Where did the coordinates go?

jasonrohrer · 2018-05-07 22:28:31

You may notice that a recent update to the server has your client always born at 0,0.

Well, you probably didn't notice this.... unless you were using a coordinate-sniffing hack.

The intention with this game is that when you are in the wilderness, you are supposed to be lost. You shouldn't be able to auto-navigate to your position of choice on the world map. This is what makes getting born in a village different than being born in the wilderness. This is also the whole point of the bell tower (to call wilderness people to a town).

Note that no coordinates are displayed in the game client. This is intentional.

Of course, a naive implementation of coordinates in the game protocol made sniffing easy.

But a true, hack-proof fix to this is also pretty easy. The server tracks your birth position and makes all coordinates that it sends you relative to that birth position. The map is relative, your moves are relative, and all other players moves and actions are relative to your birth position, which you see as 0,0.

Thus, the only hack remaining is one that helps you auto-navigate back to your birth location or other positions that you have visited in your lifetime, but the game already gives you home markers for this, so you don't even need a hack to do it.

I realize that a lot of people were playing the game using coordinate hacks and therefore playing a different game from the one that I designed. Many of them liked this other game a lot. A game where you could continue working on the same project life after life (after a long boring walk each time).

If I wanted to make a game where you could build whatever you wanted to build for hours and hours and hours, why would I kill you every hour? Why would I stick you in a different location every hour and make you walk back? Sounds like a pretty awful sandbox game to me. There are dozens of other games where you can build whatever you want without any of these annoyances.

But this game is different. What you build has meaning, because it matters. It matters because it will not last forever, and because other people will depend on it in the future, and because it can be lost. If it can never be lost, it has no value. If it is not going to be used by other people, it has no value. If you don't need your children to keep working on what you build in your life, those children have no value, and you might as well just let them all die. After all, you can always find your way back to keep working on it, right?

That's the entire point of this game. A legacy. And what is a legacy? Something that you personally keep working on for days? No. It is something that you LEAVE BEHIND. For someone else.

The fact that so many players can use coordinate hacks to play a solo or small-group sandbox game subverts the other systems in the game, and makes the sandbox version the attractor point.

If everyone is working on their solo project, babies don't matter, and parents are more likely to let them die. This means that, as a baby, you rarely get a chance to take over someone's legacy project. This means that your only chance at meaning in the game is to work on your own solo project. Which means that babies won't matter to you, Which means you will let babies die.

Furthermore, communication between parent and child does not matter. What is your parent's plan for the future of the village? Does it matter if you know? If they are coming back easily next hour to keep going, they don't even need to tell you the plan.

This game is about trans-generation collaboration.

Similar points hold true for baby suicide to attempt to get born back in the same village again. Everyone is doing this. I've even done it myself when testing the live servers.

But it creates the same vicious cycle AWAY from the best, most interesting version of this game. A version where every child is precious and represents the future of your village. A version where every child depends on their parent for survival, and wants to be part of whatever village they are born into. The experience of TRYING to be a parent currently involves more than half of your babies running away from you.... what kind of parenting game is that?

And if you think this is a game where you can pick your village, it certainly is a terrible version of that game. It often takes 5+ minutes of dying as a baby, or hard-resetting the client over and over, to finally "pick" your village. That has to be the worst user interface for selection in history....

Well, I fixed that too, today.

"Why baby suicide not working?"

On a high-population server, you can no longer be born into the same family line twice in the same 3-hour period. This does not affect servers with fewer than 11 players, and the cooldown time rises gradually from 11 to 50 players. I'm using the "boiling a frog" approach here, and as people get used to this, the 3 hours will inch up to 12 or maybe even 24 hours, allowing you to revisit a village tomorrow after many generations there have passed.

You can still return to a village for real, by hearing the bell and making a pilgrimage. I'll also be adding ways for villages to have unique-sounding bells in the future.

Izzytok · 2018-05-07 23:08:02

It's great to see that you have a vision of the game and work towards it. The fact that you regularly explain your reasoning behind the changes is just super refreshing.

I don't think the coordinates really affected the average player, but the lineage ban is huge. Griefers stay dead, but also that helpfull player that taught you how to bake pies, and smithed up your entire toolkit won't spawn in again. I'm interested to see what these changes bring.

Keep up the good work man!

Potjeh · 2018-05-07 23:19:16

Excellent changes, thank you.

Lily · 2018-05-07 23:28:41

It is a shame that you can't ever end up being reborn to your child, as that was always kind of interesting when it randomly happened now and then. Though it is probably a good change, since it does stop several other issues. Like people respawning same spot to grief people, or to get revenge, stops a boy from killing themself in an attempt to respawn in same spot as a boy, and hinders baby suicide in general. So it does a lot of good for the slight negative of missing out on the random interesting situation where you meet someone from the previous life.

On the bright side, there is the possibility of being respawned in a town more often if it is successful and has multiple families living in it.

Turnipseed · 2018-05-08 03:34:20

Lily wrote:

It is a shame that you can't ever end up being reborn to your child, as that was always kind of interesting when it randomly happened now and then. Though it is probably a good change, since it does stop several other issues. Like people respawning same spot to grief people, or to get revenge, stops a boy from killing themself in an attempt to respawn in same spot as a boy, and hinders baby suicide in general. So it does a lot of good for the slight negative of missing out on the random interesting situation where you meet someone from the previous life.
On the bright side, there is the possibility of being respawned in a town more often if it is successful and has multiple families living in it.

idk about this i was reborn to my daughter in the last 30 minutes. was a great experience. nothing is better than being reborn to a village that is better than you left it with a last name you nurtured.

one of the best experiences ive had in a while on this game died at 40 so the food supply would last for my daughter and my granddaughter until the carrots grew. then a few short lives later (born to struggling eves) i was reborn to a potter turnipseed.

i name all my kids potato , sadly it turns to potter, but its how i know they were my kids...

maybe change has not taken place yet?

Edit: this was on server one so id assume server population was plenty high

Last edited by Turnipseed (2018-05-08 03:35:15)

jasonrohrer · 2018-05-08 05:04:14

Hmm... maybe it's not working?

Also, there is currently one way you can play in the same family twice in the same 3-hour period.... and that's if you're Eve.

If you're Eve, you have no lineage set, which means you get one more chance to get born into your family later.

This is kind of a nice side-effect, a bonus for being Eve. Also, Eve is much less likely to come back and grief her own village, right?

Maybe this is what happened to you, Turnip?

breezeknight · 2018-05-08 07:23:09

Turnipseed wrote:

... nothing is better than being reborn to a village that is better than you left it with a last name you nurtured. ...

i was once born into the village i started as Eve (that was before the apocalypse update), the "descendants" turned everything what i imagined & planned upside down & made it along their ideas, nothing of what i wanted was considered, so for me it was in no way a good experience, nobody even cared that i was once the Eve, they were all too busy setting up their usual monstroCity
so it might be a great experience only if your ideas are the same as those of your descendants

for me the existence as Eve was nothing but highly dissapointing so far

most of the kids die because they are not even able to keep themselves alive, or they get killed by some random player with nothing else to do, the descendants have their own ideas about the settlement & no regard for the ancestors whatsoever, my only mildly successful lineage was destroyed in the apocalypse update & in the end nothing remains because there are no family trees

but about the topic of the thread
i am happy that the coordinates were adjusted, makes a fairer game

edit :

now, that the birth coordinates are at 0,0, can we have a map of the discovered & known area ?
means, at birth the map is black, with every of my movements i leave a trace where i was & the map reveals at least the biomes
we finally wouldn't need anymore those wretched home markes which never work properly

the map's currently visible area shouldn't be big & moving outside the original one only if i exceed it

- - -

Last edited by breezeknight (2018-05-08 07:38:37)

pein · 2018-05-08 14:17:45

you should rather fix the stupid amount of babies spawned, especially when holding one already
seems to be a requirement now that you throw 7 babies to the right spot then eat a pie, then explain everyone where to go then they die anyway

the most fun projects take more than 60 minutes, building stuff. most maps dont have the food or building material to make anything in 60 minutes, so some will have fun, rest just sees that no branches, no adobe, nothing to do there

also being abandoned is very different than suicide

also suicide is the only way not playing running from bush to bush for hours, especially as a male, your mom makes a farm into green biome, calls you Water, and you are supposed to be the stupid who needs to run to water, so the other lazy asses can eat

this only means that i can set up nicely everything for others, so others will fuck up everything for me

why should i keep babies if they cant be my mother? or why should i even bother wasting time on anyone who consumes more than it produces? this fixes nothing, grannies gonna run with a knife to stab everyone, cause it doesnt matter?
i can play like 5-6 games daily maximum full 60 minutes, when im free, when i really want to, why should i be punished as a griefer, when i dotn do such a thing? or why should i not grief if i will be somewhere else like other players, or a lot of short lifes beeing an eve or eves kid is not fun. yes, if every one would be an Eve daily once, it would make a difference

yes it can be filtered out, if your mom fed you but you moved a lot its suicide, if your mom doesnt even pick you up and always increases distance is abandoning, even if others pick you up
city is the man made structures and modified tiles, usually around the carrot field, but you could also add a city center building which would show information about population inside its range, allow to place a sign on it, and anything within 50 or 100 tiles would belong to the city, maybe by upgrading it
griefers are who made excess amount of "missed recipes" , cut out trees, especially in green and yellow biomes, decreased sheep count to 0, took tools outside city and hid man made objects behind tree, griefers , maybe bad players could be filtered out by summarized actions taken

yes, maybe some moderators would be needed, like showing a table, people could vote on it, is a griefer? killer? , then punish him, not those who did nothing wrong

i would rather rate and vote on somebody performance from numbers than cycling trough the maps, cause most of us will do anyway, grinding for ropes and eating burdock, just to see that your mom makes a camp far from any resources in a cold place, just to keep them alive, not providing anything, its not a fun game. i dont ask for much but at least a working carrot farm in a decent location with plenty of water, and a green biome next to it, possibly some desert . its not about my performance, you got two ponds, its 8 water then two in 5 minutes, meaning maybe 4 people can survive, you cannot work harder, you cannot cooperate, its simple math, more than that and everybody dies of starvation, now grind up until a system works, then die and reborn into one that doesnt, and again

i dont want to born back tomorrow, cause tomorrow gonna be nothing there, even in 3 hours chances are gonna be nothing there, seen it, people use up the soil, dry the wells, and dont take sheep inside a complete pen, but never get new basic tools if its missing. so reaching 60 or being abandoned, shouldn't be something to prevent you from being in a nice town, kills and griefing, suicide should

Last edited by pein (2018-05-08 16:37:06)

Kinrany · 2018-05-08 14:45:06

That's the entire point of this game. A legacy. And what is a legacy? Something that you personally keep working on for days? No. It is something that you LEAVE BEHIND. For someone else.

I feel like this is prescriptive, unlike most of your other games, where you just create a system and let the player explore and understand it on their own.

If I don't care about anything that happens after my death, the whole idea of legacy is completely lost on me. That is, unless I can come back later.
You don't really need death to have legacy, you just need to be absent for a while.

On the other hand, I think hoping that your children will continue your work would usually lead to disappointment. It doesn't because you usually can't be there to see the outcome, otherwise you'd just do it yourself.

Roolstar · 2018-05-08 16:00:56

Sad to see that griefers are setting the tone of development of this game, same like most others.

Griefers can come back and grief, solution: no one can come back anymore. Brilliant.

Rationalization: OP post

This game started from "I want no inherent restrictions from the server side" to "Now you are not allowed to..."

Still I get it, I see why you made those changes, and I actually expected them.

I was still kinda hoping for a surprise though, maybe a new way of thinking about game design, but maybe it's too much to hope for.

Not being able to stay in the same lineage does not solve the reborn griefer problem in an intelligent way, it simply makes people not even care about someone griefing a colony they would never see again!
I actually predict a rise in griefing because of that.

You'll notice some griefing going on around your colony and you'll go: "Welp, so much for this colony. Guess it's time to quit and go somewhere else since this is what's going to happen anyway. In fact, since I have like 5-10 minutes left to live here anyway, why not join the fun and destroy this place before I go, i didn't like the sheep pen design here anyway."

No more sense of belonging which brought this whole experience together.

Even worse, you wait till the next day, and miraculously find yourself in the place you started the day before, you feel the joy and happiness, only to see your mom saying "SORRY TOO MANY". Awesome experience, great story, would recommend. And no she is not a griefer, she's just a responsible parent who ruined your experience, and crushed your dreams because the "server" would not allow you another chance today.

Anyway, good luck dude. I am really rooting for you (and not just with words btw) and I wish we'll get out of the dark ages really soon.

Last edited by Roolstar (2018-05-08 16:09:46)

Turnipseed · 2018-05-08 16:24:28

jasonrohrer wrote:

Hmm... maybe it's not working?

Also, there is currently one way you can play in the same family twice in the same 3-hour period.... and that's if you're Eve.
If you're Eve, you have no lineage set, which means you get one more chance to get born into your family later.
This is kind of a nice side-effect, a bonus for being Eve. Also, Eve is much less likely to come back and grief her own village, right?
Maybe this is what happened to you, Turnip?

Yup i was eve that explains it. Thats a great loophole!

On the note of leaving a legacy i think i finally see it. Ive had to play as eve in at least 60 percent of recent lives, about half of which ive made a good pad for my decents to live. And only about 30 percent of the time one of my kids is still alive until i die.

But when i die i say im proud of them, and tell them that this is their town now, and that i hope it prospers. I dont explain some grand plan i had. I just tell them to have fun.

Thats a legacy im proud of. Yeah its short lived and i rarely get to see it again, but i like it. I let someone else start at the point the game gets to be more fun. When you can smith, bake, find sheep, and such.

Last edited by Turnipseed (2018-05-08 16:37:20)

Izzytok · 2018-05-08 17:05:33

Turnipseed wrote:

Yup i was eve that explains it. Thats a great loophole!
On the note of leaving a legacy i think i finally see it. Ive had to play as eve in at least 60 percent of recent lives, about half of which ive made a good pad for my decents to live. And only about 30 percent of the time one of my kids is still alive until i die.
But when i die i say im proud of them, and tell them that this is their town now, and that i hope it prospers. I dont explain some grand plan i had. I just tell them to have fun.
Thats a legacy im proud of. Yeah its short lived and i rarely get to see it again, but i like it. I let someone else start at the point the game gets to be more fun. When you can smith, bake, find sheep, and such.

If everyone played like you the game would be better for everyone.

More on topic; now that I've thought about it I wouldn't want to extend the legacy ban past 3 hours. I think being able to spawn into the same family again should be possible during the same day. With 3 hours downtime you leave out at least 4 generations, which seems more than enough. To me the possibility of being born into a family I was already in is very exciting.

I would love it if there were a spectator mode, so you could visit the place built without interacting, to see what your legacy actually is.

Last edited by Izzytok (2018-05-08 17:06:10)

jasonrohrer · 2018-05-08 17:50:09

Some kind of family tree browser or something similar is coming, which will allow you to peek in on your true legacy (the people who survived after you, and more importantly, because of you).

This will transcend any limit on revisiting your village.

Turnipseed · 2018-05-08 18:03:46

jasonrohrer wrote:

Some kind of family tree browser or something similar is coming, which will allow you to peek in on your true legacy (the people who survived after you, and more importantly, because of you).
This will transcend any limit on revisiting your village.

Can we get an update so unnamed kids keep the last name of their parents? Pretty please!

jasonrohrer · 2018-05-08 18:09:20

Well.... I want naming to matter!

You can ask your mother for a name, after all. I think you can say NAME while you are still young enough to be picked up.

A bigger problem is family lines that have no last name. That's Eve's fault. But I want to give Eve that enormous power and responsibility.

I was just born into a HUGE and thriving village that had obviously been there for many generations. I saw some 6th cousins running around. But we didn't have last names!

It's hard to imagine a thriving village being founded by a clueless Eve, but I guess it happens.

Anyway, if I make any of this automatic, the power and specialness of getting a name from your mother is reduced.

Turnipseed · 2018-05-08 18:12:34

Yeah i guess it is personal responsibility, but if one female goes unnamed the whole civilization can loose their last name forever with no way to reinstate it.

You can say "Na" "me" pretty early, but most mothers are upset by this and name you "asshat" or "pushy" or something like that. Which ill take over no name, but it seems like the last name should carry on whether your mom gives you a first name or not.

Last edited by Turnipseed (2018-05-08 18:15:10)

ryanb · 2018-05-08 18:35:47

Jason, what if the last name was invisibly permanent through the lineage? Then it would show up when someone is named instead of being lost.

Izzytok · 2018-05-08 19:33:12

ryanb wrote:

Jason, what if the last name was invisibly permanent through the lineage? Then it would show up when someone is named instead of being lost.

This sounds like a good idea. Or at least let people with no names pick a name for themselves (only first name unlike eve).

pein · 2018-05-08 20:23:15

should be some generic name like Abe and Ava or something for anyone who doesnt receive a name, or unnamed1, unnamed2
at least to differentiate

i always name them even if i throw them off near another lady, if she doesnt want it, her choice, if he is smart and clamping he keyboard can survive long enough, often i run by camp and pick my baby up and change my mind. today had a run where i literally had to swap with tongs, tong an item, and swap with something to make a free space, with lag my kid almost died. wellwalls and noob designs, they literally put everything near everything else to fill every tile they see, and there it stays for generations to come. exept useful stuff which is outside camp far away

palisade · 2018-05-08 20:31:58

Ends my interest in the game. Good luck though, I like seeing new concepts succeed. And, this has been one of the most original ideas I have seen in a long time.

Telafiesta · 2018-05-08 20:35:16

This limits game-play again, what you describe as the more intriguing and interesting version of the game got old to me 200 lives in. Returning to builds is really all I had left without cord's, me and several of the longest playing people now play less than ever... I hardly join the forums you mostly find me on discord, but this update disappointed me.

Left4twenty · 2018-05-08 22:23:37

You can always set up a custom server and omit these settings. Like jason said, ypu can play that game, but if you want to be an immortal presence in a village you're not playing by the intent of this game, the game jason is making.

FeignedSanity · 2018-05-09 00:03:13

Roolstar wrote:

Sad to see that griefers are setting the tone of development of this game, same like most others.
Griefers can come back and grief, solution: no one can come back anymore. Brilliant.
Rationalization: OP post
This game started from "I want no inherent restrictions from the server side" to "Now you are not allowed to..."
Still I get it, I see why you made those changes, and I actually expected them.
I was still kinda hoping for a surprise though, maybe a new way of thinking about game design, but maybe it's too much to hope for.
Not being able to stay in the same lineage does not solve the reborn griefer problem in an intelligent way, it simply makes people not even care about someone griefing a colony they would never see again!
I actually predict a rise in griefing because of that.
You'll notice some griefing going on around your colony and you'll go: "Welp, so much for this colony. Guess it's time to quit and go somewhere else since this is what's going to happen anyway. In fact, since I have like 5-10 minutes left to live here anyway, why not join the fun and destroy this place before I go, i didn't like the sheep pen design here anyway."
No more sense of belonging which brought this whole experience together.
Even worse, you wait till the next day, and miraculously find yourself in the place you started the day before, you feel the joy and happiness, only to see your mom saying "SORRY TOO MANY". Awesome experience, great story, would recommend. And no she is not a griefer, she's just a responsible parent who ruined your experience, and crushed your dreams because the "server" would not allow you another chance today.
Anyway, good luck dude. I am really rooting for you (and not just with words btw) and I wish we'll get out of the dark ages really soon.

I have to disagree with you Roolstar. Yes, it helped fix the repeat griefer problem, but that was more of a bonus in my opinion. It really gave the game some much needed direction and impact in my opinion. Now your city is much more important considering you can't just suicide and boringly trek your way back. It gives the bell a purpose other than being a major annoyance. I think it is short sighted to say that this was only focused on solving the repeat griefing problem. This, along with the lineage cool-down are very welcomed additions.

And as far as the mentality of, who cares what happens to the city cause I probably wont be back to see it, is entirely lost on me. I don't spend an hour tending the carrot farm just so I can have food when I come back, I don't forge a plethora of tools and risk someone getting nervious about the steel file I'm making just so I we can have mutton pies and wool clothes when I come back. I've recently started playing the game more with others and respawning back repeated, and I can see the appeal. But that's not what shines about this game to me, that's just a kind of nifty feature.

Last edited by FeignedSanity (2018-05-09 00:11:26)

pein · 2018-05-09 08:09:12

then what, if you dont like beeing able to return or you want to be an eve, suicide more
what it fixed? nothing
now griefers can kill every single town and everyone becomes an eve

i got to see what happpens if you got al lthe resources to build back a city, still nobody does it. people are not so new, they are lazy. if i leave a town in good condition, i want to return

most camps i see, takes a lot of time to fix, but for what reason should i do that? take the tools and make new one, let them live in the clutter

happynova · 2018-05-09 09:10:27

On the subject of names... This is probably a dumb and unfeasible idea, but you know what I'd like? I'd like it if you could name a kid whose mother didn't name them, if you're the one feeding them through most of their childhood. Some of the most meaningful relationships I've had in this game are adoptive ones (including hand-feeding kids as a male), and that moment of "I can't officially name you" is always weirdly heartbreaking.

Which also makes me intrigued by Jason's statement about "your true legacy (the people who survived after you, and more importantly, because of you)," because that makes it sound like maybe he is thinking beyond simple biological (or, um, pseudo-biological) relationships, as well.

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2018-05-07 22:28:31

Where did the coordinates go?

#2 2018-05-07 23:08:02

Re: Where did the coordinates go?

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