Ideas for resource contention

Booklat1 · 2019-04-23 19:35:25

jasonrohrer wrote:

Also, people in real life trade INSIDE the same region, based on voluntary specialization. My friend grew strawberries down the road from me, and I programmed computers. If he had a problem with the electronic components on his farm, I might help him in exchange for strawberries. Also, I definitely engaged in "share picking" of his strawberries, where I'd pick 20 pounds and get to keep 5 for free, trading my labor for fruit. None of these things had anything to do with regional differences, or "bananas traded for apples."

yes, in the middle of the US of fucking A, a late capitalist society

that business model is hardly viable in a less developed economy

Last edited by Booklat1 (2019-04-23 19:35:40)

happynova · 2019-04-23 20:42:22

jasonrohrer wrote:

So, while regional differences might help a bit, I don't think they get to the heart of why people trade.

Maybe not, but neither does anything else currently in the game. That would at least come closer. And I think you're smart enough to come up with some good solutions for that that wouldn't require a separate tech tree for each biome, if you really wanted to do it. Even just a few cool things that spawn widely separated would be potentially interesting.

jasonrohrer wrote:

When my sister had the ONLY milkweed seeds around, I had to trade with her, or at least negotiate with her. I had no choice. If she had said, "Sure, I'll give you some seeds, but bring me two buckets of water first," I would have done it.
So, I think scarcity and exclusivity (property rights) are sufficient to motivate trade and conflict over resources.

Completely unnecessary, counter-productive, community-threatening conflicts of the kind that three weeks ago we would have decried as griefing, yes. Sigh. Well, maybe this'll be the game to play when I actually feel like being depressed about human nature and our ability to work against our own self-interests if it means we can feel like we have power over somebody else for ten seconds... That might be interesting to sample once in a while, right?

Amon · 2019-04-23 21:46:35

jasonrohrer wrote:

But historically, where did last names come from, before the solidified to track male lineages? A lot of them seem to be occupational. So it does seem that individual men picked or were assigned last names at some point, and then those names were passed down after that to track male lineages. It kinda boggles the mind. There are so many last names in the world (millions), and each one currently has a unique Y chromosome associated with it, essentially, which means that at some point long ago, there were millions of unique men starting lines, but where did they all come from, and how did they become unique?

Surnames are quite powerfull identifiers indeed, in an oldschool village, if you are young, you aren't even called by your name but by your surname.
(In my culture, houses are in fact named; they bear the surname of the original owner/builder no matter the name of the current owner.)

Plenty of names are professional, yes, but it's not so the case that they are professional but rather are observable identifiers. (Villages are also identified by their most common trait! Basically humans are very unoriginal when it comes to naming)

It could be: Tom the smith; Tom, Carl's son; Tom, the crookednose; Tom from Sweden/the Swede; Tom the Berliner; Tom the foreigner... What they all have in common is that they are some kind of characteristic identifiers. Different palces have different identifiers. Vikings exclusively held surnames after their fathers's name (sometimes after another more famous relative's name), I think something similair was among arabic populations, but take this with a grain of salt.
Not only that, with vikings they could also be identified correctly or ironically after a trait of theirs. In Finland a common array of surnames is 'from X location' surnames.
Surnames were likely originally given by the others, not by the ingroup. I kid you not, the surname Nowak in the surname list is essentially 'the new guy' surname hehe.

In ohol parents sometimes, but often enough to be observable name their kids after the profession they do or want their children to do. Heh...

Last edited by Amon (2019-04-23 21:47:57)

Stylingirl · 2019-04-23 22:00:01

In order for trade to happen, I believe biomes need to be much much larger. They also need to be viable for the most part (except for extreme biomes like tundra and desert obv) meaning they have their own lumber, stone, water, animals, and food sources. Maybe have more complicated recipes that rely on resources from two or more biomes. Also recipes that only can be created with resources from that biome, ie specific clothes, food, weapons that would create a sense of culture and identity that separates them from other villages. Any sort of creation of art, music, etc that can also be diversified would solidify the culture.

Paper also needs to be heavily reworked. There is no way any written history or law to currently survive in-game due to paper constantly being overwritten and only containing a sentence at maximum. You could make envelopes that hide the contents of letters to encourage sending messages. Maps would also help document locations, given that players can mark waypoints, copy them, add borders, names, locations onto them, etc to encourage travel, outposts, and resource collections.

There needs to be reasons for a leader to exist besides holding onto land and/or goods. If you are getting along with your family, why do you need to organize a government? There's no real need to plan out your village buildings or farms if you just naturally spread out, and even if there was a village nearby, you'd just make a road to them and people will occasionally visit. War and resource shortages does indeed encourage banding together and the need for a leader, but if the only enemy is a lone murderer, that means the family joins together against that one enemy, not another family. So I would suggest not only diversifying items to be biome exclusive, but to also capitalize on your random chance mechanic.

Remember when I suggested piling all the minerals into one mineshaft and having a chance to dig them up? That would be an excellent way to have more gold or iron or dyes spawn in specific biomes. That could be applied to other things like crops and animals that have different breeds, ie more meat, faster horses, more corn per stalk, bigger squashes, faster tree growth.

You want drama to happen? Stop looking at players to invent it! Nothing would ramp up paranoia, encourage stealing or fighting, or force players to flee more than the plague and famine. You could use random chance to give crops a chance at failing or give less crops, that way famine could randomly occur if a town is unlucky enough, causing panic or encourage them to fight over food or steal/pillage the next town over. Plague or illness could randomly inflict someone from a variety of different scenarios besides being bitten by mosquitoes and could have random symptoms that may or may not alert the player that they are infected before it's too late. This could benefit players that have property fences as to quarantine the sick or lock them away. Proximity plague could also happen, your immune system is so used to your village, but is it as resilient to the illness affecting the village you're currently visiting? Or are the villagers as resilient to the plague you're carrying, but don't know you have?

I honestly have no idea how this one will turn out, but currency. You can only churn out so many sweaters to trade for bread before the next village over decides they no longer need anymore sweaters and you're stuck starving with a dozen sweaters. Giving players one, if not multiple ways to create coins and paper bills and letting them decide their worth would help trading. Although I would also encourage not using gold in the process of creating money, you would have to leave it up to players whether or not to adopt the gold standard and how much money is needed to print. Printing and minting should be somewhat difficult but players should also be able to destroy money (a money sink) to combat hyperinflation if needed. Depending on how players adjust to the system, I would also suggest creating new minerals or gems that is next to useless but still somewhat rare so players have something other than gold to equate currency to. For example, trading in rubies or emeralds for money instead of gold since gold is used in crafting and players would not have a lot of it. This could help ease the system and give players reasons to hoard gems and gold in banks and homes and use currency in day to day trading while also having a common anchor to exchange currency with (3 gray coins is worth 1 gold and 6 brown coins is worth 1 gold, so 3 gray coins = 6 brown coins).

There are so many ways to change the game and I appreciate that you are headed in the right direction, but I highly suggest looking at improving/diversifying the materials and random chances you are giving players to work with in order to encourage their use in new ways instead of trying to essentially hand us knives, push our faces together, and get confused when we don't fight.

Grim_Arbiter · 2019-04-23 22:10:40

jasonrohrer wrote:

But historically, where did last names come from, before the solidified to track male lineages? A lot of them seem to be occupational. So it does seem that individual men picked or were assigned last names at some point, and then those names were passed down after that to track male lineages. It kinda boggles the mind. There are so many last names in the world (millions), and each one currently has a unique Y chromosome associated with it, essentially, which means that at some point long ago, there were millions of unique men starting lines, but where did they all come from, and how did they become unique?

Yeah basically last names were usually job titles carried over to name.

Smith, Miller, Baker, Taylor(tailor) all work names.

My friend is an english guy with the last name baker, and when you look at his family you can totally imagine his family being bakers by profession in 17th through 19th century london. They're genetics are crazy and they all have rather fat faces no matter how skinny they actually are.

My last name in German translates to roughly "fly fishing" so somewhere along my families history they probably were a little fishing community. And all this is before they even sailed to America in the 17th century.

I had an idea for families that I was going to make a post about but ill break it down here.

Have family specialties.

I am eve grim. I choose to smith. Now every tool my family makes has a less chance to break because I passed my smithing expertise to them. It could also be like.. I am eve grim, I choose to bake. Now any cooked food gives a bonus (maybe a doubble yum?).

MiniblueWarrior · 2019-05-18 23:38:20

Honestly, i think the problem is that you want people to both 1. always have a brand new life in a brand new place, spend some time as a baby there, learn the places resource locations and needs, figure out a way to contribute and then die and do it again, and 2. to care about that place. While i agree it is interesting story wise, it makes it really hard for most people to have a sense of accomplishment and plan for the longterm when they know they wont get to keep watching that places growth and participate in its struggle. People naturally like to progress, not constantly be forced to start over in a brand new place and rush to relearn where everything is before they die.

That being said, i dont mean to be discouraging, this game has so much depth and genuine character, which makes it so special. I merely think the constant starting over in new locations really hinders the progress of the towns and the players as they never really have a place to call home and become attached to.

Draicclan · 2019-05-19 00:33:15

I think leadership is a long time coming and needs a push to truly happen. Here is my idea https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=6554 but I'm sure the community could come up with some even better ways to implement leadership. Imagine what a village could do under some sort of official direction!

This also leaves room for more roleplay-like elements without hindering the tech-obsessed vets. Politics could even become a thing in megacities with people trying to gain votes of some kind. Wars could be fought, involving everyone, because of the direction a leader could potentially provide. Most importantly, cooperation might become typical among towns.

futurebird · 2019-05-19 00:39:56

I don't want leadership that's imposed by a game mechanic. I have been in leadership positions in-game and it's because I was clearly the person who know the most about how things worked. In other cases I'v cheerfully done tasks to help others because they were doing something I could see was important and didn't fully understand myself.

Léonard · 2019-05-19 01:15:37

futurebird wrote:

I don't want leadership that's imposed by a game mechanic.

Agreed.

Please do not make leadership suffer the exact same fate as """"war""""...

Spoonwood · 2019-05-19 01:18:53

MiniblueWarrior wrote:

Honestly, i think the problem is that you want people to both 1. always have a brand new life in a brand new place, spend some time as a baby there, learn the places resource locations and needs, figure out a way to contribute and then die and do it again, and 2. to care about that place. While i agree it is interesting story wise, it makes it really hard for most people to have a sense of accomplishment and plan for the longterm when they know they wont get to keep watching that places growth and participate in its struggle. People naturally like to progress, not constantly be forced to start over in a brand new place and rush to relearn where everything is before they die.
That being said, i dont mean to be discouraging, this game has so much depth and genuine character, which makes it so special. I merely think the constant starting over in new locations really hinders the progress of the towns and the players as they never really have a place to call home and become attached to.

This is very true. But, I do NOT think Jason has enough of an open mind to see this.

TheNoddude · 2019-05-19 07:06:06

I agree with the whole big biome, specialization towns = trade routes idea. I understand that it might be tough to diversify every necessary resource in every biome, but apart from some changes, you don't need to diversify resources in every biome. You can use your chance mechanism here, things like milkweed, carrots, wheat etc have a chance to pop up in most biomes, with different spawn rates/biome.

As for the workload, maybe you can outsource some of the tasks, like creating assets, textures for items to people in the community? I've already seen some cool skins for pies. A contest maybe? For a cash price? Just throwing out ideas.

On the subject of player market/economy, To be honest Jason I have a hard time seeing how private property will start any kind of meaningful or lasting trade between players. I understand that you seem to like the idea, but currently it does not work in a game sense. A typical scenario, eve town grows enough to have general farms, water production, smith and bakery. All these are considered public property and is worked by everyone for the survival of the town. However, one person decides, to use your example, to put up a fence plot and start farming milkweed. A random guy needs milkweed, wants to "buy" some, how does he do that? What does he "pay". Does he pay with something already available in town? Then why the need for the exchange in the first place? Milkweed farmer can just leave the fence and get it themselves. Randon guy can just plant some milkweed in town farm as well. As it stands now, economy on a micro level does not work, it's just a bother, waste of space and resources. Multiple properties inside the same town only serve to stagnate lineage and town development. What I have learned from games like Civcraft is that you absolutely have to use currency if you want people to work for self-interest with a byproduct of contributing to society. So unless you plan on introducing currency I would imagine the correct path to be economy on a macro scale.

I already see some key building blocks in place to make this happen. Language barrier/learning was a great incentive for people to mingle in some areas. We already see this now, the community have shown, even though the spike in violence because of swords/ clan antagonisms, people still work hard to unite and work together, in order for their children to coexist in a more united future (they learn speech, is able to understand and work together better in later generations). Touches like this give people hope and make them care. Just Imagine if this worked like a trade hub where multiple towns were connected, where commodities could flow from one town to another. In the real world, the Viking town birka formed in a similar way. Another thing I noticed is how the property fence is being reappropriated to serve as town walls. I see this as a sign of people seeing the only real value it has for towns atm. It gives towns a little control and protection against invaders, with an added bonus to keep bears out. I don't think this is a bad thing, might be the start of something more interesting.

As I said in the beginning, Big biomes, specialist towns, should be the way to go, even if it's long term, especially if we are going with a finite map. A resource superstructure is needed to create this kind of meta. I have some ideas on how to push for this development.

- Quality
There is a low chance of everything spawning everywhere, but some things have a "home biome". Wheat farmed on yellow tiles produce 50% bonus value threshed wheat of but farmed on other biomes produces way less. Same for other things, Carrots rows gives you fewer carrots in the jungle, fewer berries in the desert, Iron deposits in grasslands yields 6-7 iron instead of 30 in mountains. Every biome would get a surplus of some items but will have a shortage of others. All towns have some items they take for granted and others that are always needed.

-Trade mechanics and means of transport
I could see clay crocks and baskets filled with commodities serve as the basic framework for trade between towns. If I can fill crocks with 10 bowls of wheat and throw in a cart/horsecart, I can run on the stone road to the other town and trade one crock wheat for one basket of iron ores in the mining/mountain town. A "store" mechanic would be helpful, maybe letting customers be able the browse my cart, if they want crock wheat, they have to place a basket of iron ore on cart/horsecart, and trade happens automatically.

-More Multipurpose
With biome towns, it would be hard for everyone to use the same mechanics to get compost, fur, fruits. Even now with the springwater update, it's still really hard to establish a town in a mountain biome for example. It's just easier to find a spring near clay and grasslands. That's why 99% of towns are in the same type of areas. People need more alternatives to get basic town setup going before going for higher tech. I think this a great opportunity to give some items additions uses. Compost in the jungle? Crock with 10 banana peels + 1 worm = 5 baskets of soil. Dead lambs/milkweed seeds, carrot seeds + bowl of soil in a dug hole gives a pile of soil. Carrot + Berry gives you by-products like mutton and wool so it's still superior. I think crocks are underused as an item and should be able to store bigger quantities of foods, banana peels, dung, flour, wheat, soil etc, as an easy means of transport but also for town organization. Let us turn papers into books, let us use paper and pine as juniper tinder. Let us get fur from bison and boar with same properties as rabbit fur. Sheepskin and goat fur could be turned into coat like seal skin. Use the same skin with different colors for minimal effort. Let us stack more things and eat tomatoes, chilies and onions. Big biomes or not, we need more quality of life updates as messy towns mean doom more often than you think.

Look, I'm well aware that I'm coming off as arrogant, all this would that would require a lot of work. To be clear I'm not expecting anything here. I'm just throwing out these ideas as examples of things that might actually create a player economy instead of hoping that current mechanics will do the job. I'm not even being that critical, I thought the language, spring and even sword updates were necessary. But we got plenty of ways to grief and kill each other as it is, I think people are craving for a bigger picture here. Let us organize, build infrastructure, create unique towns in different biomes. I'm looking forward to seeing how this game evolves, I'm sure you will figure it out, but I can't shake the feeling that you are moving away from big picture civ endgame and moving closer to family drama gameplay. Trust me, we will get those kinds of stories no matter what, but I for one need to feel like I'm contributing to the world in a more interesting way than surviving wave after wave of greffiers with swords and knives I'm while trying to make compost.

Last edited by TheNoddude (2019-05-19 07:08:35)

Sukallinen · 2019-05-19 08:53:44

Add ability to add second horse/remove it to a cart. This way I can (as a male) ask someone - (with paper) to come, I have well, soil, some berries and 3 sis stew for new settlement. Is this not how the west usa was done ?

It gives easily chance to story split, many do not like to abandon kids and by that age you are too old to have any. Stealing second horse from town is good way to get a curse.

Sukallinen · 2019-05-19 08:57:13

For trade I repeat my earlier suggestion, everything stays as it is now except:
-every 10th spring has nearby desert tile with resource that can be extracted like oil
-two of these resources are created

Two of the resources are needed for some not-essential item, say, clock. Thus -> TRADE. And persistent city, it WILL need more iron and such from far away. Only thing is how to tell its location to willing trade partners.

WalrusesConquer · 2019-05-19 12:51:52

This thread is a month old.

Dodge · 2019-05-19 13:23:40

A finite map would be the best.

But we still need to be able to "win" somehow if we manage ressource well instead of wasting them.

So being able to sustain long term but with the ability to fail in case we run out of ressources.

Right now iron is finite so any finite map will eventually collapse.

But imo even a map that would collapse after one month for example is 10x better than an infinite map where everything done keeps getting lost in infinity.

futurebird · 2019-05-19 13:35:19

I think a finite map could be interesting, right now we’d run out of iron but if there were another tier of iron mine it could make sense. Just let it run for a long time and things I’ve dreamed of, like wild onions becoming valuable, (they are finite) might even happen. I agree with Jason that you don’t need uneven distribution of resources to have trade. Specialization and surplus is more important. Both of these are possible now if we could just keep towns from dieing our to population crashes. As much as the murders upset me they aren’t what’s killing the towns. So let’s go with:

- finite map
- new tier of iron mining (or tool repair)
- fixed number of Eves (based on server population)
- area ban relaxed to make fixed Eves work.

With Eves spawning close having as many Eves as players demand is bad. It’s created an incentive to become and Eve just to grief. And the bad reputation of griefer Eves is making peaceful Eves unwelcome. And it’s making the game depressing.

Last edited by futurebird (2019-05-19 13:36:28)

Greep · 2019-05-19 18:58:29

WalrusesConquer wrote:

This thread is a month old.

Amon · 2019-05-19 19:14:59

A finite map would be cool, lets go back to that island idea hehe.

One Hour One Life Forums

#51 2019-04-23 19:35:25

Re: Ideas for resource contention

#52 2019-04-23 20:42:22

Re: Ideas for resource contention

#53 2019-04-23 21:46:35

Re: Ideas for resource contention

#54 2019-04-23 22:00:01

Re: Ideas for resource contention

#55 2019-04-23 22:10:40

Re: Ideas for resource contention

#56 2019-05-18 23:38:20

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#57 2019-05-19 00:33:15

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#58 2019-05-19 00:39:56

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#59 2019-05-19 01:15:37

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#60 2019-05-19 01:18:53

Re: Ideas for resource contention

#61 2019-05-19 07:06:06

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#62 2019-05-19 08:53:44

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#63 2019-05-19 08:57:13

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#64 2019-05-19 12:51:52

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#65 2019-05-19 13:23:40

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#66 2019-05-19 13:35:19

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#67 2019-05-19 18:58:29

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#68 2019-05-19 19:14:59

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