It's kindof a funny story

Twisted · 2019-08-11 21:48:45

My two cents, the game was a lot more interesting pre-rift. Spawning into a cluttered world with everything already made every single time gets old fast. I miss sometimes spawning in small early camps and sometimes spawning into a big sprawling city. I miss exploring and finding lost camps and cities, or making a long trek to a bell town.

jasonrohrer · 2019-08-11 22:00:54

Yes, all these things are at odds with each other, right?

I mean, players want permanence and long-term meaning.

But it's hard to have that without stagnation.

Endlessly spiraling out and culling the center keeps stuff fresh and churning forever, and there's no stagnation, but also a general feeling of long-term meaninglessness. It also doesn't really feel like what the game promises (a growing and changing civilization over time). You know, an outsider to the game often asks, "So what age have players reached so far?" The answer is a disappointing, "They're in every age in parallel in constant churn."

Outsiders to the game imagine one big civilization that is growing and changing over time. They imagine things like all the stuff built around the Tarr monument. They don't really imagine endless wilderness with little fleeting islands of disconnected human activity.

As a simple example, I was orphaned as a male in the rift a while back. My life wasn't meaningless. I lived as a hermit, but I KNEW that my hermitage would be discovered and used by someone else someday.

Pre-rift, I probably would have just killed myself.

Also, later on, I followed the diagonal roads to the center and found the monument. Holy crap, it was amazing. Other people traveled there as well, and I ran into them at the monument. That's another example of the "permanent, meaningful player creations" that are possible when there's a permanent, central world.

That said, there ARE other possibilities for how this could work....

--Endless eve spiral with no culling in the center. Permanent civ in center, fresh civs on rim that get farther apart over time.

--Resetting eve spiral that returns to the center periodically (but no culling in center). This is like a rift without a boundary.

I'm pretty sure we've actually tried both variations in the past, and each had their own problems...

Not to mention infinite resources forever....

Dodge · 2019-08-11 22:23:10

If there was continents and oceans separating them we could have different levels of civilisations on these different continents.

Right now everything seems to mix up after a certain point.

It would still be a limited world with a continuity but one continent could already have engines and in another one a new Eve would have just started.

Also we could imagine Desert,Jungle and Thundra as being a continent on their own, so travelling would be more challenging.

Or they could be paired with green, prairie,swamp and mountain.

So each continent would have the four basic biomes + 1 special biome.

But generally i think the map/rift needs to be bigger while having the same ammount of ressources, simply from a space point of view.

Last edited by Dodge (2019-08-11 22:24:24)

Spoonwood · 2019-08-11 23:11:55

jasonrohrer wrote:

Yes, all these things are at odds with each other, right?
I mean, players want permanence and long-term meaning.
But it's hard to have that without stagnation.

No, it's not hard. You could have enabled that people (who weren't murdered, per se) to get reborn into the same spot. Or if you lived to 60 you could rebirth as an Eve where you died. That would give a sense of permanence and long-term meaning. Note that I use 'could'. I'm not talking about forcing players like Twisted to have to get reborn into the same spot, just that they would have such *as an option* by say a choice screen. The problem, at least so far, has been that your LACK OF vision Jason and lack of respect for player choice doesn't permit such things. At least not for long.

jasonrohrer wrote:

Endlessly spiraling out and culling the center keeps stuff fresh and churning forever, and there's no stagnation, but also a general feeling of long-term meaninglessness. It also doesn't really feel like what the game promises (a growing and changing civilization over time). You know, an outsider to the game often asks, "So what age have players reached so far?" The answer is a disappointing, "They're in every age in parallel in constant churn."

Because of your lack of vision that players could have serious choice over their initial conditions. Also that "One Hour One Life" could *just* mean that one hour is the maximum amount of time that one player could live one life within.

jasonrohrer wrote:

As a simple example, I was orphaned as a male in the rift a while back. My life wasn't meaningless. I lived as a hermit, but I KNEW that my hermitage would be discovered and used by someone else someday.
Pre-rift, I probably would have just killed myself.

And you haven't even thought about what you would have done had you had the ability to get reborn into the same spot or if others had that ability.

jasonrohrer wrote:

Also, later on, I followed the diagonal roads to the center and found the monument. Holy crap, it was amazing. Other people traveled there as well, and I ran into them at the monument. That's another example of the "permanent, meaningful player creations" that are possible when there's a permanent, central world.

Sure, and players who haven't gotten murdered or maybe also haven't murdered having the ability to get reborn into the same spot would enable such even with a big ass Eve spiral. Or players who lived to 60 having such an ability could do such. The Tarr monument could have EASILY existed on the old server12 for example, where SouthTown existed for something like 5 months. Why? Because getting reborn into the same spot after living to 60 came as possible and often actual.

And it would be more control for players with such a system. As I've heard the original system of Eve chaining on one of the main servers only suffered from the "problem" of the lack of vision of the game designer who can't envision that players could have significant control and enjoy that more than other possibilities.

Spoonwood · 2019-08-11 23:13:32

Anyways, even though I won't be among them, I feel confident that with the current state of affairs, grieferfest will continue.

CatX · 2019-08-11 23:24:12

Spoonwood does have a point: If before the Rift we were discouraged from attempting to be reborn in the same place, why is the Rift world now so small that we can easily navigate back to whatever town we want to live in? It does seem like two different game philosophies are at play, and that loosening the restrictions regarding player choice could have made the pre-Rift worlds more enjoyable for more players.

At least I can see the value in testing it. Just as I can see the value in testing the Rift as a concept.

BladeWoods · 2019-08-12 02:29:05

What about no fire as a possible reset condition?

DestinyCall · 2019-08-12 04:07:05

We actually still had fire to the very end of the last arch. It just wasn't available to 98% of the map.

Twisted · 2019-08-12 08:45:05

jasonrohrer wrote:

Yes, all these things are at odds with each other, right?
I mean, players want permanence and long-term meaning.
But it's hard to have that without stagnation.
Endlessly spiraling out and culling the center keeps stuff fresh and churning forever, and there's no stagnation, but also a general feeling of long-term meaninglessness. It also doesn't really feel like what the game promises (a growing and changing civilization over time).

Yes, but there has to be some kind of middle ground, right? We went from an infinite map with numerous towns and cities that all had their own personality, to a tiny map with only a few settlements that are all exactly the same. Civilization grows and changes even less than before, and I think that's a bad thing. There can still be a map that allows for people to interact with different villages if they want to without putting everyone a minute away from everyone else. Let small villages grow over time and let them evolve at their own pace, and let them eventually connect to other civilizations on the map.

jasonrohrer wrote:

You know, an outsider to the game often asks, "So what age have players reached so far?" The answer is a disappointing, "They're in every age in parallel in constant churn."

If someone asked me this I would tell them that players are still in the stone age, but they have the ability to make diesel engines. The tech tree is weird and too short for an arc that lasts several days. During the previous arc players reached the end of the tech tree in about five hours and then spent the next 200+ hours stagnating. That can't be a good ratio of development & stagnation.

jasonrohrer wrote:

As a simple example, I was orphaned as a male in the rift a while back. My life wasn't meaningless. I lived as a hermit, but I KNEW that my hermitage would be discovered and used by someone else someday.
Pre-rift, I probably would have just killed myself.

Why would you have killed yourself? Pre-rift, even if you were the last person in a village, you could walk in a random direction and you'd find another village almost every time without fail. I did that exact thing a bunch of times. Heck, one time I kidnapped their girl and went back to my village to repopulate it. I think you overestimate the distance between towns pre-rift.

jasonrohrer wrote:

Also, later on, I followed the diagonal roads to the center and found the monument. Holy crap, it was amazing. Other people traveled there as well, and I ran into them at the monument. That's another example of the "permanent, meaningful player creations" that are possible when there's a permanent, central world.

This is cool the first time you see it, sure. But it's one thing, and once you see it once the luster goes away. Pre-rift there were a bunch of places like that, big towns with bell towers that lasted several days. Finding those was always a great feeling, and I'm sad that it's gone.

Dodge · 2019-08-12 09:08:47

Twisted wrote:

If someone asked me this I would tell them that players are still in the stone age, but they have the ability to make diesel engines. The tech tree is weird and too short for an arc that lasts several days. During the previous arc players reached the end of the tech tree in about five hours and then spent the next 200+ hours stagnating. That can't be a good ratio of development & stagnation.

I agree we progress way too fast in tech, you can have diesel engines ready on day 1, so even when a new arc starts, if someone asks where are civilisations at it doesn't make much sense.

Ideally it would take several days to reach a point where a civilisation can get to engines and it would be on the rarer side and not done by every villages easily.

One of the main issue imo is that as long as you have the ressources/the tools you can make everything, this way you can easily speed up your way trough tech and reach engine in a few hours.

It's actually not very challenging to climb up in tech, you just have to know how to do the recipes and that's a memory game or using out of game sources to see the recipe.

It could be much more challenging and interesting if it was based on a skill system with specializations, and it would make people valuable ressources too, currently everyone can do everything, so if someone dies it's not a big deal.

But what if there was only one expert engineer in town, how valuable would that person be to that civilisation? and what would you have to do to survive if that person dies and your village doesn't have an expert engineer anymore?

Grim_Arbiter · 2019-08-12 09:16:37

So I think ideally there should be old land and new land. A balance of permanence with promise.

Humans have had to migrate from established civilizations and settle new territory all over the past. The conquest of the west coast of the USA is a great example. We will probably keep continuing the tradition the future (were coming for you mars!)

I think the winning prize of making it that long shouldn't just be "well heres a reset" but rather "well heres an opportunity"

So once the reset conditions are tweaked, I think we need that opportunity to expand.

A way to escape our rift, even if it was just to another rift of the same size.

Eves still would spawn at the center, but there would be new opportunities for pioneering and starting a new settlement in new land. Or more resources for a major city to keep afloat.

CatX · 2019-08-12 11:52:19

I agree that with the way farming and fire tending works, it feels like stone age even with pumps and cars.

Dantox · 2019-08-12 13:21:48

We are still pretty much on the stone age, having oil and steel tolls and call it another type of age is just a lie when gameplay doesnt really changes for anyone involved, no matter how advanced is your town you are still bounded to use branches to extract wheat, use straight branches to transport fire around and limited to only use steel for tools while making the same chores as any other town in the map.

It doesnt matter if the lore says that these people are from the future, if you dont follow a certain order (stone age, bronze age, iron age) you will end up with a mess of a tech tree with "futuristic" additions that add too little to the game due to their lack of practical use on the current age when you could spent more time on developing further the state of civilizations.

Amon · 2019-08-12 13:25:35

I think a three times as large map would be plenty to grow into. It's far too easy to explore everything on a horse. Confinement is good, just the map is too little, or rather it feels too little when traveling. There should be large streches of wilderness between civilication yet not so big to not discourage travel.

Another thing is. We need tech advancement. That or idle games activities to do in top tier towns. Ideally we would advance up a tree throughout the arc and then it resets. Giving us a different experience each day of play.

BlueDiamondAvatar · 2019-08-12 16:42:00

What if we had more than one eve spiral... and balance placing Eve's in pristine wilderness locations with placing them in occupied areas.

We started to go that way with the Eve's spawning in near concentrations of other players... but having them always pop at a particular tile ended up getting them caged. And Tarr caged the Eves as a protest of the entire property fence system, not the feral Eve effect. Heck, at one point in the game Tarr would only play as an Eve if he could find a town to co-occupy in the first ten minutes.

In other news... seems like I picked a good week for my own OHOL-free family vacation.

afreespirit · 2019-08-12 17:10:14

jasonrohrer wrote:

Yes, all these things are at odds with each other, right?
I mean, players want permanence and long-term meaning.
But it's hard to have that without stagnation.
Endlessly spiraling out and culling the center keeps stuff fresh and churning forever, and there's no stagnation, but also a general feeling of long-term meaninglessness. It also doesn't really feel like what the game promises (a growing and changing civilization over time). You know, an outsider to the game often asks, "So what age have players reached so far?" The answer is a disappointing, "They're in every age in parallel in constant churn."

Now we have traded "long-term meaninglessness" for short-term nihilism.

That isn't a good trade imho.

pein · 2019-08-12 23:02:18

dodge, i don't agree on bigger map with less resources
atually most players have a problem gathering even from 20 tiles away, and the wilderness was culled right next to a city, half the biome regenerated 50 tiles away from a quite big camp ( they stole shittons of clothes from Né town and made a newcommen, then they died out)
was even on side of rift which is quite a good direction to go with horse
and i did it a few times, nocturnal infertility? well im Eu time so might be

im kind of neutral, rift was interesting at times, but it was a bloody grieferfest other times
the fact that the map is so small (at least for me cause i always mapped out bigger parts than this) makes it easy to get back to our spots
but that was the same when the center went back to 0-0 and we could find the location from wondibles map with a bit of creativity and map knowledge
people cant really survive early game or new setups
if i let a few kids die then rush farm, an eve comes and eats most of our food with her 4 sons. but when i play solo, i can make a viable and organized fortress and that so far ends up as a highly advanced town

did it last arc, i mean it wasn't from full scratch, i had a decaying town near it
but people realized that they rather move the resources from the old town than to repair it
i was surprised when next day i spawn in the same city, had engine, stuff i made was on the same spot, eventually had oil

the same thing happened now, i had to walk there, but i found my old camp with an engine made and this life i helped on oil and kero
and the other 4 camps i seen were only newcommen tech, no engines yet, and they were in same spot yesterday

the last arc people cried there is no iron, no hope, etc. in 2 lfies i made a new engine and gathered like 110 iron on my own and it could have gone for a while if people wouldn't destroy stuff
and it's annoying and it's not a fun concept
fences? i understand that deffense is needed but it has to be perfect impermanent and that's usually quite bad for people inside the fence
i did a poll and people mostly don't like fences
and i met a lot of newer players and they were quite pissed and disappointed that they cant leave the city
sure they would die to a raid but not the point

i still think that the magic aim and the removal of dodge is a bad mechanic
at least i would want a fair skill based combat with the attackers, not just "one gate wasn't closed and the guy pressed shift click once" scenarios

overall, if the things people abuse, get fixed, we are on an okay spot
the door blocking (landing pads could be used for it, seriously if planes cant leave, then why landing pads decay so fast and easy to be destroyed?)

most of problems came from the nature of rift
it's like a deathmatch, not a sandbox
you start with a lot of resources (well technically because you know it's small so you can get back and use map knowledge to gather the things)
but a sandbox would mean that the resources are stable but their loation changes

a bit bigger size would make griefers life harder, also would allow more civilizations
more ground iron would be good for early camps, cause stealing iron isn't the best option when you can take over a city)

hightech isn't that hard, just people doesn't really prioritize the important stuff
they steal an engine from a mine when it could produce enough iron to make multiple engines.
but all the things like this are done by mediocre players and annoy the ones who could change it if it wouldn't be such a mess.
im kinda tired of being the savior always

so fixes on alll the griefing would be nice but as core gameplay , i think processing resources should be more highlighted, not gathering them

maybe some premium materials which are family property and serve as coutervalue to currency
families could use money to rent a place outside the rift
or some sort of mountain in the middle and pay for allowance to exctract it

2 people jobs and timer jobs also should be possible

One Hour One Life Forums

#51 2019-08-11 21:48:45

Re: It's kindof a funny story

#52 2019-08-11 22:00:54

Re: It's kindof a funny story

#53 2019-08-11 22:23:10

Re: It's kindof a funny story

#54 2019-08-11 23:11:55

Re: It's kindof a funny story

#55 2019-08-11 23:13:32

Re: It's kindof a funny story

#56 2019-08-11 23:24:12

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#57 2019-08-12 02:29:05

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#58 2019-08-12 04:07:05

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#59 2019-08-12 08:45:05

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#60 2019-08-12 09:08:47

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#61 2019-08-12 09:16:37

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#62 2019-08-12 11:52:19

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#64 2019-08-12 13:25:35

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#65 2019-08-12 16:42:00

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