Coming soon: voluntary leadership

jasonrohrer · 2019-12-11 23:36:49

Why:

To give players a way to organize themselves
To provide an optional structure to social interactions
To provide a shorthand for social information, like trust
To allow people to receive social information at a glance
To make the whole thing convenient, automated (where possible), and flexible.
To experiment with a bizarre and fascinating form of government (voluntary nobility)

What:

Each player chooses one direct leader for themselves.
Players can switch leaders at any time, or decide to go back to having no leader.
Everyone who has the same leader can be visually recognized.
More details about a person's status can be had via text on mouse-over.
When a leader chooses a leader for themselves, a multi-level hierarchy is formed, and all their followers see the super-leader as a leader as well, and all people under the super-leader are visually united.
The structure can be changed instantly when a sub-leader changes leaders.
Any player can exile another player
A player's exile status is only visible to the person who exiled them and any people in that person's follower tree
Changing leaders will change who you see as exiled

Text Labels:

Your direct leader is "Your Lord John Smith" or "Your Lady Eve Smith" on mouse-over
Leaders with sub-leaders beneath them become Barons, Counts, Dukes, Kings, Emperors, High Emperors, and Supreme Emperors, depending on how many tiers are beneath them.
Example: A King might have two Dukes below him, and those Dukes might have two Counts each, for a total of four Counts. Those counts might each have two Barons, for a total of eight Barons. Each Baron might have a few Lords, who in turn each have a few direct followers.
You see any super leaders above you as Your Baroness, Your King, etc.
If you follow a super-leader directly, you still see their tiered title (if you follow a King directly, they are still Your King, and not Your Lord).
Anyone who is exiled to you (anyone you or one of your leaders has exiled) is shown as Exiled Eve Smith on mouse-over
Someone can still be your leader even if they are exiled (if they are exiled by another leader that you follow), like Your Exiled Lady Eve Smith.
People who have no leader, and are part of no tree (and thus have no badge) can still be exiled. If so, they are seen by the exiler's followers as having a black X where their badge would go.
Anyone in your tree who is not your leader is shown as Ally Eve Smith.
Mousing over anyone shows their leadership status, even if they're not in your tree (so you can see Barons who are not Your Baron)
It's possible to have allies who are leaders in other parts of your tree, but who aren't your leader, such as Ally Baroness Eve Smith.
Followers are seen as Your Follower Eve Smith on mouse-over. Leaders who follow you will have their title seen too, like Your Follower Countess Eve Smith.

Visual Labels:

Badges are visible only when you're wearing a tunic (body clothing).
Each leader gets a unique color.
Your current badge color is determined by the leader at the top of your tree.
Allies, and you, all have a diamond-shaped badge of the appropriate color.
Leaders will have chevrons above their diamond depending on their leadership tier. Lords will have one chevron, barons two, dukes three, etc. These chevrons will match the color of the leader at the top of their tree.
Anyone who is currently exiled from your point of view will have a black X over their badge (their badge is still present so their leadership status and alliance can be known).
If you are a leader, you can recognize your followers as people who have fewer chevrons than you do.

How:

Say "I Follow Eve Smith" to start following someone
Say "I Follow You" to start following the closest person
Say "I Follow Myself" to have no leader
Say "I exile Eve Smith" or "I exile you" to exile someone
Say "I redeem Eve Smith" or "I redeem you" to un-exile someone.
Children inherit their mother's leaders at birth
When a leader dies, whatever leader they are following inherits their followers, and their followers inherit their exile list.
If a leader dies who is following no one, their sub-kingdom is divided until the sub-leaders, who are now left hanging with no leader, can agree on a new super-leader.

Interesting properties:

If you are exiled, it only matters as much as the exiling person has followers.
Getting exiled by a loner will have almost no effect. Getting exiled by a king will mean lots of people will see a black X on your chest.
Killing your exiler will not free you from your exiled status, unless that exiler has no leader to inherit your exile status.
When a bad leader loses followers, the effect of their exiles is diminished.
You can effectively free yourself from an unfair exile by convincing people to pick a different leader.
You have to wait until Age 11 to switch leaders, if you inherit one
You have to wait until Age 15 to have no leader, if you inherit one

Notes:

None of this has any direct gameplay effect.
These labels convey information about the past social decisions of other people.
Inspired by a suggestion from forum user Kinrany
Imagine if a society was structured this way in real life...

Kinrany · 2019-12-12 00:00:24

Wow I'm hyped

An inconsequential prediction: people will form a chain just to get a Supreme Empreror in a village of 9

jasonrohrer wrote:

Someone can still be your leader even if they are exiled (if they are exiled by another leader that you follow), like Your Exiled Lady Eve Smith.

Haha, wait what

Edit: oh, exiling doesn't prevent a person from being your follower

jasonrohrer wrote:

When a leader dies, whatever leader they are following inherits their followers and their exile list.

Hmm, should the super-leader inherit the exile list too? Someone could exile everyone, follow the super-leader, and then suicide to make everyone seem exiled

Edit: maybe the followers could inherit the exile list instead

Last edited by Kinrany (2019-12-12 00:04:01)

DestinyCall · 2019-12-12 00:02:12

Question - if your village has six adults and each one follows the next person, who is the super leader?

Mary follows Steve. Steve follows Jessica. Jessica follows Clint. Clint follows Lisa. Lisa follows Grant. Grant follows Mary. The circle is closed.

Or do they all get promoted to Baron, because they are followed by at least one Lord? And if they all become Barons, would that also elevate everyone to the status of Count, since they are now being followed by a Baron?

Infinite promotion daisy chain!

Kinrany · 2019-12-12 00:21:24

Before this is live, I'll write down a few predictions.

1. People will actually have a single hierarchy in most villages after 3 generations
2. People will ask leaders for jobs
3. People will report griefers to leaders
4. Dealing with griefers who aren't leaders will be easier
5. Super-leaders will know more about the state of the village than other people
6. Super-leaders will help people coordinate
7. Super-leaders won't have any time for roleplay

fug · 2019-12-12 00:23:59

Got the title of supreme emperor before the simple title of Dad.

Feels memey and full blown roleplay instead of "realplay."

DestinyCall · 2019-12-12 00:34:30

My predictions:

Most leaders will be dicks, bullies, drama queens, or griefers.
Most players will ignore the hierarchy system after the first week.
Dealing with griefers won't change that much because exile doesn't matter, especially if you have a different leader or no leader.
Some people will use the hierarchy system as an excuse to kill each other and roleplay Game of Thrones stuff.
Most "super" leaders will be rubbish.

I look forward to seeing which set of predictions prove to be more accurate.

Spoonwood · 2019-12-12 00:44:37

jasonrohrer wrote:

Children inherit their mother's leaders at birth

Then it will not be voluntary ab initio for some players. The people who play the characters in OHOL are not little children in general (of course some little children may play this game). Even ones that roleplay as children often enough do so rather lightly in my experience, or at least from my perspective. If one hasn't encountered a child character playing OHOL who did certain things much beyond what a literal child could do in the real world, I have a hard time believing that one has played OHOL much. Movement speed being slower is one thing. Making experienced human players into subordinates by default based on an ancestor's choices is another.

I expect that experienced players won't feel more in touch with their characters with this forced roleplay going on. They will feel more out of touch with their characters, especially when they have a forced superior who isn't actually superior. And the thing is, they can know such for OHOL since they have OHOL experience, unlike how in the real world children lack experience in comparison to their elders.

jasonrohrer wrote:

Each player chooses one direct leader for themselves.

Not true, because of the following conditions:

jasonrohrer wrote:

You have to wait until Age 11 to switch leaders, if you inherit one
You have to wait until Age 15 to have no leader, if you inherit one

For one reason or another, sometimes NOT their own fault, some character with an inherited leader will die before either of those ages. Thus, not every person will choose one direct leader for their self.

And it's really not voluntary for a player inheriting a leader until they reach 15 AND know how the new system works.

jasonrohrer wrote:

Imagine if a society was structured this way in real life

Youth already have a reputation for rebelling against elders. Were a real society structured this way, there would little to no respect for the wisdom that elders have, because youth would feel even more confined by adults than they already do. And that wouldn't be good for society. Youth that can't or won't learn the lessons of history usually end up doomed to repeat historical disasters.

Last edited by Spoonwood (2019-12-12 11:03:06)

Legs · 2019-12-12 01:15:06

And so a new honorary title was born: assassin.

I will practice, promote and protect this profession to the greatest possible extent.

jcwilk · 2019-12-12 01:34:42

fug wrote:

Got the title of supreme emperor before the simple title of Dad.
Feels memey and full blown roleplay instead of "realplay."

The realplay element of it is marking trusted and untrusted people for others without having to track everyone in the village down and keep typing the person's name in. It's pretty easy to dodge detection as a griefer even after being caught by one person because it's so tedious to try to escalate it as a thing anyone should care about and remember. This seems like it makes that process much more trivial

Bobbelbo · 2019-12-12 01:38:11

Well I'll follow the trend and make predictions too! Only 3 though :

1- Some towns (often with an implicit leader already, that likes RP) will use this system to the fullest. There will be ranks everywhere and it will create some kind of social structure ;

2- Some towns will completely ignore this update (probably the ones who will be struggling to survive) ;

3- We will see a new kind of begging : Instead of kids spamming "F" we'll see grown adults say "F-F-Follow me pls" lol

Either way, knowing that this leadership structure is optional is comforting. I was worried at the beginning of the week!

fug · 2019-12-12 01:38:28

jcwilk wrote:

fug wrote:
Got the title of supreme emperor before the simple title of Dad.
Feels memey and full blown roleplay instead of "realplay."
The realplay element of it is marking trusted and untrusted people for others without having to track everyone in the village down and keep typing the person's name in. It's pretty easy to dodge detection as a griefer even after being caught by one person because it's so tedious to try to escalate it as a thing anyone should care about and remember. This seems like it makes that process much more trivial

Seems a lot closer to a bunch of the other gimmick updates we've gotten in the past that don't go far enough and will be abandoned next week in search of the next gimmick to add. Except the part where the other gimmicks at least weren't a bunch of fluff titles and added something a bit interesting to the game.

Another week of check back next week to see if anything interesting is being added or broken content getting fixed up though I guess for fixes you just have to grief things in hope that gets his attention vs all the github posts.

seth · 2019-12-12 01:42:13

Killing your exiler will not free you from your exiled status, unless that exiler has no leader to inherit your exile status.

Hey for this one, does it mean when you die, the exiles float upward and get attached to the leader of the dead person? Wouldn't it make more sense if they floated downward and attached themselves to the followers of the dead person?

jcwilk · 2019-12-12 01:43:40

fug wrote:

I guess for fixes you just have to grief things in hope that gets his attention vs all the github posts.

Quest accepted: Get Jason senpai to notice the need for improved property mechanics asap

jcwilk · 2019-12-12 01:45:04

seth wrote:

Killing your exiler will not free you from your exiled status, unless that exiler has no leader to inherit your exile status.
Hey for this one, does it mean when you die, the exiles float upward and get attached to the leader of the dead person? Wouldn't it make more sense if they floated downward and attached themselves to the followers of the dead person?

+1, something seemed off with that couldn't put my finger on it but I think you've got it

jcwilk · 2019-12-12 01:48:39

I'd like it if leaders could see that one or more of their followers has marked someone as exiled. Not in the same way though, so they can be like "oh wow one of my hierarchy indicates this person is no good, i should investigate" maybe it even says who marked them. Basically automating the process of hunting down the Supreme leader and communicating an exile candidate. "sister" allies should not see anything about exiles marked by other sister allies.

DestinyCall · 2019-12-12 01:51:07

Why not allow exile status be fully visible to everyone?

It is a useless feature if nobody can see it.

jcwilk · 2019-12-12 01:52:58

DestinyCall wrote:

Why not allow exile status be fully visible to everyone?
It is a useless feature if nobody can see it.

Because if you (or your mother) haven't elected to trust someone then you don't care what their opinion of anyone is, and griefers would 100% always mark everyone exile

jcwilk · 2019-12-12 01:58:35

Kinrany wrote:

oh, exiling doesn't prevent a person from being your follower

I think you meant "leader" not "follower" right?

On that note, does exiling someone make them unfollow you and be unable to follow you until they're redeemed? Presumably also unable to follow any of the exiler's follower tree?

Haven't tried it yet but I'm already very into it. We need more recursive shit fosho

DestinyCall · 2019-12-12 02:02:15

jcwilk wrote:

DestinyCall wrote:
Why not allow exile status be fully visible to everyone?
It is a useless feature if nobody can see it.
Because if you (or your mother) haven't elected to trust someone then you don't care what their opinion of anyone is, and griefers would 100% always mark everyone exile

If I don't care about exiles, what's the harm in letting me see them? It won't change my opinion of the exiled player. And who says I trust everyone in my current hierarchy? Sounds like these things can get monstrously large and interwoven. Chances are good that I won't actually know all my leaders personally, especially if I've inherited them.

Just tell me who exiled that person and I can back track to find the griefer, if the exile feature is being abused.

Thaulos · 2019-12-12 02:22:09

Overall it sounds great, i just I don't like the "inherit" thing. Ideally you should be able to name your inheritor before you die. This would make each node of the chain more stable and avoid situations where due to people dying off the king having 300 one level subjects instead of a hierarchy tree.

Ideally I should also be able to pass my "position" to someone else? Maybe I'm the town mayor but I want to go exploring instead. I should be able to pass on the position to someone else and have everyone else automatically follow them. Maybe a "swap" function where they would become my new leader. Effectively switching nodes.

So two extra commands: "Eve Smith is my heir", "I swap position with Eve Smith" or something.

Last edited by Thaulos (2019-12-12 02:24:07)

Toxolotl · 2019-12-12 02:23:24

Would be cool to have the gasp and relief sounds for exiling and redemption.

jcwilk · 2019-12-12 03:59:17

DestinyCall wrote:

jcwilk wrote:
DestinyCall wrote:
Why not allow exile status be fully visible to everyone?
It is a useless feature if nobody can see it.
Because if you (or your mother) haven't elected to trust someone then you don't care what their opinion of anyone is, and griefers would 100% always mark everyone exile
If I don't care about exiles, what's the harm in letting me see them? It won't change my opinion of the exiled player. And who says I trust everyone in my current hierarchy? Sounds like these things can get monstrously large and interwoven. Chances are good that I won't actually know all my leaders personally, especially if I've inherited them.
Just tell me who exiled that person and I can back track to find the griefer, if the exile feature is being abused.

Yeah but then you have to do work every time you see an exile. When exile is based on your tree then as long as you trust the people above you (there won't be many) then you can trust an exile indicator and react to it immediately, rather than after they've already killed someone or stolen something or whatever. I would probably just completely ignore exile indicators in big towns if it was from anyone in the town rather than the handful of upstream leaders since I'm not going to spend half my life tracking down faulty exiles and trying to figure out if 10 different exilers are griefers or idiots or valid while the actual griefers getting exiled are running around griefing

TheRubyCart · 2019-12-12 05:07:50

Hello, I've Bought your game before it was released on steam and I would like to say, when is this new update coming out? I've seen a normal player make their improved version of this, and yours seems better.

Also for the 2nd time again just incase, When is this update coming out? It'll inspire me not to quit before 60 due to a government giving me excitement

Bless u reader :3

Last edited by TheRubyCart (2019-12-12 05:08:28)

DestinyCall · 2019-12-12 05:23:09

jcwilk wrote:

Yeah but then you have to do work every time you see an exile. When exile is based on your tree then as long as you trust the people above you (there won't be many) then you can trust an exile indicator and react to it immediately, rather than after they've already killed someone or stolen something or whatever. I would probably just completely ignore exile indicators in big towns if it was from anyone in the town rather than the handful of upstream leaders since I'm not going to spend half my life tracking down faulty exiles and trying to figure out if 10 different exilers are griefers or idiots or valid while the actual griefers getting exiled are running around griefing

Yeah, if I don't know and trust the person who exiled someone, I think I SHOULD make an effort to figure out if their judgement is valid. What if the top person in my hierarchy decides to trust the wrong person and we end up with a corrupt king? Or what if there was a misunderstanding and the guy above the guy I trust decides to exile someone without due cause? Or if I put my faith in the wrong guy and he makes a bad call? Chances are rather high that some people are just going to coast along, hoping their mother knew something they didn't about the guys at the top of the chain. And even if you are doing my best to pick wisely, you have less than one hour to pick a leader based on what you see during your life. If the hierarchy is large, I have no way to be sure everyone involved is trustworthy or reliable. In fact, I can be pretty sure that someone will make a mistake at some point. There's no way I would want to kill someone based on exile status alone. I'm going to need more information than just that before I decide they are a real threat.

Ultimately, exile status is going to be highly subjective and potentially sketchy. Some people will focus on only exiling confirmed griefers, but I am sure many people will end up not being that picky. Some people will exile anyone who acts funny. Other people will exile if someone talks back or questions their authority. And of course, some people will just exile everyone they encounter.

My feelings is, if I live in a big town, I would rather see ALL the players who have been marked as exiles so I can keep an eye on them (or the person who marked them) as I go about my normal business, rather than rely on luck to join the right branch of the right hierarchy to see the "right" exiles.

Last edited by DestinyCall (2019-12-12 06:26:09)

DestinyCall · 2019-12-12 06:29:42

TheRubyCart wrote:

Hello, I've Bought your game before it was released on steam and I would like to say, when is this new update coming out? I've seen a normal player make their improved version of this, and yours seems better.
Also for the 2nd time again just incase, When is this update coming out? It'll inspire me not to quit before 60 due to a government giving me excitement
Bless u reader :3

The game typically updates each week on Friday. The scope of the updates vary from week to week, but you can usually expect something exciting or different or game-breaking on update day.

For a list of past updates, check out the News forum:

https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewforum.php?id=4

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2019-12-11 23:36:49

Coming soon: voluntary leadership

#2 2019-12-12 00:00:24

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#3 2019-12-12 00:02:12

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