One Hour One Life Forums

Spoonwood

Member

Registered: 2019-02-06

Posts: 4,369

Re: On "Nintendo Hard" Garbage

I have an iron pan so i'm very familiar to how rust is made, are you mentally challenged in some way?

Your question bores me Dodge.  No, you're not mentally challenging me.

It's actually physically painful to see you try so hard to find a way to always be right even though you're most of the time completely missing the point and absolutly out of touch, only managing to make a fool of yourself in the process.

Oh please.  You aren't bleeding or have some gaping wound.  You aren't experience muscle stress.  You aren't experiencing a lack of oxygen like you've just run a marathon or even 5 miles.

If Jason is a clown you're the whole circus.

I'm one person, one writer, one author.  I'm sure a circus is a lot more than that... at least any circus worthy of the name.

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Danish Clinch.
Longtime tutorial player.

Dodge

Member

Registered: 2018-08-27

Posts: 2,467

Re: On "Nintendo Hard" Garbage

You're trolling or retarded still not sure sometimes, either way good luck with that.

HumanPerson

Member

Registered: 2020-09-23

Posts: 31

Re: On "Nintendo Hard" Garbage

For sake of brevity.

Fine, I'll restate that:

If the average player cannot have a one hour one life experience the first time that they play when trying and able to play for a one hour experience, then that is the designer of the game's fault.

Perhaps a player should not expect to be able to complete the ultimate objective on first try. Managing to die of old age was an achievement for me in the early days, first milestone of sorts, why take it away.

Can you elaborate tho on whether you wish for new players to have starvation-immunity or if people should overall last longer on empty stomachs or what it is you are suggesting?
Yum mechanics are in place to help you eat less but you have to learn it first. Why would a new player instantly become a pro survivor, where is the fun in that.

No, you don't live a life over and over.  You don't have the same in game character with the same exact conditions as other characters did.

You do live a life over and over, you as a human player live one hour one life over and over, exact conditions are irrelevant. Point is you are meant to live many lives with the ultimate goal of living a full life, but of course there will be challenges like premature death on account of inexperience which you can avoid by learning, otherwise who cares to play a game where you cannot fail.

Cogito

Member

Registered: 2020-03-09

Posts: 192

Re: On "Nintendo Hard" Garbage

If the game was changed so that it was easy for a player just starting out to die from old age, it would be a worse game.

Life should get easier the more skills you have, the more accumulated knowledge civilisation has (the meta), and the more infrastructure civilisation has (the town).

Your intent here seems to be to remove any possibility of progression, on an individual basis, on a player community basis, and on town's basis.

Spoonwood

Member

Registered: 2019-02-06

Posts: 4,369

Re: On "Nintendo Hard" Garbage

Perhaps a player should not expect to be able to complete the ultimate objective on first try. Managing to die of old age was an achievement for me in the early days, first milestone of sorts, why take it away.

What?  Where did I say that dying or old age should be taken away or that anything that should be taken away from your experience? Also, earlier you said:

I did, I had a mom who took care of me, tho it took me a while to learn to not starve all the time. This was caused by lack of experience on my part and kept me coming back to learn.

You said that in response to me saying:

I think I didn't live to 60 my first life.  Most players do NOT live to 60 on their first life.

What happened?  And please, only answer the next question if you know.  If you don't know, it's fine and expected that you say "I don't know".

Did you or did you not live to 60 dying of old for the very first life you played?

Can you elaborate tho on whether you wish for new players to have starvation-immunity or if people should overall last longer on empty stomachs or what it is you are suggesting?

I wasn't suggesting solutions in this thread.  I am suggesting that the average player who tries to do so should live to 60 on their first life barring that they aren't subjected to deliberately harsh conditions by their mother or family *even in an Eve camp*.  Basically, death by starvation should not happen for such a player.  I don't know if starvation immunity would be a good thing.  I don't think it would, because then how would they learn to eat?  Maybe the default pip value for foods should get raised.  Maybe there should exist more wild foods on the map.  Maybe both should occur.

Yum mechanics are in place to help you eat less but you have to learn it first.

A better tool for teaching yum mechanics than what currently exists in the tutorial would be good.

Why would a new player instantly become a pro survivor, where is the fun in that.

The fun would lie in surviving instead of dying the first time.  It would exist in succedding instead of failing.  The fun would exist in getting it right the first time.  The fun would exist in playing not 30 minutes one life, not 40 minutes one life, but in playing one hour one life.  I don't understand how you think that not surviving is fun.  How it is fun to die before old age?  How is it fun to fail on the first time?  How is it fun if the system sets you up to fail initially?

You do live a life over and over, you as a human player live one hour one life over and over, exact conditions are irrelevant.

The human player lives different lives.  I couldn't disagree more here.

Point is you are meant to live many lives with the ultimate goal of living a full life ...

Then the game isn't designed to be a one hour *one life* experience.  It's meant to be 10 minutes one life.  Or 20 minutes one life.  Or one hour three lives.  Or one hour two lives.

Again, the game is called one hour one life.  "Live an entire life in one hour." comes from the Steam advertisement.  I would think "entire life" means no period of death in one hour also.  What is so difficult to accept here?  That you didn't get such?  That you would be jealous if new players could regularly achieve that?  Is there some lack of courage in believing that such a game could be interesting? 

If the game isn't getting designed for new players to experience one hour one life, what exactly is it's concept?  20 minutes one life?  30 minutes one life?  40 minutes one life?  57 minutes one life?

Well, whatever.  The game is one hour one life.

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Danish Clinch.
Longtime tutorial player.

Spoonwood

Member

Registered: 2019-02-06

Posts: 4,369

Re: On "Nintendo Hard" Garbage

If the game was changed so that it was easy for a player just starting out to die from old age, it would be a worse game.

So the average player being able to achieve a one hour one life the first time would be bad?  Players being able to get things right the first time would be bad?  When I was in high school some of my peers would say in a ridiculous voice "when are you going to do things right the first time?"  But, it wasn't entirely a joke, because they also seemed to believe that ideally things would get done right the first time.  Why, oh why, oh why, should players do things wrong the first time and not live to 60?

All I see in such a phrase is blind belief.

Your intent here seems to be to remove any possibility of progression, on an individual basis, on a player community basis, and on town's basis.

What are you talking about progression for as if it's an applicable concept?  It's one life, not two lives or three lives, or four lives.  The game has a death state.  Players can "get reborn", but once they die, that character is dead.  There isn't progression after death in the real world.  One's character does not progress after death in OHOL, all that remains is a bunch of bones and historical information.  So why are you talking about progression as if it's something that can exist?

I don't think I said anything about a town's basis.  I think I was talking about individual players lives and that's it.

Again, one life.  One hour.  One hour.  One life.  Not progression over many lives.  Not two hours three lives.  Not two hours four lives.  Not five hours six lives.  Not 30 minutes 6 lives.  One hour one life.  1 hour 1 life.

Last edited by Spoonwood (2020-11-04 00:45:28)

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Danish Clinch.
Longtime tutorial player.

OneOfMany

Member

Registered: 2019-06-10

Posts: 125

Re: On "Nintendo Hard" Garbage

I simply don't see why it makes any sense at all to believe that for an average new player in an that they will likely have the tools to live to 60 the first time.  I've seen some new streamers recently who starve before 60.

New players are not average players, they are "new". No one should expect them to be a seasoned master in their first life. Besides without difficulty, there can be no growth.

In the words of the philosopher Benedict Spinoza in the concluding words of his Ethics:

All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare. Reference

So why would you expect perfection on their first play?

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I am a dirty, dirty roleplayer. I roleplay in the game, sometimes on the forum and if I'm being honest, a bit in real life. I can't help myself. I'm a dirty, dirty roleplayer. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

HumanPerson

Member

Registered: 2020-09-23

Posts: 31

Re: On "Nintendo Hard" Garbage

What happened?  And please, only answer the next question if you know.  If you don't know, it's fine and expected that you say "I don't know".

Did you or did you not live to 60 dying of old for the very first life you played?

You got me, I have been exposed as fraud. Meanwhile, I may have lived a full first life, but I was of course referring to learning to 'reliably live a full life in subsequent lives after the first one on account of improving my abilities'. I am sorry if this was not spelled out for you in my earlier comment, but nice detective work.

I wasn't suggesting solutions in this thread.  I am suggesting that the average player who tries to do so should live to 60 on their first life barring that they aren't subjected to deliberately harsh conditions by their mother or family *even in an Eve camp*.  Basically, death by starvation should not happen for such a player.  I don't know if starvation immunity would be a good thing.  I don't think it would, because then how would they learn to eat?  Maybe the default pip value for foods should get raised.  Maybe there should exist more wild foods on the map.  Maybe both should occur.

Why would new players be excluded from starvation which is a major part of the game. This is ludicrous. You have to stop being so overly protective. People must make a few mistakes here and there to learn and become stronger.

I suppose Mario should be immortal in the first stage so players dont get upset over not rescuing the princess on their first go. Cant have people die in the first stage. People would then feel cheated and would hate the game for it.

...

I didnt even read the rest. You remind me too much of a universally hated coworker, your autistic obsession with minor details gives me vietnam flashbacks. I find no joy in having this reminded in my time off.

I don't know how anyone can take you seriously.

Coconut Fruit

Member

Registered: 2019-08-16

Posts: 831

Re: On "Nintendo Hard" Garbage

Advertisements and stuff are simplified, but it's obvious that your life can be shorther than 1 hour.
I know it's not obvious for some people like spoonwood, but what can we do with it without making advertisements completely annoying to satisfy these few people like spoonwood?

I can imagine something like 50 pages of informations and terms showing up before someone buys the game, where you could read that your life in the game can be shorter than 1 hour.
But is it worth doing it for those few people?

---

Making own private server (Very easy! You can play on it even if you haven't bought the game)
Zoom mod
Mini guide for beginners
website with all recipies

Spoonwood

Member

Registered: 2019-02-06

Posts: 4,369

Re: On "Nintendo Hard" Garbage

New players are not average players, they are "new". No one should expect them to be a seasoned master in their first life. Besides without difficulty, there can be no growth.

Average for a new player is a concept.

  No one should expect them to be a seasoned master in their first life.

I don't think I argued for such.  I think I argued one hour one life... one hour of playing time, one life.

Besides without difficulty, there can be no growth.

There is no growth after death.

So why would you expect perfection on their first play?

I don't see how Spinoza's quote as you used it fits with the design of the game at all.  I also don't see how failure, or in other words dying before 60, has anything to do with excellence.

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Danish Clinch.
Longtime tutorial player.

Spoonwood

Member

Registered: 2019-02-06

Posts: 4,369

Re: On "Nintendo Hard" Garbage

Why would new players be excluded from starvation which is a major part of the game. This is ludicrous.

Starvation unto death is an ending of the game.  It says "YOU DIED" after that happens.

You have to stop being so overly protective. People must make a few mistakes here and there to learn and become stronger.

No, they do not become stronger by dying.  They *only* die.

The first game played is also NOT about training the player to be able to complete one hour one life some other time.  The first real game (outside of the traditional tutorial and the 46 minutes one life challenge where players have to exit or live to 60 after starting as an Eve) is not some sort of training exercise.  It is the game.  One hour one life.

I suppose Mario should be immortal in the first stage so players dont get upset over not rescuing the princess on their first go. Cant have people die in the first stage. People would then feel cheated and would hate the game for it.

No, you don't suppose such.  You were being sarcastic.  Also, neither Mario Brothers nor any of its spinoffs say anything about having a life for a certain time.  The analogy fails, because such a game has an entirely different concept behind it than this game.

I didnt even read the rest.

Then you don't know what I wrote or if it has any value.

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Danish Clinch.
Longtime tutorial player.

Spoonwood

Member

Registered: 2019-02-06

Posts: 4,369

Re: On "Nintendo Hard" Garbage

Advertisements and stuff are simplified, but it's obvious that your life can be shorther than 1 hour.
I know it's not obvious for some people like spoonwood, but what can we do with it without making advertisements completely annoying to satisfy these few people like spoonwood?

I can imagine something like 50 pages of informations and terms showing up before someone buys the game, where you could read that your life in the game can be shorter than 1 hour.
But is it worth doing it for those few people?

I was well aware that one's in game life can be shorter than one hour before this.  However, if the game isn't getting designed so that the average new, first time player can experience one hour one life when trying to do so, then the game is NOT set up for them to experience one hour one life.  Such players should experience one hour one life, because it's a reasonable expectation from the title of the game and it's advertisement, which says: "Live an entire life in one hour."  It doesn't say a partial life there.  It doesn't say a half lived life there.  It says an entire life. 

Entire:

"Constituting the full amount, extent, or duration: We spent the entire day at the beach."

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/entires

Also, this is supposed to be a *survival* game.  For a survival game means that players should ideally survive within it.  All these comments that average new players shouldn't live to 60 their first time is like saying that this game should be a death game within one hour, instead of a survival game for that hour.  No.  The average new player attempting to do so, should survive.  Not 20 minutes one life.  Not 40 minutes one life.  Not 57 minutes one life.  One hour one life.

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Danish Clinch.
Longtime tutorial player.

Dodge

Member

Registered: 2018-08-27

Posts: 2,467

Re: On "Nintendo Hard" Garbage

I was well aware that one's in game life can be shorter than one hour before this.  However, if the game isn't getting designed so that the average new, first time player can experience one hour one life when trying to do so, then the game is NOT set up for them to experience one hour one life.

OBJECTION!

Jason added a notification when your baby is a new player, it's up to you to take care of them, more experienced players failling to take care of new players is not a flaw in the design of the game, it's an individual failure.

So the game is indeed designed so that first time players can experience "one hour one life".

Jokes aside 99.999% of players understand that it's just the title of the game and dont expect to be good when they just started.

Maybe there should be a disclaimer for the extremly dense 0.001% that cant understand this, or maybe they should figure their own shit out.

Coconut Fruit

Member

Registered: 2019-08-16

Posts: 831

Re: On "Nintendo Hard" Garbage

Let's change the name of the game to One Hour One Life unless you starve or get killed or you disconnect or you get born as an Eve.

What do you think about it, Spoonwood?

---

Making own private server (Very easy! You can play on it even if you haven't bought the game)
Zoom mod
Mini guide for beginners
website with all recipies

Cogito

Member

Registered: 2020-03-09

Posts: 192

Re: On "Nintendo Hard" Garbage

If the game was changed so that it was easy for a player just starting out to die from old age, it would be a worse game.

I'm going to go through your questions, which may have been rhetorical, and answer them one by one. I will however, change the question "being able to" to "being able to easily", as you will note that is what I put forth above.

So the average player being able to easily achieve a one hour one life the first time would be bad?

Yes.

Players being able to easily get things right the first time would be bad?

Yes.

When I was in high school some of my peers would say in a ridiculous voice "when are you going to do things right the first time?"  But, it wasn't entirely a joke, because they also seemed to believe that ideally things would get done right the first time.

No, they were wondering why you weren't learning from your mistakes.

If you cut one piece of wood, and after cutting it realise you measured incorrectly and have to cut again, well you realised you made a mistake and cut it again.

If you cut 20 more pieces and every time have to recut them because you measure them incorrectly, you should be asking yourself "why can't I do this right the first time?"

Doing it wrong the first time is a learning oportunity; doing it wrong every time is being obtuse.

Why, oh why, oh why, should players do things wrong the first time and not live to 60?

Why would you play a survival game if there was no need to survive?

All I see in such a phrase is blind belief.

I'm not sure what belief is being believed, nor why it is blind.

Your intent here seems to be to remove any possibility of progression, on an individual basis, on a player community basis, and on town's basis.

What are you talking about progression for as if it's an applicable concept?

Well, what are you talking about? I can't believe that this (and other) conversations stem (purely) from some misplaced indignation that someone dared make a game with "One Hour" and "One Life" in the title where, lo and behold, every life doesn't always last for an hour.

I believe that you want the game to have a good vision (a good future to look forward to), and good gameplay, and I don't know why you are taking this position so strongly.

This is a survival game, and a crafting game, and a social game, and so much more. Each of these things are starkly marked by progression.

The pressures of survival are immense motivators in the game, and motivation is essential to meaningful gameplay.

If sitting naked in the grass eating berries all day was all that was required to survive there would be no need to discover new foods. There would be no need to craft clothes. There would be no need to build tools, buildings, farms, or roads. There would be no need for experimentation and theory crafting, trying to work out optimal play strategies.

There would be no need to play.

There would be no achievement.

I first learn how to survive, and in time learn how to easily survive. I learn how to help my children survive, and in time teach them how to easily survive. I learn how to help my town survive, and thrive, and enjoy the creativity that this game allows for when starvation has been cast aside.

To have progress, to have achievement, there needs to be something to overcome. In a survival game, that is death.

This game would be a worse game if death did not loom large for every player - though it would be a much better game if it were easier for players to learn how to not die so stupidly.

It's one life, not two lives or three lives, or four lives.  The game has a death state.  Players can "get reborn", but once they die, that character is dead.  There isn't progression after death in the real world.  One's character does not progress after death in OHOL, all that remains is a bunch of bones and historical information.  So why are you talking about progression as if it's something that can exist?

This idea that characters die therefore there is no progress isn't a valid position to argue from.

This idea that there is only one life is not a valid position to argue from.

People play this game, and people play more than one life. People progress, learning new skills, refining existing skills, and developing new meta. The world progesses, resources are refined and infrastructure built. Progress of yourself, of the meta, and of the world make surviving easier, and this is a good thing.

I don't think I said anything about a town's basis.  I think I was talking about individual players lives and that's it.

I think I've covered it above, but a town's technology level, and level of infrastructure, has a profound impact on how likely someone is to survive, and this is a good thing.

Again, one life.  One hour.  One hour.  One life.  Not progression over many lives.  Not two hours three lives.  Not two hours four lives.  Not five hours six lives.  Not 30 minutes 6 lives.  One hour one life.  1 hour 1 life.

If you truly believe this, why do you keep playing?

Why do you agitate for change in this game if there is no possibility of change, of progress, of a new and better played life?

The title of the game is one that, after pondering it for a moment, perfectly communicates the central idea that make this particular survival game different from all the others. It doesn't need to be anything more.

Spoonwood

Member

Registered: 2019-02-06

Posts: 4,369

Re: On "Nintendo Hard" Garbage

I was well aware that one's in game life can be shorter than one hour before this.  However, if the game isn't getting designed so that the average new, first time player can experience one hour one life when trying to do so, then the game is NOT set up for them to experience one hour one life.

OBJECTION!

Jason added a notification when your baby is a new player, it's up to you to take care of them, more experienced players failling to take care of new players is not a flaw in the design of the game, it's an individual failure.

I think I talked about players beyond bigserver2, right?  Like during a sale.  That means something similar to what I saw on stream yesterday.  A new player raising a new player.  I also don't think such has been uncommon on bs2 either.

Also, it's not hard to have children past 30.  Your child can have 39 minutes of life left after you die.

Additionally, I had talked about an Eve camp.  Going around playing the doting mother on their children as a true Eve out starting from scratch and having a good Eve camp isn't feasible even with only 4 children.  Someone there has to run around and find a natural spring with 2 iron veins at least on that fault line, or the camp should have gotten started somewhere else.  Especially if the family will make an oil pumpjack or oil pump.    Of course, I'm assuming that the family won't play the cheap way by looting, or using Hetuw chat to tell other players that they need iron gifted to them, or have people from previous lives now being another race importing resources to them from other locations.

And again, there's plenty of cases where new players raise new players.

 

Jokes aside 99.999% of players understand that it's just the title of the game and dont expect to be good when they just started.

Uh, your joke sounds kind of like how Jason has thought on other topics, so I'm leaving my serious response up.

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Danish Clinch.
Longtime tutorial player.

Spoonwood

Member

Registered: 2019-02-06

Posts: 4,369

Re: On "Nintendo Hard" Garbage

Let's change the name of the game to One Hour One Life unless you starve or get killed or you disconnect or you get born as an Eve.

What do you think about it, Spoonwood?

No, I'm not in favor of such a name change.  It wouldn't make it anymore of a survival game.  It would just mean that one has given up on the game being a survival game for average new players, or never cared much if they survived in the first place.

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Danish Clinch.
Longtime tutorial player.

Spoonwood

Member

Registered: 2019-02-06

Posts: 4,369

Re: On "Nintendo Hard" Garbage

     So the average player being able to easily achieve a one hour one life the first time would be bad?

Yes.

So the average new player surviving the first time in a *survival* game is bad?

No, they were wondering why you weren't learning from your mistakes.

No, it wasn't that.  Like I don't recall that getting directed at me personally.  I think there was some movie or TV show where some man yelled at his teenage son "when are you going to learn to do things right the first time?!" or something like that.  Also, my recollection was that something would get explained to someone once.  Then they would try to do that something and be off on something, and that something wasn't well explained.  Then someone might say that phrase as a joke, but they knew that the explanation wasn't all that great.

Why would you play a survival game if there was no need to survive?

There is no need for any player to survive ever, since they can die.  It's a game.  Again, there is no need to survive.

Well, what are you talking about?

I talked about how the idea of 'player progression' across multiple lives doesn't make sense for a one hour one life game.  Why?  Because it's a one life game.  Specifically, it's a one life game in terms of survival.  One either survives (to old age) or one does not survive.  Nothing in between, and not both in any case.  There is no such thing as surviving across multiple lives, and if you thought there could be, there's no known termination point to provide a boundary to define what survival means.  There is only surviving with respect to one life.  So, talking about 'player progression' in terms of survival just doesn't hold up as a concept applicable to the game.

This is a survival game, and a crafting game, and a social game, and so much more. Each of these things are starkly marked by progression.

In terms of crafting and social aspects I agree it's not a one hour one life game and won't be.  But, in terms of survival it is one hour one life with no chance of progression.  One either survives (to old age) or one does not for a single life.  There are no gradations there whatsoever, and thus there cannot exist any sort of progression, since progression requires "steps" or "levels" or "gradations".

The pressures of survival are immense motivators in the game, and motivation is essential to meaningful gameplay.

The above quote by Jason suggests that the game isn't designed with pressure with respect to survival.  Instead, it's designed with pressure for players to die.  That's how "Ninentdo Hard" works since states get thrown at players trying to kill their characters.

If sitting naked in the grass eating berries all day was all that was required to survive there would be no need to discover new foods. There would be no need to craft clothes. There would be no need to build tools, buildings, farms, or roads. There would be no need for experimentation and theory crafting, trying to work out optimal play strategies.

I talked about the average new player above.  If the average new player is getting set up to die, as "Nintendo Hard" games do work, and there's a time limit on succeeding (yep, it's a one hour game), how could any of that make a difference?  The answer is none of it can, since all of those are inaccessible to new players.  Optimal play strategies for an average new player?  Impossible.  One can't even discover know or theorize about what optimal play strategies are until different play strategies exist.

There exist two and only two possibilities.  The average new player survives (lives to old age) or dies.  Given that such a player is setup to not live to 60, there is no need to think about any of those things as you suggest, because they are NOT achievable.  And make no mistake, playing consecutively a real "Nintendo Hard" game for 60 minutes with no deaths *the first time playing it* isn't exactly known to happen, if it ever happened once.

I first learn how to survive, and in time learn how to easily survive.

In one hour and in one life?

  I learn how to help my town survive, and thrive, and enjoy the creativity that this game allows for when starvation has been cast aside.

I don't see how it gets cast aside for average new players in an Eve camp.  And a "Nintendo Hard" game wouldn't enable players to case it aside from their minds like ever.

To have progress, to have achievement, there needs to be something to overcome. In a survival game, that is death.

To have progress gradations are necessary.  There is no gradation in terms of survival in one life.  Either one survives to 60 or one does not.  No, death is NOT overcome in one hour one life.  Once one's character is dead, it is dead, and there isn't an overcoming of it.  You do not overcome the death of your previous life by living longer in the next one or by living to 60 in the next one.

This game would be a worse game if death did not loom large for every player - though it would be a much better game if it were easier for players to learn how to not die so stupidly.

So it would be a worse game if it were more about life for players?  The game does not have death in the title.  It does not advertise anything about death.  If death should loom large for players, it would make a lot more sense to have death somewhere in its advertisement.  But, I'm not seeing that.  And death is not surviving.  The point of a survival game is not to die, but to survive.  Death looming large in the game indicates a serious flaw that the game isn't about survival.  But, it's advertised as a survival game on onehouronelife.com

This idea that characters die therefore there is no progress isn't a valid position to argue from. This idea that there is only one life is not a valid position to argue from.

By all means prove the invalidity there.  Otherwise you've done little more than write words there.

People play this game, and people play more than one life.  People progress, learning new skills, refining existing skills, and developing new meta. The world progesses, resources are refined and infrastructure built. Progress of yourself, of the meta, and of the world make surviving easier, and this is a good thing.

Players either survive to 60 in the first life that they play or they do not.  There is NO progress there, and none possible for any individual.  In the next life you play you either survive to 60 or you do not.  There is NO progress there either.  All of the lives are disconnected in some way.  There is no progress in terms of survival for the characters.  They either survive or they do not.  They do not live again. 

The mistake you have made seems that you've assumed that progress would apply to everything.  It does not.  In the real world there is stagnation, and regress.  Additionally, some things are incapable of progressing.  Floors as material objects do not progress.  Atoms do not progress.  Water and lava do not progress.  Saying that the world progresses thus leaves out important aspects of it.  It seems that you don't realize that some things just can't progress.

I think I've covered it above, but a town's technology level, and level of infrastructure, has a profound impact on how likely someone is to survive, and this is a good thing.

This is a game advertised as involving rebuilding from scratch.  It is NOT a game advertised as being about living in a society with racecars and loom clothes where a shallow well is around.  Since rebuilding from scratch comes as part of it's advertisement, rebuilding from scratch should be valued.  But, clearly it's not, in part because more technologically advanced societies get the better position for survival.

If you truly believe this, why do you keep playing?

Why do you agitate for change in this game if there is no possibility of change, of progress, of a new and better played life?

Comparison between lives is not necessary for the game to be fun or interesting.  Progress is not what keeps things interesting or fun.  One can also believe that "progress" has gotten achieved, when it hasn't.

The title of the game is one that, after pondering it for a moment, perfectly communicates the central idea that make this particular survival game different from all the others.

If the average new player can't survive, and instead comes as expected to die, this is not a survival game worthy of the name.  It is a death game instead.

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Danish Clinch.
Longtime tutorial player.

Spoonwood

Member

Registered: 2019-02-06

Posts: 4,369

Re: On "Nintendo Hard" Garbage

If sitting naked in the grass eating berries all day was all that was required to survive there would be no need to discover new foods. There would be no need to craft clothes. There would be no need to build tools, buildings, farms, or roads. There would be no need for experimentation and theory crafting, trying to work out optimal play strategies.

There would be no need to play.

There would be no achievement.

Also, the example of berries there is rather strange if the goal is something like for a family to have 100 generations of descendants, since food generational decline exists.  An Eve though, at least some of them, can eat berries naked in a grassland all day for their survival.  So, why according to you when I saw a new player in the wilderness survival challenge did I see him trying to make fire?  Do you reject him as achieving anything since it didn't change his survival probability, and probably made it less likely for him to survive to 60, since he did that instead of paying more attention to his pip bar?  Also, players who Eve chain do all sorts of things which they don't need to do to survive.  Saying that they don't achieve anything just isn't true.

So, no, your reasoning there just doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

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Danish Clinch.
Longtime tutorial player.

Spoonwood

Member

Registered: 2019-02-06

Posts: 4,369

Re: On "Nintendo Hard" Garbage

      If sitting naked in the grass eating berries all day was all that was required to survive there would be no need to discover new foods. There would be no need to craft clothes. There would be no need to build tools, buildings, farms, or roads. There would be no need for experimentation and theory crafting, trying to work out optimal play strategies.

    There would be no need to play.

    There would be no achievement.

Also, if this is about necessity being needed to motivate players to craft or use in game content, it's simply not true.  And the pressure of resources running out can and does *demotivate* crafting.  A plane on bs2?  Unheard of during certain time periods, because of water pressure.  I know I made one in January and it wasn't my first plane.  It wasn't my first plane either.  Horse blood in a bottle?  Has there ever existed on bs2?  I've seen it in a low pop context.  It fit the player's town ideas.  But, it would be silly to do such for survival reasons at present.  A radio telegraph?  I've made at least two of those and seen a few other people make them on low pop also.  Why the hell would I made a radio telegraph on bs2 though with making it consuming so much water?  Why would I or anyone else make horse blood in a bottle since it takes time away from doing things that would help people survive?  Really, why even make a snowman or pet a penguin or turkey on bs2?  Why color walls or clothes?  Or a Yule tree with the cardinals?  Or wear old boots?

There's also all sorts of buildings and structures such as flooring or roads underneath structures that don't do anything non-decorative for a while, if they ever end up being part of a useful structure at all, and often they don't.

Last edited by Spoonwood (2020-11-04 16:09:45)

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Danish Clinch.
Longtime tutorial player.

Cogito

Member

Registered: 2020-03-09

Posts: 192

Re: On "Nintendo Hard" Garbage

I'm going to try and avoid replying in-line, as the posts get hard to read, but will try and summarise the big points I think you are making and my thoughts on them. Quotes for context.

On The Player vs The Character, and One (Single) Hour One (Single) Life

the idea of 'player progression' across multiple lives doesn't make sense for a one hour one life game.  Why?  Because it's a one life game.  Specifically, it's a one life game in terms of survival.

You seem to be coming from the position that we should focus on the life of a single character. Why?

In many games it's common to die repeatedly, respawning into the world and continuing what you were doing (Team Fortress). In others you play in rounds, and if you die you are reborn next round (Counter Strike). This is why I said "People play this game, and people play more than one life." This is the argument for why I think your position is wrong - I'm focusing on the people playing, the character is merely an extension of them.

Even though it is possible for the character in OHOL to progress - growing up, gathering equipment, etc - it is a different kind of progress to what I have been talking about. Assuming we care about the people actually playing the game, we should focus on how they actually play the game - and for me that means talking about my experience playing and the experience I've seen of streamers.

If I die to an inattentive mother I click 'Get Reborn' and I am straight back into the game. My character is dead, but I the player continue.

If I cross paths with a wolf and bleed out I click 'Get Reborn' and I am straight back into the game. My character is dead, but I think to myself "be more careful in the future".

If I get born into an Eve town, running out of water and food, I run around like crazy trying to get water hauled in from the swamp while we upgrade the well. If I starve to death I click 'Get Reborn', cautiously optimistic that I left the town better able to survive then if I hadn't been there. My character is dead, but my impact in the town remains.

Sure, my character is dead and they are just a pile of bones, but so what? I play on, hopefully able to achieve something. Quite a few of your points hark back to this focus on a single life, but as players of the game we observe the characters and the world they live in. We tell the stories of lives lived, of memorable deaths, of families and towns spreading across the map. The game is far more than the life of a single character.

On the Usefulness of Death

You correctly point out that Death is not the only motivator (you mention crafting in particular); I was being a little too dramatic when I said (paraphrasing) "[If it was easy to surive] there would be no need to play. There would be no achievement."

Death does not have to be the only motivator, but I think it is a good one.
You talk about how a survival game is not about dying, and you're right - it's about avoiding death. All survival games are about avoiding death, that's what surviving is. This one is unique in that no matter how good you are, you can only survive for one hour at a time, but it's still about avoiding death. Death is implicit the moment you talk about survival.

Now, I think you have good points about 'Nintendo Hard', and I think there are bad kinds of Death as well, that serve only to demotivate. As you say "the pressure of resources running out can and does *demotivate* crafting".

For Death to be a good motivator it needs to be clear what actions I (the player!) can take to avoid Death, in this and future lives. OHOL is sometimes good at this, but often not. The fix is to make it easier to know how to not die in the future, not to remove Death.
For example, if I step on a wolf it's pretty easy to learn "Don't step on wolves in the future". If I've watched some streams, or played a bit, I might even know that I can be healed if there are pads, needle, and thread around. The first is easy to learn the second less so, but it's not too obtuse. I'm presented a challenge and can learn how to overcome it.

New players starving to death while surrounded by food is not a good motivator, because it's really hard to learn what you can eat (at least historically, I think it's getting a bit better), and hard to learn how YUMing has a large impact on how sated you are.
Even worse is when unsuspecting players find themselves beset by bears. In that moment there is near no agency at all, and there is real frustration at dying 'for no reason'.

Slight tangent, but this is the same reason the destruction of engines in a box is so painful - it's easy for someone else to destroy it and hard for me to stop them. We've devised strategies to protect the engines, but the whole mechanic is frustrating because it leaves players powerless.

Back to 'Nintendo Hard'.

Eves are a fun part of the game, and I wish more people were able to experience it (though I also love big cities). Part of why they are so fun is precisely that it is so hard to survive - it is easy to die, or if not you for your family to die. It's a tough challenge, and beating it (you and your family surviving) is extremely rewarding. Making surviving easier necessarily reduces the accomplishment.

For new players in a 'Nintendo Hard' Eve spawn, death is not the end. Hopefully, for whatever brief period they were alive, they were able to learn something. Perhaps they managed to craft a sharp rock and find some food, dying just before they were able to get that wild carrot into their mouth. When they click 'Get Reborn' and fall crying onto the ground they are in a better position to survive then they were the previous life. As they keep learning survival skills, and start building persistent infrastructure (farms, kitchen, etc), their chances of survival will keep increasing.

One fateful day, many lives in the future, they will spawn as an Eve themselves. Surviving the hardest challenge the game has to throw at them they will revel in the birth and success of their family. I remember spending days looking back over my family tree after my first successful Eve. It was a sad day when the last of us died out, but it was vey satisfying to have lived as long as we did.

To summarise, Death is Good, keep the challenge but remove the frustration.

Last edited by Cogito (2020-11-04 16:54:11)

Spoonwood

Member

Registered: 2019-02-06

Posts: 4,369

Re: On "Nintendo Hard" Garbage

You seem to be coming from the position that we should focus on the life of a single character. Why?

Because that's how stories can emerge within a life.  Because that's how immersion in playing the game can happen.  Because that's how playing the character can happen.  And almost surely, focusing on the life of a single character is *the only* way that playing the character, immersion in the character, and recognizing such stories can fully get appreciated.  The title of the game suggests it also.

If I die to an inattentive mother I click 'Get Reborn' and I am straight back into the game. My character is dead, but I the player continue.

In your three examples you quick reborn quickly.  It doesn't seem like death was useful to you.  More like it was a hold up in doing other things.

Quite a few of your points hark back to this focus on a single life, but as players of the game we observe the characters and the world they live in.

The world that the characters live in is that of a single life.  And that's all they get, one single life.  No, you're not observing the characters with the one hour one life concept in mind.  You're observing things as a player.  You aren't seeing the character's perspective.

Death does not have to be the only motivator, but I think it is a good one.

Death does not motivate anyone.  If anything, it's the *fear* of dying and seeking to avoid dying that motivates people.  More likely, the motivator consists of the desire to continue to exist.

All survival games are about avoiding death, that's what surviving is.

A character in OHOL surviving is not about them avoiding death.  They cannot avoid death, and any conscious player knows that their character cannot avoid death.  A character in OHOL survivng is about them continuing to exist for a certain amount of time.  Avoiding death is merely avoiding a lack of being.  Pursuing continuing to exist is about seeking to live.  Life, in the sense of how one "feels alive" is not merely defined by avoiding a negative state, but also having a positive one.

Death is implicit the moment you talk about survival.

A player who plays for 10 minutes and then leaves survives for 10 minutes.  A player that players for 60 minutes ALSO survived for 10 minutes.  A player who is in game still alive can talk about how long they have survived.  I'm more than 10 years old right now in real life and less than 70 years old, and thus it's clear that I've survived 20 years.  So, absolutely not, death is not the implicit moment that I talk about survival, and my previous comments weren't that way.  Death is the moment when we can *measure* the maximum life of the being in question lasted.  But a man who lives for 70 years also lived for 60 years.  He also lived for 40 years.  And an OHOL player whose character lives for 60 years also lived for 50 years, and also lived for 30 years.  So, I don't understand why you've emphasized death like this.  It does not do much at all for understanding survival.

For Death to be a good motivator it needs to be clear what actions I (the player!) can take to avoid Death, in this and future lives. OHOL is sometimes good at this, but often not. The fix is to make it easier to know how to not die in the future, not to remove Death.
For example, if I step on a wolf it's pretty easy to learn "Don't step on wolves in the future". If I've watched some streams, or played a bit, I might even know that I can be healed if there are pads, needle, and thread around. The first is easy to learn the second less so, but it's not too obtuse. I'm presented a challenge and can learn how to overcome it.

New players starving to death while surrounded by food is not a good motivator, because it's really hard to learn what you can eat (at least historically, I think it's getting a bit better), and hard to learn how YUMing has a large impact on how sated you are.
Even worse is when unsuspecting players find themselves beset by bears. In that moment there is near no agency at all, and there is real frustration at dying 'for no reason'.

Slight tangent, but this is the same reason the destruction of engines in a box is so painful - it's easy for someone else to destroy it and hard for me to stop them.

I agree with your first two paragraphs and think they make good points.  But, you do have agency if an engine gets destroyed in a box.  You can choose how you react.  Your character also has possibilities for different actions which you understand how to execute.  I don't mean to say that  such is not painful, or that engines getting destroyed in a box ever made any sense.  But, it's not painful in the same way that a player whose character gets eaten by a bear when they don't understand what to do with bears around.

Eves are a fun part of the game, and I wish more people were able to experience it (though I also love big cities). Part of why they are so fun is precisely that it is so hard to survive - it is easy to die, or if not you for your family to die.

Huh?  It's not just hard, it's impossible for any Eve's family to survive.  The family WILL die.  They all will die out either through lack of children or some update or some other cause.  And it isn't like Eves usually have some goal for how long their family survives, and even if they did, their descendants might not have the same goal.  Family survival isn't definable. 

For new players in a 'Nintendo Hard' Eve spawn, death is not the end.

That isn't a one life concept.  It's not one hour one life in the character's sense.  It involves getting reborn or going back in another life or checking family trees external to the game.

When they click 'Get Reborn' and fall crying onto the ground they are in a better position to survive then they were the previous life.

No.  There is no multi-life survival.  You do not have any termination point for multiple lives.  There is also no multi-life life.  Getting reborn means that another life has started.  The new character may have a better position to survive, but they also might not be.  Assuming that a player will be better able to survive only makes for an assumption, as some people who played before and after the temperature overhaul likely know.

Survival is particular to one life.  Once your character dies, that character is dead.

As they keep learning survival skills, and start building persistent infrastructure (farms, kitchen, etc), their chances of survival will keep increasing.

You seem to have forgotten about /die.  You seem to have forgotten that players can throw their self into a wolf, bear, boar, or go afk with no one around.  Learning those skills is irrelevant if players choose to die.  And that does not make survival more probable, as the preponderance of /die instances for some players suggests, it can even make survival LESS probable.  And you never know what new players will do in that regard.

Death is not good.  Even as a motivator it only means avoiding something bad.  Things do work better when one can pursue something good like continuing to exist.

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Danish Clinch.
Longtime tutorial player.

DestinyCall

Member

Registered: 2018-12-08

Posts: 4,563

Re: On "Nintendo Hard" Garbage

Death is implicit the moment you talk about survival.

A player who plays for 10 minutes and then leaves survives for 10 minutes.  A player that players for 60 minutes ALSO survived for 10 minutes.  A player who is in game still alive can talk about how long they have survived.  I'm more than 10 years old right now in real life and less than 70 years old, and thus it's clear that I've survived 20 years.  So, absolutely not, death is not the implicit moment that I talk about survival, and my previous comments weren't that way.  Death is the moment when we can *measure* the maximum life of the being in question lasted.  But a man who lives for 70 years also lived for 60 years.  He also lived for 40 years.  And an OHOL player whose character lives for 60 years also lived for 50 years, and also lived for 30 years.  So, I don't understand why you've emphasized death like this.  It does not do much at all for understanding survival.

This is pure bullshit, Spoon.    In order to understand what is means to survive, you MUST have some understanding of what it means to die.     The two concepts are intrinsically linked. 

sur·viv·al  -  "the state or fact of continuing to live or exist, typically in spite of an accident, ordeal, or difficult circumstances."

Without the possibility of death, there is no possibility of real survival, because there is nothing to overcome.  Nothing to outlive. No challenge to existing, since it is already pre-determined and assured.    You could not survive adverse conditions or overcome challenges.  You would just coast along without any meaningful choices or difficult decisions to make.

If there was no death in OHOL, so you just existed for 60 minutes and then got a "you died of old age" screen at the end of your life, it would be a really shitty "survival" game.   What would be the point of a game like that?    Can you really consider it "surviving" for sixty minutes, if there was no possibility of failure?   I don't think so.  You didn't survive.  You just existed for a length of time, then stopped existing.   That isn't survival.  It is stagnation.

Even worse .. it is boring.

....

Also, if you survive in OHOL for 10 minutes and then leave, you don't survive for exactly 10 minutes.  Your character will continue to live as long as someone continues to feed you.  Get your facts straight, Spoonwod. I expect better for you than using such sloppy examples.   *sad headshake*

Spoonwood

Member

Registered: 2019-02-06

Posts: 4,369

Re: On "Nintendo Hard" Garbage

This is pure bullshit, Spoon.    In order to understand what is means to survive, you MUST have some understanding of what it means to die.     The two concepts are intrinsically linked.

sur·viv·al  -  "the state or fact of continuing to live or exist, typically in spite of an accident, ordeal, or difficult circumstances."

There is nothing in that definition about death or ceasing to exist.  There is no implication of anything about death in that concept also.  So, there is no intrinsic link.

Where is the error in this quote?

A player who plays for 10 minutes and then leaves survives for 10 minutes.  A player that players for 60 minutes ALSO survived for 10 minutes.  A player who is in game still alive can talk about how long they have survived.  I'm more than 10 years old right now in real life and less than 70 years old, and thus it's clear that I've survived 20 years.  So, absolutely not, death is not the implicit moment that I talk about survival, and my previous comments weren't that way.  Death is the moment when we can *measure* the maximum life of the being in question lasted.  But a man who lives for 70 years also lived for 60 years.  He also lived for 40 years.  And an OHOL player whose character lives for 60 years also lived for 50 years, and also lived for 30 years.  So, I don't understand why you've emphasized death like this.  It does not do much at all for understanding survival.

Without the possibility of death, there is no possibility of real survival, because there is nothing to overcome.

No, overcoming something does not make life.  Survival for periods of seconds exists for babies in the real world.  Their survival is real.  Fetuses in the womb also survive for some period of time.  Their survival is real also.  They didn't overcome things so far as I know.  Overcoming something requires agency.  And babies in the womb and infants don't have agency, or not much agency, at least not in terms of affecting their survival all that much.  In OHOL babies can survive for .1 minutes.  But, they have no agency other than a letter during that period and wiggling.  They don't survive by overcoming anything.  They survive in that time period because they won't starve.  And later babies in OHOL survive by other people caring for them.  That experience does NOT lack meaning, even though it doesn't involve overcoming anything.

Nothing to outlive.

Living longer than someone else does NOT increase one's life span.  Living longer than someone else does NOT make one's life more meaningful.

No challenge to existing, since it is already pre-determined and assured.

There is no challenge to existing for some period of time in the game barring technical issues.  One clicks 'login' and it happens.  Existing in the game does NOT become less meaningful because of such.

You could not survive adverse conditions or overcome challenges.

I didn't talk about removing boars or bears or mean pit bulls or starvation or player killing.

You would just coast along without any meaningful choices or difficult decisions to make.

Meaning does NOT come from overcoming external conditions.  Meaning is NOT created merely by surviving for a certain time.  Meaning does NOT come from any game at all.  Meaning does NOT come from external causes whatsoever.  At least not necessarily.  Meaning comes from within.  Only when people have the courage to try to develop meaning in their lives or in their games for their own self does meaning start to exist.  People have trouble doing this though in general, because they are social in nature, and meaning is too individualistic for many people to handle.

"Nintendo Hard" games like Battletoads did not have much meaning for many players.  They were too hard, and thus people developing their own meaning for those games was pretty much out of the question.  Merely trying to keep a character alive is just playing a game on it's external conditions.   But doing such on external conditions does NOT create meaning.  It kills off meaning if playing the game all that much, because one's own purposes interest, desires, wants, etc. fall into the background.  And then one's personality becomes as if it were nothing.  The result is a feeling of meaninglessness.

If there was no death in OHOL, so you just existed for 60 minutes and then got a "you died of old age" screen at the end of your life, it would be a really shitty "survival" game.

Absolutely not.  Such would involve survival.  It would be a survival game, because there existed survival instead of death.  A survival game is one where there exists survival.  The more death gets emphasized in a game, the less of a survival game it is.

What would be the point of a game like that?

Meaning comes from within Destiny.  The point would be for people to have the courage to develop their own meaning, as they must do in their own real lives anyways sooner or later.

Can you really consider it "surviving" for sixty minutes, if there was no possibility of failure?

Yes, I can.  Your own definition says that survival involves continuing to live or to exist.  That's all.  Whether it is typical or not, is no matter whatsoever for whether such fits the definition.  2 is a prime number.  It is atypical, since it is an even prime number.  But it is still a prime number.  Likewise, a hypothetical survival game where players survived for a given time no matter what they did, without any possibility of failure, would still be a survival game.  And those players, controlling their characters, would still have their characters surviving.  So, I can still consider such surviving even for a game with no possibility of failure.  A game where players played for sixty minutes without having the possibility of death, would still involve the chracters surviving, since they those characters would still exist inside of the game.

  I don't think so.  You didn't survive.  You just existed for a length of time, then stopped existing.

Again, your own definition says: "the state or fact of continuing to live or exist".  So, existing for a length of time is sufficient to say that survival happened.  So, your statement "you didn't survive" is wrong.  THE CHARACTER DID SURVIVE SINCE THEY CONTINUED TO EXIST.  I don't know how you don't see this.  Or this is one of your protracted jokes.

Also, if you survive in OHOL for 10 minutes and then leave, you don't survive for exactly 10 minutes.  Your character will continue to live as long as someone continues to feed you.

A player who plays for 10 minutes and the leaves their computer DID have their character survive for exactly 10 minutes.  They lived that long in game.  But that doesn't imply that they survived *for only* 10 minutes.  I don't think I said nor implied that they survived only for 10 minutes.  In fact, I started implying that they didn't survive for only 10 minutes, since I said that a character that lives for 60 minutes had also survived for 10 minutes.  Sure, it can be a bit longer than after one has left the computer.  But once the death screen exists there is no more.

Using your example of someone else feeding a character after the human player left the screen after 10 minutes, say to age 40, that character lived for 40 minutes.  It *also* lived for 10 minutes.  That follows the same pattern as I had above Destiny.

Last edited by Spoonwood (2020-11-04 22:14:15)

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Danish Clinch.
Longtime tutorial player.

Spoonwood

Member

Registered: 2019-02-06

Posts: 4,369

Re: On "Nintendo Hard" Garbage

For reference purposes here's someone playing a "blind playthrough" of Battletoads: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX8KiGJBvWI  He has a game over screen after around 6 minutes.  He is also not some new gamer, or a casual one it seems.

Here's someone playing Mike Tyson's Punch-Out! blind.  He gets TKOed by Glass Joe in the 2nd round: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfCltlMK5To  Mike Tyson said that he couldn't beat Glass Joe when he tried that game a few years ago.

Last edited by Spoonwood (2020-11-04 23:43:20)

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Danish Clinch.
Longtime tutorial player.