exchanging better clothes for horses and such. or lets say a biome has a specialty item that grants the ppl in that biome an advantage. like for rocky biomes the ppl could make bladder water pouches that hold 2 water in each pouch out of bears, they could trade it to the grassland ppl for rope or lumber. its SUCH a cool idea wow

Last edited by startafight (2018-06-20 01:39:19)

TheRedBug · 2018-06-20 01:43:38

Hey guys, for the arctic upgrade (cus why not)

Rope + needle = fishing line
Fishing line + straight shaft = fishing pole
Fishing pole + ice hole = fishing pole + 1 minute = fish

Different kind of fish would bring up the food bonus, such as a potato and half baked potato gives you each a bonus, every kind of pie gives you a bonus, so we'd have like cooked salmon would give you one bonus, cooked sardine would give you a bonus, etc.

Last edited by TheRedBug (2018-06-20 01:43:51)

JackTreehorn · 2018-06-20 02:40:31

I have a few suggestions
1. Make crops only grow on specific biomes and cant be planted elsewhere. (Wheat= Savanna. Berries = Grassland)
2. Make a Mesa Biome which has cliff walls around it. To break up how we are able to run forever without running into any obstacles.
3. Make a animal trap which is placed in snow and you have to kick penguins into it.
4. Fishing hole and a fish smoker. Fishing hole starts with around five fish inside and respawn a fish once every thirty mintues or so.

Last edited by JackTreehorn (2018-06-20 02:42:20)

Anshin · 2018-06-20 03:16:33

JackTreehorn wrote:

Make crops only grow on specific biomes and cant be planted elsewhere. (Wheat= Savanna. Berries = Grassland)

Yes! This would force farming apart and create the network of roads and villages people love so much. Genius

zennyrpg · 2018-06-20 04:05:14

jasonrohrer wrote:

One biome WILL be the best one. The optimal one. The preferred one.
People currently wander around until they find the best intersection of biomes and resources (desert near the swamp or whatever) and start their village there.

One biome isn't the best now. Its a combination of biomes. And its not even really the biome, its the features-- its 3 cactus, 3 berries, and 3 goose ponds + a patch of desert. Screw the swamp-- that could be much farther away but its the PONDS we crave.

What an eve is looking for is a local maximum... I viable place that won't take more than 15 years to find. What if an eve came across a really good patch of fishing holes in the ice biome? The best place will probably always be an intersection of biomes because it will give the most options. So maybe 4 fishing holes in the ice right next to 4 aurochs in the plains... its too good to pass by. Maybe a green biome is more "optimal" in a general sense, but there's no guarantees you'll find a resource distribution better than this.

Have you ever run by a crap ton of cactus in the desert and gone "man i wish i could just settle here, right here is awesome" but there's no swamp nearby? Or looked at a field of bunnies and frowned "i'll never be back here to catch these, gotta keep running"? If these places were viable, I would gladly stop running and start building.

pein · 2018-06-20 04:52:24

its good idea and increases variety
already a mostly green differs from mostly savanna, one has food other has furs
dont need ten time bigger just bigger, and make life possible

water trees would make savanna viable, with pouches, different food types, more hunt

melting ice in tundra
obviously no one would start right on the ice as babies would die instantly
but what if you can fish, melt ice, get primitive clothing fast, so you could settle in a small desert surrounded by ice?
or a mammoth which would give a 2x2 skin and make tents

if deserts would be smaller but more of them and water could be get anywhere, by different methods, it would make anything viable

more wood from big trees and plant trees

Gummyworm1270 · 2018-06-20 05:29:52

It would have to be made so that each biome can be a viable place to live and each one be unique at the same time.
If you're in the grasslands you're farming the three sisters. If you're in the savanah wheat, carrots and sheep.
If you're in the swamp, rice grows well in water and we already have geese. In the arctic, mountain and desert biomes you would almost have to be hunter gatherers. A lot of stuff would have to be added to each area to make it possible.

The main issue atm is not that one area is best but that only one certain mixture of biomes is viable to start a successful village on.

YAHG · 2018-06-20 05:48:55

Gummyworm1270 wrote:

The main issue atm is not that one area is best but that only one certain mixture of biomes is viable to start a successful village on.

I would think if you wanted to add in another few hundred types of food you can
kill a few dozen on biome specific foods.

It would also really just be cool to be able to be hunters instead of just farmers
or berry campers.

Gummyworm1270 · 2018-06-20 06:09:40

YAHG wrote:

I would think if you wanted to add in another few hundred types of food you can
kill a few dozen on biome specific foods.
It would also really just be cool to be able to be hunters instead of just farmers
or berry campers.

Yeah I just can't think of any crops you could grow in some biomes. Maybe different kinds of cacti in the desert. Potatoes IRL
were originally grown in mountainous regions and we could add goats for mountains as well. I don't think realistically there is
any crop that would be fitting for arctic biomes but IRL the Inuit farmed muskox that grazed on wild grasses that could survive the climate.

There could be a whole list of different food options for each biome and some of them could overlap. It would make sense to be able to fish in the arctic and the swamp and IRL different kinds of rabbit can live almost anywhere.

Acozi · 2018-06-20 07:08:52

jasonrohrer wrote:

But people in real life who are "spawned" in a given biome can't just suicide to get another roll of the dice...
Why would any Eve settle in a less-than-ideal area?

There will always be min/maxes. Personally I think many people, myself included, want to add to the town if born in one. I would LOVE to contribute to a town that's in snow, or desert, etc. I could always become a nomad if I didn't care for the area I was born into.

Dont Eves already suicide if they dont find a nice spot for a town? Currently if I find a nice spot but there's no water I should just die. No iron close by? Die. No rabbits? So much for clothes.

There will be a 'best' biome, but if every biome has SOME kind of access to food/clothes/tools/baskets/building material, I'd like to give it a try even if it's harder. Plus if each biome had exclusive items, trade could actually occur. Right now you need access to every biome, and every town is essentially the same. Why bother trading?

Yes, it would be multiplying tech trees. But only for the early stages. Eventually they'll merge together and biomes wont matter as much.

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2018-06-19 23:12:36

The bigger biomes idea

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Re: The bigger biomes idea

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