Why murdering?

nameless · 2018-03-31 07:03:20

There are a few posts about the balancing of murdering, but I wonder why we even have that at all?

I've been raving about this game since before I got it. And even more after I got it. It's just a wonderfully different game that makes me actually think differently about real world issues.

But then I read about the addition of murdering and my heart sank. And then, sure enough, I was murdered. The killer gained nothing. I gained nothing. I lost a lot--I had started projects in the village and just got to cooperate for the first time on breaking down a wall (not an easy task to coordinate three people!).

I bet one of the reasons is: There is murdering in real life. Sure. But it's actually exceedingly uncommon! We love to talk about it and it gets great coverage in media. But it really is rare! Dying or struggling with diseases is much more common. If we're going with realism, that should certainly come before.

With this addition, I feel like this game suddenly went from really unique to just another game. I stopped myself from giving it a negative review, but I don't think I'll be recommending it anymore. Especially not to non-"gamer" folks.

Jason, please consider disabling this feature. Simply by having it in the game, you encourage bad behaviour. See Dan Cook's talk on the subject from GDC this year: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/ … JzES4/edit (edit: scrolling through the slides I couldn't find what I was looking for, so maybe disregard it. Or maybe look at it anyway, because it's quite interesting! )

Last edited by nameless (2018-04-01 03:25:01)

Ayame550 · 2018-03-31 08:45:28

nameless wrote:

There are a few posts about the balancing of murdering, but I wonder why we even have that at all?
I've been raving about this game since before I got it. And even more after I got it. It's just a wonderfully different game that makes me actually think differently about real world issues.
But then I read about the addition of murdering and my heart sank. And then, sure enough, I was murdered. The killer gained nothing. I gained nothing. I lost a lot--I had started projects in the village and just got to cooperate for the first time on breaking down a wall (not an easy task to coordinate three people!).
I bet one of the reasons is: There is murdering in real life. Sure. But it's actually exceedingly uncommon! We love to talk about it and it gets great coverage in media. But it really is rare! Dying or struggling with diseases is much more common. If we're going with realism, that should certainly come before.
With this addition, I feel like this game suddenly went from really unique to just another game. I stopped myself from giving it a negative review, but I don't think I'll be recommending it anymore. Especially not to non-"gamer" folks.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/ … JzES4/edit

There are many more ways for griefers to ruin civs other than murder. Also please consider the time period of in game vs ours. The reason we don't see a lot of murder In real life is because we are far advanced and have law enforcement, individual houses, and safety protocols on weapons such as guns. In the game there is still only small community type civilizations, without possessions (other than clothes and backpacks) and most of them rely on simple farming and hunting techniques to get by. In tribal days of any civ, murder wasn't uncommon, especially in fighting for resources. If you're interested in the game but not in the 'murder' aspect I believe there are a few custom servers that have banned murder. you'd probably find them on the forums somewhere.

lesslucid · 2018-03-31 09:10:31

nameless wrote:

There are a few posts about the balancing of murdering, but I wonder why we even have that at all?
I've been raving about this game since before I got it. And even more after I got it. It's just a wonderfully different game that makes me actually think differently about real world issues.
But then I read about the addition of murdering and my heart sank. And then, sure enough, I was murdered. The killer gained nothing. I gained nothing. I lost a lot--I had started projects in the village and just got to cooperate for the first time on breaking down a wall (not an easy task to coordinate three people!).
I bet one of the reasons is: There is murdering in real life. Sure. But it's actually exceedingly uncommon! We love to talk about it and it gets great coverage in media. But it really is rare! Dying or struggling with diseases is much more common. If we're going with realism, that should certainly come before.
With this addition, I feel like this game suddenly went from really unique to just another game. I stopped myself from giving it a negative review, but I don't think I'll be recommending it anymore. Especially not to non-"gamer" folks.
Jason, please consider disabling this feature. Simply by having it in the game, you encourage bad behaviour. See Dan Cook's talk on the subject from GDC this year: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/ … JzES4/edit

You can play on one of the servers that has violence disabled... various types of griefing are still possible, but there's no more direct killing. It might suit your tastes better.

Dagar · 2018-03-31 09:39:58

Ayame550 wrote:

[...]Also please consider the time period of in game vs ours. The reason we don't see a lot of murder In real life is because we are far advanced and have law enforcement, individual houses, and safety protocols on weapons such as guns. [...] In tribal days of any civ, murder wasn't uncommon, especially in fighting for resources.

Where do you get the notion from that murdering in nomadic and early agricultural times was common? As far as I know (I am no historian, but I know a bit about ancient times) this is more of a pop culture thing than actual historic fact. At least until the point where wars started, and even then the death toll in battles was not terribly high (especially when compared to e.g. WW1).
I wrote something similar already (and other players have the same wrong notion of how violence played out back then *wink wink* at TrustyWay and Goliath), but using violence against other humans was always a high risk strategy. In consequence it is just logical that it was only used if the reward was at least comparably high (remind yourself that you could pay the ultimate price here...), i.e. if your survival hinged on it AND no co-operation was possible for whatever reason (and nomadic tribes afaik often cooperated; they had to in large game hunts and in order to prevent disabilities caused by incest) AND if any lower aggression state than going for fatal injuries (like threatening in word and pose, shoving each other around, aiming for a knock-out, all the things you can see before and during a common street fight) has failed.
In the game violence therefore makes even less sense: Food is pretty easy to come by, and you can do fine and live to the age of 60 by having nothing else, so there are no real needs apart from that. Also, you do not have the possibility to just wound someone by e.g. carrying out a fist fight between the leaders, and all players can communicate in the same language (no language barrier).
The only reason to murder is because the risk, unlike in real life, is low, as you can get reborn immediately, and even lower for the aggressor due to limited sight and technical problems like lag and invisibility. It's not very historic, and whoever roleplays a baddie and goes on a killing spree is pretty retarded.

TrustyWay · 2018-03-31 12:21:53

People starves quickly and nobody get stronger with a knife in the stomach.

At first I hated the one shoot thing, but then after playing a while it makes sense. If people wounds and get wounded I fear the fights will just be running fight, ridiculous fights.

There are non pvp server I think but a griefer can just :
- take the crown and ask for stupid things
- take all the food carts and hide it (easiest to do)
- use all ressource in stupid things (berries in basket...)
- eat too much and doing nothing (easiest to spot)
- tell people he takes care of the farm and do nothing (really easy to kill anyone if people don't like to farm.

Game is hard and unfair, but that's the way people like it.

Last edited by TrustyWay (2018-03-31 12:24:33)

veene · 2018-03-31 18:45:56

Trustyway and his 11 year old buddies should be banned from these forums

Homura · 2018-03-31 19:21:11

Maybe a way for the server host to track the ip of serial killers in the server logs?

juano · 2018-03-31 19:34:43

I think I "like" murder being present since it makes any non-violent group effort all the more meaningful. Without murder, you have people getting together because it's the most efficient way to ensure survival. With murder, there's also an element of choice - you're not necessarily a great person for choosing to play peacefully, but at the very least you know everybody toiling and tilling the ground next to you is along for the ride.

When it comes to game mechanics, I think it could both reduce blatant griefing and add some interest if you took two hits to die, either by knife or arrow. You'd have a chance to run for help or warn others, and if you're injured you'd have to be tended or die after a while. You'd be unable to inflict as much damage by yourself on such a short period of time, so single-person murder machines would phase out eventually.

Whoopie · 2018-03-31 19:47:53

Quite long, but I love writing this shit:

Yeah, there are ideas that human life is meaningless in this game, and historically, stories about murder that are being passed down for generations already happens from second generations after Adam an Eve (between family, even). These two ideas are, probably, enough to justify the capabilities of murdering someone in this game.

But, there are other ideas that grow from the player who taste the game. Two of them are drawing emotions (best life memories sharing, fun in naming) and seeing fruitful hard-work labour (people keep asking if there are ways to see how their descendant was going, stories of coming back to previous family places).

Those two ideas are what separates between the killer and the killed perceived the game. Sure, both of them will lost everything in the end, but the killer can always do their preferred playstyle, killing people, then reborn, over and over again. The killer still got a chance to play the game as they want. Now let's take a look from the killed point of view. They want to plant carrot, they get killed, they reborn, they become a baby, they wait until they grow, then their mother killed by some random shitstain, then they died, then they reborn, then they become eve, then they get killed by another eve. When did they got their chance to play the game?

>inb4 move to private server or empty server you pleb

This happens for like 8 times for me this morning, and trust me, wasting 50 minutes just pressing watching screen and then pressing get reborn becomes pretty depressing for me after a while. I like Steinbeck, but not this kind of depressant. I should move to private server at the time, I know, but the population sometimes not enough for my intended fun. (oho, I like this clashing "fun" between individuals)

It is how the intertwining dichotomy between meaningless and meaningful faced, each with its own benefits and encumbrances, that separates the reality and OHOL. And it's not exist in OHOL, at least for now. Ye, I remember this is just a game. But hey, what is life if not a game? Sartre and Kierkegaard elaborate this better than me, and maybe Schopenhauer too.

There should be a way for this problem to make it kinda bit balanced.
And as for now, I don't know how.

Maybe a choice to 'curse' the killer that we could choose before we press reborn? It accumulates and gives the killer a debuff/ something even after they reborn?
Maybe Jason should update the game faster so the killer could spent more time learning the new intriguing tech tree instead of mass killing? (kidding man, I love you)

And please don't bring this talk to grief topics. Sammoh's server already show various way to deal with unfixable griefing, and as long as it could be restored. It's kinda okay-ish. Because at least the one that repairing the stuff is still playing the game.

Sure, it is just a game. A fake shit that we delved and spent our time lately, just like life, imaginary.
But I think my rage is real for 3 minutes after I got killed by my fucking kid and sister and aunt and random shitstain that accuse me for killing her child, when all that I want is just to plant carrot for eternity kek.

TL;DR: The killing is fine, the nonexistent consequence for killing people is not fine. We want justice, basically, just like real life.

Zwilnik · 2018-03-31 20:10:00

There are a few 'simple' solutions that give consequence for killing.

1) If you kill someone (or more than one person in x minutes), your next spawn (and subsequent ones until you've farmed x carrots) is 100 miles away from civilisation so you have to start from scratch. That or you'll always be spawned on a remote server until you've proved you can interact with people.

2) Shooting/Stabbing people only freezes them for 30 seconds while they heal (they might starve in that time of course, but it reduces the probability of killing sprees that wipe out villages)

3) Players can click on griefers and report them for some sort of karmic response like (1) above or disconnection (this isn't as good a solution as not only does it require more technical input, but is in itself open to grief as a group of people could walk around reporting everyone they meet for instance)

4) Stop accounts being anonymous. When you're killed by someone, show their username (which of course would have to be added) so the situation can be reported. As with (3) this means some sort of dispute system needs to be in place for particularly bad players. This helps fix the "I'm anonymous so I can be a psychopath with no comeback". You'll still get griefing going on, but after a few hits of the ban hammer for the worst offenders it should be more manageable and more in line with the idea of a few bad people who can be managed with some degree of policing.

5) A slightly more Ghandi-esque approach. The peaceful players get together on Discord and arrange to switch specifically to a remote server to play en-masse. Nobody left on the default low servers for the griefers to mess with and no space on their server for anyone else to join. It potentially messes up Jason's load balancing, but that's a consequence of lack of game balancing.

TrustyWay · 2018-03-31 20:55:24

veene wrote:

Trustyway and his 11 year old buddies should be banned from these forums

I am a 11yo because I dont rage when I got 1 shoot like you ? Tell me more about it

veene · 2018-04-01 02:59:24

TrustyWay wrote:

veene wrote:
Trustyway and his 11 year old buddies should be banned from these forums
I am a 11yo because I dont rage when I got 1 shoot like you ? Tell me more about it

Nice one!

nameless · 2018-04-01 03:22:13

Thanks for your thoughtful comments.

I'll check out the custom servers. Maybe that's exactly what I need. Might not be what the game needs, though. Like Zwilnik says, it might make the original game worse (although I doubt that many people are willing to go to custom servers regardless of issue).

Ayame550, regarding the occurrence of murder, I was definitely thinking in a historical context. It's hard to prove, but here's at least one random person on the internet that has done a little research on the topic: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-most- … in-history

Also, the fact that there are other ways to grief doesn't really prove to me that we should have murder. Those are separate problems that can be handled independently (or are you saying we solve griefing by killing the griefers? In that case I don't believe that would be an effective strategy).

Maybe a slight twist on my original question would instead be to ask: If this game did not have murder, would you add it and why?

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2018-03-31 07:03:20

Why murdering?

#2 2018-03-31 08:45:28

Re: Why murdering?

#3 2018-03-31 09:10:31

Re: Why murdering?

#4 2018-03-31 09:39:58

Re: Why murdering?

#5 2018-03-31 12:21:53

Re: Why murdering?

#6 2018-03-31 18:45:56

Re: Why murdering?

#7 2018-03-31 19:21:11

Re: Why murdering?

#8 2018-03-31 19:34:43

Re: Why murdering?

#9 2018-03-31 19:47:53

Re: Why murdering?

#10 2018-03-31 20:10:00

Re: Why murdering?

#11 2018-03-31 20:55:24

Re: Why murdering?

#12 2018-04-01 02:59:24

Re: Why murdering?

#13 2018-04-01 03:22:13

Re: Why murdering?

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