The game is dead

Tipy · 2020-03-03 18:23:20

Haven't seen it go beyond 50-60 players for around one two three months. For those saying ''You aren't playing in USA peak hours'' I say when I play it used to reach around and above 100 three months ago. Now there are 38 and has been like that for a while. A year ago it used to be around 200 or more. This is just sad.

FishRfriendsnotfood · 2020-03-03 18:35:06

People ruined this game. Can't play how you want without the 20 regulars joining up together to curse you.
Then why even care about long lineages anymore, when there isn't any goal. If in 20 gens you have now maxed out all possible tech, why bother when all it is, is maintenance at that point. I would suggest just taking this original OHOL out of commission and playing one of the other versions, that have more tech. Why even bother with this one anymore?

sigmen4020 · 2020-03-03 19:02:52

I wouldn’t say the game is dead, but the population is definitely declining. The game has had numbers like these in the past and has been able to bounce back from those times. As long as there’s activity in the game and on the forums I wouldn’t say the game is truly dead.

DestinyCall · 2020-03-03 19:26:48

Dead is an exaggeration. I'd describe it as stagnate.

It doesn't feel like a game that is building up to something amazing, each update improving on the last. It feels like a game that has stalled out halfway there. No clear forward progression, too much dead content and half-baked mechanics bogging it down.

Things could easily turn around with a few decent updates. But I can't say that I am all that optimistic. From what I've seen so far, Jason is determined to march to the beat of his own drummer, even if that marches him right off a cliff.

Twisted · 2020-03-03 20:46:33

A game with ~600 daily players on a work day (today is a Tuesday and there were 572 unique players in the last 24 hours) is far from dead. Sure, it's not phenomenal, but it's pretty decent for a $20 indie game.

Three months ago there was a large influx of new players because of the Steam Sale and those player numbers that you mention are a bit of an abnormality. Today's player peak (on Steam) was 73. The player peak on September 30th, before the Steam sale, was 75. Not much of a difference there, really.

The player peak on February 25th 2019, which is about a year ago, was 155. Much better than now. But the player peak pre-Steam, in October 2018, was maybe 40 on a good day (there's no Steam data on this and I'm speaking from memory, if someone has the actual numbers please correct me). Much, much lower than these days. I remember the player count going as low as 16 during EU mornings. At the time of this post there are 57 players ingame on Steam.

The game's player count is stagnating/slowly declining, and that's not ideal. But saying that the game is dead is just flat out wrong.

Coconut Fruit · 2020-03-03 20:47:56

This game isn't dead yet but it probably won't last long with current developer.

Twisted · 2020-03-03 20:50:15

And yeah, the slow pace of content over the last few months SUCKS. But there's a good reason for that - the game was not good enough and most new players played a life or two and then gave up. Adding new content wasn't doing anything to improve the retention rate, and a low retention rate is a guarantee that the game WILL die.

Spoonwood · 2020-03-03 20:55:45

Relevant links: http://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=8073

https://steamcharts.com/app/595690#All

Coconut Fruit · 2020-03-03 21:02:51

No wonder why new players quitting so fast. They have to play in big, high advanced towns, which is not what new players are looking for, they don't feel useful - nobody needs another hand for work. They don't have zoom mod, and this game sux without it. Communication sux, so in many cases they can't learn the game.

Wuatduhf · 2020-03-03 21:08:15

Coconut Fruit wrote:

No wonder why new players quitting so fast. They have to play in big, high advanced towns, which is not what new players are looking for, they don't feel useful - nobody needs another hand for work. They don't have zoom mod, and this game sux without it. Communication sux, so in many cases they can't learn the game.

This is kind of what happens to new people in competitive games; if you matched a Bronze-skilled player against a "Grandmaster" player, the sheer gap in skill is going to lead to a swift beating on the Bronze player, and they will not actually learn anything from the experience and probably give up.

I would argue that the game's initial Steam release was the perfect culmination for new players to get into the game, followed by the number of streamers that also started playing it at the same time in that week of its successful selling.

There was a large flood of new players, across many servers, but primarily the first 3-4. With so many new players, there was no "massive gap" between the veterans and the newbies. There were varying tiers of newbies that either knew nothing at all, knew the basics of farming, or were quickly on their way towards becoming a veteran.

Now, whenever someone buys the game or it goes on a mild Steam Sale, we only get a 'trickle' of players that come in, and all of those players are going to BS2. Their numbers are so few that the gap between the Veterans and the newbies is so clear that it is, to an extent, oppressive to their development of appreciating the game.

Dodge · 2020-03-03 21:17:54

YES!! Eve camps zooms and a few letters will save the game let's call Jason right now!!!

New players are overwhelmed wether it's a big/small/Eve town doesn't matter.

They have to learn complicated recipes in order to play the game (because currently the game is 90% crafting) and that's just not interesting or too much of an investment for most of them so they leave.

If the game was less reliant on crafting, less focused on that aspect, if there was something else to do, another way to play, or if the learning process was integrated as part of the gameplay experience, like players helping each other out and learning at the same time.

Then retention would be a lot higher.

sigmen4020 · 2020-03-03 22:47:28

Coconut Fruit wrote:

No wonder why new players quitting so fast. They have to play in big, high advanced towns, which is not what new players are looking for, they don't feel useful - nobody needs another hand for work. They don't have zoom mod, and this game sux without it. Communication sux, so in many cases they can't learn the game.

New players aren't really suited to be in early camps considering how difficult they are. The best place for newbies just starting out is big developed towns, because that's where they will have the best luck of finding someone who has the time to teach them. Having newbies spawn in early camps over and over will probably make them quit even faster, since they are just gonna run out lives after having starved multiple times. Vets might even leave them because technically speaking they aren't gonna help matters in an already stressfull early camp.

For newbies to have a better time I think the tutorial needs to teach them better. Having the tutorial feature a basic farming tutorial would be a huge help imo. And tbh them not knowing about zoom mods might also be a reason why they are quiting, because they end up being frustrated with the claustrophobic nature of the default client.

New players wouldn't be better off being spawned in early camps, in fact I'm pretty sure they'd be worse off.

jinbaili83 · 2020-03-03 23:47:35

I just did small audit on tutorial area using https://onemap.wondible.com/

Out of 260 cells:
86 had lit torch at the end
43 skipped tutorial (torch below starting point)

I saw many die to snakes without lighting up torch (some did made fire and just lit firebrand)

Also i counted 16 succesful escape attempts (forge and cut tree), but like dozen ware made in same area, likely by same person.

A thing new players need most, are teachers.
A new player in Eve camp is almost certain to die young, but in advanced town without guidence it is dificult to find intresting things to do.

The_Anabaptist · 2020-03-04 09:26:17

Every time I log in now I'm starting in a big city as a baby. Every single time. Where is the variety of stories in that?

I can't remember the last time I was Eve. It had to have been before tool specializations. It might have been shortly after the rift went away. A game play experience I enjoyed immensely, just gone to me. But it doesn't sound like I'm missing much, as it sounds like I could count on my kids to either /die or run to the bell.

There may be more colors of clothes and fancy roses to go with them. But the true variety in the game has gone to shit.

The_Anabaptist

cachinnus · 2020-03-04 11:29:02

I'm a relatively new player who's been mainlining this game since Dec/Jan. Figured I'd throw in my two cents. When I first saw videos and streams, although it looked fun, I thought the game seemed way too complicated to step into. (Btw, I'm old in gamer years and enjoy sims, resource management, and building more than panic situations.) I had to purposefully seek out tutorial videos and guides, Hi Twisted, before what I was watching really made sense to me. The slash command to learn objects was very useful for minor things, OneTech has been amazing once I figured it out, but I never would have even logged in if other players didn't make videos.

My city game play seems to fall into two categories: fixing issues and pet projects. Not that either is bad, but it's usually either frustrating or roadblocked in some way. Sometimes I'm in the mood to be a lumberjack though, so whatever. I can't quite pinpoint what it is about big cities that I don't like, but I think a big part of it is the communal pot living. It definitely makes sense in Eve camps, but when you get into the cities with different families, or your fourth and fifth cousins, it feels like nothing is personal. No one really cares about things in the city. They get left in odd places, tossed out in the woods, or stolen to cart off to another town. How many times have I seen a town with items it should not be able to acquire. Or spent my life making glass to log into the same town the next day with no glass in sight.

Quite often, once I'm old (since most kids will just stand there and starve, or die running back to bell), or after I've contributed something so I don't feel like a leech, I'll strip my items off and go explore, build a hermit hut, or a hobby town. I know this is a multiplayer game and that defeats the purpose, but ooh is it satisfying to me.

I guess what I'm trying to say, in too many words, is that my ideal gameplay would be based on a completely different city style. You'd have a main square with the well and a fire, maybe a couple tables for people to trade things, but families would have their own homes and occupations. So you'd be born into a home, where your family is doing one thing, and should you choose to stay, your job would be very clear. Everything in your home would be important, because it belongs to you, and if you leave it out in the woods, it costs your family to replace it. Some kind of responsibility or accountability. I would rather see a cooperation happening (I make pies, so I grow wheat, maybe berries and carrot, but I want some mutton, so I send my son to trade with the sheep farmer) than a pile of resources for the taking. Thieving or griefing would be more high stakes, something even for the antisocial types!

Also, can we stop with the endless fields of berries? Like.. pretty please?

JonySky · 2020-03-04 16:26:00

The activity of this forum is a summary of OHOL's future ...
I hope I'm wrong ... from the heart.

NiGB0 · 2020-03-04 18:34:38

Newbies quit the game because it's too boring to play in big towns.
The best way to learn in this game is playing the tutorial, OneTech and videos. (This game need a recipe book)

I don't play this game anymore because in my opinion it went in the wrong way and it's totally different than the game that I bought time ago, you just play in big cities that the only things they need is food and tools.
Language barrier, gene score, family speciality, etc destroyed this game, even rift era was better than this new OHOL.
And in my opinion wars were really funny and made the need to defend the cities.

The golden era of this game is over, and the way that the game took is going to kill him.

Jason, you need a new trailer, because this game is totally different from the one that you made in 2018.

Legs · 2020-03-04 18:39:41

I'll write about my last life since it seems relevant to the point.

I was born in a small abandoned village with a dry newcomen well. My mother was the only person there. She asked me to stay and help her make it a nice place to live. So I did, I tried to help rebuild and improve that place. We were the translator family and so the well would never run. I knew that. I helped her light a fire then went to scavenge for water. There was a road leading north away from the village and I followed it hoping for untouched ponds. After a few trips ferrying buckets to the cistern I finally found the end of the road- a bell town with gingers and diesel. I wanted to stay with my family, but I knew that it was hopeless. I'd live a boring tedious life improving a place that would soon be left abandoned again. So I moved to the bell town. I farmed. I built boxes and tables. I had a son and I took him to visit grandma's house. Before I left, my daughter was born. She left for the bell town and later died before having children.

When I got the notification that my mother had died, I returned and found her body. Just outside the front door of her home. I went back north to the bell town and gathered a few things. Some skewers, a flint chip and sharp stone. A shovel, a flat rock, a mallet and chisel. I took it south and buried her where she died, marking her grave "MOTHER." I felt bad for leaving her there alone. While I was doing this my son returned. I was already an elder and I warned him that he'd be lonely there, a single man with no children. "But I grew up here," he said. Already well into his middle age. We said our goodbyes and I left to die somewhere out of the way.

So, the issue here is with racial specialization and the way that it forces different families to live together. The only way our family could have made it was by stealing from the neighbors. Not trade, steal. We were poor and they were wealthy. Forget finding someone to organize a trade, we had nothing they wanted. Why were they so much wealthier? They're multicultural. Multiculti towns are naturally much wealthier. With the current meta it's ALWAYS better to live with other families. This defeats the concept of trade and destroys the viability of offshoot hermit camps. The best you could hope for is a suburb that's smaller but still connected by road to the main town. Maybe a summer home you can escape to during genocides, funded by wealth from the town.

ahead · 2020-03-04 19:24:58

Things were promised but never became anything more than promises, there are tonns of bugs in the game, people expect new content, griefing is rampant.
All of those are problems
Pick one to solve

If you're not getting it, there's only one person working on the game

Coconut Fruit · 2020-03-04 21:23:41

Remove tool slots and race restrictions and watch the population growing

cachinnus · 2020-03-04 21:24:53

I enjoy this game. I'm content to hang around and see what happens. I understand there's one developer and his time isn't endless.

I do agree that family biomes could use some perks rather than restrictions. I'd love to simply not drop held objects when crossing one, mmm.

I've had plenty of thoughts in my short game time about new uses for objects or things that seem missing. I'm pretty sure Jason has had most of those ideas himself.

As players though, I do wish we could collectively look at our own behaviors and how they impact game play and resources. The biggest complaint about towns is always the wells and the materials to upgrade them, but people don't seem to value water very much in every day play. It's confusing to me.

Legs · 2020-03-04 22:17:58

cachinnus wrote:

The biggest complaint about towns is always the wells and the materials to upgrade them, but people don't seem to value water very much in every day play. It's confusing to me.

If this game had a currency it would be water. The relative value of different items is calculated based on how much water is used to make them. Take corn for example. A shucked ear of corn gives you 5 pips of food. Dried and made into popcorn, it gives you 12 pips of food at no additional cost. Chopped up and fed to a cow, that dried corn nets you a whole bucket of milk, each bowl of which is worth 14 pips. There are 4 ears of corn on each stalk. For the one single bowl of water you can get 4 buckets of milk worth 140 pips each. One bowl of water to plant the corn, can produce 560 total pips of food. Plus yum factors like butter or skim vs. whole milk. If you see lots of butter and milk in town, it means someone is valuing the water.

Mutton is exactly the same way and that's why mutton pies are basically the staple food of OHOL. A bowl of berries and carrot costs about 2 bowls of water. It produces four pieces of mutton and some wool. Mutton can be cooked and eaten whole for 12 yummy pips. Or, with 1 more bowl of water to make dough it can make 4 pies worth a total of 60 pips each. If you see a lot of mutton pie in town, it means someone is valuing the water. This is why the conventional wisdom exists. Never shear the last wooly sheep and only feed babies. That way you're producing mutton and not just wool.

Incidentally the same is true of the humble omelette, which consumes only one piece of kindling and no water so it's basically free food at 19 pips each. If you see someone having an omelette cookout, they're valuing water.

Of course you also see lots of people grazing on gooseberries, carrots and shucked corn that could easily be processed into much more valuable food. That's what we call lazy yumming. Everyone is guilty of doing it sometimes. You want to build a yum chain so you excuse the practice by saying you're just a kid, you don't need those filling pies, and after your chain builds it'll be efficient later. The penance for this kind of thinking is to hunt a wild turkey and bake it in the oven for everyone to enjoy. Turkey is completely free, produces a whopping 114 total food pips AND with just one bowl of water can be made into a broth with additional 96 total pips of food. If you see turkey in the kitchen, it means someone is valuing the water.

Last edited by Legs (2020-03-04 22:20:41)

Dodge · 2020-03-04 22:36:49

Coconut Fruit wrote:

Remove tool slots and race restrictions and watch the population growing

Oh whoops looks like you're wrong

Coconut Fruit · 2020-03-04 22:45:20

Dodge wrote:

Coconut Fruit wrote:
Remove tool slots and race restrictions and watch the population growing
Oh whoops looks like you're wrong

This graph can't tell whether I'm wrong or not. Most likely I'm right.

mensrea · 2020-03-04 23:25:48

The_Anabaptist wrote:

Every time I log in now I'm starting in a big city as a baby. Every single time. Where is the variety of stories in that?
I can't remember the last time I was Eve. A game play experience I enjoyed immensely, just gone to me. But it doesn't sound like I'm missing much, as it sounds like I could count on my kids to either /die or run to the bell.
There may be more colors of clothes and fancy roses to go with them. But the true variety in the game has gone to shit.
The_Anabaptist

I share your enjoyment of Eve camps. Eve camps are more difficult which I enjoy. Another way the game could work is weekly wipes. I think an important part of the game is progression.

But, I also spend most of my time now starting up my client, seeing if I log into Donkeytown, and if so, shutting down my client and trying again later. It seems to correspond to peak times in North America. I've considered a client mod to alert me if I get a non-donkeytown spawn.

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#1 2020-03-03 18:23:20

The game is dead

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Re: The game is dead

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