Communication

redbird · 2018-09-07 21:08:47

Before you think I'm just complaining, I really do have a constructive point of discussion (promise!), so please bear with me. I've been playing a week and half or so and I really like the game. I've spent a lot of time on it. But that learning curve. Oof. It's ridiculous.

I firmly believe a person should not have to STUDY extensively BEFORE being able to even really play the game. I had to stop, and not login in until I'd memorized a bunch of stuff. Not fun. So much time spent outside the game as requirement, not supplement? Also not fun. Even then guides are not as complete, detailed, or accessible as they should be.

I have easy access (90% outside the game) on how to CRAFT ITEMS but not HOW TO PLAY THE GAME. All the unwritten rules...

All of this comes down to communication. As I understand it, the idea was for players to teach other players. This doesn't seem to be really happening (at least not effectively). It's about using as few words as possible, as quickly as possible, if at all. So we all sound like cavemen. Mostly I just end up spawning in a village where my little potato head is thrown in a berry patch with nary but a "GL." (Smart moms give me a tour at least. Smarter moms ASK first.)

Once I'm older, I still wind up overwhelmed and confused and bored and frustrated because very few take the time to even minimally help me, teach me, or guide me, or give me a run down of what the situation is so I can just get to helping. I ask but the response is 9/10 something unhelpful. I keep learning basic things long after I should have learned them. Teaching someone, really teaching them, is very draining on food resources, precious time, and requires the dreaded use of words. Most learning is just watching and guessing, in a not-fun way, maybe a few caveman words thrown in. I don't need eloquent speeches, just...more than almost nothing.

And it's not just teaching/learning. It's knowing where to put things, what not to touch, etc. Short-term and long-term planning and organizing, creation of art, laws, customs, passing down traditions, tales, ideas, etc. are all crippled because the way the game is set up discourages talking. Talking just takes way too long and too many things interfere and old people die soon. Plus stopping to talk can annoy people because it means you're not working and therefore a resource sponge. And it's weird that we have paper before basic etched symbols, much less before developing effective oral transmission. (Also, can has clay tablets?)

** Something needs to be done about communication, among players and, I think, in the game itself. **

Poetry is a great vehicle for passing down plans, rules, customs, fun, and culture. It's a very important part of civilization. Imagine the work songs! Whether using rules of alliteration, meter, or rhyming, or all of that, it would be creative and fun and purposeful. I thought of changing lyrics of nursery rhymes, Disney songs, jingles, etc. But I can't get the rhyming right and it's never ever succinct enough to be worth it for the system we have while still being effective enough communication. I can't copy and paste. I can't do anything while talking. The character limit is severe. What to do?

Maybe a little higher character limit as an adult? Or adjust the transition a bit? I like that babies and tots can only say 1 then 2 then 3 letters, but I never quite use my adult characters' already limited speech ability to its potential because the game has conditioned me to go (super short) word by word. I can say "important" but it'll cost me. And it still takes too long to *stop ENTER type a few words ENTER wait ENTER finish sentence hopefully? ENTER wait.* Rinse and repeat. ...I don't know.

I do know I really wish I could use speech-to-text in this game. It would make a big difference to be able to talk while I work with minimal stoppage. I feel like there is potential we can't explore because of the communication problems. (I want call and response singing, or a choir at the end of constructing a monument or something.) Maybe our super great grandchildren will actually get beyond medieval villages.

Any ideas? Suggestions? Also, does anyone even know what the character limit is for different life stages? Do spaces count?

Sorry if this has been discussed before. Clearly, it's still an issue IMO. Also, sorry for the length. And this is my first time posting, so uh, correct me if I'm wrong.

Last edited by redbird (2018-09-07 21:18:45)

PeaGirl · 2018-09-07 21:19:34

Well, I think I see it good as it is. Perhaps the main reward while playing the game is that you eventually learn something, at least one side of job or survival job at eve camps. I had first job as doing compost at first, and after it, slowly I began going for sheep pen keeping and baking, later on smithing and building. It's a slow process, if you are not a fast learner. Besides it doesn't really hurt you much if you die, because the wisdom you gather up slowly comes along with you in each rebirth, where you are reborn ever wiser, if ever.
Just take it slow. If you see some people unable to teach, at least look what they do. Ask if curious, if not, ask someone else. Everything is not brought in silver plate, as they say.

GrottenOlm · 2018-09-07 21:34:29

The way I see it, if people are barely talking and focussing on their work, there's usually something urgent that needs doing right now. Quickly restarting a collapsed composting cycle just takes precedence over everything. In a decently well-running village, there should still be plenty of downtime where people have enough time to teach someone the more complex crafting recipes.

Lotus · 2018-09-07 21:41:41

Yes, I agree that new players need significant increase in teaching. Not only is it annoying to the newbies, but because it is annoying to some experienced players as well. Many people don’t take the time, and just ignore those in need of help, which is not improving anything at all.

I always try to teach my new kids — it’s a good thing to say “If you’re new, ask me for help” to let your kids know that it’s okay to ask for help, and that it makes the community a much better and more including place.

In regards to communication, I do wish writing on notes could be more extensive than your current character limit. That’s sixty or less, and to give you an idea of how little that is, it is less than half of this sentence, approximately “That’s sixty or less, and to give you an idea of how little—“

I agree with all your points, everyone should be helping out. It’s no one’s specific fault and it makes the game a better place if everyone pitches in.

gabal · 2018-09-07 22:53:05

I think elders were meant to pass on knowledge as they have enough characters to form longer sentences. And also, the best learning experiences I had were when an elderly uncle taught me about his work and asked me to take over after he died.

I always ask my babies are they new and try to teach them a new skill if they are interested. Sure, mainly I assign them berry field duty but as a toddler I have seen many children die because they were too far from food sources.

I find that in bigger cities people communicate less and it can get a bit overwhelming to do a task that is only a step in longer process without knowing what happens before or after.

Just keep asking how to do something, you will learn it, I'm sure of it.

VioletLily · 2018-09-07 23:45:17

There is definitely a problem with how new players are expected to learn the game. I was a new player myself a couple months ago, and believe me, I understand.

In my opinion, players should never be required to extensively research a game to learn it. Not to mention that the majority of people in the world don't learn well by simply reading something. This is common knowledge to anyone in a teaching position in real life. This makes online guides one of the most ineffecitive methods to teach new players.

I am guessing that, like you said, it is expected for others to teach new players themselves, but a few game mechanics actually contradict this (like the limited speech and short lifespan)

The learning curve is only going to get steeper as the game moves forward. This means that with things the way they are right now, new players will be less and less likely to continue playing the game as time moves on.

This really needs a solution. It should not be up to us players to find a solution in-game, because it is the game itself that is flawed in this regard, not us. I'm sorry Jason, but if you want this game to succeed in the future, this issue should be taking precedence.

Last edited by VioletLily (2018-09-08 02:19:24)

lucythewanderer · 2018-09-08 02:53:25

VioletLily wrote:

There is definitely a problem with how new players are expected to learn the game. I was a new player myself a couple months ago, and believe me, I understand.
In my opinion, players should never be required to extensively research a game to learn it. Not to mention that the majority of people in the world don't learn well by simply reading something. This is common knowledge to anyone in a teaching position in real life. This makes online guides one of the most ineffecitive methods to teach new players.
I am guessing that, like you said, it is expected for others to teach new players themselves, but a few game mechanics actually contradict this (like the limited speech and short lifespan)
The learning curve is only going to get steeper as the game moves forward. This means that with things the way they are right now, new players will be less and less likely to continue playing the game as time moves on.
This really needs a solution. It should not be up to us players to find a solution in-game, because it is the game itself that is flawed in this regard, not us. I'm sorry Jason, but if you want this game to succeed in the future, this issue should be taking precedence.

+1

SomeRandomPerson · 2018-09-08 03:02:36

Writing seems good for this, I see alot of wasted use of paper like a guy promoting his twitch channel or some stupid fanfic.

I guess the idea is that we teach each other in game but that's very draining. Could be easier with notes with recipes and rules.

But the way I learned was simply watching people do things. Early on I saw the older children berry farming when I was a baby, I just replicated that when I grew hair. Same with basically every other job, Watch a guy smith or make compost.

That's how I teach people in game too. Take your babies to your workplace and do things in front of them, If they pay attention they might learn some of mums job.

Last edited by SomeRandomPerson (2018-09-08 03:13:34)

startafight · 2018-09-08 04:26:46

communication is a good idea in theory but there are some barriers to teaching in game.

first of all, if a person is a productive member of society who has a set job its most likely that they are doing that job as the baby is born. the average female in game has around 8 kids (if not cut short). that means stopping 8 times all throughout ages 14-40 to teach a kid a set of rules or jobs or tour

however, if a person has enough time to give the kid a tour its most likely that they are not doing a useful job and that they may not have useful (or relevant) information as they do not have knowledge of the inner workings of the town (as an example lets say that there is a newish mother. she works on the berry farm and dirts and waters berries when they are available. she does not know that the last sheep was slaughtered and now there will be a compost shortage. she has a child and tells it "farm" instead of "get rope for sheep". however, she will have the time to tour the child and teach it what she knows "here are the carrots, here are the berries, etc". its the quality of information she has to offer which is lacking, not the amount of time she spends speaking to the child)

learning to see what a town needs and to have a few fall back jobs is an important part of this game because communication is not always feasible

like i said in other posts, i agree that people shouldnt be expected to put in hours into research. but the idea that others will teach them everything needed in-game is equally unlikely. i know that when i get to my elder years im often still doing my job from years prior, or trying to find someone to pass on my knife to.

in a few posts back i proposed a mentor-trainee system. the problem i encountered trying to put this into practice is that the kids who are willing to learn are often so new that they end up frequently starving to death while i teach. or they just dont pay attention to what youre doing and need verbal instructions which takes even more time out of my life. this means i have to reteach over and over again. in the limit time frame we have thats just not feasible. and the ones who know enough not to starve dont want to learn, they think theyre fine on their own. so it reaches this cycle of pointless teaching and you never see the fruits of your efforts which is SO discouraging

however, i did have a life a few games back where i was smithing and two boys came up and asked to learn. i did my smithing thing and they replicated it. i even taught them the little trick of putting two broken steel tools together to make more iron. that worked only because they retained the information without needing infinite guidance and im sure it wasnt their first game. but this means that new players are basically useless for their first few games which is annoying for both new and experienced players!

boggers · 2018-09-08 06:06:27

Totally agree with Violetlily

some suggestions:

The max length feels like it is one letter per minute, linearly proportional with age. It's a nice effect for simulating learning to speak, but would be more realistic and practical shaped like a sigmoid curve with the steep gradient between ages 3 and 12. A 4 year old should be able to say "Thanks Mom" An 8 year old should be able to say "Where are the rabbits?" there does not need to be much difference between 20 and 60.

Because I don't type all the time, my hands aren't resting on the keyboard, which means I have to glance down to see the enter key and position my hands to start typing. I don't know how many times I have hit enter and started to type something, only to look up mid sentence and see I already had the talk dialog open, so hitting enter closed it and I have not typed what I was going to say.

Enter should not be a mode toggle, it should clear the text buffer by speaking whatever is in it and leave the text bar open and ready for the next line. Backspace on an empty text bar should close it.

"Cursed tools" were actually really great. Let us etch on things with flint or charcoal or whatever. eg carving "for berry farm" onto a bowl, or "for milkweed" onto a hoe helps keep things in order. People could write the basic steps for certain jobs on things. Let us label boxes.

Signs with fine print. Like paper that stays in place. Let us write the steps to composting on signs next to the compost piles.

Keyboard Macros. Let us bind keys to say common things, let us also bind keys to change key bindings. To manage the variable bindings, let us echo text to a console without speaking it. Let the community come up with scripts like this and way beyond...

var buffer =""
bind ` resetBinds

bind H {
  openDialog
  say "hi $closestPlayer"
}

bind N { 
  openDialog
  buffer = "we need "
  bind M buffer += "to make "
  bind F buffer += "to find "
  ThingBinds
}
bind W {
  openDialog
  buffer = "where is "
  ThingBinds
}
bind F {
  openDialog
  buffer = "I found "
  ThingBinds
}

fn ThingBinds {
  clr
  echo "1: water | 2:soil | 3: carrot | 4: milkweed | 5: wheat farm | 6: compost | 7: pies | 8: tools... | 9: more... "
  bind 1 say buffer+" water"; resetBinds
  bind 2 say buffer+" more soil"; resetBinds
  bind 3 say buffer+" carrot"; resetBinds
  bind 4 say buffer+" milkweed"; resetBinds
  bind 5 say buffer+" wheat farm"; resetBinds
  bind 6 say buffer+" compost"; resetBinds
  bind 7 say buffer+" pies"; resetBinds
  bind 8{
    clr
    echo "1: axe | 2: hoe | 3: shovel | 4: saw | ..."
    bind 1 say buffer+" an axe"; resetBinds
    bind 2 say buffer+" a hoe"; resetBinds
    bind 3 say buffer+" a shovel"; resetBinds
    bind 4 say buffer+" a saw"; resetBinds
    ...
  }

  bind 9 {
    clr
    echo "1: thread | 2: rope | 3: a bucket ..."
    bind 1 say buffer+" thread"; resetBinds
    bind 2 say buffer+" rope"; resetBinds
    bind 3 say buffer+" a bucket"; resetBinds
    bind 4 say buffer+" more bowls"; resetBinds
    bind 5 say buffer+" a stanchion"; resetBinds
    ...
  }
  bind T {
    //Teaching 
    clr
    echo "1: Berries | 2: Compost | 3: Cooking | 4: Smithing...."
    bind 1 {
      // berry farming
      bind 1 say "first get bowl"; resetBinds
      bind 2 say "use bowl on soil"; resetBinds
      bind 3 say "now use bowl on well or pond"; resetBinds
      ...
    }
    ...
    ...
  }
  bind ` clr; resetBinds
}

so in that example:

"F1" says "I found water"
"N6" says "we need compost"
"NM82" says "we need to make a hoe"
"W`your mom?[Enter]" says "where is your mom?"
T11...T12...T13 would start teaching someone how to farm berries.

MultiLife · 2018-09-08 07:47:56

A teacher hat which grants you the ability to talk as long sentences as elders (would probably be over-used and OP though)? Maybe wearable only by teens and older?

Yeah kids should be able to speak two words. Babies one word. Teens short sentences and adults should be able to speak like elders. The limitations are really harsh for such short lives and hinder teaching.
Once an adult woman came to me speaking one word at a time (I starved while listening to her).

Would it help if your speech bubbles sort of rose up from your chara and the first bubble vanishes as you type your third text? Right now you gotta wait so others can read your first bubble before entering the next one, but if you could have two visible, that could be useful? The older top bubble could have some opacity.

Key bindings seem nice, but you know the voice commands in games like Left 4 Dead? You press a key and use mouse to select a preset command like Follow me, Stay, Wait, Careful, Watch out and so on. If one would bind a system like that on mouse 3 button it would be easy to spawn and toggle without the keyboard. Then ofc people could either have a set selection to bind or then type in their own sentences to use like "Stay on this warm tile", "Are you new?" "Do you need help?" "Leave a carrot for seeds" and so on. This ability could activate as a teen if bypassing the character limit is an issue.

Last edited by MultiLife (2018-09-08 07:57:07)

dpopa · 2018-09-08 19:28:27

I don’t know how possible this would be but what about a full transition to voice chat? It would be proximity based so you could faintly hear other conversations from off screen. And what if we used a pitch modifier for babies and kids changing from an impossible to understand high pitch to normal pitch by the time you reach 14 or so years old. With voice chat you’d be able to make real lasting relationships, I just hope it would remain role-play oriented and not have people having conversations about where they are from in the real world. Bottom line, you’d be able to work and talk, work and listen, rather than missing things people say because you are caught up in your work.

MultiLife · 2018-09-08 19:38:23

dpopa wrote:

I don’t know how possible this would be but what about a full transition to voice chat? It would be proximity based so you could faintly hear other conversations from off screen. And what if we used a pitch modifier for babies and kids changing from an impossible to understand high pitch to normal pitch by the time you reach 14 or so years old. With voice chat you’d be able to make real lasting relationships, I just hope it would remain role-play oriented and not have people having conversations about where they are from in the real world. Bottom line, you’d be able to work and talk, work and listen, rather than missing things people say because you are caught up in your work.

Well I for one hate talking with people in online chat and the last thing I'd do was roleplay. I hate playing pretend/acting but I do mild roleplays when I type, only when I type.

Roblor · 2018-09-08 22:41:14

One minor addition to the chat feature which would help me out would be the addition of just a faint clicking noise when I'm typing to tell me that my chatbox is actually open.
It often happens that I forget to close my chatbox and when I need to say something I click enter out of habit and the chatbox closes. I never notice because I'm always busy typing my message into thin air like some idiot.
How many times important messages has been un-uttered in times of need and people have been spending their precious seconds waiting for a message that never came.
Just a small ticking noise to confirm that I'm actually typing into the chatbox would help me and my families immensely.

Thank you for reading

Last edited by Roblor (2018-09-08 22:47:29)

PeaGirl · 2018-09-08 23:33:49

I think it is better to give game some sort of challenge, especially with communication. I doubt cavemen were able to give each other much intelligence with their many ideas with their short sentences of "Uurr, urrhggururr!!" I am sure the chat will be updated someday, but I find it more fancier, because we are supposed to be little primitive up until the rail-age

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2018-09-07 21:08:47

Communication

#2 2018-09-07 21:19:34

Re: Communication

#3 2018-09-07 21:34:29

Re: Communication

#4 2018-09-07 21:41:41

Re: Communication

#5 2018-09-07 22:53:05

Re: Communication

#6 2018-09-07 23:45:17

Re: Communication

#7 2018-09-08 02:53:25

Re: Communication

#8 2018-09-08 03:02:36

Re: Communication

#9 2018-09-08 04:26:46

Re: Communication

#10 2018-09-08 06:06:27

Re: Communication

#11 2018-09-08 07:47:56

Re: Communication

#12 2018-09-08 19:28:27

Re: Communication

#13 2018-09-08 19:38:23

Re: Communication

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Re: Communication

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Re: Communication

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