Coming Soon: Family Specialization

jasonrohrer · 2019-11-14 23:33:23

Slinky, the current plan is that you get sick if you set foot in the desert.

So if you have a baby there, you will be having a baby while sick, similar to having one while having yellow fever or while being snake bit.

You can't hold anything while sick or wounded. So this is nothing new.

Imagine that the desert is one big mosquito swarm for you.

jcwilk · 2019-11-14 23:45:30

Spoonwood wrote:

jcwilk wrote:
Spoonwood wrote:
There isn't a difference.
You probably think the Michael Bay Transformers movies are among the highest form of art then, don't you? The average person is an idiot not a discerning critic.
Calling the average person an idiot is elitist. You may think you're better than the average person, but that doesn't mean that you are.

I never said anything about my own ability to be a critic nor about yours, just that the average person sucks at it, evidenced by the top songs, movies, restaurant chains, tv shows, etc. Try filling your life with all the most popular things and see how much substance is left at the end of the day. It'll be all superficial, easy to approach, vapid fluff.

People, in general, by definition of what exceptional means, are not intellectually exceptional and don't care about most things. Average intelligence people who don't give much of a fuck about the subject material (because passion at a sufficient enough level to actually go out of one's way to learn deeply about the great and terrible things about a field is definitely not average) make for poor critics indeed unless you're criteria for greatness is "loved by the mediocre", which is fine but just an unusual way of defining greatness.

But yeah although I'm not being elitist about myself (at this moment, at least) I'm certainly being elitist about who should be trusted to judge things. It would be weird to not be elitist about greatness though, top tier is kinda the whole point of greatness ya know? It takes the exceptional to know the exceptional.

Spoonwood · 2019-11-14 23:49:38

jasonrohrer wrote:

Slinky, the current plan is that you get sick if you set foot in the desert.

Because black people instantly get sick if they step foot in snow Jason? This whole idea is counter-intuitive Jason and not reflective of the real world.

Spoonwood · 2019-11-14 23:54:16

jcwilk wrote:

I never said anything about my own ability to be a critic nor about yours, just that the average person sucks at it, evidenced by the top songs, movies, restaurant chains, tv shows, etc.

No, that doesn't disprove their ability to do so.

jcwilk wrote:

Try filling your life with all the most popular things and see how much substance is left at the end of the day. It'll be all superficial, easy to approach, vapid fluff.

No, I don't agree with that.

jcwilk wrote:

People, in general, by definition of what exceptional means, are not intellectually exceptional and don't care about most things. Average intelligence people who don't give much of a fuck about the subject material (because passion at a sufficient enough level to actually go out of one's way to learn deeply about the great and terrible things about a field is definitely not average) make for poor critics indeed unless you're criteria for greatness is "loved by the mediocre", which is fine but just an unusual way of defining greatness.

Greatness in terms of a product is its popularity. That you think your taste above others consists of your elitist hang-up and does not reflect poorly upon other people.

jcwilk wrote:

It would be weird to not be elitist about greatness though, top tier is kinda the whole point of greatness ya know?

Top tier is popular. And yes it's weird to be elitist about greatness for art forms, because it's saying that one person's tastes matter more than another person's tastes. No, all people's tastes matter equally.

jcwilk wrote:

It takes the exceptional to know the exceptional.

No, it does not. Plenty of people knew that Elvis Presley was exceptional and they were not exceptional themselves (and he was extremely popular).

jcwilk · 2019-11-15 00:14:44

Sounds like we're just following different understandings of greatness so the argument is reduced to a matter of semantics, clearly not helpful to this thread. Happy to continue discussing it offline if you'd like, but it sounds like we're both satisfied with our own understandings. Nothing wrong with that

DiscardedSlinky · 2019-11-15 00:29:17

Yeah I understand, but you don't HAVE to have it like this.This is just blocking off 50% of the map for people. This isn't good, this is terrible.

There's no reason the biome should be hostile to us. "Family Specialization" should be biome specific ITEMS should be only for SPECIALIZED PEOPLE. Anyone can walk into a desert, but the items found there they'd have no idea what to do with because they aren't from there. That makes WAY more sense than "Oh no I stepped into this place now I am unable to do anything". Like there's items in these places that are found anywhere, but because they're on the wrong tile we suddenly can't interact with them.

Honestly I've been trying to be reasonable, but this just seems like a half asses implementation of a new restriction.

Dantox · 2019-11-15 00:51:18

this stuff feels kinda forced into the game without any solid foundation before-hand to make it work, so far it seems like you are just changng game rules and make it seem like its a brand new concept that will make it better for everyone. it isnt realistic or fun (or at least my definition of fun if you want to get that technical..)

I honestly would rather have some changes to the biomes first to prepare it for these restrinctions to get implemented as i dont think they will work that well when it launches. Pretty sure that if you launch this stuff in this week the next months will be about tweaking this single feature without anything on addition for the players (besides the stress, i guess)

Legs · 2019-11-15 01:15:51

Dantox wrote:

the next months will be about tweaking... without anything on addition for the players

That's what the updates have been about for almost a year now. Tweaking small things without introducing new content. We got oil for xmas last december I think and just about nothing since then. No electricity. No solar panels, no nuclear reactors, no atomic powered robots or ray guns. Game time froze in the 18th or 19th century and hasn't moved since. It's not about staying one step ahead of the player with new content updates. It's about tweaking current content to try and find some kind of perfect game that mr jason saw in a fever dream.

It feels like he's given up on releasing new content and just playing around with levers and switches trying to fix something that was never broken. I don't really mind, the game is still fun and unique. It's just a little bit sad to see how it's wasting its potential.

PeebleCreek · 2019-11-15 01:42:04

Well, we all know Jason is going to make this change regardless of what his player base thinks of it, but fuck it, I'm still tossing my hat into the "This Update is a HORRIBLE Idea" ring.

Every update has been Jason saying "This update will force players to change how they play!" And then everyone does things almost exactly the same as always, but now it's just slightly more annoying to do it. Nobody trades, despite that being the goal of most other updates. Nobody communicates, despite that being the purpose of the tool slot update. And as many have already said, nobody is going to start trading after this biome specialization update.

Personally, I prefer the multi-family towns. Especially during the Rift, because it generally made it harder to grief a family out of existence and end the world. So, I don't see it as a problem that this update will lead to a bunch of different families living in one big mega-city. However, the fact that this seems inevitable just says to me that the update is pointless at best.

But, ya know. Jason knows best, I guess. Considering input from players beyond minor tweaks would be pandering. And we wouldn't want this game to end up like Minecraft; perish the thought!

MapleSugar · 2019-11-15 01:43:58

Need more car capacity.
Trader needs to go long distance for trade.

DestinyCall · 2019-11-15 01:45:49

MapleSugar wrote:

Need more car capacity.
Trader needs to go long distance for trade.

Plane would be better than car for long distance trade routes.

But yes, more capacity is needed for both.

...

We are sorely in need of a Planes/Trains/Automobiles update so we don't just use upgraded horse cart forever. And yes, we do have "trains" or at least we do have train tracks ....

Last edited by DestinyCall (2019-11-15 01:49:26)

fug · 2019-11-15 02:08:03

DestinyCall wrote:

MapleSugar wrote:
Need more car capacity.
Trader needs to go long distance for trade.
Plane would be better than car for long distance trade routes.
But yes, more capacity is needed for both.
...
We are sorely in need of a Planes/Trains/Automobiles update so we don't just use upgraded horse cart forever. And yes, we do have "trains" or at least we do have train tracks ....

But there's not room! Look how cramped that poor car looks! Everyone knows an installed engine takes up five slots vs a horse cart being allowed to tangle/stack/whatever up to eight...

You gotta make sure there's room!

Legs · 2019-11-15 02:13:07

DestinyCall wrote:

Planes/Trains/Automobiles update

That would break the resource & player distribution balance which was very carefully crafted as the entire point of our long rift experiment.

I completely agree that some way to streamline production of engines (production line) should come soon after the introduction of cars but that's obviously not happening. At this point it's clear that the game is never progressing past diesel engines as the highest form of technology.

Tractors, steamrollers, trucks. These are all examples of appropriate next steps. None of them will ever be introduced. Forget cars and asphalt, horses and cobblestone will be meta forever.

Stormyzabeast · 2019-11-15 02:32:32

That's it. I fucking quit. At least I had a good last week to play without the last dumb ass idea ruining everything. This is just a load of horse shit! So more people don't end up quitting, try adding new content and stop controlling every damn thing we do!!!

DestinyCall · 2019-11-15 03:20:16

Legs wrote:

DestinyCall wrote:
Planes/Trains/Automobiles update
That would break the resource & player distribution balance which was very carefully crafted as the entire point of our long rift experiment.

Hmmm ... I suppose the only option is a return to the Rift.

For Science! Muhahahahaha!

Gogo · 2019-11-15 05:40:49

Wait, so the arc will end or we stay in our towns?

Last edited by Gogo (2019-11-15 05:42:14)

DestinyCall · 2019-11-15 08:57:55

fug wrote:

You gotta make sure there's room!

So you are saying we need SUVs, right?

miskas · 2019-11-15 09:13:59

he could add a rubber tire cart behind the car.

Dodge · 2019-11-15 09:45:33

Right now there is no reason to travel between towns so any sort of transportation like railways, inter connected roads etc is useless.

New update will add a reason to travel between towns but probably not high enough to need these sorts of transportation.

Having some sort of long term but very rare ressource would be more like it, for example having only one iron mine that you can get long term iron from and another one for copper and another one for some other ressource etc.

But even with this there is still some bigger issues like private property and trade that wont happen with the current game.

It's too easy to survive outside with only clothes so after a certain point everything added becomes fluff.

13jonathandavid · 2019-11-15 10:30:41

@Jason

I think the idea is awesome! I love inter-town politics. But I think the method is off. The way it is implemented will just create a three-eve meta. Since the goal is town trade not forcing all players to adopt a mixed town approach I think you have to change the method to achieve the goal.

* The first thing you need for successful trade is a shared map, this was more possible during the rift update, however the rift had it's problems as well. In-order for a town to specialize in something you really need multiple towns all of which know of each-others existence and that fight/share the same set of resources.
* The next thing you need is a strong sense of internal identity. If a town is going to own/specialize in certain resources that other towns don't have. Citizens of Town A need to understand that they are citizens of town A and not citizens of town B. Otherwise you're back to the three eve solution where everyone gets together to circumvent the distinctions.
* Finally, you need a good reason to trade. Right now war and theft are better options. (Although that's not all bad, war and theft are interesting dynamics in their own right if controlled for).

I suggest the following ideas in light of the above dynamics:

A city is formed by crafting and placing a city stone. (A city stone placed very close to another one will crumble)
A family citizenship is formed by crafting and placing a family stone in very close proximity to the city stone. Each family taking residence in the city has their own family stone.

If Annie Walker was born too far away from any stone she will be known as:
Annie Walker the Barbarian.

If Annie Walker born in reasonable proximity to the city stone will be known as:

Annie Walker Citizen of [City Name] if she has a 'Walker' family stone near the city stone at birth.
Annie Walker Outlaw of [City Name] if her family doesn't have a family stone near the city stone at birth. Because her family hasn't been accepted by the community.
Annie Walker Vegabond of [City Name] if she was an outlaw, barbarian, or tramp and is pardoned by leadership. Vegabonds are are like citizens that weren't citizens at birth. Thus a lower class.

If Annie Walker no longer wants to be a member of a city-state: (“I am wandering”). Another city-state’s leadership can then make her a vagabond.
While she is a tramp she would be known as Annie Walker the tramp.

Rational: Instead of making things race based, why not make them city-state based so we need some sort of city-state identity. Because families often cross pollinate it's not enough to rely on family name alone.

PEACE/ENEMY is based on citizenship rather than family.

* Peace is formed when two city-states exchange peace stones. Peace stones are placed in very close proximity to a City Stone.

* Members (vagabonds and citizens) of a City-state that aren’t at peace view the other vagabonds and citizens as enemies. Opposite for peace. A Vagabond has the same diplomacy as a citizen.

* Outlaws are always enemies with everyone except other members of their family AND city-state.

* Barbarians and tramps are always enemies with everyone except close family And who are also barbarians/tramps.

Rational: Right now the war/peace is so unused that it doesn't supply enough information on whether a stranger is in bad or good graces of town. By starting out as enemy, you force players to choose to be trading partners (peace stones) or friends (mixed families living in the same town by family stones).

Killing of an enemy has a much lower cooldown and the victim dies much faster.
Rational: The reason for the long cooldown and the agonizing death is so that the community can ascertain what happened and communicate to whether such an action was good or bad. They can then remedy the solution by healing the victim or killing the perpetrator.

However, you want the opposite effect for enemies. The long an enemy lives the more it seems like murder and less like killing. You want players to buy into the meta that friends are good and enemies are bad, thus you need to distinguish between the two. Additionally, I noticed how annoying the cooldown was on raiding other towns when the object clearly was to kill and not facilitate a discussion of why.

This also stops the three-eve meta-problem, because city stones aren’t available at eve, other families are a threat until civ develops to that point.

Now that we’ve established the proper infrastructure for trade we can start to consider why it might work. Because peace stones are being used, if a city-state wants to keep the peace they can’t continually steal or kill or the other nation will destroy the stone and they will be enemies again.

Ways to encourage trade: Social Glue

City-state government specialization: Force a city-state to choose / randomly assign a government specification. It doesn’t matter how the government runs as long as everyone knows who the leaders are. Coups, Rebellions and takeovers by nearby city-states should all be possible but need to be controlled for so governments have some staying power.

Religion (down the road): Another staple of social glue, from sacrificing your first born son to marriage, honor of Gods and what not should be fun. Religion gives us rules and rituals to live by in town. This will help some players get out of the ‘meta rut’ and explore a little.
Randomly assigning / generating religions would be very fun. Side note, playing as a deity would be fun and a real treat as well. Wars will be fought with or without religion but religious wars tell great stories. (OHOL is all about the grand narrative).

Concentrate resources so that one or two cities can control them: If all the horses in the nearest 2k of the map are in one area someone will build a town nearby and control the supply. Giving horses as lifespan will ensure that the market doesn’t get saturated.

Why is this better than saying only black people can make horse carts? Because the dynamics will be more interesting. The answer will either be war or trade, if the item is scarce, otherwise a who-cares that they are capturing our horses approach will develop.

Stratify your society: Depending on government type, you might need a king, queen ect but this should be chosen from royalty not peasanty. But beyond royalty vs peasants you really need players to make choices that limit other choices that’s the point behind the skill cap.
Rather than having a player choose their own, I think having a mom / leader choose would be much more entertaining in the long run. Many players never learn something because they get stuck in the same meta. Saying ‘you are farmer’, ‘you are baker’, ‘you are blacksmith’, ‘ you are royalty’, or ‘you are warrior’ would be much nicer. This game is part parenting and parents should mold their kids. Parents could assign their kids roles, and leaders could override/assign as well (under 8 or so). Players that weren't assigned a profession would be known as 'vagrant' and would have one extra wild slot but no specials.

Players would be able to use all of the skills in their profession for ‘free’. plus 1-3 wildcards based on fitness. Barbarians wouldn’t have professions but would have broad access to beginning tools but restricted access to later ones, they wouldn’t have any wildcard slots, this would allow for rapid growth as eve ect. before civ has formed.
Royalty/Leaership wouldn’t have any laborer skills (other than wildcard) but would have a status boon and be in line for leadership positions. (or any special leadership tools). Leaders who were selected rather than birth right royalty class (by coup, tribal or democratic government type) would lose their old profession but keep the wild skills. Elders would also lose their skills but be known as an 'elder' and can spend their last minutes passing on wisdom and information. (and eating berries of-course)

So now we would have “Farmer | Annie Walker, Citizen of D.C. | At Peace”.

Finally, as city-states grow, they can eventually grow to become an empire state and control other city states with a vessel stone placed nearby. Citizens of an empire replace the city state name with the empire state name (although it still exist internally in the case that the vassal stone is removed or the empire stone is destroyed). Thus Annie Walker is now
“Butcher | Annie Walker, Citizen of USA Empire | Enemy”
Finally the Map:
Keep the maze spawn system you have now but modify it. Instead of treating the nodes as individual eves, treat them as clusters of eves. Those who spawn in those clusters have a local rift (selectively enforced to those spawned inside but inapplicable/invisible to those spawned outside of it. Over time the rift grows bigger and is eventually dissolved. The system should sometimes place new eves in old but thriving clusters to keep things interesting. This happened when the rift bugged out and it was good for the game I think.
Between the clusters the space would be huge (1500 tiles or so). This would allow access to older civilizations over time after some cities have settled and the rift has disappeared.

Ofcourse @Jason this is just one way to tackle the problem the TL:DR is that you can't have civ trade without meeting the above goals (first part) and this is just one way to build up enough infrastructure to do it.

Last edited by 13jonathandavid (2019-11-15 15:11:22)

Echwel · 2019-11-15 12:35:01

Wouldn't it be more logical to make it take time to build up a skill in your life? This would make players be able to choose a specialism they like without /die. It could also be interesting if the learning process could be sped up by learning a skill from elders (though I'm not sure how that would work). This would prevent a lot of suicides and takes away the understandable political issues with your plan.

Personally, I think limiting races to certain tasks is racist and could encourage forms of slavery. Thankfully I don´t think slavery is possible in this game however, because it´s easy to kill yourself until you spawn as a baby of the preferred race.

PeebleCreek · 2019-11-15 14:08:29

@13jonathanDavid Good Lord, that is EXACTLY what would make this update palatable! Obviously we're all gonna keep playing whether he considers your idea or not, because some eldritch force keeps us trapped in Jason's experiments, but I really hope he eventually steers more toward the layout you provided.

I'd be high key stoked for the update if it was how you described vs what Jason actually intends to do.

Keyin · 2019-11-15 18:40:31

13jonathandavid wrote:

@Jason

I think the idea is awesome! I love inter-town politics. But I think the method is off. The way it is implemented will just create a three-eve meta. Since the goal is town trade not forcing all players to adopt a mixed town approach I think you have to change the method to achieve the goal.

I would really like something similar to this.

The more knowledge affordances, the better. Communication in this game is intentionally stifled for the sake of being artistic. I don't mind that too much, but being extremely limited in characters is annoying and going on a short walk to get something you can miss out on a bunch of births/deaths. That's why we have relationship labels; telling your kids who everyone is and their role takes too long and by the time you finish you would have to explain it to another baby.

Point being: this difficulty of communication caused by limited movement speed and limited number of characters should be made up for with in-game mechanics that give more information about your family's culture, individuals' roles/status, government structure, etc.

Right now towns/cities aren't actual entities in the game- they exist only as abstractions in the minds of the players. Adding mechanics to formalize trade and town membership would help get everyone on the metaphorical same page.

Saolin · 2019-11-15 18:45:32

Wow JohnathanDavid, That sounds a lot more fun and interesting than this "magic walls" update.

I'll say again, trade doesn't work currently because it's just not efficient. Trading takes a lot of time when conducted between different locations. You can circumvent trading by moving into one large town with all families. Players will automatically gravitate towards making the most effective decisions.

This update only accomplishes forcing multi-family towns and some role specialization, while introducing a hurdle in getting to the stage of having an established town. None of these are bad things. It might be a bit frustrating watching whatever problems surface being tweaked and balanced over the next few weeks/months though.

Looking back on the first post, I see Jason actually has no mention of trade there, which is interesting since at a glance it would seem that's what this update is attempting to force.

13jonathandavid · 2019-11-15 18:59:43

He actually did mention trade, it's point number three.

3. To encourage inter-family interaction, cooperation, and trade

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