Ways to make EVERY life precious

spurofthemoment · 2019-05-15 00:12:41

paulof wrote:

I - when i enter the game planning on doing something specific i can't do in a small town

This is something I've thought of before. Say you've got an hour and are like, "Damn, I really wanna go do some smithing." But you're born into a town with no forge, and it doesn't seem like there are the resources around to make one. So you /DIE. Makes sense.

Once people have played the game for awhile, obviously they're gonna know what they like and wanna do and what they never want to do again...and they can only do what they like in certain circumstances. Makes sense.

The problem is, OHOL is built around dealing with the hand you've been given. /DIE gives you the ability to reshuffle the cards, and if that wasn't available, running would be the go-to. Forcing people to deal with this hand now risks alienating them to the point of dropping the game. So...how do you give people the opportunity to play the way they want without diminishing the element of chance?

Buggy · 2019-05-15 00:13:58

I think one thing that I saw suggested before in line with the "super baby token" was bonus hunger bar when you are old your next life. Or maybe your good karma from last life helps you avoid one deadly injury from nature (bear wolf or boar attack). What about yellow fever immunity your next life haha

Spoonwood · 2019-05-15 00:32:50

Jason, look, you can't logically separate people caring about being an OHOL baby on bs2 from caring about their OHOL lives in general on bs2. They ARE connected. All bs2 lives end up cheap and running away to suicide is always an option. I know I've instantly quit during my fertile period as a woman and other times just given up on a place because of the problems in the town. You can claim otherwise, but people who play the game place their own individual value on their lives, and you do NOT control that. You can say that living to 30 isn't cheap, but someone else can value that time differently and think it cheap. Sometimes it is, especially if you're not trying to do much. Like I remember one life I just ran around trying to figure out a way to dig up a sandpit. I did squat for the town as I recall. I told someone 'I usually don't play like this' and the person I think nodded as much as OHOL nods can get said to exist. Cheapest life on a main server that I ever lived and even as I got older it was still just as cheap. Whether a life is cheap or not depends on how someone else values their OHOL life, not on how you value it.

Here's one idea:

Have a button that enables you to live again in the same spot for the next life if you lived to at least 40 in the previous life, and you live to 60 in the present life. Or just the latter.

No life while Eve chaining is cheap. Lives are only cheap for throw away places and when you won't see that place again, like on bs2.

Jaona has an interesting idea.

Luniatji has an interesting idea also.

jasonrohrer wrote:

Very few people commit suicide at age... 39.... in the game.

I know I've died intentionally in my 20s or 30s before. Life is STILL cheap at that point in time on bs2.

jasonrohrer wrote:

So if something happens to you at age 39, right in the middle of your life's project, you feel it very acutely, and beg for someone to heal you, etc. That's great.

No, I do NOT feel that way. That place dies out in a few hours anyways or will soon enough. I do NOT feel it very acutely. Please realize that people feel different than you expect they do. I once complained about being murdered, but I complained because it pointed to a larger problem that has existed for a while with bs2 players (specifically useless wood flooring). Do you think I actually cared about that life? It was pretty cheap, the place would be dead for a few hours, and no one would come back unless someone might find it again by happenstance or with serious effort like some people have put in.

jasonroher wrote:

I wish you felt a baby death that acutely too, somehow. How do people invest in being a baby?

So anytime I've gotten born into my town Eve chaining I've been invested in being a baby, because it's my town, not some throw away sandcastle that will get washed away by nature later. So, here's an idea:

Make it so that people can come back to a town after their death if they live to adulthood. If they die as a baby or toddle, then it's just like /die and they have a lineage ban on being born into family. They'll only have a stake in it if there's the promise of something more than a throwaway place that they can't come back to. If they can contribute to a place that they can see again, then people would care more about being an OHOL baby.

Last edited by Spoonwood (2019-05-15 00:38:31)

Joseph Stalin · 2019-05-15 00:37:21

I like twisted's solution but I didn't read farther so maybe theres a better one idk

Spoonwood · 2019-05-15 00:40:50

JasonRohrer wrote:

And yeah, Tarr, you must be right about me being dumb.

Jason, where did Tarr call you dumb in this thread? I've read his comment twice now and I don't know what you're talking about.

Tarr · 2019-05-15 00:42:57

Spoonwood wrote:

JasonRohrer wrote:
And yeah, Tarr, you must be right about me being dumb.
Jason, where did Tarr call you dumb in this thread? I've read his comment twice now and I don't know what you're talking about.

The first line of it. LOL. I implied he should feel dumb for suggesting lives when you are so easy to clear out 10+ people within minutes.

lychee · 2019-05-15 00:45:50

Is it just me or is this problem a lot more complicated than it should be?

My suggestion:

1. Living to old age produces the preferences menu as a reward (although no guarantees on anything)
2. It’s impossible to play eve or in a previous lineage if you did not live to age 60 in the last life
3. You can /die or run away as a baby as much as you want but you’ll never end back in an old town or get eve. You’ll just cycle through towns you haven’t played much in.

Last edited by lychee (2019-05-15 00:48:49)

RodneyC86 · 2019-05-15 01:05:28

I think dying multiple times, no matter how seemingly valuable a life is to an outside observer, will desensitize a player regarding death. Veterans on this board probably have died a few thousand times, a good portion of then probably quite exciting. But even then....it becomes meh

pein · 2019-05-15 01:10:12

you made an unpopular choice when introduced lineage ban
then area ban is a bit better, people could move
but then you limited in gamplay hours

people don't move, don't change, they want to continue making that city better
they care about something and try to go back to help

the minority wanted different lives, they could have just quit/die and get somewhere else
the majority has to do it cause the town or the people arent good enough.
we go back to nicely made cities
i remember the life when i was an eve, found a kiln and fire tools in a decent spot, some food, saved me like 20 min of work
my kids werent pro, actually the most pro son died to mosquito
but we made it, we worked together, we made 2 tiny berry farms 3x3, and boards around it
39 gen later i born back, and the city had 10x the 3x3 farms and looked nice, i was proud, even if the city looks bad, i stay cause i been there
but i don't like to drop into something that others made and i got nothing to do with it
1-2 hours away, it changes a lot
especially if i play one life a day or two
just makes no sense to be forced to a new city and do the same thing

i make a lot of prep work, anyone joining my city can be happy with the condition i left it
others leave me a bad city with bad buildings, fences, role players, i don't need to play 15 or 20 min to realize it wont work
i zoom in the game, and tell you exactly what is missing, where people left off, what i should do in that life
i don't want to get iron every single life just to die and born into a city with no iron
i was so bored when you did the tutorials, i just digged up bushes and made board roads until it became meta

sometimes it feels like that the veterans are slaves to new players
not newbees, the oens who know how to do stuff, but they don't want to cause it's easier to leach on others

generally in games there is some sort of xp system, attributes, something that drives people forward
make something that links together the lifes, each day we fight for one team, one race
next day reset, even if we separated, we are connected somehow

how to make lives more precious? give more value to players time
static jobs
more emphasis to processing things
gathering is hard for new players
don't make a slave out veterans
right now safe jobs: cooking eggs, cutting boards, making stew
these can be made by new players, and they enjoy it
berry farming and composting gets boring after a while
make people feel useful and able to contribute, i don't suicide a lot but when i see a complete city with no resources i don't see it as fun
make tech fun, advancing in tech better

revive some dead content, maybe cows can make steaks? more use to pigs? to make actual choices based on the map, not generic build order
some non lethal combat system

i don't see why new players should get other treatment as older ones, more like reverse
people suicide cause they knwo what gonna happen, zoom on map and see what jobs they will do or what to fix, and sometimes they arent in a mod to fix it
why force people to be Eve if they don't want to?
Why don't let people Eve if they want to?

the information provided is also bad
make each life an event, Hetuw mod just made a death and birth notification
People see that someone is born or died
Both hetuw and awbz tracks femeales
do you think it's fun to see a town slowly die cause no females?
sometimes people don't realize that no females and they just feel bad, 20 mi nlater they give up
or they give up based on false information
if you got a family you need a way to see how many of you are left
just because people don't know they can skip a life which is starting bad, they will feel it's bad

if people want to go back to somewhere, limit it but let it
if they want different family/town they should die/suicide

why should i stay when people are lazy, verbally abuse me or why is my fault if someone acting as a jerk? like giving bad name, hates you for your gender or acts superior? sometimes i quit on lives cause i don't want to go trough the trouble when i kill them for it, especially that people curse for any reason even if you are right

we just had a change on area ban limit, we can go 100 tiles and make new camp, wait it out how it goes
limit the number of eves and put people on a bit of waiting if they suicide a lot, that's fair
what would be the point if staying to age 3 just to starve yourself?

choosing to Eve or generation groups would help
previewing a camp would help

BladeWoods · 2019-05-15 02:26:54

To make life precious there's gotta be either reward or punishment.

Punishment is a hard route, limiting lives limits the ability for people to play the game, something you really don't want to do. But maybe there could be reward to living long.

Maybe you could earn 'blessings' by living to 60. These blessings could be spent in future lives to do all kinds of things like instantly grow food, make a pond full again, heal an injury, kill a target, etc. Lots of possibilities. Whatever it is that you're blessing, your character kneels down infront of and does a little prayer, then light from the heavens falls upon it.

BladeWoods · 2019-05-15 03:31:56

Another idea, how about a statistics page?

You can see how many lives you've had. Your average age of death. Number of times lived to 60. Things like that.
Having a record that you can build and show off like a trophy, could encourage valueing your lives.

DaTrüf! · 2019-05-15 03:40:08

Idea: Set a timer between each life.
like if you die, and want to be reborn, you have to wait a bit

GreatShawn · 2019-05-15 03:41:32

People stay in a town mainly becasue the town fits them well and that they can use their hour productively and entertaining at wherever they are. So it basically comes down to how good the town is. If the town is good and a baby suicided the suicider might feel like they missed a great opportunity in a will-be great life and they had so much future. I fell like maybe some changes can be made off of this phenominon?

InSpace · 2019-05-15 04:39:55

Tarr wrote:

Jason the idea of limiting lives per hour is dumb and you should feel dumb for even suggesting it.

No tarr you are dumb, stop it with personal attacks ya goof

Psykout · 2019-05-15 05:03:49

jasonrohrer wrote:

I didn't ask about how to make people care about projects in the game, or about their lives in general.
I said that baby lives are cheap, currently. Adult lives are not cheap, because it takes investment to get there. Very few people commit suicide at age... 39.... in the game.
I wish you felt a baby death that acutely too, somehow. How do people invest in being a baby? How do they earn it? How do they have a stake in it? Right now, it's as cheap as pressing a button, and it serves as a re-roll mechanic each time.

They still feel connected. If I don't care at a certain level of about the life in general, why suddenly care about the starting point? Since it is a game with its limits that have to work for a large group of players, if I die as a kid and I actually cared about being where I was, I can get back. It's really hard to have a system that doesn't trap players in lives they don't want to be a part of, that also can't be manipulated to serve the player. It cheapens the death/life of that child for sure, but it's also rare that when I spawn in and I see a town and my first feeling is "Oh My God! I really really want to play here!" Thats the trickle down effect of the sandcastle theory I posted above, which gives two angles of approach. On the baby side of things, the only thing I can think of is, that when you are born, until you come of age (12-14) the ban is in place. Forgetting to feed a baby in time, or having a loose bear take yours out, would carry more weight. Maybe you really needed that baby, you wanted it. Because you/they couldn't keep them alive till a teenager, even if they wanted to, they are not coming back. Keep failing at keeping babies well and you are directly threatening your towns existence because too many players will be blocked from the list.

Jason wrote:

Stopping people from playing is probably a bad idea.... but maybe there could be some bonus for playing the life you're handed. Like... a "super baby" token that you get once per hour, or something...

And yeah, Tarr, you must be right about me being dumb.

Absolutely a terrible idea if players cant choose if they want permadeath mode on or off basically. As to the token, the super baby, I am all for tokens, but I want to see them earned from other players. Part of the reason /bless has come up so many times in the past 6 months or so, is because people want ways to express gratitude. There is an overwhelming amount of negative ways to effect a player, but very few positive ones. At least ones that are built into the game, hard work, gifts roleplaying and just straight complementing someone is there, but there is no tool that YOU have given us to share positivity.

ryanb · 2019-05-15 06:02:03

How about using exclusive items as a reward for playing a certain way? Once per hour you have a chance to unlock a special item by living a full life. If you die then you would just try again on the next hour, but you can continue to play normally.

You could even make timed exclusive items such as “this hat is only available to unlock this weekend.” Seasonal/holiday items would be great for this.

This would not punish beginners who are just learning the game, but would be a great motivator for experienced players to live a full life each play through.

If you provide a way to list a player’s unlocked items I could integrate it with onetech so they can see all of their exclusives and how to craft them.

Last edited by ryanb (2019-05-15 06:05:18)

ClownBaby · 2019-05-15 06:53:36

I don't think restrictive ideas are the way in this case.

How about implementing something like leaderboards for average lineage depth and average lifespan. /die effectively removes you from the competition (maybe your worst 10% of lives don't count to offset griefing or gives you an occasional out).

Also some cosmetic bonuses would be cool. You could give freckles or a birthmark to the best players to distinguish them. Maybe also make a milestone for the ability to craft unique items after a certain amount of grinding (Miner's hat for mining/collecting ore, Blacksmith's apron for doing forge tasks, mayor's sash for doing a little bit of everything). If people are actively working towards a milestone they are less likely to suicide I would imagine.

Toxic · 2019-05-15 07:13:04

Idk why people think limiting life’s is dumb.
If your baby knew they had only 2 tokens and they could only /die once they would never do it. Because if they do it again they run out of tokens and no more games! Tokens should regenerate pretty fast tho.

saxo · 2019-05-15 07:20:49

I'm in favor of the more radical approach: after an initial cooldown for new players, it's one hour, one life. It fits conceptually (it is what it says on the box). I don't think this is necessarily commercial suicide -- if players have more enjoyable experiences they are more likely to tell their friends, and there is marketing value in the one hour one life idea. For me (and I might be in the minority here), it would give the game more of a rogue-like feeling.

Psykout · 2019-05-15 08:34:29

saxo wrote:

I'm in favor of the more radical approach: after an initial cooldown for new players, it's one hour, one life. It fits conceptually (it is what it says on the box). I don't think this is necessarily commercial suicide -- if players have more enjoyable experiences they are more likely to tell their friends, and there is marketing value in the one hour one life idea. For me (and I might be in the minority here), it would give the game more of a rogue-like feeling.

It would destroy the game. Griefing would get even worse, it would be more satisfying to end towns and players lives because you have also interfered with them outside of the game. It would punish less skilled players that have put in time, but still are learning, also slowing down their progress to boot by limiting their playtime. Villages would die in droves due to lack of players, not because they don't want to play, but because they can't. That's not rogue-like, its hardcore permadeath, rogue-likes just make you start anew every time you play/die, which umm already happens. How would you even go about recommending something like that anyways. "Hey I found this game, that you need to rely on other people to survive and grow. It can be crazy easy to all die if everyone isn't working together well, and sometimes the bad eggs run around killing people for fun. Oh yeah also when you die, you can't play for awhile, sometimes over 45 minutes!" Jesus. Oh man, really want to get a life in before work this afternoon... Oh never mind I spawned to a mother holding a knife next to a nosaj and now I am dead, guess I will just uninstall this game that I can't control whether I get to play it or not. The things you guys think of... Please think more

Baker · 2019-05-15 08:48:32

jasonrohrer wrote:

Another idea is in-game purchase of extra lives.

This is already a thing in the form of alt accounts, Most experienced players I know have alts for living multiple times in towns. For me there isn't much joy in doing things that only my kids benefit from, aka randoms that beg for food and clothes. Let's be honest, In-Game babies don't love you and you don't love them in reality.

I think old age chaining is the way to go, If you live to 60 you get reborn to that lineage straight away, Until you quit or die of anything else. You start with an Eve camp/Village and you play throughout the generations going up the tech tree and doing long-term projects, Other people do the same and you become closer as you keep living together. Other people see a place that is actually decent and want to stay.

People used to care much more pre lineage ban and decay updates.

Last edited by Baker (2019-05-15 09:05:48)

Dodge · 2019-05-15 09:59:24

DaTrüf! wrote:

Idea: Set a timer between each life.
like if you die, and want to be reborn, you have to wait a bit

Aka the original idea of the game "One Hour One Life".

Amon · 2019-05-15 12:12:06

Huh, actually that would be good.

50+ deaths rewarding you with a point.
But each time you die under say 10 years you loose one. Die just makes you loose it easier. (EXCEPT if you get stabbed)
anything between 10-40-50 should do nothing.
Maybe the token CAN GO into the negatives, but decays 1 token per 6/12/24 hours.

Like that one time when I was trying to get children and one tried to run away and I scolded them to use /die instead, she made the sad face, but idk what happned she probably didn't know how to use die but after a few years she got super invested in that life regardless. So people suiciding after 10 years probably wouldn't be too much of an issue maybe.

The token should give you some well sought benefit, but nothing TOO crucial, like being returned to a previously lived lineage (people REALLY want this, they would love this), being able to choose from the most eligable elative, starting with your closes former relatives.

People wanting to be reborn in the same village is a big carrot on a stick, you should definitely use it to encourage certain behaviours.

Last edited by Amon (2019-05-15 12:19:23)

Twisted · 2019-05-15 12:26:09

I have an off-the-wall idea. How about this:

Keep track of various statistics and show them on the main menu and on the end of life screen. Make a leaderboard, and every time you die/look at the main menu you see where you stand. Things that encourage playing the game without suicides, and things that give players something to brag about. Some won't care about that, but many will, and for a lot of people it will have a slight psychological effect making them suicide less.

Some stat ideas:

Average life length in the last 30 days (minimum 5 lives to qualify).
Longest old age death streak.
Average grandkids in the last 30 days.

Spoonwood · 2019-05-15 13:01:41

Pein has good points like usual. There's one I'd like to emphasize:

pein wrote:

just makes no sense to be forced to a new city and do the same thing

Jason, this is quite true and maybe you don't realize this. But, with bigserver2 OHOL you can kind of get into doing the same thing over and over again once you roughly identify the stage of the camp you're in. At least for players who feel comfortable doing multiple things in a village and generally try to take on tasks that they feel really come as needed. It's an Eve camp? Well, town needs clay and to process steel tools. So, get iron and branches, and all that. Even if you're not going to make a pen yourself, dig up the tule stumps since it's not quite so often that people know about digging up tule stumps for adobe. Or make a sugar cane pen like Pein has. All of that assumes the player feels comfortable farming, but I think Tarr has correctly pointed out that Eve camps get repetitive after a while.

Personally, I haven't felt Eve camps so repetitive, but it's more like the stage between an Eve camp and doing an oil rig that feels more tedious in the way that repetition becomes boring. Like I get into these towns where I know they'll need a good water system to keep on going for a while. But, there's not enough iron to set up an oil rig, let along get a *functioning* diesel water pump. And there's not enough ropey tools like buckets and horsecarts either. That's not saying that the previous generation was bad players, as there's plenty to do, and I don't know how things went earlier. But, things can fall into predictable patterns that end up feeling like the same old grind getting born to different towns in bs2 OHOL, because there just so many that can use more iron and ropey tools as soon as possible. Oh, and rubber too, but you need the rope for buckets for that also, and a town will need iron for replacement tools also.

With the ability to come back to the same spot, such a grind won't happen or it won't be the same grind. Like if you got iron and branches and rope one life to try to get to the point where an oil rig can get built, then come back 30-60 minutes later, even if the town still needs more iron, it will be for a different project, or you'll realize that you didn't get enough iron. Or the rope has gotten processed into a bucket now and there's two sealed crude pistons around or something.

That's the the thing Jason, NOT being able to play in the same town actually leads to the feeling of "oh, I've done this before", while playing in the same spot does NOT lead to a feeling of doing the same twice, because towns change and progress over time.

If people could live in the town multiple towns, such a feeling of a repetitious grind aren't so likely. Even after a diesel water pump, there's storing water in cisterns, organzing the town better, perhaps more advanced foods, radios, cars, and/or planes.

Last edited by Spoonwood (2019-05-15 13:10:07)

One Hour One Life Forums

#26 2019-05-15 00:12:41

Re: Ways to make EVERY life precious

#27 2019-05-15 00:13:58

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#43 2019-05-15 07:13:04

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