Open question to Jason about War.

testo · 2019-06-01 08:49:08

First I´d like to clear that I don´t intend to question Jason´s view of the game or his game design with this thread. In fact I somehow hate that I have to make this question personal, a better title to this thread should be "open question to the game developers" or "design team". I agree to most of his clarification in the last sticky thread about feedback and I refrained to post there about the parts I don´t agree, mostly becuase all the topic got completely derailed with a personal scrutiny about his work, and that is simply not my taste.

Second, I´d like to point directly my intent. I intend to understand how he views or he models war in the game, what elements should be present and generally speaking how he thinks and how is it going to work. Would there be a planning stage? What are the reasons to a war?, how does it develops? (IE a war IRL has a declaration process and a justification process, there are stages in the war and so on). What I am trying to get here is a picture from him like "this is how I envision war", "this is what I wanted in game and this was the result" basically "this is what I want you to do".

The origin for this question is clearly that I can not picture that process myself. Somewhere Jason asked why is there no war and no trade in the game. I understand his concern and I find it logical for a civilization building game to develop two of the most basic social elements ever present in human history. I can not picture or envision neither war nor trade myself. This is not a source of concern because I´m not a game designer. But I can not picture how he expects war to look either.

When he introduced property fences and gates I understood. Or at least I had a sketch of how he expected them to be properly used : everyone takes gradually a share of the map and gets ownership. Those with no land would have to take a piece a little farther from the town and goods or items would be placed under property and then traded. There will be conflict becuase of ownership and a proper code of conduct would arise, including punishment for theft and so on.

With war I can not understand. Warsword (wich I openly and completely dislike) has already its place in the game and It checks ok as an item that promotes conflict and facilitates killing ergo, helps "war".

This week I found inspiration on why I can not understand or give shape to his view of war in the game.

https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=6670 - This game was never meant to feature a full-fledged combat system. (When Talking about fixing the killing dance)
https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=6301 - ... what if there was a special weapon with no slow-down effect that you could only use on outsiders...This would allow for wars between towns, or raiding, or whatever. (When talking about introducing the warsword).

This is what genuinely puzzles and contradicts me. With no combat system there is no strategical elements for war in the most basic sense, and with no strategy involved I can´t see war arising. I can see killing and genocide, but I don´t see war in any shape or form. There can be raiding and stealing. I can envision organization for defence (make more swords, make wall around town...). I can see organization for attack (grab horses and swords, kill x player first...).But I can only picture killing, not battle. And with no battle, well, you can hardly call it war.

So that is the question, How is it supposed to look war in the game?, This question applies now but also extends into the future.
How do you see a model of war without a combat system? What decides the winner of the war and what is it to win a war? Do we have have a war where whoever gets more swords win? Do we get to steal their items or do we just kill everyone and wipe all the people there? Do we establish a new settlement and take the city or just abandon it? Will there be more weapons in the future that help the strategical process?

Again, I am trying to get the full picture from his perspective. I am not trying to prevent war (though I hate it). I am not trying to "catch the flaw" in the design (though I think I pointed at one). What I am trying to do is to understand the model and maybe help it develop, because I think we (the players) are somehow also shaping the game, and in this process we are not playing the war as it is modeled, mainly because we fail to understand said model.

Spoonwood · 2019-06-01 12:53:13

Everyone would use a rope on a gate in a town? That was Jason's expectation? Maybe it was, but it just seems strange to me, because towns usually don't have like 7-12 (OR MORE) *extra* ropes for all the people in the town. 48 extra milkweed for gates when the town doesn't have enough buckets or even enough carts as BlueDiamondAvatar's signature suggests? Maybe the expectation came as everyone would have private property, I'm not going to sit here and say that I know. But, it just seems like a strange expectation for someone who should have as detailed knowledge of the game as Jason, when people have said 'not enough rope', have dubbed the game 'rope finder' *long* before private property existed, and when plenty of advanced level players have had a dislike of stone hoes, because they consume rope (and the stone hoe makers rarely, if ever, have grown milkweed as a replacement, and growing such could raise a water concern early on... and possibly also a soil concern).

The second link above shows people telling Jason that the warsword idea wasn't well thought out at a time, and I pointed out (I think correctly, of course), that such wouldn't solve his fundamental concern of getting people to care more for their lineages, it would just induce xenophobia (from what I've heard from people playing on bs2, that term is not an exaggeration as I thought it might be initially). Plenty of people seemed to warn him about such an idea, but Jason didn't seem to care much. Murder rapidly increased (does that surprise anyone?), and griefer eves came onto to the scene, which Jason *apparently* tried to address by removing the /die ability to become an Eve. But, that also decreased player control. Given that Jason is arrogant enough to ignore potential problems when suggested by others and arrogant enough to ignore alternative ways to address a fundamental issue, I'm not so sure that it's likely that he has the ability to openly state what he had in mind with respect to how he envisioned war would work, because it would just be too embarrassing for him. After all, he made that sticky post as you point out, and that yet again had him going on about how he must be good at what he does saying things like:

jasonrohrer wrote:

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.

Implying that whatever Jason thinks must be best for the game.

And more tellingly:

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.

So, it would be rather different if Jason admitted shortcomings in this respect.

Then again, arrogant people aren't always arrogant to the point of total idiocy also, so you might get some sort of *honest* answer.

futurebird · 2019-06-01 13:39:26

Spoonwood how on earth is Jason supposed to respond to posts like yours? Say "oh yes I'm arrogant and now I'll do what you want" Even if you are right that you know better what the games needs than Jason (and I don't think that's a given at all) you aren't giving any path for reconciliation. A post like this one would make sense if you were leaving the forum and the game and just wanted to have your last say. Yet you stay.

You keep playing but give your feedback in the most toxic way possible.

Testo was raising a good point and starting a good conversation but you have derailed it in to personal attacks again. If you want someone to listen to you you need to think about how things are from their perspective too. You need to stop assuming Jason in acting in bad faith. I'm really sick of seeing important questions like the ones Testo presents derailed by posts like your response and I can't really blame or be mad at Jason for getting frustrated and ignoring what players say. You are making the forum a place that isn't full of good ideas, inspiration, and reasons to want to work on the game more. Were I working on this game I would hate reading this forum and it shouldn't be like that.

You are undermining the goal of having our concerns heard at all.

Personally were I Jason I'd just block you and ignore every post that you make.

Solbusaur · 2019-06-01 13:45:03

futurebird wrote:

...

Thankyou for putting my feelings into words

lychee · 2019-06-01 14:02:23

I'm not Jason, so I can't really speak for him, but I'll try my best to explain the impression I had about Jason's vision/objective.

(1) I don't think Jason ever intended OHOL to be a PVP/war game. In fact, perhaps OP should check if Jason indeed said: "where is the war?" (I do know that Jason has certainly asked "where is the trade?", but I don't recall Jason ever saying anything about wanting "war" in particular.

(2) Rather than "war", Jason's intentions in adding swords were to create a sense of "othering" towards outsiders, make you feel closer to your own family, trust your own lineage more than people from other lineages, and in general create a degree of background conflict that leads to "richer stories". To Jason, a story that has no antagonist/conflict/strain is boring. Similarly, he considers a "garden of eden" utopia where everyone works together to build/advance civilization to be also boring.

(3) Jason believes that the good side of humanity/players will triumph over the negative side. This is more of personal philosophy component that I honestly don't agree particularly with. He has said somewhere that you would trust outsiders *more* thanks to the swords update, because if an outsider doesn't use a sword on you, it's the highest form of trust you can get. The increased stakes to trusting someone make it all more meaningful (per Jason's artistic philosophy).

TLDR; Jason isn't looking to model war or make it realistic. It's really just an expression of what he thinks is artistic.

lychee · 2019-06-01 14:11:49

Secondarily, now my thoughts (I split this into a second post):

testo wrote:

I intend to understand how he views or he models war in the game, what elements should be present and generally speaking how he thinks and how is it going to work. Would there be a planning stage? What are the reasons to a war?, how does it develops? (IE a war IRL has a declaration process and a justification process, there are stages in the war and so on).

The current state of OHOL has major limitations for a realistic implementation of war.

There are multiple reasons, but the most easily understood factor is that there just simply aren't enough players. At ~100 players divided to ~15 players per village, these aren't the numbers that make organized war practical in any shape or fashion. If we actually wanted to simulate the world realistically, ~100 people is barely enough to simulate the population of a single village/town on historic Earth.

At best, you could call these "scuffles" or "gang violence" -- which is essentially what the inter-family violence is in OHOL.

Last edited by lychee (2019-06-01 14:12:24)

futurebird · 2019-06-01 14:18:41

lychee wrote:

At best, you could call these "scuffles" or "gang violence" -- which is essentially what the inter-family violence is in OHOL.

Agree. If we really want to see *interesting* war we'd need larger better organized towns. I'm not just talking about organizing stuff... but social organization. Books, writing, history, industry etc.

Dodge · 2019-06-01 14:22:12

futurebird wrote:

Spoonwood how on earth is Jason supposed to respond to posts like yours? Say "oh yes I'm arrogant and now I'll do what you want" Even if you are right that you know better what the games needs than Jason (and I don't think that's a given at all) you aren't giving any path for reconciliation. A post like this one would make sense if you were leaving the forum and the game and just wanted to have your last say. Yet you stay.
...

+1

Last edited by Dodge (2019-06-01 14:24:19)

RodneyC86 · 2019-06-01 14:33:27

You gotta admire his tenacity though. At least he is passionate. Can’t fault him there.

But the people skills. You can get a much better reaction if you are a bit more polite, spoon.

RodneyC86 · 2019-06-01 14:36:40

futurebird wrote:

lychee wrote:
At best, you could call these "scuffles" or "gang violence" -- which is essentially what the inter-family violence is in OHOL.
Agree. If we really want to see *interesting* war we'd need larger better organized towns. I'm not just talking about organizing stuff... but social organization. Books, writing, history, industry etc.

I dream of urban sprawl, highly polluting factories (car and engine factories) , the nuclear family in homes. And game content so large that most *typical main stream player* would only learn a few fields of interest and stuck to them, depending largely on other players to pick other professions. Alas, Jason is but one man and making such a massive system is probably impossible in his time.

Maybe someday a group of developers will take the open source and run with it into a mainstream game.

Dodge · 2019-06-01 14:48:19

RodneyC86 wrote:

You gotta admire his tenacity though. At least he is passionate. Can’t fault him there.
But the people skills. You can get a much better reaction if you are a bit more polite, spoon.

Is it tenacity or is it restricted and repetitive patterns of thought and behaviour? Hmmm

Spoonwood · 2019-06-01 15:20:48

futurebird wrote:

Spoonwood how on earth is Jason supposed to respond to posts like yours? Say "oh yes I'm arrogant and now I'll do what you want" Even if you are right that you know better what the games needs than Jason (and I don't think that's a given at all) you aren't giving any path for reconciliation. A post like this one would make sense if you were leaving the forum and the game and just wanted to have your last say. Yet you stay.

Jason can respond with honesty and humility with respect to how he envisioned things with respect to what testo asked. I think what testo asked clear.

You think my comments in general are all about me? I'm not the only player out there. You make multiple requests all over the place and your preferences don't get acknowledged. Other people make suggestions and their preferences pretty much just get swept under the rug.

futurebird wrote:

You keep playing but give your feedback in the most toxic way possible.

Complete nonsense futurebird. You just don't like negative criticism. You didn't even say particularly what you found toxic... and by toxic I mean HARMFUL to another person. Saying something is complete nonsense isn't toxic futurebird, it's not harmful to you for me to say that.

futurebird wrote:

Testo was raising a good point and starting a good conversation but you have derailed it in to personal attacks again.

I'm expressing doubts that Jason has the ability to answer such a question at this point in time honestly and that Jason will express such doubts. Thus, my post has the intent of being a warning that the question might go unanswered, and I suspect that will hold, even if the reason is different than what I suspect it will be.

futurebird wrote:

If you want someone to listen to you you need to think about how things are from their perspective too. You need to stop assuming Jason in acting in bad faith.

I haven't ever said that Jason acts in bad faith so far as I recall.

futurebird wrote:

I'm really sick of seeing important questions like the ones Testo presents derailed by posts like your response and I can't really blame or be mad at Jason for getting frustrated and ignoring what players say.

Jason is an independent person capable of making decisions for himself. He is not controlled by some words on a computer screen. And no, the question was not derailed by what I said. What I commented was about whether or not the question might even get answered.

futurebird wrote:

You are making the forum a place that isn't full of good ideas, inspiration, and reasons to want to work on the game more. Were I working on this game I would hate reading this forum and it shouldn't be like that.

I'm pretty sure that I haven't made the majority of comments on the forum. You ascribe far too much capability to me here futurebird. Also, someone's bad idea does NOT negate someone else's good idea or neutral idea. So even given my ideas as bad, I haven't negated any of the other ideas out there.

futurebird wrote:

You are undermining the goal of having our concerns heard at all.

Oh, so Jason isn't listening, is that what you're saying FutureBird? And if he's not listening to people who bought his product/consumed his art, why is that exactly?

I'm going to say one thing again for emphasis. I brought up Jason's character, because I think it relevant to whether or not Jason can even address testo's question in the first place. How could I warn testo as to why Jason might not answer this question at all without bringing up Jason's character, if Jason's character influences whether or not he will answer testo's question?

Last edited by Spoonwood (2019-06-01 15:35:07)

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2019-06-01 08:49:08

Open question to Jason about War.

#2 2019-06-01 12:53:13

Re: Open question to Jason about War.

#3 2019-06-01 13:39:26

Re: Open question to Jason about War.

#4 2019-06-01 13:45:03

Re: Open question to Jason about War.

#5 2019-06-01 14:02:23

Re: Open question to Jason about War.

#6 2019-06-01 14:11:49

Re: Open question to Jason about War.

#7 2019-06-01 14:18:41

Re: Open question to Jason about War.

#8 2019-06-01 14:22:12

Re: Open question to Jason about War.

#9 2019-06-01 14:33:27

Re: Open question to Jason about War.

#10 2019-06-01 14:36:40

Re: Open question to Jason about War.

#11 2019-06-01 14:48:19

Re: Open question to Jason about War.

#12 2019-06-01 15:20:48

Re: Open question to Jason about War.

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