Top 7 Reasons the Area Ban needs to be Fixed

Portager · 2019-03-14 02:55:07

The area ban, as it currently stands, has altered gameplay in many ways. I firmly believe that its net impacts have by in large been negative. These are seven reasons that I believe that the Area Ban needs to be fixed. Feel free to add your own, or critique mine.

1.) The Area Ban Punishes Eves: In what is probably the worst outcome of the lineage ban, Eves are punished more than other players. If an Eve happens to spawn within a proximity to a flourishing village then her chances of having a child are greatly reduced, as are her children's chances. If by some miracle her camp is able to survive and grow, then the nearby village might die out because of the Eve camp. I agree with Jason that Eve starts should be hard, and rarely successful; but this should be because of starvation, bad camp placement, poor management etc. and not because of some unseen game mechanic. That some algorithm can punish someone who has nothing to do with a nearby city is not a good thing.

2.) It Isolates Villages: One of the most fun aspects of OHOL is the social game; interacting with others and leading memorable lives is core to the OHOL experience for many. There was once a time in OHOL where it was possible to build interconnected villages, to exchange people and information, and to make meaningful connections. This is no longer possible. Any villages that are proximate will cannibalize one another of babies until one or both are destroyed. Villages have become like islands. Everyone is of the same family, and that interconnection is gone. Forget adopting a girl baby to save a line, or contacting your outpost town for help, once an isolated village is gone...then it is gone.

3.) Roads are now Worthless: With villages distantly isolated from one another, there is no longer any purpose to build roads. You would have to build a massive road spanning thousands of kilometers to make a meaningful connection. The only time that roads are used now is to connect a village to a farther out biome or resource, which is generally an unnecessary waste of flat stones. Roads within camps are no longer being built due to functionality issues.

4.) Radios are also Worthless: Radios have never been well-liked, and they are arguably one of the least useful techs in the game, but with area bans they are now completely useless. The only useful purpose for radios was to connect nearby villages with one another to share work orders and ideas, but now they can't even do that.

5.) It punishes players who are actually trying: Babies who suicide are banned from respawning within an area for 90 minutes. This means that players who are not suiciding and who are actually keeping true to Jason's vision about leading a different life every game are being punished the most. These people slave away in their camps/villages, yumming and warming themselves to get a girl, only for the village to die of no fault of their own. Many babies suicide to play a life with a friend or because they don't understand the new temp update, and once they live that life then they have no way of getting back to any village or camp within the area ban limits. This punishes all the people who are within the area ban limits.

6.) It prohibits a fatherhood mechanic: One of the biggest reasons, as I understand it, that men cannot be fathers is a fear of incestuous relationships between men and women within the same family tree. With the area ban in place, of course this is going to be a problem. As long as villages are inadvertently destroying one another, how can lineages ever hope to meet and betroth players to one another? Sure, multiple lineage towns were rare even before the area ban, but now it is impossible for them to exist (unless its a twin start). Alot of players have asked for this mechanic over the years, so if it is ever going to come, the area ban will have to be overturned. Same with trading; if there is ever a reason to trade, then area bans will make it very difficult.

7.) Bell towns are pointless: Following bells was supposed to be a one of a kind journey, one that would allow a player to start a new life if they were able to make it to the bell town. Now if they make it, they all but guarantee the end of their lineage if they are a woman. The idea of multiple families living together in bell towns is simply not feasible.

jasonrohrer · 2019-03-14 03:33:28

Yeah, I'll probably just roll this change back this week.

It wasn't that well-thought-through. Someone talked me into it a while back with good arguments, but there are enough side-effects that it's probably not worth it.

CrazyEddie · 2019-03-14 04:05:28

I think the side-effects are in people's imaginations and the actual effects are very small.

Pretty much everything Portager said is speculation at best, nonsense at worst.

Last edited by CrazyEddie (2019-03-14 04:06:30)

Oblong · 2019-03-14 04:17:20

Eves are definitely punished by this.
Very most definitely. If you fall into the spiral where there’s more towns nearby, and heck, you gotta find that good spot (which moves you only closer to the existing town) it hurts your fertility. All of my Eve runs since the area ban update have been failures due to lack of fertility.

For roads to connect to cities that far, you would have to have dedicated generations and much, much more flat stones. Hell, some generations might not even tell others that a path is being worked on or even know the exact direction to the other town.

I very very much hate the area ban. If you still want it to exist, Eddie, at least make the ban not 2,000 tiles... That’s too much...

CrazyEddie · 2019-03-14 04:21:25

Once more, I'll point out:

a) The area ban removes from your pool of children only those who have recently been in the hypothetical large town nearby.

b) Servers have many towns, and most players will not have recently been in the town near you.

c) The number of players removed from your pool of children is much smaller than the number of players still in your pool.

Therefore:

d) The area ban has little effect on your fertility.

Portager · 2019-03-14 04:43:25

Thanks Jason

Whatever · 2019-03-14 05:11:26

I also don't like the area ban, how it is right now.
I think it could be ok if it was just for 50 - 100 blocks.

As i started playing this game one year ago or so. There were a lot of towns close to each other, so i would build roads with wood in order to connect them.
This way it was easier for people to find other towns and preserve them. For me this game is all about trying to build the most successful civilization.
Nowadays towns are not close enough together to build roads between them. I dont think this only because of the area ban but the area ban doesn't help.

jasonrohrer wrote:

Someone talked me into it a while back with good arguments, but there are enough side-effects that it's probably not worth it.

Was CrazyEddie this person?

Tarr · 2019-03-14 05:20:46

Great to see this goofy mechanic being rolled back. If anything I really liked the ability for a lineage to branch off and not be stuck sharing the same banned pool as the original town but if given the choice from keeping the area ban as is or the old lineage ban I'd much prefer the old ban system.

Plus I think the only good allowing a combination (banned from a lineage unless X tiles from your birth location) would be is for tutorial towns to not rely on their main city being too massive. Also if you haven't noticed Jason something is mucking up the family tree again. Avant family ended up "dying" at 45 gens but the tutorial town they were living at lived for another 5+ hours after the tree stopped recording their lineage and was stuck with the ? generation or mother still living bug.

CrazyEddie · 2019-03-14 06:13:52

Whatever wrote:

Was CrazyEddie this person?

He was indeed!

https://github.com/jasonrohrer/OneLife/issues/222

Psykout · 2019-03-14 06:31:05

CrazyEddie wrote:

Once more, I'll point out:
a) The area ban removes from your pool of children only those who have recently been in the hypothetical large town nearby.
b) Servers have many towns, and most players will not have recently been in the town near you.
c) The number of players removed from your pool of children is much smaller than the number of players still in your pool.
Therefore:
d) The area ban has little effect on your fertility.

CrazyEddie wrote:

I think the side-effects are in people's imaginations and the actual effects are very large.
Pretty much everything CrazyEddie said is speculation at best, nonsense at worst.

Got that fixed up for ya Eddie.

My personal speculation is that a player that instantly /dies either is attempting to get back somewhere or prefers a certain stage of play over another. They are not going to be just using /die once in awhile, they will most likely use it 2-5+ times per life lived, which is very likely to negatively affect the state of the game with such a large area that you can force yourself out of. The numbers are out there, the Eve spiral camp distance is a fraction of the area ban, that is PLAUSIBLE that /die can remove you from more than one lineage. I get the concept of needing a lineage ban to keep the game concept of new life new lineage, but that should be limited to just being in that lineage and nothing else. The possibility of a city standing the test of time because it has more than one lineage to produce babies is the whole point of a Bell Tower and that is under fire.

I personally wonder if tying number of fertile females nearby/in lineage into the fertility calculations could work. Stacking multiple lineages of women in a nursery at perfect temp would still give a little edge, but it has diminishing returns. The 35yr old half starving single mother eve camp down the road a bit would still have a fighting chance to get births because the civ few hundred tiles away has a ton of females. If done by area, there also would be another legitimate reason to go form an outpost as a young girl, to get away from the rest of the baby machines.

Napkin math would be
Perfect Temp and good yum = 1 chance to get baby
Bad Temp and no yum = .5 Chance to get baby

Perfect Temp and good yum around 10 other mothers = .7 Chance to get baby per female
Bad Temp and no yum and alone = .5 Chance to get baby

As you stack mothers, you still have a raw higher chance per female than cold and hungry, but for the Eve, you have a little higher chance to not be drowned out by a civ too close. Temp and Yum will still always be the way to go, but less chance you will have to be sitting around a fire doing nothing between 37 to 40 while the camp struggles because a baby is more important than getting a sheep pen up.

Portager · 2019-03-14 06:41:00

CrazyEddie wrote:

I think the side-effects are in people's imaginations and the actual effects are very small.
Pretty much everything Portager said is speculation at best, nonsense at worst.

Anecdotal, sure. However, most other long time users I have talked to agree with at least some of my points. You live enough lives and it becomes noticeable.

Léonard · 2019-03-14 06:41:25

CrazyEddie wrote:

Once more, I'll point out:
a) The area ban removes from your pool of children only those who have recently been in the hypothetical large town nearby.
b) Servers have many towns, and most players will not have recently been in the town near you.
c) The number of players removed from your pool of children is much smaller than the number of players still in your pool.
Therefore:
d) The area ban has little effect on your fertility.

I don't think this holds true at all. That conclusion seems a bit naive.

When do you consider a player is part of a "pool" exactly?
If we're talking about the total population of the server then it's not very useful at all.
Of course people who are already playing can still theoretically be born in your town, but will they?
They're already playing. Who says they'll die soon? Who is to say they'll keep playing after their current lives?

I think, mathematically speaking, it is much more useful to model this problem as a rate of individual players who are trying to be born (matching a rate of disconnection/people who stop playing for now which gives rise to an average of 100 active players on the server).
Say you have x birth per y minutes.
The babies are distributed randomly across lineages, with some weight given females fertility (given yum and temperature).
This is all fine of course, towns are expected to compete for babies according to Jason.
The problem arises when you include the ability for individual babies to "re-roll the dice" and try their luck elsewhere while simultaneously eliminating their previous choice from their set of possibilities.

You probably underestimated the amount of babies who use the /die command. In my experience I'd say at least 50% of my babies use the command and actively choose/manipulate the town in which they're born.
Given that babies very very often try to manipulate the town in which they end up, the lineage ban absolutely comes into play.
If you have a town that overlaps with your area, and within that town a female is yumming and staying at a good temperature (which is not easily feasible for a competing Eve camp) then you can be SURE that some babies are going to end up banning themselves from both your and the neighboring town (while erasing yours from their set of possibilities unwillingly).

So yes, the area ban DOES affect your fertility compared to the previous lineage banning mechanic. There is no doubt about this.
This model also predicts/explains why so many people including me have noticed much fewer usage of /die than before is enough to send you to Eve hell recently.
And this I definitely dislike. If Jason didn't decide to revert this change, I would probably have started actively running as a baby like so many others have.
Sometimes it takes just 4 use of the command to be banned from every "areas". Am I supposed to believe that there are only 4 towns on a server of a little more than 100 people?
I didn't even know the other towns from which I got banned with the command and after that I can't even take a look at it and decide for myself if I would like to help it.
This is unfair to both the town and the individual babies trying to be born into it.

jasonrohrer wrote:

I heard that people were using multiple lineages in the same city as a way to keep working on their projects life after life. This is not good. That is not the point of the game. The point of the game is passing on what you worked on when you die! That is pretty much the only point of this game.

This is incredibly uncommon.
Keeping one lineage alive is hard enough as it is.
Keeping two is twice as hard!
I barely ever saw two-lineage towns before anyways. Now I see none.

I think a family making the effort to migrate and merge with another town should definitely have its rewards.
Why else would you even have planes/bell towers to encourage migration from other families?
My point being having one "pool" of babies for a single lineage is sometimes not enough already, sharing one between two is unsustainable making the idea of migration/merge not worth anything.
Seeing anything more than a seventh cousin is already extremely rare within the same lineage.
Doing the effort of migrating and keeping up two lineages should have its rewards.
If you were concerned with people living lives back to back given two lineages, why not make it so the previous ban stays if it's within the same area?
That way you could get banned from both lineages even if you get born in them in succession essentially making the only benefit for individuals be an extended lifetime which is a reward for keeping two lineages alive in the first place.

Psykout · 2019-03-14 06:45:16

CrazyEddie wrote:

Whatever wrote:
Was CrazyEddie this person?
He was indeed!
https://github.com/jasonrohrer/OneLife/issues/222

All of this because of fricken twin eve and quad eve?!? Just change how lineages are handing when being Twin/Trip/Quad eves for the love of god. They are called TWINS ~ same family. They should have never had seperate lineages to begin with. Also Jason directly stated he always wanted multi family towns and that's in the gutter right now.

Oblong · 2019-03-14 06:53:04

I rarely ever saw twin/trip/quad eve bypass. Sure you can do that in an early start but by the time you’re like 11 generations in the other lineages probably died off in discord, e.g. stabfest to keep a bloodline ‘pure’ or a kid dying because there’s too many people and now the lineage cannot be carried.

Last edited by Oblong (2019-03-14 06:53:20)

pein · 2019-03-14 06:56:46

fix twin eves and that's enough
no reason for them to be separate family

voy178 · 2019-03-14 09:54:05

I can't believe our experience was ruined because Jason took advice from a person nicked crazy. It's right in the name...

Why would we ever want to build anything if we knew no one was going to come back there because the game doesn't have enough players to support a feature like this?

Last edited by voy178 (2019-03-14 09:55:26)

Sanshuba · 2019-03-14 10:18:02

And if you want to keep working on your project, you just need to take a horse when you are 50, or 45 and go 2,600 tiles away, so don’t get banned.

Dodge · 2019-03-14 11:10:14

Yeah fix twin/trips/quads too easy to exploit lineage ban

Area ban is not good currently, if two or more villages are able to get connected somehow or if a village reaches planes to be able to transport people it should be fair game imo to be able to spawn in big city with different lineages since it's not an exploit and gives a meaning to making bell towers,long roads, planes and travelling, some sort of reward for having villages last a long time.

BladeWoods · 2019-03-14 15:35:38

We had another thread about this and the problem is that the area-ban is way too big. It's a 2000-tile ban, but eve jumps in the spiral are only 250 tiles apart. I think it would be fine if the ban-area was lowered.

jasonrohrer · 2019-03-14 15:59:50

Yes, plan to shrink it this week.

If two families/towns join, or someone flies in or bell-towers in, that is not supposed to suddenly give everyone on the server a "free ticket" to live two lives in a row there.

The problem is that you guys all got used to doing that. I suspect that you want to go back to doing that, and you're just not telling me that directly.

Léonard wrote:

I think a family making the effort to migrate and merge with another town should definitely have its rewards.

The "reward" of subverting the entire point of the game?

This game is NOT about "continuing." It's a game about "saying goodbye and letting go, and placing your precious project, half-finished, into the hands of your descendants."

Remember: why is this game not just a 2D Minecraft or a large-server Don't Starve? Because, at the end of your hour, you say "goodbye" to your town, and really mean it, and really feel it. That was a good life. I can't believe it's over now. Good luck, everyone.

What would be the point of a deathbed speech if you were going to pop back in there as a baby in 2 minutes? This isn't a roleplaying game. Players aren't pretending or acting. It's a realplaying game. Players are saying goodbye for real.

And I fully realize that this one aspect of the game makes it "not as good" as those other games, because there's nothing most players want to do more than lose an entire Saturday working on one giant in-game project (hello Factorio, Star Dew, Subnautica, Rust, and all the other games that have made 10x or 100x more money than OHOL). Having it end every hour really breaks up that flow. It wakes you up and makes you remember real life for a second (the horrors!) and maybe gives you pause before jumping back in for another hour. Thus, the top player of OHOL has only played 1,800 hours, which is way less than the top players in Rust:

But I'm trying to do something new here. Something interesting. Something that makes you feel things that you've never felt in a game before. And also, maybe just a little bit, encouraging you to quit playing after an hour or two....

Twin/Triplet Eves are just an edge case (the likelihood of them founding a thriving town where all lines survive is slim). I could fix that in isolation, but it wouldn't solve the overall problem.

Psykout · 2019-03-14 16:45:51

jasonrohrer wrote:

Yes, plan to shrink it this week.
If two families/towns join, or someone flies in or bell-towers in, that is not supposed to suddenly give everyone on the server a "free ticket" to live two lives in a row there.
The problem is that you guys all got used to doing that. I suspect that you want to go back to doing that, and you're just not telling me that directly.

I would agree that it shouldn't be a free ticket either, and I also agree it was too common beforehand. As a player to have some sort of control over this happening does not sound appealing. I don't want this to happen whenever I want it to, or every other life. I wish for the chance that maybe one in five or ten lives or more, it could happen if the cards were right.

jasonroher wrote:

The "reward" of subverting the entire point of the game?
This game is NOT about "continuing." It's a game about "saying goodbye and letting go, and placing your precious project, half-finished, into the hands of your descendants."
Remember: why is this game not just a 2D Minecraft or a large-server Don't Starve? Because, at the end of your hour, you say "goodbye" to your town, and really mean it, and really feel it. That was a good life. I can't believe it's over now. Good luck, everyone.
What would be the point of a deathbed speech if you were going to pop back in there as a baby in 2 minutes? This isn't a roleplaying game. Players aren't pretending or acting. It's a realplaying game. Players are saying goodbye for real.

Very solid points. Sometimes it feels like a generational game of hot potato because of the ratio of producers (typically experienced players) vs consumers (berry patch kids). But that would definitely be the half finished part right there. When you have a good one and get to die of old age saying goodbye and good luck, it does feel good. I always have always looked at it as reincarnation though, with the smaller playerbase, a lot of us play with each other often just without knowing. I don't know if I would lose that feeling if once in awhile when I hit reborn I saw familiar surroundings. It has already happened plenty with playing, taking a break and playing later in the evening after my ban and finding out the town is still going. I am excited to be there, but not betting on getting a third chance, or even wanting it.

jasonroher wrote:

And I fully realize that this one aspect of the game makes it "not as good" as those other games, because there's nothing most players want to do more than lose an entire Saturday working on one giant in-game project (hello Factorio, Star Dew, Subnautica, Rust, and all the other games that have made 10x or 100x more money than OHOL). Having it end every hour really breaks up that flow. It wakes you up and makes you remember real life for a second (the horrors!) and maybe gives you pause before jumping back in for another hour. Thus, the top player of OHOL has only played 1,800 hours, which is way less than the top players in Rust:
https://i.imgur.com/YtKaoXR.png
But I'm trying to do something new here. Something interesting. Something that makes you feel things that you've never felt in a game before. And also, maybe just a little bit, encouraging you to quit playing after an hour or two....

So subjective, I enjoy OHOL more than most of those titles (never played rust or will) because of the lack of permanence, it keeps it fresh, and as you said you have to think about your commitment to another hour. After back to back old age deaths I almost always end up taking a break in some way, even if it's just strolling through the web or watching a video, two hours is a perfect intermission. I realize my desires and that of many of us, do in fact go against your vision. I have thought of many many ways to appease both sides, but ultimately whatever you decide, I would still be happy. Its a fun game, and a very curious one. There is so much potential within, to me almost bursting at the seams.

Jason, have you ever thought about having different servers that behave slightly differently? Immediately I think about the splitting the already smaller player base up issue, but it would be neat to something Like 1 Big Server Standard, Big Biome Map, 1.5hr Lineage ban server, then few for solo play or relief if big server 1 was bogged down.

Tarr · 2019-03-14 16:59:53

jasonrohrer wrote:

I suspect that you want to go back to doing that, and you're just not telling me that directly.

If this was the sole reason we wouldn't be seeing so many people being negatively effected by the change. It hits everyone and not the people who are going to skirt around the change in the first place. Early game eves get hurt by bad Eves who spawn near them since people are going to /die out of that camp much more often than they would a good Eve camp location. People who play after a server reset and during the resets can't expect any sort of play besides eternal Eve camps or living a single city life. I accidentally ended up banning myself to s15's mega city because I didn't know it had a suburb which meant that playing had zero meaning as I was basically playing on an empty server with randoms.

You solved the issue of runner babies finally and this change has made it so the /die command is again worthless. You absolutely should not use /die as you risk banning yourself to multiple different locations. You even done things to try to make different people interact and meet more through shrinking the spiral but instead of trading goods all they do is trade blows as more females = more bans = less players. Cleansing other close towns because they're encroaching your magic circle is just plain dumb in my opinion. Why do things to encourage different lineages meeting then force them back to a minimum distance of 2k from each other?

You've negatively impacted a bunch of players around the few who play the game in the "wrong" way but you know what? If I wanted I could play multiple hours in one place and just avoid the ban via jumping through some hoops. Are you going to start nerfing iron because I can bring back ten+ stacks in a life? Are you going to nerf compost because pein can produce tons in his life? Are you going to nerf potatoes for the third time because spoonyboy says they're viable? It's just a game of cat and mouse at this point where you "fix" something and we go around it in one way or another. All you ended up doing was bothering normal players and the people targeted by the area ban effect just go around it.

CrazyEddie · 2019-03-14 17:21:13

Tarr wrote:

Early game eves get hurt by bad Eves who spawn near them since people are going to /die out of that camp much more often than they would a good Eve camp location.

Horsehockey.

The effect of the area ban on Eves who spawn near each other is minuscule, since very few players will be removed from the pool of children due to the area ban because very few players will have been born into the nearby Eve camp, because EVE CAMPS ARE SMALL.

The same is also true of Eve camps that are near towns, or towns that are near Eve camps, or even towns that are near towns. The effect of the area ban on fertility is small because the number of players banned from your camp or town because they got banned from the other camp or town is small relative to all the other players on the server who aren't banned from either one.

So what's the real effect that people are complaining about? Why, it's this:

People who play after a server reset and during the resets can't expect any sort of play besides eternal Eve camps or living a single city life.

You see, the problem is not that the area ban keeps players from being born into your town. It's that the area ban keeps YOU from being born into the town that you'd LIKE to be born into, because you inadvertently /died out of a town you DIDN'T like but it ended up being too close to the town you WANTED to get to.

I'm actually sympathetic here, because I too use /die to try to reach the kind of towns I enjoy.

But I bet Jason considers this a positive effect, because as we all know he would rather that you have no control at all over where you get born.

Léonard · 2019-03-14 17:26:32

jasonrohrer wrote:

The "reward" of subverting the entire point of the game?

I thought your main issue with this was that you thought people used multiple lineages to basically bypass the ban and keep playing continuously?
I absolutely wasn't hinting at this and in fact I even addressed this point a few lines down below:

Léonard wrote:

If you were concerned with people living lives back to back given two lineages, why not make it so the previous ban stays if it's within the same area?
That way you could get banned from both lineages even if you get born in them in succession essentially making the only benefit for individuals be an extended lifetime which is a reward for keeping two lineages alive in the first place.

Perhaps you misunderstood my suggestion.
If you end up being banned from both lineages after 2 hours of playtime, how does this not fix the issue of people playing continuously?

Or did you in fact understand the suggestion but decide that it was still subverting the experience?
I find this kind of odd considering that you allow people below 30 to be given another "shot" at life when they accidentally die to a boar or mosquitoes.
Isn't this subverting the experience, then?
Why would allowing a total of 2 hours of playtime be subverting the game according to you when a total of 1h30 (which already goes beyond one hour and as such violates the promise of the title) is something actively used in the game both by Eves and regular players?
What's the difference?

EDIT:

jasonrohrer wrote:

I suspect that you want to go back to doing that

Seems odd that you would suggest this when in the exact same post I pointed out how incredibly rare it was.
You know the best part is I can't even remember ONE single time where I actually used this (intentionally or unintentionally).

jasonrohrer wrote:

and you're just not telling me that directly.

Do you really think I come on your forums and bother to make my points as clear as possible and try to make useful suggestions/give constructive criticism just because I want to manipulate you into making my life easier?
Yeah... Seems kind of belittling...

Last edited by Léonard (2019-03-14 17:39:56)

happynova · 2019-03-14 17:28:25

jasonrohrer wrote:

The problem is that you guys all got used to doing that. I suspect that you want to go back to doing that, and you're just not telling me that directly.

I kind of hate to say it, but that -- people really really wanting and expecting to be able to choose where they're born and what kind of life they'll have, and to be able to come back to things they started -- explains a lot. Because it's not at all the way I, personally, play, or want to play, and I have to say, the arguments from other people on this are just baffling to me. Because an area ban works just fine and dandy you're only playing only a life or two at a time and are happy taking what you get and trying to make the most of it, and if other people are mostly doing the same thing.

But the more I read the comments on this, the more I realize other's arguments are baffling because they're from the perspective of people who have a very different attitude towards what the game is or should be, or is for them, than I do, the perspective of people are going to suicide until they get what they want, and expect that to be the normal game play, and are annoyed when they can't do it.

Which... I mean, I get that people want what they want and not every aspect of the game is equally fun for everybody, but I am I completely out of line if I say I find it kind of sad? Because the reason I was drawn to the game in the fist place was precisely because it promised a new kind of experience, one that would mirror real life by not letting me control the circumstances I was born into, one that would run the social experiment of requiring people to work together for a future they wouldn't even see, one that would make me think existential thoughts about the fleeting and contingent nature of life. And it delivered that beautifully. After hundreds of hours of gameplay, I'll admit, I feel that less than I did at the beginning. It's easy to get focused on the details and lose sight of the big picture. But I like that that big picture is there. If this were just another survival/base-building game, I would never have started playing.

I don't expect that to change anybody's feelings about the game or how they want to play it, of course. Maybe I just felt the need to vent a little. Or to say that I, at least, really get what Jason is going for and why he's going for it and why he's pushing back against people who want the game to be something other than what he sees it as -- something that, to my mind, would be way more boring. Maybe it's a losing battle. Maybe the game he's trying to make isn't the game most people want to play. Maybe not all the details of how he's trying to preserve his vision of the game work when they come up against people trying very hard to make it be what they want it to be instead, and that means that neither side wins. But I appreciate that he's at least trying to keep making the game he wanted to make and not Generic Base-Building/Survival game #17.

(That having been said, yes, the area ban distance clearly is currently too big, as making that much larger than the Eve spiral creates problems for Eves, which isn't the intention, so I'm glad that's being changed. But in principle? It makes sense to me. And if it means there's some big town I don't get to see... Well, so what? There'll always be another one along later. And if it means I'm in a big town and player X doesn't get born to me when they otherwise might have, well, here comes player Y who's just logged on, and I'll take that guy instead.)

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2019-03-14 02:55:07

Top 7 Reasons the Area Ban needs to be Fixed

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