Basic courtesy for the developer

jasonrohrer · 2021-10-28 15:20:41

"Goals" are different than "promises," of course. Early on, my goal for this game was to have 10,000 craftable objects There are currently over 3000.

I also had an unstated goal of 100 playable characters. There are currently 22.

But over the intervening years, my thinking about this game has changed somewhat. More isn't necessarily better, despite what some players seem to want. I had someone ask me for "garlic bread" in the Discord yesterday. Would garlic bread make the game better? Would that be a good use of my time?

As you are all aware, there is LOADS of so-called "dead content" in the game. Which sounds more interesting? Making garlic bread in the game, or breeding/evolving specific types of dogs from wild wolves? Well, dog breeding is in the game, but people almost never do it.

You can say, "But the way dogs work isn't that interesting." Yeah, of course. If you're going to have 10,000 objects, most of the stuff is going to be somewhat simple. 10 different kinds of sushi, and that kind of thing. You can play fetch with your dog! And your dog follows you around! And you can have a guard dog. What else do you want it to do? Herd sheep or something? But sheep don't really need herding, right?

You can also PLAY POKER in the game, with the way the card decks work, but almost no one does that.

What people actually want is not 10,000 odds and ends, but a more tightly-crafted group of things that work together in interesting, complex, and emergent ways.

So... adding "rabbit breeding" or "beekeeping" to the game, or whatever "side branch" you can think of, wouldn't make the game better. It probably wouldn't make it worse, but most players would completely ignore that "useless" content after a short while, and I would have just wasted my time. Well, unless it was an even more efficient way to getting food than the ways currently available. Then it would replace something else, and render that older thing as dead content.

Adding a bunch more characters is also probably a waste of time. There are "enough" in the game currently, most of the time, to recognize each other and get a kick out of how different/cute they look. I could "squeeze out" a bunch more characters, but they probably wouldn't be as iconic as the current ones, because there are only so many "very unique" character designs.

And in the face of this, there's also burn-out to consider. It's really hard to spend a week working on adding stuff to the game, and then find out that people don't really use it.

If it's not core, the truth is, they won't use it after a while.

In walking around the world as VOG, I can't remember the last time I saw a sports car. I mean.... that was such a cool piece of content. All those colors, and unique racing numbers per car. I spent so much time working on that and thinking about it and drawing it. It was ABOVE AND BEYOND the car shown in the trailer that everyone had been complaining about missing for ages.

I'm not complaining... I get it.... there are very good reasons why you guys don't make sports cars!

At the same time, you should understand why I don't want to ADD more stuff like sports cars to the game.

I need to pick my battles, and maximize the bang-for-the-buck of the stuff that I add to the game.

As much as many of you all hated The Rift, war swords, and all the other large-scale "ground changes" to the game over the past few years, at least that stuff wasn't dead content that you could ignore.

Something fresh was going on in OHOL that you had to grapple with.

QuirkySmirkyIan · 2021-10-28 15:58:55

I honestly just don't see why Jason gets so much hate. Do you really think the game was going to have 10,000 objects? You guys and I have had 100 of hours of fun with just hundreds of objects.

JonySky · 2021-10-28 16:43:19

jasonrohrer wrote:

I need to pick my battles, and maximize the bang-for-the-buck of the stuff that I add to the game.

In a year you have not had time to pick your battles?

Roadmap, Mr Jason ...

You were late ...

Coconut Fruit · 2021-10-28 17:01:23

JonySky wrote:

Roadmap, Mr Jason ...
You were late ...
https://i.postimg.cc/Y9Fyjs5t/2021-10-2 … Charts.png

Players poplation doesn't grow because new players experience is terrible. If I had to guess 95% of them quit after the first game.

give them ability to zoom in and out (not as much as in mods), because this game is shit and overwhelming without it (no offense) and give them proper tutorial (each for making fire, cooking, farming, smithing).
I believe these 2 simple and super easy to implement things would make so many new players actually stay with the game instead of quitting right away.

Yeah, focus on new players experience if you want your game to grow in population instead of making sport cars for the small group of veterans playing the game.

Coconut Fruit · 2021-10-28 17:09:58

Imagine we always had full server of people playing the game. So many possibilities to improve the game if so many people played the game. I have so many ideas...
Won't happen if people quit after the first game.

forman · 2021-10-28 17:20:58

I've been enjoying low pop/fewer families gameplay if I'm being honest

Spoonwood · 2021-10-28 18:24:22

jasonrohrer wrote:

Would garlic bread make the game better? Would that be a good use of my time?

Yes, and yes.

jasonrohrer wrote:

Making garlic bread in the game, or breeding/evolving specific types of dogs from wild wolves? Well, dog breeding is in the game, but people almost never do it.

Dog breeding is useless. Always has been and never had a functional purpose in the game. Garlic bread would be another type of food, meaning more yum. Yum makes survival easier. Garlic bread would have a functional purposes in the game. Also, if someone plants a large field of garlic, it has more uses. So, it would be even more useful.

jasonrohrer wrote:

You can play fetch with your dog! And your dog follows you around! And you can have a guard dog.

As things stand now, no, the player cannot have a guard dog. I guess I have to explain here that a guard dog does not attack the person it guards. There is no dog that does not attack certain players.

jasonrohrer wrote:

Herd sheep or something? But sheep don't really need herding, right?

???? This sort of question is strange to say the least. Though I disagreed with the person who made the following post at the time as I recall, here's an old thread about someone wanting uses for dogs: http://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=8701 It has several suggested uses. It wouldn't surprise me if that was the first person suggesting uses for dogs also.

jasonrohrer wrote:

You can also PLAY POKER in the game, with the way the card decks work, but almost no one does that.

Poker never has had any relevance to the overall game context. Garlic bread would.

jasonrohrer wrote:

What people actually want is not 10,000 odds and ends, but a more tightly-crafted group of things that work together in interesting, complex, and emergent ways.

Well instead of someone who seriously wanted an integrated game like that, we end up with someone who wastes time making things like *useless* dogs, useless dice, and useless cards. And seriously, that person didn't know that such would be useless with respect to the overall expected goals of the game when they got made? Oh, I also didn't mention all the coloring of walls.

Wait... people DO like having all of the different colors for walls. And it's VERY easy to find people who wear clothing in game for fashion instead of functional purposes. I personally hate the old boots, since I'm well aware that they provide no insulation at all. But I don't doubt that if I asked 10 people I could usually find one if not a few, if not half of them, if they liked the old boots, they would wear them. And well from one perspective their not just useless, but they are worse, since you can't wear insulating shoes if one has a pair of old boots. People also repeatedly call for more craftable objects. No player who bought the game that I know of asked for race restrictions. There was a ton of rejection of the war sword idea BEFORE it got added to the game http://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=6301. So, it seems more like they want 10,000 craftable objects, if anything, once we get beyond cherry picking, than more contrived, untested ideas that don't get vetted properly in any significant way.

jasonroherer wrote:

So... adding "rabbit breeding" or "beekeeping" to the game, or whatever "side branch" you can think of, wouldn't make the game better.

Rabbits make for both a clothing source and a food source. Rabbit breeding thus on the contrary would make the game better. Though of course, beekeeping could be useless, I note that beekeeping in 2HOL makes it better because the game has fruit trees that need fertilized by bees. And the game runs on the same engine.

jasonrohrer wrote:

It probably wouldn't make it worse, but most players would completely ignore that "useless" content after a short while, and I would have just wasted my time.

There's no reason to believe that either bees or garlic would be useless, when those ideas get put up there. Even without fruit trees, bees could be the only source of a food called honey. On the other hand, tool slots and race restrictions both have been useless to players.

jasonrohrer wrote:

Well, unless it was an even more efficient way to getting food than the ways currently available. Then it would replace something else, and render that older thing as dead content.

??? If one has a craving for say honey, and honey requires beekeeping, beekeeping isn't useless. Berries wouldn't become useless and dead content, since berry cravings would still exist. Honestly, apparently Mr. Rohrer doesn't even have a clue as to how his game works in terms of its mechanics.

jasonrohrer wrote:

Adding a bunch more characters is also probably a waste of time. There are "enough" in the game currently, most of the time, to recognize each other and get a kick out of how different/cute they look.

You almost surely haven't watched OHOL and 2HOL streams like I have. Simply put 2HOL is easily visually superior these days in significant part, because it has more character models. Twisted agreed with me on stream yesterday that 2HOL towns look more diverse. Back on point, I specifically remember one streamer dying early to play with different character models. That was almost surely more time spent playing for her on that day. More character models also means the game feels more like it has a large number of unique situations.

jasonrohrer wrote:

And in the face of this, there's also burn-out to consider. It's really hard to spend a week working on adding stuff to the game, and then find out that people don't really use it.

I don't think that people who work part time hours have any clue as to what "burn-out" means. I'm also sure that people who more-or-less don't work for a year have any clue as to what "burn-out" means.

jasonrohrer wrote:

In walking around the world as VOG, I can't remember the last time I saw a sports car. I mean.... that was such a cool piece of content. All those colors, and unique racing numbers per car.

Sports cars in terms of what they do, don't have much to them. Only one space. I once used one that somehow was in a town on a pump, exchanged the sports car for a rubber tire horsecart, but the people there said there wasn't anything they really needed. They are a tourist sort of object. They just make for a way of moving fast, and the map is rather repetitive, so, no they are *not* that cool. Garlic bread, or rabbit breeding, would honestly easily be cooler, and so would many other things that more fit with the pastoral/low tech feel of most OHOL towns.

That said, a sports car did appear on Twisted's stream about a day before the above got written.

jasonrohrer wrote:

It was ABOVE AND BEYOND the car shown in the trailer that everyone had been complaining about missing for ages.

The car in the trailer has space behind the driver of the car. Apparently, there's more storage space there than in the sports car. Also, the car in the trailer has a horn, and the sports car does not. So, the car in the trailer in a few respects outclasses the sports car.

jasonrohrer wrote:

At the same time, you should understand why I don't want to ADD more stuff like sports cars to the game.

No. There is nothing to understand. I'm not here for your interest, never was, and people don't post on these forums to serve your interest either. You said 10,000 craftable objects. You also said dozens of craftable objects every week. You aren't living up to your end of the bargain. You're again trying to say why you should be able to say whatever, and no one should care about whether what you said was honest or not. Absolutely not. It is immoral to lie. It is further immoral to discourage people from caring about the truth.

jasonrohrer wrote:

I need to pick my battles, and maximize the bang-for-the-buck of the stuff that I add to the game.

Mr. Rohrer isn't fighting any battles. Mr. Rohrer isn't living up to any promises. And this is further evidence that he is a dishonest person who doesn't deserve an ounce of respect.

jasonrohrer wrote:

As much as many of you all hated The Rift, war swords, and all the other large-scale "ground changes" to the game over the past few years, at least that stuff wasn't dead content that you could ignore.

??? The Rift is dead content now, except for the tool slot bug. War swords are dead content now. Garlic, on the other hand, isn't dead content these days. Carrots aren't either.

The Rift was a waste of time.

War swords were a waste of time.

Tool slots a waste of time.

Bees and fruit trees in 2HOL, which have been around for a while in 2HOL, were not a waste of time and have their uses. They weren't a waste of time before 2HOL got cravings also, as, I think, even the aesthetic effects of fruit trees were sufficient for people to make them.

jasonrohrer wrote:

Something fresh was going on in OHOL that you had to grapple with.

I didn't play during The Rift at all, and didn't find such interesting in the slightest. So, I didn't have to grapple with anything. Warswords I mostly ignored, and hated that one life where I actually went and tried to kill someone playing an a death game of infanticide and civilization destruction. And those changes are dead now, or even if they were to come back, were deliberately dead for a long time.

I think it's rather telling that Mr. Rohrer talks about wanting to maximize bang for his buck, but still wants to defend things that drove people away, and he had to spend time deliberately removing.

Meanwhile, it's easy enough to see how garlic bread would be *continually* appealing to people, and would have *endured over time* if it had been something in this game three years ago, especially if cravings had existed then.

Tool slots are long dead.

Carrots, or maybe better, sauerkraut or and potatoes still appealing to players.

Painted walls and old boots ... still getting used.

Last edited by Spoonwood (2021-10-28 18:29:47)

Léonard · 2021-10-28 18:29:38

jasonrohrer wrote:

But over the intervening years, my thinking about this game has changed somewhat. More isn't necessarily better, despite what some players seem to want. I had someone ask me for "garlic bread" in the Discord yesterday. Would garlic bread make the game better? Would that be a good use of my time?
As you are all aware, there is LOADS of so-called "dead content" in the game. Which sounds more interesting? Making garlic bread in the game, or breeding/evolving specific types of dogs from wild wolves? Well, dog breeding is in the game, but people almost never do it.
You can say, "But the way dogs work isn't that interesting." Yeah, of course. If you're going to have 10,000 objects, most of the stuff is going to be somewhat simple. 10 different kinds of sushi, and that kind of thing. You can play fetch with your dog! And your dog follows you around! And you can have a guard dog. What else do you want it to do? Herd sheep or something? But sheep don't really need herding, right?
You can also PLAY POKER in the game, with the way the card decks work, but almost no one does that.
[...]
So... adding "rabbit breeding" or "beekeeping" to the game, or whatever "side branch" you can think of, wouldn't make the game better. It probably wouldn't make it worse, but most players would completely ignore that "useless" content after a short while, and I would have just wasted my time.

Oohh man... This is very familiar.

Where have I heard this before?

I think I'm having deja-vu.

Léonard wrote:

jasonrohrer wrote:
I have spent many weeks in the past piling on content. While the existing players enjoyed the new content for a short time, the novelty kept wearing off in short order, and I was noticing that the playerbase was not growing as a result of these constant content additions. It was kindof a steady state regardless of the amount of content added.
What kind of content are you talking about?
Tech gimmicks or more food recipes?
The OP and I are asking for none of the above.
We want useful content.
Otherwise, of course adding heaps of useless content to your game isn't going to keep people interested.
You might as well be spending your time adding decorations to the biomes..
Adding radios or planes doesn't allow us to climb the tech tree.
It's just yet another dumb useless item that you can waste resources on.

Honestly, everytime I disagree with somebody on this forum I find absolute heaps of old posts at my disposal that address/discuss the relevant subjects.
And it's not even hard! Just one or 2 pages down my posting history will reveal at least 2 or 3 related posts.
It's an odd feeling. I feel like an old man who's seen it all warning the younger generation.
I feel like some sort of historian thinking "here it goes again!".

I never thought I'd become this person when I joined this forum about a game I liked.
It's funny what time does to you.

jasonrohrer wrote:

What people actually want is not 10,000 odds and ends, but a more tightly-crafted group of things that work together in interesting, complex, and emergent ways.

Jokes asides, I see you're still going at it with this "oh the players don't really know what they want" bit.
I could of course go on and show you a bunch of old posts addressing this.. "interesting".. trait of yours just like above but you get the idea.

At least it evolved!
The argument no longer stops at just "people keep asking for dumb and dead content and it doesn't work".
Now you admit it has to be interesting in some way.
Mhh.. Nice..

jasonrohrer wrote:

Well, unless it was an even more efficient way to getting food than the ways currently available. Then it would replace something else, and render that older thing as dead content.

Unless of course said content was somehow.. Locked?
Perhaps locked behind some sort of.. Tech tree?
And the players could climb it!?

Genius!

Then people could re-build civilization and pass through technological ages while still using most of the content since it would correspond to specific stages of technological advancement!
Jason you're so good! Such an amazing idea!

jasonrohrer wrote:

at least that stuff wasn't dead content that you could ignore.

Jokes on you, I actually very gladly ignored this part.

Last edited by Léonard (2021-10-28 18:30:05)

Spoonwood · 2021-10-28 18:36:49

Leonard wrote:

Jokes on you, I actually very gladly ignored this part.

Yeah. And even these days, I've seen people on the discord say that they will wait to do specialty stuff until player population dipped below the 30 threshold.

I played during after the last apocalypse, and remember deliberately changing life plans to go get stuff from jungle or desert as Ginger one life when I noticed that the players on server count was below 30.

Restriction ignored. Benefit achieved.

Spoonwood · 2021-10-28 19:44:34

jasonrohrer wrote:

As much as many of you all hated The Rift, war swords, and all the other large-scale "ground changes" to the game over the past few years, at least that stuff wasn't dead content that you could ignore.

I'm coming back to this, because apparently there's a notion here that such were better than dead content.

But, seriously if one can and honestly look, there's evidence that *bad mechanics are worse than dead content*. I cover that in this post using the radio telegraph as an example, but many other examples could get found in this game and in other games: https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewt … 31#p107331

tobiasisahawk · 2021-10-28 20:06:27

jasonrohrer wrote:

You can play fetch with your dog! And your dog follows you around! And you can have a guard dog. What else do you want it to do? Herd sheep or something? But sheep don't really need herding, right?

Could you make dogs kill bears and wolves? Then towns would want to breed dogs to keep safe. It lines up with farm dogs role of protecting from predators.

forman · 2021-10-28 20:12:31

jasonrohrer wrote:

"In walking around the world as VOG, I can't remember the last time I saw a sports car."

A couple months or so ago, when I played more, there were quite a few cars around.

The fact that they permanently destroy bugs made having at least one worth while.

In a 'chop forward shovel backward' strategy, cars were also good for clearing paths for paving.

If they could carry more stuff, they would be more useful.

Mostly, I never made cars because typically I had to choose between a sports car or a truck and the truck was a higher priority.

Beyond that, I focused more on massive sprinkler systems and plows.

It's a shame those aren't used more.

Planes would also be cool if they could have truck carrying capacity and a few tweaks to make them more efficient.

forman · 2021-10-28 20:25:04

jasonrohrer wrote:

I had someone ask me for "garlic bread" in the Discord yesterday. Would garlic bread make the game better?

Was this also possibly related to the 'garlic griefing' thing?

There was a period where someone was mass producing garlic in order to waste water.

Someone had mentioned that it was problematic because garlic didn't have enough uses.

Spoonwood · 2021-10-28 20:43:31

tobiasisahawk wrote:

jasonrohrer wrote:
You can play fetch with your dog! And your dog follows you around! And you can have a guard dog. What else do you want it to do? Herd sheep or something? But sheep don't really need herding, right?
Could you make dogs kill bears and wolves? Then towns would want to breed dogs to keep safe. It lines up with farm dogs role of protecting from predators.

I checked, and found that Bremidon suggest something similar in the previously linked thread: http://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewto … 088#p83088

Spoonwood · 2021-10-28 20:50:33

forman wrote:

jasonrohrer wrote:
I had someone ask me for "garlic bread" in the Discord yesterday. Would garlic bread make the game better?
Was this also possibly related to the 'garlic griefing' thing?
There was a period where someone was mass producing garlic in order to waste water.
Someone had mentioned that it was problematic because garlic didn't have enough uses.

Mikulas mentioned it. I didn't see a reason why from him yesterday, but I could have missed it.

That said, I finally remembered that there was a bug report on garlic here: https://github.com/jasonrohrer/OneLifeData7/issues/912

As wondible put it:

wondible wrote:

It is a trap for new players who try to plant it in the same volume as everything else, and a tool for griefers to fill up space and waste resources.

Last edited by Spoonwood (2021-10-28 20:50:48)

kundarsa · 2021-10-28 21:11:42

Only a few things I am willing to pipe up on.

jasonrohrer wrote:

I can't remember the last time I saw a sports car.

8 Cars made in last 60 days, 2 were made yesterday. 3 were located in one town this morning. Griefers love ditching them far from people. Hard to make (the usual pro and con). People really do enjoy driving them for the first time but the utility of the truck has more replayability. I have been trying to keep a car around so that players can drive it if they want.
Cars for racing

JonySky wrote:

You were late ...

The steam stats for the game is steam stats. many many people play outside of these stats. I got the game with steam and I launch and play with a 3rd party client that sits next to the upstream steam provided client so steam does not show me playing. I will agree the numbers are down but they are a bit better then what you posted.

pop graph

I only read a few posts in this topic.

forman · 2021-10-28 21:21:55

Spoonwood wrote:

forman wrote:
jasonrohrer wrote:
I had someone ask me for "garlic bread" in the Discord yesterday. Would garlic bread make the game better?
Was this also possibly related to the 'garlic griefing' thing?
There was a period where someone was mass producing garlic in order to waste water.
Someone had mentioned that it was problematic because garlic didn't have enough uses.
Mikulas mentioned it. I didn't see a reason why from him yesterday, but I could have missed it.
That said, I finally remembered that there was a bug report on garlic here: https://github.com/jasonrohrer/OneLifeData7/issues/912
As wondible put it:
wondible wrote:
It is a trap for new players who try to plant it in the same volume as everything else, and a tool for griefers to fill up space and waste resources.

A pretty simple fix would be making garlic edible.

Not particularly tasty but can't imagine it would be much worse than eating a raw onion.

Or raw corn or hot pepper, for that matter.

JonySky · 2021-10-28 21:25:43

Coconut Fruit wrote:

Imagine we always had full server of people playing the game. So many possibilities to improve the game if so many people played the game. I have so many ideas...
Won't happen if people quit after the first game.

Imagine if Jason hadn't wasted his time developing dogs, race cars, mindless trains, absurd mechanics, contradictory and magical mechanics and had followed a roadmap

jasonrohrer · 2021-10-28 22:30:19

Be nice to me, please.

Help me want to work on the game.

Laggy · 2021-10-28 22:37:36

JonySky wrote:

Imagine if Jason hadn't wasted his time developing dogs, race cars, mindless trains, absurd mechanics, contradictory and magical mechanics and had followed a roadmap

LOL

We are driving around in cars, but still cook with freaking twigs.

Maybe the path of this game shouldn't be adding random new shiny items but tech classes.

Like maybe add kero fuel generator, electric stoves and heaters. Solar would be our best bet seeing how the sun never sets in ohol.

Then you could add so much electric stuff.

This game should be an evolution. Pretty boring when a town can go from eve village to metropolis in a couple hours.

Add more jobs!!!! So far a town can be run by one person. This doesn't make the game better.

Last edited by Laggy (2021-10-28 22:37:46)

Spoonwood · 2021-10-28 22:48:57

Laggy wrote:

Like maybe add kero fuel generator, electric stoves and heaters.

People don't remember how to make heaters in the future apparently. Because no one who has played OHOL has ever worked with HVAC technology? Seems doubtful. An HVAC technician might have played once or twice for all we know.

JonySky · 2021-10-29 07:02:31

kundarsa wrote:

JonySky wrote:
You were late ...
The steam stats for the game is steam stats. many many people play outside of these stats. I got the game with steam and I launch and play with a 3rd party client that sits next to the upstream steam provided client so steam does not show me playing. I will agree the numbers are down but they are a bit better then what you posted.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/ … -10-28.png
I only read a few posts in this topic.

The average number of players that you show is about 20 players, 5 or 10 more than I have shown (there are certainly high and low peaks) but the average is not very different.

But even if there were 50 players playing OHOL at all times, this does not justify a good development, it does not justify the lack of a roadmap and it does not justify the effort to continue developing a game that has not been updated for more than 1 year ...

Jason's words show that he is tired of continuing to develop new objects for OHOL ... so why would he keep working on OHOL?

The game is currently bland and full of magic patches that cover the many shortcomings of the engine ...
To revive OHOL it would take a radical change in the core of the game (the motor engine) or a miracle (I see the miracle more viable)

This is a lot of work and I honestly don't think this is going to happen ....
I think this post only seeks to generate Hype and Jason has only moved the skein of wool so that the players get excited and continue here

The creation of fake hype or sporadic news is a very used technique in the development of many games (see DayZ Standalone)

PS: I hope I'm wrong and I hope Jason really works hard on his game with a good script behind ...

Last edited by JonySky (2021-10-29 08:13:32)

JonySky · 2021-10-29 09:04:07

jasonrohrer wrote:

Be nice to me, please.
Help me want to work on the game.

I apologize Mr. Jason, I have never wanted to offend or harm you.

I also want to ask him to be honest with his community of players and not ignore us.

When we suggest new ideas in this forum or point out that certain mechanics aren't good for the game ... don't ignore us and decide to create a racing car regardless of our feedback.

Help us want to play your game again

LilyFox · 2021-10-30 18:58:47

jasonrohrer wrote:

Be nice to me, please.
Help me want to work on the game.

Jason, I generally consider myself to be a nice person … and while I can see that people like Spoonwood and Léonard can come off as rude in some of their posts, I think that in the end they have the same goal as you, to help you make the game better–rather than be mean to you just to make you feel bad. And in Spoonwood's reply to you, there are actually a lot of good points, it's not like he wrote “the game sucks and you should feel bad for making it”.

I don't think most people would still be posting here if they truly hated the game. They just want to be able to enjoy playing it again. I genuinely fell in love with the game when I first played it, I spent entire days playing just to learn the different mechanics and discover new stuff. Yet after a while, as you get more experienced, the negative aspects become more and more noticeable. A new player is not gonna bother getting race locked items but once you actually get confident enough to try making rubber for example, you suddenly see the frustration that comes with getting all the ingredients just to get started. And stuff like that is what ends up ruining the game for people.

I actually wrote a post a while ago on why I think race restrictions are a bad mechanic, not because I'm against the idea of trade but because race restrictions don't actually achieve what you wanted them to achieve in the first place. You know how tabletop players say “no D&D is better than bad D&D”? Well the same thing applies to game mechanics. No trade is better than bad trade. If you have time, I'd really appreciate it if you read through that post, I don't think I wrote anything too rude in there.

jasonrohrer wrote:

And in the face of this, there's also burn-out to consider. It's really hard to spend a week working on adding stuff to the game, and then find out that people don't really use it.

Honestly, I get why you feel that way. I know coding can be hard, even when it comes to seemingly “simple” things and it's not rewarding to see people just ignore content that you spent a lot of time implementing. But the most obvious solution here is to get feedback from your community before you start implementing stuff. E.g. you always bring up dogs as something that people should like but don't but you think if you had said beforehand: “Dogs are not going to do anything other than look cute, take up space and possibly turn into killer pitbulls,” people would not have pointed out that it's not the best way to put them into the game? As it stands now, towns actually suffer from having dogs and players get annoyed whenever someone tries to breed them.

As for race cars I personally do enjoy them, I like the different colors, numbers and the fact that you can use them to get rid of mosquitos. The problem is, once someone makes a race car, it will just end up behind the town's property fence forever and whoever runs the property will rather spend oil on a truck than a “less useful” race car. Why is this the case? Because thanks to race restrictions, getting oil is a pain and this, coupled with griefers and magic fences, causes people to lock up everything behind a property gate never to be used again. Who wants to spend time and iron on a race car just to see it stand around inside the property forever? I made a race car on low-pop but I would never make one on bs2 because it seems like a waste of time.

Also, regarding garlic bread: I think people just want another use for garlic because noobs or griefers plant entire fields of it and it ends up wasting space. Though the more simple solution would be to make garlic edible, just like onions.

Spoonwood · 2021-10-30 19:35:43

LilyFox wrote:

As it stands now, towns actually suffer from having dogs and players get annoyed whenever someone tries to breed them.

As a case in point, two arc restarts ago, I think, fug decided to make dogs when the arc was like 4 or 5 hours old. I was a young Ginger at the time, town was on a newcomen pump quickly enough running out, and my leader said something like WE HAVE NO WATER AND YOUR STUPID DOGS (not an exact quote). And well I remember when fug did use to do things like oil rigs and other things in the water process. Usually I wouldn't felt annoyed if fug had done dogs, but the timing I thought rather poor since the town was struggling and the server didn't have oil or engines yet.

Last edited by Spoonwood (2021-10-30 19:36:41)

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