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a multiplayer game of parenting and civilization building

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#1 2019-10-23 15:39:22

StrongForce
Member
Registered: 2018-03-09
Posts: 474

I trust in Jason's decisions

This is his game. We are along for the ride.
With big games you have next to no way to improof the game unless you mod.

Stop bashing on Jason for things you don't like.
Players like spoonwood and co don't understand that they are not entitled to tell Jason what to do.
You can give him ideas and point out bugs,but only if you are respectful enought he may listen to you.

It's not like you payed much for the game anyway.


Baby dance!!

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#2 2019-10-23 15:57:37

Dodge
Member
Registered: 2018-08-27
Posts: 2,467

Re: I trust in Jason's decisions

BuT i PaId FoR tHe GaMe

Jason HAS to lissssen to everything i have to say about it.

I give quality feedback like "I hate this change" "Remove this" "This sucks"

And if he doesn't agree with me then he must be a bad designer or just a horrible person.

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#3 2019-10-23 16:23:58

Legs
Member
Registered: 2019-07-12
Posts: 385

Re: I trust in Jason's decisions

I like his passion but I think that development priorities have become a little misguided since the introduction of the rift. This focus on restricting resources and balancing the game around that seems wrong. Wasn't this supposed to be a civ building game? What happened to the nuclear powered robots? Ever since oil was introduced everything stagnated. Especially now with the rift, even if people wanted technology it's too time and resource intensive to bother with. We're back to the iron age with the occasional diesel engine being built strictly for resource gathering.

In a developed town pre-rift players had some choice in what they -want- to do. Want to make a cool outfit and dye your clothes? Sure. Want to learn how to make ice cream or fries and ketchup? Have fun! Research new technology so you can build a car or a radio. Maybe next update you can turn that car into a steam roller and build roads more efficiently. Maybe you'll be able to construct buildings more easily, maybe you can attach a furnace so they're always warm.

To me the game was supposed to be about advancing the development of your community through increasingly complex technology. The crafting menu expands, player knowledge expands along with it and technology makes the game more fun for everybody. It's about expanding your options and availability of resources through player and community development. The rift is the complete opposite of that.


Loco Motion

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#4 2019-10-23 16:25:33

JonySky
Member
From: Catalunya
Registered: 2018-05-13
Posts: 686
Website

Re: I trust in Jason's decisions

Spoonwood and other players give their vision of the game and development because anyone can give their opinion of the current state of the game

I agree on many things that Spoonwood says, he is realistic

Surely you do not like how it is expressed, but he is very right on many points

I would worry more when there is no one left to give his point of view of the game (negative or positive)

Sometimes we don't value others' opinions correctly
sometimes we despise the thoughts of the other players ...
But the reality remains the same ...

2019-10-23-18-21-13-One-Hour-One-Life-Steam-Charts.jpg

Last edited by JonySky (2019-10-23 16:37:40)

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#5 2019-10-23 16:29:51

Toxolotl
Member
Registered: 2019-10-09
Posts: 156

Re: I trust in Jason's decisions

Yea i agree. No one really knows what will work or what wont until its tested. Antagonizing each other isnt going to get us anywhere.

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#6 2019-10-23 16:36:19

jasonrohrer
Administrator
Registered: 2017-02-13
Posts: 4,805

Re: I trust in Jason's decisions

Thanks!

Here's a quote on this subject from a lost post:

If you believe that "the customer is always right" in this context, you are sorely mistaken.  Which "customer"?  There are 80,000 of them, with 80,000 preferences and opinions.  There's only one game.  This isn't a restaurant, where I can make a custom dish for each patron if I really want to.  This isn't a service business.  I mean, yeah, if the game's not working for someone, and I can't help them get it working, I give them a quick refund.  In that sense, they are "always right."

But "customer service" doesn't mean changing the design to appease one customer.  How could it?  That's utter lunacy, no more tenable than changing a movie to appease one disgruntled audience member.  Majority rule would be just as nonsensical.  Audience, what color should Yoda be?  A.  Blue.  B.  Red.  C. Green.  D. Purple.  No, Yoda is Green because Mr. Lucas wanted him to be green.  If you don't like his color, well, good luck with that.

The only way forward is to keep audience feedback in mind as I decide what to do with the game.  In the end, I must decide.  That's the only sensible way for this to work.  And feedback is just that:  feedback.  Not angry demands.

With that quote in mind, how did we get to this point?

And by "we," I don't mean the OHOL community, but the entire game industry and fanbase?

Many game developers are TERRIFIED of their own audience, and bend over backwards in a hopeless attempt to appease them.  But of course, you can't please everyone.  You change the game in a desperate attempt to keep one vocal minority happy, and another vocal minority pops up to take its place.  The game gets worse as a result.  Almost always.

You are all EXTREMELY lucky that I'm not scared of you.  At all.

I know how this works.  That is why OHOL gets better and better instead of worse and worse.  I'm not running around trying to appease the next angry mob.  There are times when the mob is right, obviously, but just as many times when they are dead wrong.  It takes time to figure out which is which.  Just because they are angry, that isn't a sure sign that something is horribly wrong with the game.  They were angry when I removed infinite carrots back in March 2018....


But when did the audience acquire the terrible delusion that they were masters and the game developers slaves?  Do you really believe that's the way that great games are made?  Or great art in any medium?  Which great game was made that way?  I don't know of any.


Even with all of the experience that I have as a designer, when I give other designers advice about their games, my advice is ignored 75% of the time.  I'm their lifelong friend and trusted, respected colleague, and even then, they usually don't listen to me.  And very often, they are right not to listen to me, because I don't understand their game as well as they do, I don't share their vision, and so on.

So if the advice of a trusted, respected colleague and friend is ignored generally, where on earth did you get the idea that the demands of a random angry stranger on the internet must be obeyed?

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#7 2019-10-23 16:42:18

Dodge
Member
Registered: 2018-08-27
Posts: 2,467

Re: I trust in Jason's decisions

JonySky wrote:

Spoonwood and other players give their vision of the game and development because anyone can give their opinion of the current state of the game

I agree on many things that Spoonwood says, he is realistic

Surely you do not like how it is expressed, but he is very right on many points

I would worry more when there is no one left to give his point of view of the game (negative or positive)

Sometimes we don't value others' opinions correctly
sometimes we despise the thoughts of the other players ...
But the reality remains the same ...

https://i.postimg.cc/W1RcTbs6/2019-10-2 … Charts.jpg

There was a whole topic about it maybe you didn't read it

https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=8073

djVG3FJ.png

Even when Jason was adding content after content number where still droping, guess Spoonwood isn't that right after all...

Last edited by Dodge (2019-10-23 16:46:23)

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#8 2019-10-23 16:48:13

JonySky
Member
From: Catalunya
Registered: 2018-05-13
Posts: 686
Website

Re: I trust in Jason's decisions

Dodge wrote:
JonySky wrote:

Spoonwood and other players give their vision of the game and development because anyone can give their opinion of the current state of the game

I agree on many things that Spoonwood says, he is realistic

Surely you do not like how it is expressed, but he is very right on many points

I would worry more when there is no one left to give his point of view of the game (negative or positive)

Sometimes we don't value others' opinions correctly
sometimes we despise the thoughts of the other players ...
But the reality remains the same ...

https://i.postimg.cc/W1RcTbs6/2019-10-2 … Charts.jpg

There was a whole topic about it maybe you didn't read it

https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=8073

https://i.imgur.com/djVG3FJ.png

Even when Jason was adding content after content number where still droping, guess Spoonwood isn't that right after all...

the solution is not to add new content ...
The new content won't solve the game ...
I have never said that adding new content solves OHOL's current problems
But there is a problem ... this is evident.

The community expresses itself ... and gives its opinion (negative or positive)

The only thing I want to say is that all opinions must be respected, because although I don't know everyone's liking ... negative opinions can also be constructive

Last edited by JonySky (2019-10-23 16:50:04)

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#9 2019-10-23 16:51:49

Dodge
Member
Registered: 2018-08-27
Posts: 2,467

Re: I trust in Jason's decisions

JonySky wrote:

...

So why did you add that steam chart in your post again?

If not to express something specific

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#10 2019-10-23 17:00:03

jasonrohrer
Administrator
Registered: 2017-02-13
Posts: 4,805

Re: I trust in Jason's decisions

Yes, there are obviously HUGE problems with OHOL.  I've never denied that.

That's why I'm working to figure out what those problems are and fix them.

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#11 2019-10-23 17:01:12

fug
Moderator
Registered: 2019-08-21
Posts: 1,130

Re: I trust in Jason's decisions

I'm glad someone can have trust in Jason because once you've played the game long enough you just become jaded.

Sort of hard to have faith in a guy who can reintroduce a bug (he had to fix on vacation with his family, then readded it by accident next week) as a feature is good at making decisions. If its not poor decisions you then have to double back every week to check what from last week is buggy (hint most weeks have bugs because Jason doesn't test it.) and following that Jason spreads misinformation about how things work.

https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=7954

This isn't the case at all and hasn't been the case. You can (still) curse people from the tutorial like you could when cursing was originally introduced and what not.

So we have:
-Doesn't know how things work in his own game.
-Purposely rereleases bugs in attempts to get people to do his bidding.
-Doesn't test content he releases.

I have faith the game will go forward but it's going to zigzag, double back, roll over, and everything else in between as well.


Worlds oldest SID baby.

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#12 2019-10-23 17:28:03

Dantox
Member
Registered: 2019-04-28
Posts: 213

Re: I trust in Jason's decisions

In my opinion the game feels like is being developed with no real path established or vision in the long-term as most updates in the past were new gimmicks or content that served no purpose at the time (which has led to certain items now being worthless because of the rift) that turned the game so bad that we are now needing months of hotfixes and tweaks to make it better.

Which is TRUE, these past few updates have been very good to the game (with some few exceptions) but i feel like these problems wouldnt have come up if he had planned ahead or at least gave more thought about it (He doesnt test content and because of these there is a lot of oversights everytime new content was added) since his method to test stuff is by trial and error

Even if i 100% trusted him i dont think OHOL is going to go that far and it will just going to be a "good game i guess" type of game, since his philosophy seems very flawed (at least for me) on a gameplay and balance perspective. (lets ignore the fact that the engine plays a big part in limiting the game)

Even then i respect him as a person and he can do whatever the hell he wants to, since he is the only developer after all, but if things were going down or badly for OHOL i wouldnt say i didnt saw it coming.


make bread, no war

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#13 2019-10-23 17:42:09

jasonrohrer
Administrator
Registered: 2017-02-13
Posts: 4,805

Re: I trust in Jason's decisions

fug, I'm guessing that you've never developed a giant piece of software by yourself before over the course of 4.5 years?  112,870 lines of code is no joke.

And the server is coded in native code, has player activity on it 24-7, and hasn't had a crash in MONTHS.  The server portion is something like 70,000 lines of native code.

The last crash of the main game server was on June 15, 2019.  So four months of no crashes.  That is an UNHEARD OF level of stability.

There have been a few outtages during that time, due to bugs in the nginx web server (the industry standard) and forced updates to the Linux Kernel (two nights ago, Linode ran a forced update which took the server down).

So the OHOL server code is more stable than nginx and the Linux kernel itself.


But are there still bugs?  Of course.  Software has bugs.  Sometimes the bugs are hard to find and fix.  Sometimes the fixes don't work.

Sometimes the testing that I do misses a bug.

Welcome to software development.

Most software crashes, though.  OHOL almost never does.

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#14 2019-10-23 17:46:28

jasonrohrer
Administrator
Registered: 2017-02-13
Posts: 4,805

Re: I trust in Jason's decisions

You're right that the 32-radius curse limit doesn't seem to be working.  Not sure what's going on there, and I'll fix it.  Unfortunately, it has never been reported to me through the list that I look at:

https://github.com/jasonrohrer/OneLife/issues

So I didn't know about it until just now.

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#15 2019-10-23 18:10:42

Spoonwood
Member
Registered: 2019-02-06
Posts: 4,369

Re: I trust in Jason's decisions

StrongForce wrote:

Players like spoonwood and co don't understand that they are not entitled to tell Jason what to do.

Oh, but I do have the right to make demands.  So do you.  You merely wish that people didn't have the right to say things that you don't like to hear.

Additionally, I'm not a player at this point in time.  I'm an ex-player, thank you.


Danish Clinch.
Longtime tutorial player.

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#16 2019-10-23 18:26:50

Spoonwood
Member
Registered: 2019-02-06
Posts: 4,369

Re: I trust in Jason's decisions

jasonrohrer wrote:

And by "we," I don't mean the OHOL community, but the entire game industry and fanbase?

Nope.  The problem lies in any game designer who insults their communities preferences, and doesn't have an interest in appealing to their fanbase.  And it shows, by players leaving and complaining.

jasonrohrer wrote:

Many game developers are TERRIFIED of their own audience, and bend over backwards in a hopeless attempt to appease them.

Oh please.  I'm not seeing threats directed towards game designers, and even if they exist, I doubt they consist of credible threats.  On top of that, the game designers get paid for their work.  Consumers have the right to make demands/requests.

jasonrohrer wrote:

You are all EXTREMELY lucky that I'm not scared of you.  At all.

*laughing* I don't think anyone is happy with the low and declining player population numbers Jason.  What luck is for things to continually go downhill?  Bad luck.

jasonrohrer wrote:

I know how this works.  That is why OHOL gets better and better instead of worse and worse.

What a joke.  Your numbers are bad, and you stick to this.  You don't know much, if anything at all.  Especially about how to interact with people well.   

jasonrohrer wrote:

I'm not running around trying to appease the next angry mob.  There are times when the mob is right, obviously, but just as many times when they are dead wrong.  It takes time to figure out which is which.  Just because they are angry, that isn't a sure sign that something is horribly wrong with the game.

You have made this excuse multiple times before.  And each time you do it, you merely justify your arrogant ideas that get made up in a vacuum regardless of whether they appeal to people.

jasonrohrer wrote:

But when did the audience acquire the terrible delusion that they were masters and the game developers slaves?

The reality consists in that game consumers can make demands/requests.  They know that they play the game more often than a single developer.  Your spin on this again shows that you don't respect your consumers, and probably never have.

jasonrohrer wrote:

   Do you really believe that's the way that great games are made?  Or great art in any medium?  Which great game was made that way?  I don't know of any.

I believe that good game designers take into account player feedback, try to appeal to them, and never insult their preferences.  I'm sure that plenty of great artists did things experimentally at first and then once they saw that their audience would react positively to something, they kept on doing that something or enhancing that something.

jasonrohrer wrote:

So if the advice of a trusted, respected colleague and friend is ignored generally, where on earth did you get the idea that the demands of a random angry stranger on the internet must be obeyed?

It isn't one sole person Jason.  It's many people.  And seriously, why would the advice of a trusted and respected colleague matter?  Who knows if that person would buy your game or bought it?  The opinions of the people who pay for the product matter.  And your attempt at spinning what they say, well, it again shows that you don't fundamentally respect your customers.


Danish Clinch.
Longtime tutorial player.

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#17 2019-10-23 18:32:06

Spoonwood
Member
Registered: 2019-02-06
Posts: 4,369

Re: I trust in Jason's decisions

jasonrohrer wrote:

fug, I'm guessing that you've never developed a giant piece of software by yourself before over the course of 4.5 years?  112,870 lines of code is no joke.

Jason, I'm guessing that instead of looking at the content of what fug, you've attacked him personally and patted yourself on the back.  Your reasoning isn't valid. There's no more or no less reason to trust or distrust what fug said based on his personal experience.  If you have a relevant comment on what fug said, stick the to the content of it, if you want to think rationally on the matter.


Danish Clinch.
Longtime tutorial player.

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#18 2019-10-23 18:32:19

Dodge
Member
Registered: 2018-08-27
Posts: 2,467

Re: I trust in Jason's decisions

jasonrohrer wrote:

Just because they are angry, that isn't a sure sign that something is horribly wrong with the game.

 

jasonrohrer wrote:

They were angry when I removed infinite carrots back in March 2018....

Enough said...

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#19 2019-10-23 18:36:56

Spoonwood
Member
Registered: 2019-02-06
Posts: 4,369

Re: I trust in Jason's decisions

Dodge wrote:
jasonrohrer wrote:

Just because they are angry, that isn't a sure sign that something is horribly wrong with the game.

 

jasonrohrer wrote:

They were angry when I removed infinite carrots back in March 2018....

Enough said...

I think this is sarcasm from you Dodge.  If so, that's kind of funny.  It's silly to say this out of nowhere as Jason did, because it could get used to justify any bad decision that he makes.


Danish Clinch.
Longtime tutorial player.

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#20 2019-10-23 18:38:26

Lava
Member
Registered: 2019-07-20
Posts: 339

Re: I trust in Jason's decisions

jasonrohrer wrote:

Thanks!

Here's a quote on this subject from a lost post:

If you believe that "the customer is always right" in this context, you are sorely mistaken.  Which "customer"?  There are 80,000 of them, with 80,000 preferences and opinions.  There's only one game.  This isn't a restaurant, where I can make a custom dish for each patron if I really want to.  This isn't a service business.  I mean, yeah, if the game's not working for someone, and I can't help them get it working, I give them a quick refund.  In that sense, they are "always right."

But "customer service" doesn't mean changing the design to appease one customer.  How could it?  That's utter lunacy, no more tenable than changing a movie to appease one disgruntled audience member.  Majority rule would be just as nonsensical.  Audience, what color should Yoda be?  A.  Blue.  B.  Red.  C. Green.  D. Purple.  No, Yoda is Green because Mr. Lucas wanted him to be green.  If you don't like his color, well, good luck with that.

The only way forward is to keep audience feedback in mind as I decide what to do with the game.  In the end, I must decide.  That's the only sensible way for this to work.  And feedback is just that:  feedback.  Not angry demands.

With that quote in mind, how did we get to this point?

And by "we," I don't mean the OHOL community, but the entire game industry and fanbase?

Many game developers are TERRIFIED of their own audience, and bend over backwards in a hopeless attempt to appease them.  But of course, you can't please everyone.  You change the game in a desperate attempt to keep one vocal minority happy, and another vocal minority pops up to take its place.  The game gets worse as a result.  Almost always.

You are all EXTREMELY lucky that I'm not scared of you.  At all.

I know how this works.  That is why OHOL gets better and better instead of worse and worse.  I'm not running around trying to appease the next angry mob.  There are times when the mob is right, obviously, but just as many times when they are dead wrong.  It takes time to figure out which is which.  Just because they are angry, that isn't a sure sign that something is horribly wrong with the game.  They were angry when I removed infinite carrots back in March 2018....


But when did the audience acquire the terrible delusion that they were masters and the game developers slaves?  Do you really believe that's the way that great games are made?  Or great art in any medium?  Which great game was made that way?  I don't know of any.


Even with all of the experience that I have as a designer, when I give other designers advice about their games, my advice is ignored 75% of the time.  I'm their lifelong friend and trusted, respected colleague, and even then, they usually don't listen to me.  And very often, they are right not to listen to me, because I don't understand their game as well as they do, I don't share their vision, and so on.

So if the advice of a trusted, respected colleague and friend is ignored generally, where on earth did you get the idea that the demands of a random angry stranger on the internet must be obeyed?


Its funny because this is the EXACT REASON the poll system was implemented, to gain an opinion of what the players want. When i told you to use it in a previous thread, you said that you already know what people want. What??? Doesn't your hypocrisy show evident? The poll system is to find out what the players want and you havent been using it at all because you think you got things figured out. If you actually used the poll system to know what ALL the players want, we wouldn't have this content problem because it would be one of the highest requests for people who play regularly. A great game is made of of the opinions of many, not the opinion of one.

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#21 2019-10-23 18:43:13

Spoonwood
Member
Registered: 2019-02-06
Posts: 4,369

Re: I trust in Jason's decisions

Dodge wrote:
JonySky wrote:

Spoonwood and other players give their vision of the game and development because anyone can give their opinion of the current state of the game

I agree on many things that Spoonwood says, he is realistic

Surely you do not like how it is expressed, but he is very right on many points

I would worry more when there is no one left to give his point of view of the game (negative or positive)

Sometimes we don't value others' opinions correctly
sometimes we despise the thoughts of the other players ...
But the reality remains the same ...

https://i.postimg.cc/W1RcTbs6/2019-10-2 … Charts.jpg

There was a whole topic about it maybe you didn't read it

https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=8073

https://i.imgur.com/djVG3FJ.png

Even when Jason was adding content after content number where still droping, guess Spoonwood isn't that right after all...

Your analysis is not correct.  See that low point in the middle of December?  See the middle of February also?  Player count increased during that time period, with two rises (and one period of decline).  Updates slightly before and during that time period were Black Gold (oil), Internal Combustion (cars), Yuletime (Christmas trees), two radio updates, and The Miracle of Flight (planes).  See here for reference on the updates: https://onehouronelife.gamepedia.com/Version_history

If you believed that Jason told you such, well, there wasn't reason to trust him, because increasing numbers has happened post steam release after and when Jason has released serious content updates.


Danish Clinch.
Longtime tutorial player.

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#22 2019-10-23 18:51:48

Dodge
Member
Registered: 2018-08-27
Posts: 2,467

Re: I trust in Jason's decisions

Spoonwood wrote:
Dodge wrote:
JonySky wrote:

Spoonwood and other players give their vision of the game and development because anyone can give their opinion of the current state of the game

I agree on many things that Spoonwood says, he is realistic

Surely you do not like how it is expressed, but he is very right on many points

I would worry more when there is no one left to give his point of view of the game (negative or positive)

Sometimes we don't value others' opinions correctly
sometimes we despise the thoughts of the other players ...
But the reality remains the same ...

https://i.postimg.cc/W1RcTbs6/2019-10-2 … Charts.jpg

There was a whole topic about it maybe you didn't read it

https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=8073

https://i.imgur.com/djVG3FJ.png

Even when Jason was adding content after content number where still droping, guess Spoonwood isn't that right after all...

Your analysis is not correct.  See that low point in the middle of December?  See the middle of February also?  Player count increased during that time period, with two rises (and one period of decline).  Updates slightly before and during that time period were Black Gold (oil), Internal Combustion (cars), Yuletime (Christmas trees), two radio updates, and The Miracle of Flight (planes).  See here for reference on the updates: https://onehouronelife.gamepedia.com/Version_history

If you believed that Jason told you such, well, there wasn't reason to trust him, because increasing numbers has happened post steam release after and when Jason has released serious content updates.


OMG are you still talking about those ridiculously tiny spikes in players?

Are you blind or can you not see that the numbers are going down over time no matter what was done.

Doesn't matter if there is some tiny spikes every now and then, the numbers are going DOWN!!!

A 2 year old could see that the graph looks like mountains and not like waves from an ocean

See there is the original release mountain and the steam release mountain

Do you want me to draw it for you? Maybe il add a rainbow and a sun with a smile if you are nice smile

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#23 2019-10-23 19:03:40

jasonrohrer
Administrator
Registered: 2017-02-13
Posts: 4,805

Re: I trust in Jason's decisions

The poll system is not to find out what the majority "want".

It is to find answers to questions that I don't know the answer to,


But yeah, why don't I ask you what you want?

Because actually---brace yourself and gird your loins for a truth you don't want to hear---you don't know what you want.  You think you do, but you're most likely wrong.

This is a simple fact of human nature.  It's why people who move to Hawaii generally don't stay there forever.  It's why MORE isn't always better than LESS, even though everyone thinks they want MORE.

How many people are playing Noita right now and say they WANT gold to not disappear on a timer?  They see gold blinking and disappearing in a given moment and they think, "Hey no, I don't want that gold to blink and disappear!"

Of course you don't want it to.  You don't want lots of short-term negative things that are actually good for you.  You don't want that amazing movie to end.  But it would actually really suck if it never ended.

And Noita would be way worse if gold that fell on the ground sat there forever until you finally picked it up.  It makes you shout NO! when you don't get there in time and it disappears, but you don't actually realize that shouting NO! is one of the main reasons you play games.

How many people playing Noita curse the 4-slot wand limit when they have to make a tough choice over which wand to keep?  Leaving a nice wand behind is painful.  But the game is much better with that pain in place.

What you WANT and what you actually NEED are two different things.  It's my job to figure out the difference.

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#24 2019-10-23 19:05:03

The_Anabaptist
Member
Registered: 2018-11-14
Posts: 364

Re: I trust in Jason's decisions

jasonrohrer wrote:

Thanks!

Here's a quote on this subject from a lost post:

If you believe that "the customer is always right" in this context, you are sorely mistaken.  Which "customer"?  There are 80,000 of them, with 80,000 preferences and opinions.  There's only one game.  This isn't a restaurant, where I can make a custom dish for each patron if I really want to.  This isn't a service business.  I mean, yeah, if the game's not working for someone, and I can't help them get it working, I give them a quick refund.  In that sense, they are "always right."

But "customer service" doesn't mean changing the design to appease one customer.  How could it?  That's utter lunacy, no more tenable than changing a movie to appease one disgruntled audience member.  Majority rule would be just as nonsensical.  Audience, what color should Yoda be?  A.  Blue.  B.  Red.  C. Green.  D. Purple.  No, Yoda is Green because Mr. Lucas wanted him to be green.  If you don't like his color, well, good luck with that.

The only way forward is to keep audience feedback in mind as I decide what to do with the game.  In the end, I must decide.  That's the only sensible way for this to work.  And feedback is just that:  feedback.  Not angry demands.

With that quote in mind, how did we get to this point?

And by "we," I don't mean the OHOL community, but the entire game industry and fanbase?

Many game developers are TERRIFIED of their own audience, and bend over backwards in a hopeless attempt to appease them.  But of course, you can't please everyone.  You change the game in a desperate attempt to keep one vocal minority happy, and another vocal minority pops up to take its place.  The game gets worse as a result.  Almost always.

You are all EXTREMELY lucky that I'm not scared of you.  At all.

I know how this works.  That is why OHOL gets better and better instead of worse and worse.  I'm not running around trying to appease the next angry mob.  There are times when the mob is right, obviously, but just as many times when they are dead wrong.  It takes time to figure out which is which.  Just because they are angry, that isn't a sure sign that something is horribly wrong with the game.  They were angry when I removed infinite carrots back in March 2018....


But when did the audience acquire the terrible delusion that they were masters and the game developers slaves?  Do you really believe that's the way that great games are made?  Or great art in any medium?  Which great game was made that way?  I don't know of any.


Even with all of the experience that I have as a designer, when I give other designers advice about their games, my advice is ignored 75% of the time.  I'm their lifelong friend and trusted, respected colleague, and even then, they usually don't listen to me.  And very often, they are right not to listen to me, because I don't understand their game as well as they do, I don't share their vision, and so on.

So if the advice of a trusted, respected colleague and friend is ignored generally, where on earth did you get the idea that the demands of a random angry stranger on the internet must be obeyed?


Alright, I'll bite.  One factor is due to the ease of modding.  I don't remember this level of vitriol prior to average joes figuring out that they could add content to a beloved game.  With your desire for high levels of control/vision Jason, I don't know why you ever allowed modding in the first place.  Now we have a zoom mod that a significant segment of your player base swears by as the only way to play the game, and your steadfast refusal to build it into the base game.  This one mod causes so many player vs player balancing issues and I would consider it a friendly/benign mod in its intent.  I can only imagine what it must be like for you to deal with more malicious mods.

The_Anabaptist

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#25 2019-10-23 19:08:05

Lava
Member
Registered: 2019-07-20
Posts: 339

Re: I trust in Jason's decisions

Dodge wrote:
Spoonwood wrote:
Dodge wrote:

There was a whole topic about it maybe you didn't read it

https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=8073

https://i.imgur.com/djVG3FJ.png

Even when Jason was adding content after content number where still droping, guess Spoonwood isn't that right after all...

Your analysis is not correct.  See that low point in the middle of December?  See the middle of February also?  Player count increased during that time period, with two rises (and one period of decline).  Updates slightly before and during that time period were Black Gold (oil), Internal Combustion (cars), Yuletime (Christmas trees), two radio updates, and The Miracle of Flight (planes).  See here for reference on the updates: https://onehouronelife.gamepedia.com/Version_history

If you believed that Jason told you such, well, there wasn't reason to trust him, because increasing numbers has happened post steam release after and when Jason has released serious content updates.


OMG are you still talking about those ridiculously tiny spikes in players?

Are you blind or can you not see that the numbers are going down over time no matter what was done.

Doesn't matter if there is some tiny spikes every now and then, the numbers are going DOWN!!!

A 2 year old could see that the graph looks like mountains and not like waves from an ocean

See there is the original release mountain and the steam release mountain

Do you want me to draw it for you? Maybe il add a rainbow and a sun with a smile if you are nice smile

\


March he stopped adding content player base dropped significantly, he added rift, the drop was dramatic, the life limit, fence, and language all controversial updates mashed into one huge drop aswell. All of these were from changes not actual content lol

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