Hardships form close bonds

BerrypickerAF · 2019-05-08 01:53:33

Looks like Jason has been searching for ways to increase bonds within families, and I think we're overlooking a root cause of human bonding while trying to find ways to 'make' people care - tragedy and hardships.

I don't think I've ever seen people grow closer than they do during/after a tragedy. When a natural disaster hits, the community grows close over their shared loss. When a family member falls terminally ill, the family unit grows closer over the pain and grief they experience together.
In contrast OHOL is basically a utopia. Players don't care because they don't really have to. There are no threats of disasters, illness or droughts, and barely any times in which you have to rely on the charity of your family to survive (and the one thing we have everyone complains about...). No plagues to rid half your population causing everyone to have to work extra hard, no floods forcing you to rebuild together. No droughts driving people to store and ration food and turn away strangers.
I see Jason mention these scenarios of 'if you had to feed your kid or another, you should always chose yours', but I honestly have never encountered such a situation. Food is either in abundance or so short that everyone is starving, rarely something in between. If it occurs they are merely outlier cases.

This also plays into caring for your children and the lack thereof in OHOL. Pregnancy is a huge investment and risk for a female and can be life-threatening, so the baby instantly has value and it is in the best interest of the mother to keep it alive so the time and resources it took from her weren't wasted. When you just pop out babies without having to invest anything in OHOL, the baby becomes a free and abundant resource. And people don't care about things they can have in abundance and can get for free, the baby might as well be a fast food straw.

Now I don't think pregnancy is a solution in this game, honestly I can't think of a good way to implement it that would fit with the current spawn system. It's crossed my mind to have players 'spawn' unborn as a bump in the mothers womb, while still being able to see what she sees and 'hear' what she's saying. That way you could at least see a bit of the town and your ma could already tell you things, but it would be pretty damn boring for the unborn. Perhaps the mom-to-be would be pregnant for 1-2mins and would have some limitations (no heavy lifting, hunger pibs go down faster, etc), but I think it might turn off a lot of players to increase the 'doing nothing' time at spawn from 3mins to 4-5, despite creating a bit more involvement for the mom and costing her a bit of her life to motivate her to favor her own offspring.

And finally a big reason why people care for kids is because they often need their support in old age. Elders in OHOL are just perfectly fine on their own, they can feed themselves and still haul rocks until the day they die. Why care for your kids/family if you don't need them when you get old? I think introducing some dependence on your family could help create an atmosphere of kinship. Sure there's gonna be the ones who still don't care, but I think after a few lives dying prematurely because nobody cared enough about them to feed them once they hit 55 will create motivation to form some bonds next time.

I think it might be worth a shot before trying stuff like limiting tribes to a single race and unintentionally angering the SJW media lol

Last edited by BerrypickerAF (2019-05-08 02:31:17)

CatX · 2019-05-08 07:12:24

BerrypickerAF wrote:

Looks like Jason has been searching for ways to increase bonds within families, and I think we're overlooking a root cause of human bonding while trying to find ways to 'make' people care - tragedy and hardships.

I think natural hardships would be way more interesting than griefing as a mechanic to add some drama to the game.

If every now and again winter descended on the OHOL world, communities would have to prepare and fill their storage rooms with food while plants were still growing.

There's a chance too that during years of winter, there might be more raids by families who failed to prepare, and the towns who got raided would be more aware and ready to protect their belongings.

Of course, Eves would have a hard time surviving if they spawned in during winter, but life is harsh...

1%Spacebar · 2019-05-08 08:05:08

CatX wrote:

-snip-

Winter could have exclusive foods, and maybe we'd have to actually hunt animals for food instead of because a baby poked all the bear caves. Greenhouses could be a thing, but they'd be expensive. Think of all that glass..

Anyways, it'd be nice to see some season and/or weather. Jason would have to draw the snow on everything, though, wouldn't he?

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2019-05-08 01:53:33

Hardships form close bonds

#2 2019-05-08 07:12:24

Re: Hardships form close bonds

#3 2019-05-08 08:05:08

Re: Hardships form close bonds

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