On making and distributing weapons to the villagers

Jorge · 2018-04-15 13:55:32

I have seen so many villages destroyed because of a rogue murderer killing everyone, or a griefer messing things up, and all we could do is stand around, helpless, with no weapons around in sight to defend against the griefer.

Clearly, having just one or a couple of weapons around makes it easy for a tyrant with bad intentions to come and cause trouble. However, does it make sense for more players to have access to weapons? Is that even safe? I wanted to share a few anecdotes.

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In the first village I spawned in, I noticed that things were pretty heavily guarded, with a guy in blue running around with a bow & arrow, checking up on the farm and basically just hanging around. I noticed the farm was low on seeds so I decided to do a few runs and collect wild seeds from the surroundings.

Then, the trouble started. While going about my business, I would notice blood stains here and there, and the population seemed to be thinning out. I have no idea what was happening, but then I noticed the guy in blue was going around killing everyone, and nobody was stopping him. While observing him, he noticed me and took out his knife, and I moved out of the way just in time to see him stabbing empty air.

I kept an eye on him and saw some text about how he would let the "worthy" survive or some crap like that. I didn't find any other weapons, but I can't abide a place run by a bigoted tyrant like that, so I decided to become the griefer and I sowed the fields with wheat, dug up all of the berries, and let the sheep out of the pen. A better alternative would have been to kill the rogue guard, but that wasn't possible with him hoarding all of the available weapons.

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In the second village I spawned in, my mom took good care of me and told me to be strong and take care of the village. I saw the same problem with the farm here too -- a lack of seeds and some people letting the carrots seed removing good soil, so I spent my early years collecting seeds for the village.

When I grew older, my ma asked me to go north and fetch a wolf pelt for her, so I grabbed a cart, a bow & arrow, some food and must have walked north for a few minutes before I finally found a wolf. I didn't see any others, so I came back with one wolf pelt. Unfortunately, something had happened to my ma in the meantime and she was gone.

Remembering what had happened before, I decided to spend my adult years crafting knives and teaching the villagers to keep an eye out for griefers and murderers, and to keep the weapons safe. I was in the middle of crafting the first knife when my aunt comes to check up and ask me what I'm doing. When I explain, she says "fat chance" and scrapped the blade. I started explaining how in past lives, towns have been griefed due to no defence, when she takes out her knife and says "like this?", and then stabs me. In cold blood. In full view of everyone.

This death is the first death in the game that bothered me, because until then I had been doing my best to make a positive contribution to the village, but not only that -- nobody even questioned my getting stabbed by my tyrant of an aunt who was hoarding all of the knives to herself.

I can understand the logic of not wanting a griefer to craft a weapon, but I have already seen in many villages that when only one person has weapons, they often become the griefer themselves. If I wanted to grief or murder, I would have already done it with my bow and arrow or with the shovels lying around. This was a really unfair murder, and nobody even thought twice about it. If someone tries this shit with me again when I'm only trying to help, I'm going to grief the shit out of them in retaliation.

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The third village I spawned in was an entirely different story. This village was run by a wise king, who had not just one but several guards running around with bows & arrows. From birth, I was chosen to go on a mission to found a village up north along with two females. The king gifted me a knife and a bow & arrow and a cart full of food for the two women, and then escorted us part of the way before we went off on our own.

Unfortunately the mission itself wasn't a great success. The first woman stepped on a rattlesnake and died instantly. After finding a spot, the second one died after giving birth to one girl. Fortunately she made it to childhood in time, and we decided to go back south to the old village. Along the way we came across the dead king, and as we were getting close, I somehow stepped on a rattlesnake myself. Argh! Next time, I think we should go east or west -- much easier to see the snakes that way.

This was the best-run village I had come across -- lots of clothes, a well-run food system and most in line with what I think should be done -- weapons not just in the hands of one, but in the hands of several.

Bob the Blob · 2018-04-15 14:53:03

Right now it's probably a bad idea and you are better off just putting your trust in a defender or stash a weapon near where you do your business in case of emergency.

I do think that if there were better mechanics in game on the whole murder front, ie either more health or being able to use a weapon after being wounded, that it will then be a good idea in the spirit of self defense.

But too many weapons lying around now is just an open invite for someone to take up murder.

fragilityh14 · 2018-04-15 15:52:20

Was the murder one yesterday at a big village with the monument well started? Cause i spawned north of there and my mom told me she wasn't allowed to have kids but could bring me back when i was older. I don't kneel to anyone, so i ran to try to start a new camp. I managed to get a basket and avoid initial starvation, but i couldn't find anywhere with sufficient berries and died at 9 from a wolf. Unfortunate because i found a place with a bunch of rabbits and wild onions/burdock but only two berry bushes. at age 9 it probably had sufficient milkweed to get a clay bowl for water and have agriculture going by the time i had a child, the place was near tons of great savannah and water.

Next game i was a man at a side village to the same one that starved out. a man on a horse told me the village was safe after a murderer. one family still going. Unfortunately i was a male, and had 7th cousins in the village, never seen that far of a split. i made a bunch of berries and made sure they knew there was a cart of carrots.

Respawned in 20 minst o a family just found my village, much of the food gone, i kept planting berries and making compost and somehow with like 5 people and also growing carrots like 30 berries were mostly empty. Ran back to the main village at the end of my life to check, forgot to eat the cactus fruit in my hand and starved at 57 before getting to even hover over the woman and child i saw there! I was hoping my daughter had survived and moved to the main village.

It still amazes me how much food one can produce and still have the village starve- it seems a lot of people just walk around and eat and accomplish nothing. it's like 1 in 4 players who are useful.

TrustyWay · 2018-04-15 16:32:52

I was in a village with the many monuments, many tower bell forming big lines

I respawned like 5 times in there, I hidden many knifes around. Everytime the village was full, I went take my knife and stab all the males, old women, guards. I try to keep at least 3-4 women in the village. I tried the new killing animations and this is seriously funny shit seeing somebody slowly die. It wasn't a test anymore.

I had no fun before, killing people with one shoot, but oh my god, I killed some many people while keeping the village alive. I found that even more challenging that people tell who did the murder, so I change clothes, comes, ask what is happening, while somebody write I poke him and run away, the poked one panics so much hahaha. Everytimes the moms forget to give me name, I am invisible every stabs.

Last edited by TrustyWay (2018-04-15 16:34:13)

jasonrohrer · 2018-04-15 17:46:11

Well, I gotta say, those three stories in the original post are pretty much the point of this game.

Figuring this stuff out, and having different ways of doing it in each village, is what it's all about.

And that makes interesting stories.

Some villages suck. Some rock. Some thrive. Some go south. Some have a wise, kind leader, and others are ruled by a tyrant. You never know which one you're going to be born into.

I'm going to start another thread just about "the murder problem" in a minute.

But I'd like to point out that dealing with misbehavior consumes a HUGE amount of resources in modern civilization. Here's the budget summary for my city of Davis, CA:

http://documents.cityofdavis.org/Media/ … -17-18.pdf

They are spending $20M a year on police. In terms of percentage of the total, it's not that high (10%), but I've been in other towns where the percentage was much higher. Also, in Davis, the police budget is rising by $1M every year.

Or look at the US as a whole:

170131+Pie+Chart+from+Wikipedia.JPG

16%. Smaller that you might think, but still a huge chunk.

We have 1M people employed in policing, 2M people in the military. How many more in the defense industry? In the prison industry?

As population gets smaller, though, the percentages are going to go up. If you want round-the-clock policing, you're going to need at least 5 police officers, no matter how small your town is.

I think this problem is generally solvable in the game as it stands. You see three possible solutions in the OP above. If you're mad at the game and think that murder is a huge problem, how are you going to solve it? People have solved all kinds of other problems in the game. This might be a harder one to solve, but I think you can do it.

This is never going to be a game where you can just sit back and casually build whatever you want to build. You already have Minecraft Creative Mode if you want to do that.

I'm making a different game. A game with tension and uncertainty. A game where your best plans never quite work out, and you have to roll with the punches.

Sometimes you go off to start a new village, and the two women that you brought with you die along the way.

And I'm pretty sure that has never happened in a video game before. Even a story as simple as that. That's why this game exists, to make those kinds of stories.

Lily · 2018-04-15 17:55:34

I was in a village the other day. My mother went around stabbing everyone for some reason and she almost wiped out the town. The only reason they weren't wiped out, was because I happened across a wagon with a bow and some arrows in it, in the forest a bit away from town. I don't know if someone hid it there for safety or my mother stole it and hid it so no one could stop her, or what.

What I do know, is that if I had to stop and make a bow an arrow or a knife from scratch, everyone would have died. Since it was there, I was able to kill her before she got the last other female and her daughter.

There is definitely a danger of having weapons around, but at this time with the blood and slow deaths, if someone does kill people you can act, if you have a weapon. If you have no weapons, you can't really do anything. Trying to make one while people are being killed is a bit rough.

fragilityh14 · 2018-04-15 17:58:44

That's amazing Jason.

I had a game where i was born to a mother who told me she wasn't allowed to have a baby (even though I was a girl). She said i could go back when i was older. She named me Whisper. i didn't find out why she couldn't have a baby there but could come back with me when i was older. I told her in kid talk i wanted freedom and didnt want to live under fascism.

i went north to new territory and managed to survive making a basket and filling it with food, but kept not finding anywhere with sufficient berries, and was killed by a wolf at 9.

Sad, because I was excited about starting younger than an eve and getting a good camp. Amazing experience, definitely not like anything else in the game.

The totalitarian population controlling cities always remind me of Watership Down.

I really don't get it, because if people work hard it's easy to produce an abundance of food and societies rarely last long enough that you run out of the ability to get soil. I mean, even with current restrictions, how hard is it to send people in carts for soil and then worms. Or start farms and trade. The cart and four baskets really allows a lot of transit.

Outside of early on before getting to farming (and even so) i don't know that I've ever seen a society die from food collapse besides people just not bothering to produce food. (though, freeloaders are a major problem in the real world as well lol.)

Jorge · 2018-04-15 19:11:38

Thanks for the post Jason, and also for making the game! I don't like the idea of extra-game policing via some server-side system because it should be solvable within the game mechanics itself. It should be easier to stop murderers without having to resort to a bow & arrow or a knife.

There are game balancing issues to consider, but if we can club seals, why not griefers? In the real world, getting bonked over the head with a shovel would certainly at least stun you. Why not in-game? This certainly goes both ways though and might not work out in practice (since the griefers get to do this too), but it would be nice if this could be improved through better in-game tools rather than resorting to player-level sanctions (at which point, maybe you should just heavily restrict or remove murder from the game if it's against the rules).

Go! Bwah! · 2018-04-16 04:51:13

jasonrohrer wrote:

I'm making a different game. A game with tension and uncertainty. A game where your best plans never quite work out, and you have to roll with the punches.
Sometimes you go off to start a new village, and the two women that you brought with you die along the way.
And I'm pretty sure that has never happened in a video game before. Even a story as simple as that. That's why this game exists, to make those kinds of stories.

Tension and uncertainty are unpleasant, life already has too much of them, and the rewards in life are greater. Why would anybody play a game for tension and uncertainty, outside of a few who don't have enough of it in real life? (And then there are those who devote enough resources to the game that it is no longer tense and uncertain, which subverts your goal.)

If I drive cross-country to a new job and my cat dies on the way, I'll probably remember that sadly forever. If two women die in a game I'm playing, I won't care. I know some will care... but enough?

KucheKlizma · 2018-04-16 06:00:13

Would be nice if we could carry Bow in a backpack and there was a separate equipment slot for quiver which hold arrows like ammunition.

Then everyone would be armed. Right now if you want to carry a bow, you can't really do anything else. At best if you want to use a bow you can have backpack with: flint + rope + arrow + arrow; and run to the nearest yew branch to setup if you wanna deploy.
Or you can have a knife, but that requires iron tech.

pein · 2018-04-16 16:12:21

thats murica, the tyrant of the world
where stupid people can carry guns and shot people for stepping in their territory

most countries of the world got laws and policies
like germany, no one ever sells illegal cigarettes, even downloading torrents is dangerous. might be kind of too much
most civilizations didnt spend that much on war, especially old ones, and they not killing their own
sweden never been in a war nor switzerland

might be that people kill others for fun in the game, as nothing else to do
or nothing else to kill

YAHG · 2018-04-17 07:20:56

pein wrote:

thats murica, the tyrant of the world
where stupid people can carry guns and shot people for stepping in their territory
most countries of the world got laws and policies
like germany, no one ever sells illegal cigarettes, even downloading torrents is dangerous. might be kind of too much
most civilizations didnt spend that much on war, especially old ones, and they not killing their own
sweden never been in a war nor switzerland
might be that people kill others for fun in the game, as nothing else to do
or nothing else to kill

Don't be dumb flame war, Germany and Sweden has PLENTY of crime.

There are enough cool things to talk about here we don't need to gripe
about dumb shit we can't control irl.

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#1 2018-04-15 13:55:32

On making and distributing weapons to the villagers

#2 2018-04-15 14:53:03

Re: On making and distributing weapons to the villagers

#3 2018-04-15 15:52:20

Re: On making and distributing weapons to the villagers

#4 2018-04-15 16:32:52

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#5 2018-04-15 17:46:11

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#6 2018-04-15 17:55:34

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#7 2018-04-15 17:58:44

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#8 2018-04-15 19:11:38

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#9 2018-04-16 04:51:13

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#10 2018-04-16 06:00:13

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#11 2018-04-16 16:12:21

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#12 2018-04-17 07:20:56

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