Mass Murderer Solutions

EaterOfBerries · 2018-03-06 04:18:36

Through some stroke of luck I managed to be born into the same civilization four times in a row (3 full lives, and as you will see soon, 1 short life).

Population hovered around 8 people most of the time I was there.
I watched and helped the town grow for three and a half hours, expecting each life to be the last, and being pleasantly surprised when I was reborn.

In my first life I raised two kids to adulthood and helped another villager smith half the steel tools.
In my second life I finished off the steel tools and made two handcarts.
In my third life I raised three kids and helped start and teach others how to build a pen for containing sheep.

All the while my fellow villagers and I manned the increasingly busy carrot farm, taught those less experienced among us, and generally were very productive.

In my fourth life I was once again pleasantly surprised to be reborn into the same civilization. I was born to a carrot mother and watched as the rules were stated over and over. Never eat carrots from the bottom row, they are for seeding.

As I was a baby, a young (grown) girl runs up and eats a carrot. The ever-watchful carrot guardian scolds them ("you fucker") and chases them around. I then watch as the young girl picks up a bow and an arrow and starts running around. She is not yet old enough to shoot. I start getting worried but I don't have the letters to communicate my fears.

I grow up into a young girl and keep an eye on the girl with the bow and arrow. Suddenly I see a villager die, and the girl is holding only a bow.
Not good.
I run around desperately looking for a knife to kill her, but I see her casually kill another carrot farmer. I run over to where the sheep pen is being built and say
"the girl with the bow is a murderer"
"kill her with the knife"

As I complete my warning the girl runs over. She clearly saw what I said. I make a dash, and she pursues.

I then get the classic message:
YOU DIED
AGE: 13 YEARS
CAUSE: KILLED BY BOW AND ARROW

I have every reason to believe that this person killed everyone in the village, or at least killed enough people to wipe out the entire civilization (leaving only men or elderly or something). Especially considering that I don't believe we had another weapon on hand.

I'm not sure what I'm looking for really, I have never experienced anything like this on any other playthroughs (I have probably around 20 hours in the game).

Has this happened to any of you guys before?

Have any of you seen this about to happen and stopped it?

What can I do to stop this in the future?

Uncle Gus · 2018-03-06 04:27:04

Just have a chuckle and respawn. Life is short anyhow. Walk ten minutes in any direction and you'll find an empty village. Just pick up from there.

Zeromus · 2018-03-06 04:38:23

If you are guardian of a village, keep a knife in your backpack. I had this happen when a stranger came into the village demanding the girls. She was able to kill two boy children before I killed her. You have to protect what is yours.

yvanhooe · 2018-03-06 06:02:22

Aha. Things are getting interesting!

Fence the villages! Guard the food and the weapons!

asterlea · 2018-03-06 06:27:07

Keeping knives and arrows in backpacks so random people can't get them, or hiding them behind a tree so they're less likely to find them.

Also, after they shoot an arrow, if you can pick it up before them they can't shoot it again.

In one town I was in there were two knives, I carried one in a backpack til a hunter asked for it and I gave the pack and knife to him. The other I took out of town and hid behind a random tree a couple screens away.

Tebe · 2018-03-06 07:45:21

Oh my god. I suppose this is inevitable. It's a lot of work to be good and kind. You can work your entire life for your tribe, busting your ass to keep the farm alive, running mad almost-suicide missions into distant prairies in search of seeds, and so on.

I have yet to come across any marauders in my many lifetimes. It raises quite interesting dilemmas of security and paranoia. In my areas there were no murderers in any of the villages - And so there was mutual trust.

But in any region where there are known marauders about, suddenly a bustling village begins to look more like a dangerous city of potential murderous bandits at all times...

Edit: Of course, if you have hidden a knife behind a nearby grove, then you have also volunteered to be the local sheriff!

Last edited by Tebe (2018-03-06 07:46:03)

Twinsen · 2018-03-06 08:03:47

Baker wrote:

Could it have been someone from a rival civ, I was in a group that sent out people to go raid nearby civs. They basically equipped people with knives, bows and some carts. One time we even kidnapped a baby and raised it as one of us.
I'm not gonna lie It was kinda fun being assholes for once rather than just farming for my whole life.

Honestly, this is a very headache subject... this is the issue with the beauty about this game where it definitely shows the reality of humanity. There are players who would like to build glorious cities while others just like to kill civilization.

With respect to Jason's article of Everything Runs Out about exhaustible resources, our one-hour-life is actually an infinite resources using a knife, which is another infinite resources (unless some idiot lost it somewhere and the server wipes it from the floor), clinching on easily exhaustible food and clothing resources.

Zwilnik · 2018-03-06 08:58:16

Another thing to take into account is the length of the play time available to the real life player. If you’re playing the game with a fair amount of free time to learn, farm and watch as civilisation evolves then the ‘good’ play style can be fun as intended.
However, not all players have long play sessions available and if someone isn’t invested in the long term future of the civilisation because they don’t have long to play then they are effectively psychopathic in the game because they don’t care what happens to anyone else.

colinmarc · 2018-03-06 09:58:28

I don't think murderous players will stick around. This isn't exactly a fun PVP game. I suggest we bore the griefers by repeating the sixth tenet at them: VIOLENCE BEGETS VIOLENCE.

Siolfor the Jackal · 2018-03-06 10:03:31

I didn't even know pvp was a thing until I got killed by a bow and arrow about an hour ago.

Norgg · 2018-03-06 10:20:17

asterlea wrote:

The other I took out of town and hid behind a random tree a couple screens away.

Between hiding knives and secret gardens, searching behind trees is going to become more and more lucrative...

Last edited by Norgg (2018-03-06 10:46:41)

Doctor Flintrock · 2018-03-06 12:11:32

Most of my violent encounters have been highly entertaining.

An Eve birthed me between a wall of bears. As soon as I was born, the wall of bears closed in and I barely made it out. I followed her relentlessly, and she took care of me at some point, apparently impressed by my refusal to die.

Taking care of me took its toll soon enough. She found the only wild carrot around. She dug it and grabbed it. I stood on her tile the second she clicked on herself and she fed me accidentally. She starved to death and so did I later.

I couldn't stop laughing.

I think the ratio of bad experiences to good ones is, so far, healthy. If you and fellow villagers know how to deal with a troll, it actually makes for a stronger community.

Maybe we should start weaving tales for the children about about the Carrot Eating Man, like some sort of chupacabra.

Last edited by Doctor Flintrock (2018-03-06 12:12:32)

Gauteamus · 2018-03-06 12:54:59

It feels like a problem that you often cannot prepare for the "You got killed by bow and arrow" outcome, though?

Maybe give hourlings 2 hp? that way, you could at least have a chance of warning your villagers against lone "griefers", while an organized horde could still wreck a settlement, and an armed village guard duo could take out the occasional carrot muncher with relative ease.

2 hp per hourling might make casual "sparring" (hitting someone) less of a psychological barrier, which might or might not be a good thing (hitting someone around a little for picking the wrong carrots). Maybe give hourlings 1 or 2 hp, with most (75%?) having 2 hp, and no way for anyone to know.

Last edited by Gauteamus (2018-03-06 12:59:33)

Norgg · 2018-03-06 13:18:31

Another option: make people take a little while to die from being shot, like how it works with other animals. The murderer wouldn't be able to recover the arrow until the person died, and it'd give them a chance to warn people. Could do something similar with the knife.

Gauteamus · 2018-03-06 13:37:25

I like your idea, Norgg.
Maybe even have it tied to the hunger indicator, just adding a "bleeding out" modifier, that makes it tick down at 5x the rate (or something)

Matok · 2018-03-06 13:39:15

I've only experienced violence once so far. We had a village guard that I saw keeping watch with a bow & arrow in hand for most my life while I kept myself busy with things. She was about the same age as I was, so we both got old and wrinkly about the same time.

At one point she walked over to me and we both kinda stared at each other for a moment, a couple wrinkly old hags. Then she said 'bye gramma'.

You have died!

Shot by bow and arrow.

I was 55, so I was pretty much just a drain on resources at that point anyway. I thought it was funny.

Gauteamus · 2018-03-06 14:35:48

I have died to sudden unprovoked player violence maybe 10 times.

EaterOfBerries · 2018-03-06 14:55:49

I really like your idea Norgg. One of the difficulties with dealing with pkers is "death by bow" looks exactly the same as "death by forgetting to eat a carrot". I'm not sure how many people in my village even knew what was going on.

johnnyburninator · 2018-03-06 15:00:30

It is certainly interesting to see civilization develop to the point where not just laws are required but also law enforcement. The solution that I see based only on current game mechanics is walled cities and dedicated defense forces. This seems to track with history, which is so interesting.

The only problem is that real people didn't have the option of logging out of the Dark Ages to play a less bleak game. Biasing the rules to avoid player fatigue seems reasonable. No specific ideas though, other than "death by gluttony" for over-eaters.

Last edited by johnnyburninator (2018-03-06 15:45:31)

Zeromus · 2018-03-06 16:45:40

I definitely like the two hit system. I like the bleeding as well. It could work similarly to being "on fire." (Standing on a fire with full clothing makes you lose hunger very rapidly.) Even if one hit were terminal, giving a few seconds to say something would be great.

Right now with one hit kills, I'm a little torn on what to do when defending a village. Do I immediately murder any weapon wielding stranger? I'd like to talk first, but that risks instant death.

johnnyburninator · 2018-03-06 17:11:27

"Bleeding out" in some way is a great, simple idea to reduce the impact of murder-trolls. The next question is first-aid or bandages.

It's interesting to balance helping one group but not another. Bandits would bleed out, too.

Lonewarior811 · 2018-03-07 03:26:11

Weapons are just extremely lethal just like they were during pre-history. Once we advance, we will develop armor and such. Maybe a tenet should be to never hold weapons near someone unless your a town guard. That means you have the intent to kill.

EaterOfBerries · 2018-03-07 04:04:00

I have never been born into a "city" or anything that had the resources to support a "town guard" or "law enforcement" as some have been mentioning on this thread. Do such places exist in game? Or are those comments speaking generally about the future where we may have enough resources to support a town guard?

My concern when making the post was both short term and long term.

Short term, I am concerned that a single villager was able to murder so many people (potentially the entire village of ~8 people) all by themselves. I really just don't think this should be possible. However, I recognize that this point is subjective.

Long term, I hear people talking about wars between factions, assaults on nearby competition, etc etc. I'm not entirely sure that this game is very well suited for that kind of complicated combat. I could be wrong about this obviously, but the game does have a very simple "interact with the world" mechanic. Not sure how well this would lend to warfare. I'm picturing just

spam click fest + someone has higher ping = war,

and for me personally I don't find that very appealing.

I think the previously mentioned bleeding out mechanic would resolve most of the short term problem that I am concerned with, and potentially adding a more complicated bandage/first-aid system as others have mentioned would help make the long-term problem more interesting.

At the same time, I really am a fan of the insta-death + black screen combo for all other parts of the game. Part of the beauty of the game is that it is punishing, which leads me at a loss of what to do. In any case, hopefully our overlord is aware of these concerns and has a plan for us all.

Lonewarior811 · 2018-03-07 04:09:28

For pvp imagine castle sieges where you not only interact with enemy players but with the environment (something like cutting off their food and fire supply). This is just the most basic thing I could think of off the top of my head. I'm sure there are plenty of interesting and unique ways to destroy an enemy although we are currently primitive af.

EaterOfBerries · 2018-03-07 04:35:22

Lonewarior811 wrote:

For pvp imagine castle sieges where you not only interact with enemy players but with the environment (something like cutting off their food and fire supply).

Ok, that actually sounds like it could be good. I still think it would be improved by the bleeding out mechanic.

In any case, I think we should try to merge this thread with Laura's Assholes thread as we are basically talking about the same things.

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2018-03-06 04:18:36

Mass Murderer Solutions

#2 2018-03-06 04:27:04

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