What I actually, generally need when you give me feedback about OHOL

jasonrohrer · 2019-05-30 01:04:08

So many people give me feedback about problems in OHOL in the forms of deeply-thought-out fixes. Unless I'm explicitly requesting this kind of input, it's not that useful to me.

Why? Several reasons.

1. You don't know the engine like I do, because you didn't build it, so you don't know what's trivial and non-trivial in that engine. I automatically know whether some proposed change is going to take an hour of work or a week of work, and I'm in a good position to judge whether that amount of work is worth it or not (given that I'll be the one doing the work). I spend a lot of time in these forums explaining why some proposed change would be non-trivial in the engine. There are a few forum members who have gone way deep into the code, and are in a good position to make suggestions based on the engine's capabilities, but they are few and far between.

2. This isn't your game. You don't know my taste and vision the way I do. You don't have a filter that helps you say, "Yeah, that idea fits in with how OHOL should feel and work," versus other ideas that don't fit with my vision for the game.

3. You're probably not a game designer. This sounds harsh or snobby or something, but it's most likely true. And even if you are a game designer (there are some out there, for sure, playing OHOL), you probably don't have the amount of experience that I have after 15 years of doing this and 19 games. If you do have that much experience, I already know you personally, because if you've been making games that long, we've already crossed paths. I'm probably calling you on the phone for advice directly.

Those three reasons may rub you the wrong way, but that's simply the reality of the situation. You're here playing OHOL right now because I coded up this crazy engine, and I stuck with my crazy vision for the game. And I was able to bring the game to this point because of my experience as a designer.

So what do I need from you, the player, mostly as feedback?

Clear statements of problems that you have encountered. I don't need to hear dozens of solutions. I need to understand the problem.

Tarr's recent videos are a great example of what I need: clear demonstrations of a problem.

Don't just shout REMOVE THE WAR SWORD (a solution). Explain the problem that you're experiencing. Oh, one guy came in and wiped a whole village in 20 seconds, and got away unscathed. That is a problem. Maybe I can come up with a solution for that (a sword cool-down, and you can't hide the sword in a pack, etc.)

Even then, people just kept saying, "REMOVE THE WAR SWORD, IT RUINS THE GAME." Really? Hmm... that can't be right. The war sword itself can't be the problem. It must be something else.

And sure enough, the problem was the griefer dance, which has been with us for a whole year, but never really highlighted to me in a clear way. I mean, a year ago, people were telling me to just remove knives.

If someone had said, "Hey, by clicking all over the place, I become invincible when people are trying to kill me," I would have seen that as a clear problem. Again, it wasn't until Tarr's second sword video that I saw the problem clearly. Four people chasing him, and they couldn't get him.

So the sword wasn't actually a problem. It just laid bare an lurking problem that existed for all weapons. And removing the sword wouldn't have fixed the underlying problem---it just would have covered up the problem.

All that said, do you realize how much better the game is with that one little thing fixed?

(And to be fair, it's not that no one ever mentioned this problem to me in the past. I've heard about it here and there, but usually mixed in with a bunch of other proposals that clouded my understanding of the core problem.)

Example: We need more storage! How about food tables, and barrels for wheat, and closets, and shelves and...

Problem: There are 66 different bowls in the game that are not containable, and they clutter the ground when people are using them.

Problem: Storing 12 items in a box requires nested storage, which is really fiddly to access, because you have to set the basket down somewhere to get something out, and the ground is cluttered already.

I mean, heck, if I had listened to you about "shelving" without understanding the problem, I probably would have given you a shelf with four slots for four baskets! Then you really would have thought I was an idiot.

Finally, there are some times when I'm really stuck on something and request ideas. And that's what I use the Suggestions subreddit for---when I'm completely out of ideas, I look there for inspiration.

FeignedSanity · 2019-05-30 01:24:01

Fair enough and pretty valid. I appreciate the clarification. I think the community, as a whole, should take this post to heart.

Dodge · 2019-05-30 01:24:18

Ah.

So, short, concise and explaining the problem experienced?

Well better to know this later than never.

Il try to make future descriptions as short as possible from now on without going into walls of text.

Dodge · 2019-05-30 01:25:45

Pin it?

BladeWoods · 2019-05-30 01:30:21

To summarize,

State problems not solutions.

FeignedSanity · 2019-05-30 01:30:35

Dodge wrote:

Pin it?

Yeah, I also feel like this should probably be pinned (or stickied).

Amon · 2019-05-30 01:50:57

I think the most common suggestion fix, the cluttering avoided pointing out the issue because it was common knowledge that towns were clutter messes and peoppe just dealt with it. Looking for organisation solutions rather than finding a way on how to explain that life is a tomatoe-y mess when everyone tat played knew it was the cluttering and all eyes are set on uncluttering.

Besides, thinking things up is fun, regardless if anything happens with it. So prople will probably keep think up things.

My professor said that the 100th idea is great but lowered it for us on 20.
that means 99 ideas which are utter nonesense. Or 19.

Maybe I'll explain issues with my dogs through that way simply to try out. I'm also seconding eerxone on stickying it.

jasonrohrer · 2019-05-30 02:33:52

I definitely don't mind people thinking up things just for the fun of it.

However, some people seem to get upset when I don't implement their suggestion, or harp on their suggestion endlessly.

Like this week, after I've solved a whole bunch of problems with swords, some people are saying, "See, it's really time to remove swords now." Yeah, I heard you, but that's not helpful. Is there still a problem with swords that I should know about? Maybe! But if you just harp on me to remove swords, I won't find out what that problem is.

Keyin · 2019-05-30 02:34:40

Thanks Jason, I will keep this in mind for the future.

I will however argue that I think there are some valuable, well thought out suggestions like Lyche's mega suggestion thread.

pein · 2019-05-30 03:03:41

he first point i agree
lot of people don't know the engien limitation ,dont know the work it needs, or if they even possible programmign it, and basically just logical thinking
probably they don't have programming or mathematical knowledge

the second point: it's your game, it's your vision, that's fair
i like the parts when the game refers to something from your life, the sauerkraut story, the weapon pickup limits
but maybe you should be a bit , more flexible sometimes, feels like you go against the majority for the heck of it
lineage ban was a huge negative reaction, and you can say whatever you want but even new players come to forums and say the same
if it's like 70 to 30% then sure, the 30% might be right
like if food would decay probably people would hate it, but most of us would understand
but a 95 to 5% decision that we should never be able to go back to our projects and enforce us to go somewhere else is a bad game mechanic
sure the majority isn't always right, i would even say that the majority is generally wrong, sure, some things would be popular, but wouldn't feel good gameplay wise, lot of games are just mindless aggression, and the use of mental weaknesses: cute games which hold zero gamplay, competition and the feeling of must destroy others in order to get a step ahead. i like the old school feeling, where the story, the balance matters, not the fancy graphics, not the competition , sure, some is good, but i already had games which made me do things, and when i played them a lot it just left me feel empty inside and i never went back to playing them
the way you nerf things and the way you ade your water survey, it's just a snapshot and you run into conclusions
sure some towns got lot of iron but some people devte a ful llife to get it, not like you tell to kids to go out and get some and they go 500 tiles until they find some, same with water, sure a town only has a deep well, but i was in 2 towns you said they under developed and actually people were workign hard and the effort they made was quite impressive

the third point: you are a good programmer, you are a mediocre game designer, no offense
as long as your view is realism before balance, then i cant say otherwise
sure, realism is nice, but i still prefer weird solutions which don't make fully sense in real life, but make a good gameplay
rewards and punishments, actual choices, bowl or pouch? do i make a building from adobe or stone?
the compost cycle is nice, it's a mini game on it's own, but lot of choices in this game arent really choices, the way you made buildings and made people believe they are good was quite bad when the system you put together was optimised on a paradox that you need to be outside of the fire range but still have a small room, you optimized buildings for 1x5 size, for all the effort players made to build it the reward was 2.5 heat from one fire divided to number of tiles

sure i didn't made games but im playing them, more than 20 years i tried out so many different games, and im not the person who complains that a game is hard. possibly i start a new game and in few days i will be better than others who play it for months. possibly i start the same time, and i beat others in that game too. and im not alone, lot of players are quite expert to see the underlying mechanics, not from the code, from experience, from pattern recognition.
the way you described one of your lifes, really explains why you don't really understand the problems with the game. cause you don't play as much as some people do. so yeah, if someone played your game 1000+ hours, kinda knows how the community is, how most lifes play out and what is the optimal way of playing a life, or not at all.
i still remember some of my first lifes, and i made working cities in impossible locations, i even enjoy hard maps and hard starts. it wont make it harder when you nerf things, it just makes more tedious. the real hardiness lies in adapting to the situations, not nerfing the rewards of the solutions people find.

sometimes it just feel like we are your lab rats in your crazy god experiments.

the magic aiming: i was a player who dodged a lot of shots and stabs. i would dodge some of them just by working normally, and i always expect people try to kill me and i always react very quick.
so your solution doesn't really solved much. i died 3 times due to attackers, and with old mechanics those 3 deaths would never happen. cause i even calculated the steps i need to make to trick others into shooting me the wrong time. in reverse i killed people easily when they tried to pull the same thing against me.
you just made 1 on 1 fights one sided. the attacker needs a weapon and some bad intention.
i went in as Eve to a town and 1 v 6 them easily. Probably would have done the same with old mechanics, would have taken longer.
But in defending side, i cannot do anything to not get killed. They aim on me and im dead. There is a huge gap in skill and normally that justified the "griefer dance". Just by knowing a few things like "aim the tile not the person", "be patient".
I don't like when some idiot aims on me and i got zero chance to dodge it.
And i don't like that im holding my weapon for 3 minutes and i still kill the person when runs trough me.
Someoen stole my horse and i was pissed cause it took me time to get it ,and she just pulled it out from under me when i jump down a sec to eat.
So i wanted to kill her, i aimed on her, and i had the angry emote.
She ru naway on horse and came back on foot tried acting like she doesn't know what happened. I had like 15 food bars when she went out, i had like 4 when she came back, so i was holding a weapon for years and she got stabbed years later when she run near me again.
Yeah, multiple people failing to kill one person is a problem.
One person failing to kill another was a question of skill. It felt genuinely fair when someone shot near me and i killed them in return. And was geniuinely deserved when i miscalculated my steps and got punished. Guess what , you fell into the trap of the first category. You don't see both sides of the coin. The griefer dance can be used against griefers too. Just because you pull a weapon, and you think you doing the right thing, doesn't mean you are right. What about when the griefers grabs a weapon and makes you run away? You work and need to focus on town The griefer wont care the town is in ruins and can focus on eating and ambushing you. Unlimited aggro and 0 chance of missing is just bad for defending side and the griefer is not always the defender. And this shift click works regardless of slowdown so you basically tipped the balance to the attackers regardles of number of attackers, one on one the attacker will win generally.

jasonrohrer · 2019-05-30 05:42:59

Pein, not sure what you're doing spending so much time playing/discussing the game of a mediocre game designer...

Dodge · 2019-05-30 06:33:18

pein wrote:

...

Oh boy. you really missed the point of that thread with that wall of text

But you said something interesting:

"I don't like when some idiot aims on me and i got zero chance to dodge it."

The current system is good for short range weapon where dancing is an issue, but it makes long range weapon OP.

edit: I was able to continuously snowball someone without him having any chance to escape.

Last edited by Dodge (2019-05-30 06:37:01)

Spoonwood · 2019-05-30 06:51:54

1. That's fair to say.

2. Nope, you're DEAD WRONG on this point as to a reason as to why certain comments are not useful to you Jason. They're more not useful to you, because you just won't listen to other people. Look, in retail and probably elsewhere there exists a slogan that I would guess you've heard before. It's "the customer is always right." Sure, it's a big exaggerated, but not much really. And most of all people LIKE YOU need to hear it and take it to heart. Your vision? So what? You think video games are different? You would be dead wrong to think so, and I'll give you an example:

Tynan Sylvester and his development of Rimworld. The premise of Rimworld has been simple for a long time. Build a spaceship to get off of the planet that you're on. Did people play Tynan's game that way? Hardly. It happened, but people trying to launch the spaceship has ended up rare in Rimworld. Did Tynan respond by trying to shoehorn players into launching the spaceship? Nope. In fact, Tynan responded differently. He looked at what people were doing, and instead made it more difficult for people to launch the spaceship. That way more people would feel even MORE inclined to play a colony development game than trying to get off of the Rimworld. Other examples: Rimworld had a slew of mods. Tynan didn't allow for animals to get seen by a tab, and didn't allow plenty of workbenches to get moved in his vanilla game for a while. People made mods for those features. Tynan, or one of the two people he hired to help him program, looked at what people were doing, and then incorporated those features into his game.

3. The whole argument about 'game designer' is mere nonsense. A mathematical argument does NOT become more or less valid, because a person is a mathematics professor. Same goes for other disciplines. So, really, point 3. just looks like a questionable appeal to authority. Nope, being a game designer, does NOT make comments more or less valid with respect to games. On top of that, THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT. You aren't the customer Jason. Others are.

jasonrohrer wrote:

You're here playing OHOL right now because I coded up this crazy engine, and I stuck with my crazy vision for the game. And I was able to bring the game to this point because of my experience as a designer.

As I've said before I have NOT played on bs2 since the sword/racism/xenophobia downgrade. So what you say doesn't hold for me. There was a Twitch Streamer named Buggy who streamed OHOL, saying in part she thought more people should play before the sword downgrade. Now I think she doesn't even play, and she specifically felt frustrated by that downgrade. It doesn't hold for breezeknight either. Seriously Jason, you have a major problem with assuming things about other people when often enough it just doesn't hold.

jasonrohrer wrote:

Don't just shout REMOVE THE WAR SWORD (a solution). Explain the problem that you're experiencing.

The problem was the very concept of war in the first place, and since the war sword was the only tool specifically designed for war, having only one purpose, remove the war sword is a rational response. Additionally, you simply cannot logically just rule out the war sword as a problem out of hand like you did.

jasonrohrer wrote:

And sure enough, the problem was the griefer dance, which has been with us for a whole year, but never really highlighted to me in a clear way. I mean, a year ago, people were telling me to just remove knives.

No, it hasn't been with us a whole year, because griefers are slow as molasses if using a bow and arrow or knife to kill.

jasonrohrer wrote:

All that said, do you realize how much better the game is with that one little thing fixed?

It's barely better at all. There aren't more people feeling encouraged to play for the sake of their lineages. And I think murder numbers are still high.

I do think it a bit odd that people use the forums instead of the subreddit for suggestions.

But again, Jason, THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT. You complain about your customers just shows that you don't respect them. That's not a good look, not a good habit, and hey look, you wanted to make a snarky comment to Pein instead of considering what he said. You think that's good for your business? Well, it's not.

Have a nice day.

Spoonwood · 2019-05-30 06:56:47

Oh... and one last thing... yes... even competent game designers think 'the customer is always' right applies. Here's Ralph Koster:

RalphKoster wrote:

Everyone who dislikes your work is right.
This is the hardest pill to swallow. I’ve never gotten a piece of feedback that was wrong. You see, you can’t deny a player their unique experience. Whatever they felt, was true. For them. And something in your work triggered it.
It is useless, and worse, actually self-defeating, to attempt to deny the critique. Sure, there are sometimes reviews that seem spiteful, unfair, and the rest. But the vast majority of the time, people are giving their honest reaction.
And the bottom line is, you put the game out there in order to get reactions. If it were not for reactions, you could have just kept the game in your drawer and gotten everything you needed out of it.

https://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/o … criticism/

So, yeah... the problem CAN be the warsword. Because, it should be understandable that people who have gotten killed unjustly in this game might NOT like the encouragement of more senseless killing and DISCOURAGEMENT of people playing for the sake of their lineage or town. At least with a little imagination

Last edited by Spoonwood (2019-05-30 06:57:59)

Dodge · 2019-05-30 07:16:35

@Spoonwood some people like the warsword, you and your group are not the only one playing the game

Also the mentality of "THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT." Brought many games to the ground.

Sometimes some players think they know what they want but they really dont.

A good is example is the buff everything mentality, make everything easy then you get an uninteresting, unchallenging game that is bound to fail.

But you Spoonwood are not that kind of player right?

And obviously you know much better than Jason that has designed games for years.

Werent you calling Jason "arrogant" on many occasions, gotta love the ironie.

Last edited by Dodge (2019-05-30 07:18:06)

Toxic · 2019-05-30 12:06:20

jasonrohrer wrote:

Pein, not sure what you're doing spending so much time playing/discussing the game of a mediocre game designer...

Well Jason since you are a bedroll programmer that makes mediocre games and sells them for very high prices... I saw a star filled sky it was a game that I could make in a few days (and Jason sold it for I think $12) anyways we will ignore that maybe your were desperate for money. Then you made the castle Doctrine again a game with not too much to offer but still it was decent so get paid for that. The main trend here is that Jason has good ideas but the execution.....

Now let’s talk about one hour one life the only game (IMO) that JASON made that is worth playing. One hour one life is a jewel of a game but it’s still BS. The idea behind the game is amazing but Oh Jason you had to make a shitty engine that no one can understand. Like honestly there are plenty of amazing engines out there but you had to code your own thing, honestly if the game had a engine like unity it would have been way better. The mobile version is actually pretty good compared to OHOL PC. Like Jason do you have any sense on how to market? (he always did get sales so he is decent) Why would you just release the game on Pc what about consoles, Nintendo and mobile, if you had your own mobile version you would be making thousands more then you are now. But you were too desperate on money you had to dish a game out before you starved.

I don’t wanna go into to much detail but about the code. The code Jason writes is absolutely spaghetti it’s the most long and confusing BullSh*t. Like Jason man really did you learn how to code in the 1990s (he probably did). Comparing to your 15 yr experience your IMO a mediocre game designer and maybe even programmer.

(But man I can’t stop playing OHOL idk why it’s just a cool af game)
Just wanna say OHOL could be way better if Jason thought about it a bit more.......

Erudaru · 2019-05-30 12:12:57

jasonrohrer wrote:

...

If you want to be a good game designer you need to learn how to identify problems yourself, based on whatever feedback you get. Posing the right questions is legit, I see what you are trying to achieve with this post, but it sounds less like advice and more like a complaint or lecture.

So good luck with getting better feedback, but you can't expect the players to filter everything out for you.

Last edited by Erudaru (2019-05-30 12:13:27)

pein · 2019-05-30 13:14:43

i don't say it's a bad game, but can be better

guess what, there are gaems which use the same map, same items, and the upgrades are merely small different changes in look and rules, and it works

the people on forums know how your game works, and know because they play it
and play the game differently from how you intended to
so you can insult me or them , it wont matter, every time you send out your update notes, some people will understand and some just wont even comprehend

you can act like you are smarter than everyone, sure, you see the side of the programming part and some of us wont, but we see the side of playability and sometimes just feels out of place
so maybe if people complain on things, is for a reason
lately you wanted to push new ideas and some of them is good, some of them is out of place, some is just straight up bad
reviving some of your dead content would help , set it and forget it, once it's a fun content which adds to possibilities, you can move on

we are not your enemies, some people wont like radical changes
im fine with it, but cant say i enjoy it much

Last edited by pein (2019-05-30 13:14:59)

lychee · 2019-05-30 13:30:28

All these statements about Jason being mediocre game designer just isn’t fair. It’s non-productive, and how does it help OHOL in any way?

Games are a subjective experience, especially more so in Jason’s case because he views games as an art form (not necessarily a product). The type of game I’m looking for might be different from the type of game you or Jason is looking for — and that’s to be expected. The big game companies might do market analysis to figure out what sells, but in Jason’s case he views OHOL as art first and product second. He’s not interested in sacrificing his artistic vision in exchange for commercial consumerism.

And there’s a certain degree of admirability in that — to make the game *you* want to make, irrespective of what a board of producers or whatever tell you you have to make because it will sell.

Regarding code — this was mentioned in the Fall of Civilization video, but I’m assuming that Jason heralds from the older era of developers. There’s a whole fissure in modern CS regarding OOP/procedural programming, the latter being more efficient at run time and the former being more legible. Everybody you ask will have a different opinion on what’s preferable, albeit for me personally, I come from the healthcare industry where interoperability is key, so having code that any developer I can hire (or team of developers) can work efficiently using common paradigms and standards. Sometimes the esoteric optimization for a marginal increase in processing power just isn’t worth it to me, especially if nobody else can maintain the code once that employee leaves. If nobody is willing/capable of maintaining it, over the years that section of the code ends up being a vulnerability especially as the rest of the code base evolves.

The standards for software industry and indie (one-man) game development are a bit different. In the end, if the game works without bugs, who can complain? Nobody really expects OHOL (or any game) to last longer than Jason (or any developer) spends time on it.

That said — I personally think OHOL’s biggest problem is that it’s constantly broken and constantly filled with a backlog of bugs and nonintuitve gameplay.

OHOL was released last year, but frankly it plays more like an alpha given that any point you log on, there might be a game breaking change that results in something like eve traps or butter knives. Consumers often evaluate software based on their experience with bugs — and the abundance of them in OHOL gives the impression that it’s a poorly put together or poorly thought out game.

In reality, software development (for all games) is exactly the same like this — most gamers just don’t see it — because usually you can’t buy or play games that are fresh off the live git repository. All that everyday instability is normally caught by alpha testers and beta testers and more.

I know that Jason has repeatedly said that he’s not interested in beta testing or staging servers before production, but I think an important thing to keep in mind that OHOL is already on market. The bugs that players experience are already part of the legacy of the game. What exactly is the legacy OHOL will be remembered for?

Last edited by lychee (2019-05-30 13:32:24)

denriguez · 2019-05-30 14:37:27

I'm sure the "faster horses" quote will eventually be invoked here, so I wanted to share this really interesting article that talks about the veracity of Henry Ford's most famous quote (spoiler: there's no evidence he ever said it) and argues that:

"An innovator should have understanding of one’s customers and their problems via empirical, observational, anecdotal methods or even intuition. They should also feel free to ignore customers’ inputs. Because by now it should be clear that Ford’s adherence to his vision of the mass-market car and how to materialize that vision was instrumental in both his early success in growing Ford Motor Company as well as his later failure to respond in a timely and effective manner to rapid innovation in the marketplace.

That said, it's my general sense that Jason's primary concern is adherence to his vision, not in shipping units. If that's the case, then I suggest we all approach the game like the work of art that it is, appreciate it as a thing created by someone with a vision who lets us watch that vision unfold and actually take part in fulfilling that vision, and take him at his word when he says that the most helpful thing we can do is to describe problems, not complain about his refusal to implement solutions that don't jive with his vision.

I don't feel like I'm a customer of his game, but rather that I've paid admission to participate in the creation and enjoyment of something. I wouldn't complain about the game's trajectory or his decisions in the same way that I wouldn't complain about the menu or the chef's decisions if I ever paid for a chef's table experience.

Jason, this is a great game. Thanks for it.

Last edited by denriguez (2019-05-30 14:39:34)

Spoonwood · 2019-05-30 15:44:23

Dodge wrote:

@Spoonwood some people like the warsword, you and your group are not the only one playing the game

Sure. As I said, the customer is always right, and you're one of them, so you are correct in what you say. See how that works both ways?

Dodge wrote:

Also the mentality of "THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT." Brought many games to the ground.

I don't believe that's true.

Dodge wrote:

Sometimes some players think they know what they want but they really dont.
A good is example is the buff everything mentality, make everything easy then you get an uninteresting, unchallenging game that is bound to fail.

Huh? People have play unchallenging games for a while now. I don't know... Tetris isn't challenging when it's slow. Plenty of people don't play Tetris 'for the challenge' and never did. Games like civ III and Rimworld feature low difficulty settings. Oh, I remember someone on the civ III forums talking about playing on Warlord, the 2nd easiest difficulty, for quite a few years. People also play games for competition reasons. I'd play civ III on one of the easier difficulties or the easiest difficulty plenty of times, playing for the Hall of Fame. Sometimes someone still does that. People STILL play civ III on easy difficulty levels in a competition called 'game of the month' and sometimes the difficulty is extremely easy for most of the players playing. So, I think you've assumed a little too much about unchallenging games failing.

Dodge wrote:

But you Spoonwood are not that kind of player right?

As I've said before, the pump overhaul made for a good change. So, yes, I'm not that sort of player, because that overhaul did make things more challenging.

Dodge wrote:

And obviously you know much better than Jason that has designed games for years.
Werent you calling Jason "arrogant" on many occasions, gotta love the ironie.

Well since it's obvious to you that I know much better than Jason it doesn't really follow that I'm arrogant on that basis. Not in the way of being unduly arrogant. I don't really care if you were being sarcastic. If you want to make a point, speak seriously, and if you don't, choosing to speak sarcastically, I'll just ignore what you have to say or respond seriously as I just did.

Spoonwood · 2019-05-30 16:12:11

lychee wrote:

All these statements about Jason being mediocre game designer just isn’t fair. It’s non-productive, and how does it help OHOL in any way?
Games are a subjective experience, especially more so in Jason’s case because he views games as an art form (not necessarily a product). The type of game I’m looking for might be different from the type of game you or Jason is looking for — and that’s to be expected. The big game companies might do market analysis to figure out what sells, but in Jason’s case he views OHOL as art first and product second. He’s not interested in sacrificing his artistic vision in exchange for commercial consumerism.

It's not about commerce though. Art isn't even art without people seeing it. A person who never views one of those Greek statues and has no desire to look at them after seeing them, well, to that person those statues are just a bunch of marble or bronze. If the Mona Lisa were never seen, it would just be color on a canvas (note color can be defined non-subjectively as it is in physics by wavelengths). To people deaf from birth, ignoring social considerations, I don't see how Beethoven's 9th has any meaning.

lychee wrote:

And there’s a certain degree of admirability in that — to make the game *you* want to make, irrespective of what a board of producers or whatever tell you you have to make because it will sell.

I have to wonder if you think that atonal music in general qualifies as good art. Or the 'paintings' where someone literally just three paint on a canvas without any care as to how it got done.

lychee wrote:

The standards for software industry and indie (one-man) game development are a bit different. In the end, if the game works without bugs, who can complain? Nobody really expects OHOL (or any game) to last longer than Jason (or any developer) spends time on it.

That's pretty low standards to me, and I DO expect otherwise. I played civ III for YEARS after the people at Firaxis quit working on it. I still have my NES that my parents got for me in the 80s and it's not all that long since I last played it. Perhaps a more relevant example, I've put the original Master of Orion on my modern day computer, and it's still that brilliant game that it has always been. I've tried to get a machine to run Jupiter Space Mission 1999, an old Atari 800 game, and no luck on that... but still... that game is even older than the other ones. So why wouldn't I expect the game to outlast the designer, when I've already experienced that, and even go so far as to use a dos-emulator for a decades old game?

Spoonwood · 2019-05-30 16:17:47

denriguez wrote:

That said, it's my general sense that Jason's primary concern is adherence to his vision, not in shipping units. If that's the case, then I suggest we all approach the game like the work of art that it is, appreciate it as a thing created by someone with a vision who lets us watch that vision unfold and actually take part in fulfilling that vision, and take him at his word when he says that the most helpful thing we can do is to describe problems, not complain about his refusal to implement solutions that don't jive with his vision.

That changes nothing. Art can judged in multiple ways. One could say that some opinions on what art is in terms of it's essence, are elitist. Art CAN get judged based on popularity. One CAN maintain that Elvis Presley was a better artist than any 20th century classical composer, because of Mr. Presley's popularity.

And in the end, art is still there to get consumed by people. It's NOT necessarily about money. The consumption could be seeing a painting and thinking about it. But, it's still there for other people than the artist. And if the artist doesn't resonate with people, well, then it's not even art, it's just material like any other matter. Or code as the case may be.

lychee · 2019-05-30 16:34:58

Spoonwood wrote:

That's pretty low standards to me, and I DO expect otherwise. I played civ III for YEARS after the people at Firaxis quit working on it. I still have my NES that my parents got for me in the 80s and it's not all that long since I last played it. Perhaps a more relevant example, I've put the original Master of Orion on my modern day computer, and it's still that brilliant game that it has always been. I've tried to get a machine to run Jupiter Space Mission 1999, an old Atari 800 game, and no luck on that... but still... that game is even older than the other ones. So why wouldn't I expect the game to outlast the designer, when I've already experienced that, and even go so far as to use a dos-emulator for a decades old game?

I believe I misspoke here (or maybe was misinterpreted?).

What I was trying to express is that indie software (and the game industry overall) programs with a “one-and-done” approach. It’s generally not expected that development/maintenance of a game will last longer than the original development team.

On the other hand, projects like PostgreSQL, Django, Microsoft Word, Ubuntu, MongoDB, etc. are expected to be robust for 20+ years with active maintenance, and thus needs to be coded to an interoperability standard that allows the software to live beyond the lifespan of the original developers. Another team must be able to pick up on the prior work and advance it from where it left off.

Solo programmers code differently and work according to different paradigms in general.

Last edited by lychee (2019-05-30 16:39:43)

Spoonwood · 2019-05-30 17:34:32

lychee wrote:

Spoonwood wrote:
That's pretty low standards to me, and I DO expect otherwise. I played civ III for YEARS after the people at Firaxis quit working on it. I still have my NES that my parents got for me in the 80s and it's not all that long since I last played it. Perhaps a more relevant example, I've put the original Master of Orion on my modern day computer, and it's still that brilliant game that it has always been. I've tried to get a machine to run Jupiter Space Mission 1999, an old Atari 800 game, and no luck on that... but still... that game is even older than the other ones. So why wouldn't I expect the game to outlast the designer, when I've already experienced that, and even go so far as to use a dos-emulator for a decades old game?
I believe I misspoke here (or maybe was misinterpreted?).
What I was trying to express is that indie software (and the game industry overall) programs with a “one-and-done” approach. It’s generally not expected that development/maintenance of a game will last longer than the original development team.
On the other hand, projects like PostgreSQL, Django, Microsoft Word, Ubuntu, MongoDB, etc. are expected to be robust for 20+ years with active maintenance, and thus needs to be coded to an interoperability standard that allows the software to live beyond the lifespan of the original developers. Another team must be able to pick up on the prior work and advance it from where it left off.
Solo programmers code differently and work according to different paradigms in general.

So you're saying that with an indie team there won't exist another team that develops the game after, while say for another game the original design crew might stop, but another team might come in and do maintainence on it? I think I misunderstood you. But also, the game is open-source, so someone else might pick it up and do work on it once Jason has done. Some people on the discord have talked about hiring someone else to develop the game via a Kickstarter or something. So, I'm not so sure that even if I now understand your claim accurately, that it holds.

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2019-05-30 01:04:08

What I actually, generally need when you give me feedback about OHOL

#2 2019-05-30 01:24:01

Re: What I actually, generally need when you give me feedback about OHOL

#3 2019-05-30 01:24:18

Re: What I actually, generally need when you give me feedback about OHOL

#4 2019-05-30 01:25:45

Re: What I actually, generally need when you give me feedback about OHOL

#5 2019-05-30 01:30:21

Re: What I actually, generally need when you give me feedback about OHOL

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Re: What I actually, generally need when you give me feedback about OHOL

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#9 2019-05-30 02:34:40

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#10 2019-05-30 03:03:41

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#11 2019-05-30 05:42:59

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#15 2019-05-30 07:16:35

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#17 2019-05-30 12:12:57

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#18 2019-05-30 13:14:43

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#19 2019-05-30 13:30:28

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#20 2019-05-30 14:37:27

Re: What I actually, generally need when you give me feedback about OHOL

#21 2019-05-30 15:44:23

Re: What I actually, generally need when you give me feedback about OHOL

#22 2019-05-30 16:12:11

Re: What I actually, generally need when you give me feedback about OHOL

#23 2019-05-30 16:17:47

Re: What I actually, generally need when you give me feedback about OHOL

#24 2019-05-30 16:34:58

Re: What I actually, generally need when you give me feedback about OHOL

#25 2019-05-30 17:34:32

Re: What I actually, generally need when you give me feedback about OHOL

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