Jason's misunderstanding

Whatever · 2020-02-20 08:24:19

OHOL is a very unique game.

You get born to a random person every game and you can only live 60 min max in each life. In other games like minecraft, rust, WOW... you can keep returning to the same character, there is no old age.
When you do something in the other games, you do it for yourself, for your character, because you want to be it better in the future.
BUT in OHOL most people when they do something, do it for the greater good, not for their character, their character lifespan is very limited.
Most people work together to build a great civilization.

This is a nice game mechanic, but it makes it so that trade and property is pointless. You play as all characters and in all villages, no point in trading with yourself.
This game fundamentally doesnt support trade and that is OK. We dont need trade, trade is not what makes this game great.
But jason still tries to force trade and property, with fences, rift, tool slots, race restrictions...
This goes against the core design of the game and does a lot of harm.

Jason please realize what this game is about and focus on its strengths.
Follow the flow of the river, dont try to redirect it forcefully.

Dodge · 2020-02-20 08:42:09

So just build big villages and then craft a bunch of objects sooo fun....

Maybe you are the one misunderstanding what this game is about.

Kinrany · 2020-02-20 10:44:15

Villages exist over longer periods of time that characters, so the same does not apply to trade between villages.

Unfortunately villages do not have agency of their own, they're incapable of defending themselves or meaningfully interacting with each other. Until this is fixed, we won't get explicit trade agreements between villages either.

What we could have now is people moving resources between villages regularly. So that at least maintaining roads and having multiple villages is important for survival.

Wuatduhf · 2020-02-20 12:57:55

Kinrany's correct here; towns can survive long periods of time, purely off of the backs of the villagers that it comprises of - usually the same ones who created it. As such, the proper frame of reference we should be using when trying to analyze the concepts of "individuals", should be the towns themselves.

Towns/Villages do have their own agency - that agency is carried out by the will of the villagers that live within their realms and "consider" themselves apart of that town. Usually - because the villagers themselves have very little attachment to resources - the towns will be very uncaring about what resources stay inside the town, and what resources are swapped over to another town in order for their villagers to prosper too. Occassionally, though, the 'will' of the town shifts, to where it possesses some players that do care about what is kept within the confines of the city grounds, and that is when their agency shifts.

Coconut Fruit · 2020-02-20 14:33:49

I don't know why people kept asking for trading... It just doesn't fit this game. Who would you trade with? A random person you find in an other town? Would that person feel competent to sell his/her family's goods?
Trading could only work if there was something like general chat box with your family, so people could actually communicate and decide whether they should make a trade deal or not.

Dodge wrote:

So just build big villages and then craft a bunch of objects sooo fun....
Maybe you are the one misunderstanding what this game is about.

Your posts are almost always bs. This game can be extended/improves in many ways, but trading is not one of them.

It's your fault, people who asked for trading, that we have race specializations now. Jason could usually predict what would be good and what wouldn't, but not this time.

Wuatduhf · 2020-02-20 14:52:27

Coconut Fruit wrote:

Dodge wrote:
So just build big villages and then craft a bunch of objects sooo fun....
Maybe you are the one misunderstanding what this game is about.
Your posts are almost always bs. This game can be extended/improves in many ways, but trading is not one of them.
It's your fault, people who asked for trading, that we have race specializations now. Jason could usually predict what would be good and what wouldn't, but not this time.

Ehhh, Dodge is pretty close to the correct answer. Trading is an important aspect of civilizations in general - when there's a plurality of cultures, locations, hegemonies, you end up having to figure out how the two (or more) can interact beyond simple warswords. Thus, trading.

Jason can't always predict what's good and what isn't. No dev can. They can take a stab at what they think will be a good feature, but then find out later on down the line that, in fact, no it wasn't.

Remember when Newcomen water pumps didn't have uses, and were a 5% chance to instantly deplete after 1st use?

Jason, in the case of trading, is using what I argue as the wrong framing. He's trying to see individuals trading between one another - micro-scale trading - which I thoroughly debunked here, if you want to see my justification for why he needs to care more about macro-trading. Almost a year later and it's still pretty accurate of the current situation.

Last edited by Wuatduhf (2020-02-20 14:53:20)

karltown_veteran · 2020-02-20 15:05:21

Trade could be interesting and useful.. if people cooperated. But the reality is that no matter how many handicaps you put in place people will still be hesitant to trade. It takes cooperation and time and effort that most people are not willing to put in.

Lava · 2020-02-20 15:34:05

Maybe if he removed these god awful restrictions we could actually progress civilization. Can’t do anything without a bell it’s cancer.

Whatever · 2020-02-20 15:48:44

In game you only belong to a certain village for one life, after that you might be reborn in another village.
If you see another village and they need something that your village has, why not give it to them for free? You might play in that village your next life and than you are happy that you gave it to them.
If you could only respawn in one village, than this village would be your village, you would feel more connected to it and less connected to the other villages, maybe than trade between villages could happen.

But I dont mind the way it works now. I like to improve life in all villages, its nice.

Melea · 2020-02-20 16:13:23

Dodge wrote:

So just build big villages and then craft a bunch of objects sooo fun....

I recognize the sarcasm, but that is actually one of the most fun parts of the game for me. I know it's not everybody's cup of tea, but some people do quite enjoy designing and constructing parts of towns, laying out crop fields, and making various objects. Often, I prefer being born male because it leaves more time for doing projects, uninterrupted by being a local spawn point.

Whatever wrote:

In game you only belong to a certain village for one life, after that you might be reborn in another village.
...
If you could only respawn in one village, than this village would be your village, you would feel more connected to it and less connected to the other villages, maybe than trade between villages could happen.

That'd be an interesting experiment - having people always reborn to the same family (unless the player ends up cursed by 'X' number of family members during those lives, or family-posse murdered?). I feel like it'd really cut down on SIDS, since there wouldn't be the option of /dying your way into a new race or town. And would allow for more long-term multi-life projects (although I don't think Jason likes that) as well as identifying with "your" village more strongly.

Last edited by Melea (2020-02-20 16:14:32)

Ilka · 2020-02-20 22:42:06

Whatever wrote:

OHOL is a very unique game.
You get born to a random person every game and you can only live 60 min max in each life. In other games like minecraft, rust, WOW... you can keep returning to the same character, there is no old age.
When you do something in the other games, you do it for yourself, for your character, because you want to be it better in the future.
BUT in OHOL most people when they do something, do it for the greater good, not for their character, their character lifespan is very limited.
Most people work together to build a great civilization.
This is a nice game mechanic, but it makes it so that trade and property is pointless. You play as all characters and in all villages, no point in trading with yourself.
This game fundamentally doesnt support trade and that is OK. We dont need trade, trade is not what makes this game great.
But jason still tries to force trade and property, with fences, rift, tool slots, race restrictions...
This goes against the core design of the game and does a lot of harm.
Jason please realize what this game is about and focus on its strengths.
Follow the flow of the river, dont try to redirect it forcefully.

I agree in 100%. We don't need trade, private property, war, or pathetic leaders in this game. It won't work well.
Jason lost so much time trying to make these nonsensical things.

Morti · 2020-02-21 00:20:10

When 60 minutes = 60 years
Every second is nearly a week.

We already have the equivalent of trade, it's called, kindness; gifts, reciprocation.

I am brown, I go to the jungle to get you bananas, palm seeds, tomatoes, peppers. If I can, I will get you latex.

It would be nice of you to return those sorts of favors, but it's not necessary for me. I have done the good deed that makes me feel my life was worth living for you and your town's sake.

I will not ask for anything in return, there just isn't time for that. In the years of time I might spend asking you for things, either, via written notes, radio, an intermediate translator, or by gestures, such as, removing an item from my cart and placing it before you, suggesting that I want to see your offer- in all that time, I could have been gathering more, more palm kernels, more bananas, more starters for tomatoes and pepper, or just refilling buckets of latex.

In that time, I could have been caring for your crops as well, making you compost, or growing you some of those tomatoes and peppers, or, processing that latex and palm oil.

What is there to take in return?

If I have come from far away, what time is there left for me to return to my home of origin, if I wasn't already born in your town anyway? What am I to do, return with oil? Bring a horse? How are black people supposed to trade horses anyway?

There just isn't time for all that. We know it. So, rather, we are kind to each other, because we know we are beings outside the game. We know, that when people are good to us, we want to be good to them in return, and we know, that we are anyone; that we can be reborn, as any, family, later down the road, so we are, and have always been, above the idea of trade. We are beyond it, already, due to the nature of the game.

We are all family.
We always will be.

We trade our time, for each other's happiness, prosperity, and content.
That is the nature of the context, in which this game was founded.
You won't get better than that, from hour lives.

You want the most rewarding game play experience? Assess the state, and needs, of your town, and do the best work you can for it, in the time you can afford.
Use your time to add to the state of the world, and everyone, will be a little more content, and a little less, likely, to die a premature death.

Ruben · 2020-02-23 13:41:12

Whatever wrote:

Follow the flow of the river, dont try to redirect it forcefully.

Amen.

I'd also add to follow this flow in a graceful way. Make it intricate.

Lava · 2020-02-23 18:53:17

Ilka wrote:

Whatever wrote:
OHOL is a very unique game.
You get born to a random person every game and you can only live 60 min max in each life. In other games like minecraft, rust, WOW... you can keep returning to the same character, there is no old age.
When you do something in the other games, you do it for yourself, for your character, because you want to be it better in the future.
BUT in OHOL most people when they do something, do it for the greater good, not for their character, their character lifespan is very limited.
Most people work together to build a great civilization.
This is a nice game mechanic, but it makes it so that trade and property is pointless. You play as all characters and in all villages, no point in trading with yourself.
This game fundamentally doesnt support trade and that is OK. We dont need trade, trade is not what makes this game great.
But jason still tries to force trade and property, with fences, rift, tool slots, race restrictions...
This goes against the core design of the game and does a lot of harm.
Jason please realize what this game is about and focus on its strengths.
Follow the flow of the river, dont try to redirect it forcefully.
I agree in 100%. We don't need trade, private property, war, or pathetic leaders in this game. It won't work well.
Jason lost so much time trying to make these nonsensical things.

Agree he should focus on tech tree.

Keyin · 2020-02-23 22:37:06

Trade is useful in Rust and games like it because you need food, ammunition, and medicine. So you can trade food for ammo, ammo for medicine, etc. But in OHOL all you need is food. Arrows are re-usable, you can't use medicine on yourself, so that leaves food.

If you want food and I want food we are better off not trading, right? Especially considering it is trivial to live solely on wild gooseberries.

Trade could exist if we actually had needs other than food.

Morti · 2020-02-23 23:37:04

Keyin wrote:

Trade is useful in Rust and games like it because you need food, ammunition, and medicine. So you can trade food for ammo, ammo for medicine, etc. But in OHOL all you need is food. Arrows are re-usable, you can't use medicine on yourself, so that leaves food.
If you want food and I want food we are better off not trading, right? Especially considering it is trivial to live solely on wild gooseberries.
Trade could exist if we actually had needs other than food.

Devil's Advocate Here o/

Or if we could only ever eat one thing, one time, per life...

jasonrohrer · 2020-02-25 20:47:55

Trade is just a placeholder for "whatever complex and interesting social interactions and challenges we don't currently have."

This is supposed to be a game about collaborative civilization-building, where we work together and negotiate with each other to construct a civilization together. Where there's a little bit of friction between us, and problems we need to solve. And by problems, I don't mean, "grow more milkweed" or "find more ore," because those problems aren't that interesting to solve (go through the motions of planting more, or wander around until you find more ore through random chance).

If I have A, and that guy over there has B, but he's not just going to hand it to me, that's one example of a more complex interaction. I have to negotiate with him, or convince him, or trick him, or rob him. All of which are more interesting, to me, than simply grinding away solo to make B yourself.

If you can always grind to make B yourself, then every time you play the game, the challenge is exactly the same (how optimally can you grind away to make B).

But if you have to get B from another guy every game, then the challenge is different every game, because the guy and his motivations will be different every time. Maybe in one game, he just gives it to you. In another game, he makes some outlandish demand that seems unfair. In a third game, he refuses to give you any no matter what, and in a fourth game, he refuses to talk to you at all and responds instantly with hostility.

On a micro scale, tool slots do something like this. You can't just plow through, solo, to accomplish everything under the sun in one life. You have to assesses the situation carefully (first of all) to determine where your efforts are best spent. So you at least have to pay attention to what other people are doing. If you pick up a smithing hammer and see six (+) signs above heads around you, you're probably wasting a slot if you also learn the hammer.

And after carefully picking tools to learn, you will still not (likely) know enough to do everything you need to do in your life. So then you need to communicate with the others around you. You will hit road blocks where "just grind more, solo" won't bring a solution. Other players are the keys to the locks that you encounter---including your own children, who you can guide as extensions of your own hands. And maybe some of these characters won't cooperate with you or listen to your requests and orders. Then what?

On a macro scale, the biome restrictions do something similar. Our village is going to need rubber soon. I was born into a dangerous situation. There are no specialists immediately around, so that means that I need to find some. Maybe these maps and waystones will help, or maybe they're outdated. If I'm successful, I really need to document the location of the helpful specialists for future generations. This is very different from me just walking into the jungle and slashing a rubber tree life after life. Instead, I'm finding myself in a unique and challenging social and trans-generational situation life after life.

None of this may actually qualify as "trade," but I'm not sure that it matters. A gift economy is still an economy, and a social interaction that didn't exist before. An interactive journey is still needed, for example.

And you may try to "route around" the restriction by having multi-specialist towns, but.... well... that's a fragile structure that's hard to maintain over the long haul. The fundamental challenge still lurks a few generations into the future. And even right off the bat, someone "solved' the problem in a non-trivial way. Find a needed specialist family and convince them to move into town, across the language barrier? That's a feat that tops mere "trade" in terms of social complexity.

But at least you had to do something creative.... at least the same old thing, repeated, no longer works every time.

Spoonwood · 2020-02-25 22:06:02

jasonrohrer wrote:

If I have A, and that guy over there has B, but he's not just going to hand it to me, that's one example of a more complex interaction. I have to negotiate with him, or convince him, or trick him, or rob him. All of which are more interesting, to me, than simply grinding away solo to make B yourself.

Such would be interesting to you fine. But, so what? You don't play much, and you never purchased the game.

Also, I don't think there's any sort of agreement that what you describe as happens in game does happen in game usually. On top of that, I do NOT think that the people who have purchased your game find such more interesting. They find such negotiation, IF IT EXISTS, as less interesting. And such negotiation relies on the same thing over and over again... perceived need... players not having an ability to do something themselves.

jasonrohrer wrote:

If you can always grind to make B yourself, then every time you play the game, the challenge is exactly the same (how optimally can you grind away to make B).

This is not true, because people can and sometimes choose different approaches to doing things. One example of this consists in people making wood flooring, which takes more time than pine flooring. There likely exist plenty of others where players don't try to optimize, and wouldn't even try to optimize if they knew how to do so.

jasonrohrer wrote:

But if you have to get B from another guy every game, then the challenge is different every game, because the guy and his motivations will be different every time. Maybe in one game, he just gives it to you. In another game, he makes some outlandish demand that seems unfair. In a third game, he refuses to give you any no matter what, and in a fourth game, he refuses to talk to you at all and responds instantly with hostility.

You've made up scenarios out of thin air. Whether or not such happens in game though is another matter.

jasonrohrer wrote:

On a micro scale, tool slots do something like this. You can't just plow through, solo, to accomplish everything under the sun in one life. You have to assesses the situation carefully (first of all) to determine where your efforts are best spent.

No, tool slots do not make it so that players have to assess the situation carefully. And nothing whatsoever can do that. Players are independent beings, not some sort of machines trying to optimize according to the game context. Also, no player ever did everything under the sun in one life before tool slots existed. And I mean none at all.

jasonrohrer wrote:

And after carefully picking tools to learn, you will still not (likely) know enough to do everything you need to do in your life. So then you need to communicate with the others around you. You will hit road blocks where "just grind more, solo" won't bring a solution.

And players were playing with intent to try to solve problems posed by the game in the first place? Not likely. They play the game for their own reasons, and don't have a problem solving framework when playing to begin with, or such a framework is quite limited.

jasonrohrer wrote:

Instead, I'm finding myself in a unique and challenging social and trans-generational situation life after life.

Rubbish. You don't play much, and when you do you often don't live to old age. And even if you have done so sometimes, so what? You didn't purchase the game. I don't find reports of people on here saying that race restrictions have lead to a unique and challenging situations life after life. And those consist of people playing the game, not someone speculating from their computer chair.

Hair-based restrictions and tool slots lead to the same situation life after life also... one of need. One of dependence on other people or ancestors. Or at least for those not willing to rough it out in the wild on bigserver2.

jasonrohrer wrote:

An interactive journey is still needed, for example.

I think it's not too uncommon for people to do something like get sulfur and leave it in some other village. Also, all that is needed is that the resources get moved out of a tundra, desert, or jungle once obtained. I recall people talking about horses not in deserts. So, no, no interactive journey is necessary.

jasonrohrer wrote:

That's a feat that tops mere "trade" in terms of social complexity.

Pretty sure that someone ringing a belltower and then other players going to the spot doesn't involve much social complexity compared to trade. Also, I'm pretty sure that people ringing belltowers and then people flocking to where they were rung was something that worked long before hair-based limitations and tool limitations. And with even Donkeys ringing bells, and lots of other examples, there's a strong case for inductively concluding that such works in an abundance of cases.

Also, such interactions did not lead to new objects, new patterns, or new structures for networks.

On top of that I think there's less creativity in game overall due to these and other restrictions. Has anyone seen a yum shrine with mango trees since race restrictions have gotten introduced? Do many towns do much with rose bushes anymore? Has the frequency of sauerkraut decreased? What happened to people creating cars and planes? How much time is spent looking for a way to get resources instead of building or farming?

And seriously, how many people always did the same thing before? When there existed ponds instead of the spring system, didn't people use more of a variety of approaches to keep water supply in town, such as sometimes upgrading multiple wells, while other times going for a charcoal pump, or a higher tech route?

Again, I think overall in-game creativity has decreased since these restrictions got put into place.

pein · 2020-02-25 23:37:29

jasonrohrer wrote:

Trade is just a placeholder for "whatever complex and interesting social interactions and challenges we don't currently have."
This is supposed to be a game about collaborative civilization-building, where we work together and negotiate with each other to construct a civilization together. Where there's a little bit of friction between us, and problems we need to solve. And by problems, I don't mean, "grow more milkweed" or "find more ore," because those problems aren't that interesting to solve (go through the motions of planting more, or wander around until you find more ore through random chance).

If I have A, and that guy over there has B, but he's not just going to hand it to me, that's one example of a more complex interaction. I have to negotiate with him, or convince him, or trick him, or rob him. All of which are more interesting, to me, than simply grinding away solo to make B yourself.

If you can always grind to make B yourself, then every time you play the game, the challenge is exactly the same (how optimally can you grind away to make B).
But if you have to get B from another guy every game, then the challenge is different every game, because the guy and his motivations will be different every time. Maybe in one game, he just gives it to you. In another game, he makes some outlandish demand that seems unfair. In a third game, he refuses to give you any no matter what, and in a fourth game, he refuses to talk to you at all and responds instantly with hostility.

On a micro scale, tool slots do something like this. You can't just plow through, solo, to accomplish everything under the sun in one life. You have to assesses the situation carefully (first of all) to determine where your efforts are best spent. So you at least have to pay attention to what other people are doing. If you pick up a smithing hammer and see six (+) signs above heads around you, you're probably wasting a slot if you also learn the hammer.
And after carefully picking tools to learn, you will still not (likely) know enough to do everything you need to do in your life. So then you need to communicate with the others around you. You will hit road blocks where "just grind more, solo" won't bring a solution. Other players are the keys to the locks that you encounter---including your own children, who you can guide as extensions of your own hands. And maybe some of these characters won't cooperate with you or listen to your requests and orders. Then what?

On a macro scale, the biome restrictions do something similar. Our village is going to need rubber soon. I was born into a dangerous situation. There are no specialists immediately around, so that means that I need to find some. Maybe these maps and waystones will help, or maybe they're outdated. If I'm successful, I really need to document the location of the helpful specialists for future generations. This is very different from me just walking into the jungle and slashing a rubber tree life after life. Instead, I'm finding myself in a unique and challenging social and trans-generational situation life after life.

None of this may actually qualify as "trade," but I'm not sure that it matters. A gift economy is still an economy, and a social interaction that didn't exist before. An interactive journey is still needed, for example.

And you may try to "route around" the restriction by having multi-specialist towns, but.... well... that's a fragile structure that's hard to maintain over the long haul. The fundamental challenge still lurks a few generations into the future. And even right of the bat, someone "solved' the problem in a non-trivial way. Find a needed specialist family and convince them to move into town, across the language barrier? That's a feat that tops mere "trade" in terms of social complexity.
But at least you had to do something creative.... at least the same old thing, repeated, no longer works every time.

well, we need trade cause it's fun
economics can be very interesting and meaningful, building empires
I would really love it and I guess other veterans would too
most of really got bored of the game cause here are no goals really when I play, I try to have 2-3 lives in a row or not at all
and even so, it's rare that I can start an early town and lead it to late game

I don't think negotiating this way is effective or fun
takes more time to talk than to make it
and especially not fun to get robbed
if we bet our resources or get bad trades or just he population eats up and it goes to food and clothes, that's good mechanics, but when people come and steal all advanced things from a camp and you go back and see it in ruins that's just sad
we would need some sort of combat or sport with rules to overpower others for resources, not just run in and take everything and leave before others even see us

tool slots and races just feel like artificial limitations of the game speed
and it won't satisfy veterans cause it's easy to waste slots cause others don't do anything

we would need some sort of hard to reach goals like collect 1000 of a resource type to make a building to gain some advantage

it's just getting really boring after a while, we lost the survival element, people don't know how to make basic things, just wait others to do it for them
the game should be more challenging personally and not as a group cause leeches are annoying

we would need some personal goals and some competition so the skill matters a tiny bit

you would have a lot of returning players if the game would be more challenging and some end goals, more tech possible

so for trade to happen we would need valuable things, level up buildings, buy special items, buff families or parts of the map or surrounding an item

the travel part isn't fun, first few hours people think that the map is huge and there is a chance to find others and those stories can be fun but over time it's just boring to go around a map where everything is the same and the efforts of generations mean nothing

Kinrany · 2020-02-26 00:16:13

jasonrohrer wrote:

Find a needed specialist family and convince them to move into town, across the language barrier? That's a feat that tops mere "trade" in terms of social complexity.

I challenge this statement, if only on the basis that trade is by any reasonable interpretation something that happens regularly and over long periods of time.

Finding a specialist and moving them involves two players. Maintaining mutual awareness and relations involves two players per generation.

Morti · 2020-02-26 01:15:20

Jason,

Try getting a large group of people that have never played this game before, to play it.
Take it to a museum, a school, or a conference, where ever you can, just get a decent sized crowd to all try it out of themselves. It'd be nice if at the start of a 1 hour conference, everyone had a device before them and could play, so, maybe a school; a computer lab, where you have already installed the game on 30, 40 or more, of all the labs computers, or even all the school's computers, if you can convince the school president and network admin to let you perform this experiment.

Take it to an art school, they may be more appreciative of this sort of activity, than, say, UCB.

See what happens to the world, then. See how the players, act, then. Set up cameras, in all the labs to get the reactions of the people.

I think you will find similar results, in the way that a large base of new players, play the game. But the differences, will be unique. You will learn a lot.

After the hour, or, day's, experiment is over, be sure to get all those playbacks back so you can pour over them.

Of course don't let them play on the public server, give them their own to start on from scratch.

--

What I think you will find, is that, as players come to understand the game, they just do, what is right; what is best, what is needed, to keep people alive, first, and then, to keep them happy. The same order will emerge from the chaos, every time, because the rules are the same, every time. But you will get your attempts at exceptions, much the same way we get them today.

Your game is as simple as tic-tac-toe, Jason.

But that's okay, everything is, in a deterministic universe.

All we are doing, is creating life forms, full of unknowns, and trying to fill heads with as many knowns as possible, so that the game can progress, by the rules. Who and what those rules are, that emerge, are more based on the mechanics of the game, than they are who the leaders are. The starting conditions are very important. Just as your starting mechanics, and mine, were nearly identical, outside of our family, and community, and yet here we are still two people alive to this day, that have managed to eat, to learn to communicate, and to avoid death. There are, of course, details of our lives, early on, that have lead to fairly different, present states. You were more attracted to programming. You found a woman, who also found you. You have a career. You have a family, of your own descendants.

But for the most part, you, me, and every other human being on this planet, are in the same position, compared to any other animals, of comparative size and mass. Compared to any other mass in the universe, of similar shape, and size. Because the rules for us, all, are much the same.

--

We know what is best for us, because we know what we want for ourselves.

No one wants to rule over everyone else, because no one wants to take freedom, away, from everyone else. Maybe, if you had more content, content that matched the present and near future states of humanity, maybe then, you would get what you want, and see something unique emerge. Maybe you would finally learn something interesting, but you are never going to be interested, in the aspects of the game you design for us. You already know, why they're there. You are already, one of us.

I wish I could give you a solution to your boredom.

I wish we could add, more randomness; more unknowns, to your experience of our game.

--

I'll share an idea with you, that I had, for a game, last year. You are familiar with AI Dungeon? Probably more-so than I, in terms of the code; the mechanics of it. Well, I had an idea for a game of science, using AI Dungeon, and, databases of scientific papers, like ArXiv

where the world, is like a physics simulator, but really, all sciences would be relevant. The important part is the AI, and it's, randomness (it's unknown reaction, from the player's perspective), and the way it could be used to... generate outcomes for experiments, that would make sense.

The starting conditions for the world, would be similar to those of a planet; the composition... everything would be, what Earth is, as we know it.

I suppose the fun part, would be that players, could perform experiments, for themselves, and the AI, would look through, as much of our present examples of similar, ingredients, as it could, and it would tell us, what the cake tastes like.

I just thought of this, but, I haven't decided if what the AI makes up, or not, would then be added, to the database it draws from, or not... I suppose it should.

I don't know that you would enjoy a game like that, as much as I might... had I not thought of it. I'm not a programmer, I'm not going to make the world, but, it could just be text, or, it could be a three dimensional world. It could be, Earth. It could be Earth or, it could be, any world, where any variable, is different.

It could be a simulation of worlds, easily, if it was all in text. But making something that would generate worlds people could play in, based on that text... I don't know, how hard that would be. But I could imagine it.

The unique thing about this idea, just comes down to the automation of content creation, based on input.

I'm sure you can imagine the value in that.

sigmen4020 · 2020-02-26 01:32:02

Kinrany wrote:

jasonrohrer wrote:
Find a needed specialist family and convince them to move into town, across the language barrier? That's a feat that tops mere "trade" in terms of social complexity.
I challenge this statement, if only on the basis that trade is by any reasonable interpretation something that happens regularly and over long periods of time.
Finding a specialist and moving them involves two players. Maintaining mutual awareness and relations involves two players per generation.

I second this. Getting someone of a speciality race to move in with you is much more beneficial deal than "trading".

Coconut Fruit · 2020-02-26 05:48:32

Your visions are ruining this game, Jason. If you don't believe me just look at the current number of players playing the game. Cooperation is great, but this weird trading interactions just sux and are far from being "interesting".
And what we get in return for these weird interactions? Boring life in the same big towns. No way to start fresh towns, because searching for other races is the most annoying thing in this game.
Making everything from scratch with own family was fun. Now many people just prefer to go to a big town and take things they need, they know exactly where to go, magic bell towers just show them direction.

DestinyCall · 2020-02-26 08:10:30

To be fair, the Steam sale managed to bring in enough fresh people that our numbers were briefly green and we are back up to 60 average users.

https://steamcharts.com/app/595690

But sadly, most of those new players will probably bounce off the game and we will be back in the mid forties by April.

...

I wish Jason would listen to his community when we tell him something is broken, instead of doing VOG surveys of towns and checking statistics for "proof". We might not have written any books on the subject, but I am pretty sure we can tell when we are not having fun.

Dodge · 2020-02-26 09:47:29

Numbers where going down before all the updates you're upset about, so you're really looking in the wrong places.

Sure you can tell when you're not having fun but the reason why or what to do about it is a little more obscure.

One day: "We want to build big civilizations"

The next day: "Big towns are boring"

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