Easy to play with friends?

Zeromus · 2018-02-28 15:56:10

I'm very excited about this game. I'm just wondering if I should invite my friends and we can play together. Or is spawning very random, and we likely won't see each other? Thanks!

jasonrohrer · 2018-02-28 18:20:55

There is a chance that you will be born along with your friends, but babies also get spread out randomly. There is no built-in friend feature. That's not really what this game is about... it's about different situations in every life.

And even if I wanted to let you play with a friend, how would it work?

Let's say you join a the same time. That means you're both babies. So are you siblings with the same mother? That's one heck of a burden for that mother, and probably only one of you will survive. Then what? Your friend tries to get born again. Are they born to that same over-burdened mother again? It's a recipe for disaster.

As it stands, there are child-spacing and child distribution algorithms that find the very best-suited mother for each new baby that joins.

I'm still thinking about this issue, and I know that people want to play with friends. If you have any ideas about how it could work, I'm open to them.

I suppose there could be a "likelihood modifier" where you can enter one friend's email address when you login and simply be more likely to be their baby. But you and your friend would have to space out your spawns in time to ensure that your friend grows up first before you try to get born.

Also, if your friend happens to be a male character, you're out of luck.

Finding a nearby mother to "force" your friend to be born near you wouldn't be fair to that other player (the one playing the mother). They would get an extra burden of your friend, even though they don't know you.

Zeromus · 2018-02-28 18:33:18

One idea I have is to reserve your baby spot. Like a toggle that says "friends only." Your friend would have to wait for you to get pregnant, of course. But they might be willing to in order to get to play with you.

But yeah, all sorts of problems. When you die, are they too old to have you as a child now? Having them spawn "near" you also would cause problems with the underlying algorithm.

If I think of a better idea while playing, I'll be sure to mention it. Thanks! =-)

Zeromus · 2018-03-01 04:59:49

Now that I've played it, it seems like it wouldn't mess anything up if you just had a setting that let your friends be born by you (assuming you meet all the motherly requirements).

I was playing at the same time as my friend, and we actually ran in to each other. It was great. I introduced him to my son. He introduced me to his. And then I starved to death! =-D But my son Joel became a great hunter. I made him a loincloth.

jasonrohrer · 2018-03-01 05:50:53

Yeah, I will probably add something like this.

It's pretty easy to do it with a setting where people can enter an email address of their preferred mother...

Well, that can be used to grief someone, right? Like people could enter MY email address to always be born to me.

So I guess it needs to be more complicated than that... maybe a password that both people type, baby AND mother?

jasonrohrer · 2018-03-01 05:56:13

Oh, wait, there's another problem.

When the game population grows, you might not even be playing on the same server, due to load balancing.... hmm....

I guess I can just gloss over that for now, though.

yvanhooe · 2018-03-01 10:14:54

At this point I think that what matters to friends is to be born in the same civilization. Maybe a priority based on distance? And a way to identify each other. Maybe a label visible by them only? Actually I wonder if it would not make sense to have ways to differentiate characters. Maybe the mother could name their kids and this label would appear to all? I had to repeat a rule to everybody in the civ (don't pull carrots from the "seeds" field) and some times I could not recognize if I already said it to someone. Especially as they age.

An easy way, but it may run contrary to the mindset of the game, would be to generate an Eve for the group of friends and have the first babies in that family tree be the friends.

I guess a part of this game is to always be born in a different civ. I won't lie, I find it frustrating to not be able to revisit what you just helped built and after one intense hour, being totally unable to revisit what you just did gives a feeling, I don't know, of meaninglessness. Be prepared to have a lot of demands in that direction.

vfabien21 · 2018-03-01 11:40:06

jasonrohrer wrote:

And even if I wanted to let you play with a friend, how would it work?

See my suggestion about reincarnation and rituals. I might be a way to help friends staying together. But it means that you want to add some afterlife interactions in your game...

Last edited by vfabien21 (2018-03-01 11:41:56)

Uncle Gus · 2018-03-01 22:37:52

yvanhooe wrote:

I guess a part of this game is to always be born in a different civ. I won't lie, I find it frustrating to not be able to revisit what you just helped built and after one intense hour, being totally unable to revisit what you just did gives a feeling, I don't know, of meaninglessness. Be prepared to have a lot of demands in that direction.

Yeah, you have to let go of that. Your mission in life is simply to make a contribution; leave the world better in some way. Make a basket or a hatchet or bring some seeds in.

My usual mission in this regard is to make clothes. So many civs are full of naked people! That's so inefficient. Typically my contribution towards this is to find milk weed seeds because so many civs seem to have none.

Clothes are important, people!

bobpaul · 2018-03-01 23:24:47

Uncle Gus wrote:

My usual mission in this regard is to make clothes. So many civs are full of naked people! That's so inefficient.
Clothes are important, people!

New to the game... what benefit do clothes provide? You said they're important and the game is inefficient without them, but you didn't say how they help :-/

Ants · 2018-03-01 23:25:55

bobpaul wrote:

Uncle Gus wrote:
My usual mission in this regard is to make clothes. So many civs are full of naked people! That's so inefficient.
Clothes are important, people!
New to the game... what benefit do clothes provide? You said they're important and the game is inefficient without them, but you didn't say how they help :-/

They raise your temperature, which causes your calories to go down slower the closer you are to being "just right", which I think is the middle of the bar.

Uncle Gus · 2018-03-01 23:31:09

Which means eating less.

jasonrohrer · 2018-03-02 00:44:07

Still thinking about this.

I'm leaning toward making a "wish" interface where you can essentially just suggest a code-word (like apple) and then when you're born, it gives preference to sticking you with a mother who also used the same code word.

If she's ineligible (like, already has too many babies, or is on birth cool-down), then your wish won't be granted.

There's also an issue with being on different servers.

Thus, anyone who makes this kind of wish will be forced onto the currently-least-populated server, instead of the normal load balancing.

Computer1633 · 2018-03-02 00:51:55

I do not think a friend system in this game should be added. The entire premise of the game would become defeated by being able to join with a friend or group of friends. It would allow players to just keep spawning over and over at the same location and just pick right back up where they left off. When your born you don't know who your mother is or where you are. That is part of the greatness of the game, having to really learn. As the world progresses perhaps towns and roads will develop and you can travel to your friends but I do not feel there should be a friend spawn system in the game. It would just make things too easy.

Plus, a village of just friends would alienate other players, killing off randoms so they could just keep spawning together. This would also cause an unfair advantage for those players.

My two cents....

jasonrohrer · 2018-03-02 00:56:22

Yeah... yeah... you're right.

This game isn't about playing with friends. You're right about the alienation issue too, with cliques of people who are on voice chat, but who never speak/chat in the game. A bunch of silent, well-organized people who seem to be telepathic.

I agree that it would make the game worse, probably.

Zeromus · 2018-03-02 01:02:19

I'm kind of agreeing with the "no friends" thing. Private servers is maybe the way to go for that?

jasonrohrer · 2018-03-02 01:13:33

That is an excellent point!

Like minecraft realms, there will hopefully, eventually, be businesses that pop up to offer this as a monthly service.

I'm pretty sure you could run 10 or more separate servers on just one $5 linode. The resources used by the server are SO tiny, and if you limit the pop on each server (their private, so yeah), you could really pack a lot into one Linode.

If you figure this out, you might be an early mover in this space...

Computer1633 · 2018-03-02 01:51:48

I am actually a game server provider and have already thought about this. If anyone would be interested in renting a private server I could probably help with that.

Of course, don't neglect the official servers. We still need people to help colonize the new world.

halander1 · 2018-03-08 05:35:08

I disagree that this is THE only possible solution. I admit the premise of the game is about making a sudden mark upon the world is the very essence of what makes this game appealing to the masses, however, I disagree on the idea that this HAS to be done without your friends.

Would it not be reasonable instead to disallow chaining, so say friend A can spawn friend B in motherhood, but friend B can't spawn friend A. Or, A spawns B spawns C, and C cannot spawn A or B due to their use of friend codes. It would be simple to make it so upon birth, you have a chosen specified codeword (who has time to change it anyway). Then your friends could use that codeword to attempt to spawn on you, and if they succeeded, both of their abilities to use the codeword would be used up. It wouldn't hurt honestly to have the codeword be slightly changing overtime to prevent forum communities and nonsense like that, but it might be doable. Of course, it is alpha...

Anyway, loves.

iestyn · 2018-03-08 06:44:09

I understand that the premise and structure of the game makes playing with friends hard to achieve in a form that doesn't hurt the game in other ways. But I worry that the lack of this feature may hurt the game's success so much that it's worth trying really hard to make it happen in some way. The fact that you lose all progress on a village after every life ends is already tough enough to turn away many customers... you need something to sweeten the deal just a little.

As with Roguelikes, sometimes you get bad runs and sometimes you get great runs - and that's part of the enjoyment. Perhaps you could factor this into friend relationships? Sometimes you spawn in the same village as your friend and can continue their legacy, sometimes you spawn on opposite ends of the continent. But it's random, not reliable, so you're happy when it does happen. There's just an 'affinity' between friends that biases the probabilities to make it more likely for them to be born to each other (but without making other problematic tradeoffs). This would limit the silent telepathic clique problem: you'd realistically only ever get two friends together at any one time.

Another option would be in-game spectation: when you're dead you can spend a few minutes spectating your friend's game, so you at least feel a bit connected. This could be combined with the friend-to-friend birth affinity in that you get kicked out of spectation and into the game if RNG decides it's your time to be born as your friend's child.

Phate · 2018-03-08 09:22:03

+1 have some friends i want to recommend the game to, but would be weird not being able to play with them to show them the ropes.

zinke · 2018-03-08 13:40:52

I think it would work out best the following way.

One setting for people waiting to be born (Born to friends only)
One setting for people playing the game (Give birth to friends first)

That leaves the problem of initial gender. I think keeping gender selecting according to some algorithm is what is best but to make playing with friends more possible, there could be a button "Play as woman" that comes with a cooldown.

or... if gender selection is okay, you could set it up like this

Male
Female (hard mode)

Also, no need to worry about passwords when it comes to friends. If there is a field to add a friend, the friendship is only valid if both people add eachother.

Last edited by zinke (2018-03-08 13:45:11)

Twinsen · 2018-03-08 15:09:09

zinke wrote:

I think it would work out best the following way.
One setting for people waiting to be born (Born to friends only)
One setting for people playing the game (Give birth to friends first)
That leaves the problem of initial gender. I think keeping gender selecting according to some algorithm is what is best but to make playing with friends more possible, there could be a button "Play as woman" that comes with a cooldown.
or... if gender selection is okay, you could set it up like this
Male
Female (hard mode)

Also, no need to worry about passwords when it comes to friends. If there is a field to add a friend, the friendship is only valid if both people add eachother.

That's why the most recent on hand solution is private server.

Inflamedsebi · 2018-03-08 15:59:30

I think there can be an easy solution => optional flags/settings for servers. So each Host can alter the playstyle of his server to their liking and make it more community/friend based / or have the full hardcore experience. The reason for this is, not everyone has the same amount of spare time. So some can afford to play several hours a day and thus care less about slow/lost progression, while others can only afford a few hours per week or even less and need some assistance to have a good experience. Same goes for communities: some have 200++ Members, others have only 5.
That said, if you feel like there is a possible feature, but you're not sure if it fits to the game, just implement it and lock it behind a setting, so ppl can try it out and help adjust/improve it.

BTT: My ideas for settings that will allow to play with friends/communities:

1)"show_coordinates" which will show peeps their coordinates and allows for easy cartographing, which makes finding friends/settlements/points of interest a lot easier. This could be very handy for dedicated community servers where ppl might prefer a less random and more casual experience. An equivalent would be a livemap for a server, which would not alter the playstyle in general, but adds a huge chunk of community.

2)"use_codewords" which is listed a few posts up and allows to be matched to and near ppl with the same codeword. This will allow for Tribes to develop and rejoining your tribe as long as they pass their codeword to the next generation and thus keep it alive. If the tribe dies, so does the codeword. But this requires players to be able to set/change the codeword while ingame.
This made me think of a different approach to a similar mechanic:
2.1)"use_codewords_regional" alternatively you could use codewords for regions. Like if you setup a homestick, this spot will carry your codeword for the next X hours and ppl with that codeword will spawn in a reasonable radius around it. If there is no eve around you will become one and if there are eves around, but on cooldown you get a message to try again in a few minutes or join without a codeword. Once a baby gets born due to the codeword mechanic this will reset the timer of the codeword so it stays active. This will also allow ppl to develop tribes and carry on a codeword like a family story. And since the word stays active for a defined time you can revisit a place and start it up again, even if the tribe died. The decay timer for the codewords could be setting too, ranging from a single hour to weeks, same goes for the radius to spawn near the initial homestick, depending on the intended playstyle.

What do u think about it?

Last edited by Inflamedsebi (2018-03-08 16:03:32)

Zeromus · 2018-03-08 16:08:41

Something else to consider is that if playing with friends is easy, expect groups of murderers and bandits to become very common.

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2018-02-28 15:56:10

Easy to play with friends?

#2 2018-02-28 18:20:55

Re: Easy to play with friends?

#3 2018-02-28 18:33:18

Re: Easy to play with friends?

#4 2018-03-01 04:59:49

Re: Easy to play with friends?

#5 2018-03-01 05:50:53

Re: Easy to play with friends?

#6 2018-03-01 05:56:13

Re: Easy to play with friends?

#7 2018-03-01 10:14:54

Re: Easy to play with friends?

#8 2018-03-01 11:40:06

Re: Easy to play with friends?

#9 2018-03-01 22:37:52

Re: Easy to play with friends?

#10 2018-03-01 23:24:47

Re: Easy to play with friends?

#11 2018-03-01 23:25:55

Re: Easy to play with friends?

#12 2018-03-01 23:31:09

Re: Easy to play with friends?

#13 2018-03-02 00:44:07

Re: Easy to play with friends?

#14 2018-03-02 00:51:55

Re: Easy to play with friends?

#15 2018-03-02 00:56:22

Re: Easy to play with friends?

#16 2018-03-02 01:02:19

Re: Easy to play with friends?

#17 2018-03-02 01:13:33

Re: Easy to play with friends?

#18 2018-03-02 01:51:48

Re: Easy to play with friends?

#19 2018-03-08 05:35:08

Re: Easy to play with friends?

#20 2018-03-08 06:44:09

Re: Easy to play with friends?

#21 2018-03-08 09:22:03

Re: Easy to play with friends?

#22 2018-03-08 13:40:52

Re: Easy to play with friends?

#23 2018-03-08 15:09:09

Re: Easy to play with friends?

#24 2018-03-08 15:59:30

Re: Easy to play with friends?

#25 2018-03-08 16:08:41

Re: Easy to play with friends?

Board footer