The game is dead

petaldancing · 2020-03-05 02:13:39

DestinyCall wrote:

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.

this nicely summarizes the state of this game, i think.

cachinnus · 2020-03-05 11:49:16

Legs wrote:

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.

AND, to carry it home you can just wear it on your head. Plus plus.

Thanks though, you make good points and food math is interesting.

I see a lot of things that I don't understand. Like I said, I'm new, so I usually just miiiiind my business, but when I do ask people why they did it, they don't have a good answer for me. Maybe they think I'm just annoying them on purpose. Examples:

Cutting down all the branch and tinder trees near town
Emptying and digging up wild gooseberry bushes to build over them
Clearing out all the close ponds instead of keeping one or two for eggs/fletching
Feeding and shearing the same sheep to make clothes - especially when the well is dry
Making compost in small towns with deposits nearby. I hate to see dung wasted, but compost seems extravagant for a young town, or am I wrong on this?

So, a story example. I used to spawn in Zucc town a lot, surprise. I stopped moping for my bad luck and started trying to improve, what I thought, were some of the issues. I started changing weird roads, making grids out of odd shaped farms, building boxes, cisterns, etc. There was a spot near the blacksmith with a couple wild gooseberry bushes and a diagonal road. So I skirted the road around it, put up a horse fence near the blacksmith, and turned it into a garden of sorts. A couple milkweed, a rose bush, and a juniper tree, because there were no trees around that big, dumb town and starting a fire was awful. The tree wasn't visually intrusive on anything else, btw. I saw it once, with the tree fully grown and more milkweed planted by someone else. The next time I saw it, someone chopped the tree, dug up the gooseberries to plant more roses, picked all the milkweed without planting any, and turned it into a graveyard memorial. I did a blinking white guy, laughed, and decided maybe it wasn't my best idea to "fix" there. Oops.

jasonrohrer · 2020-03-06 00:47:03

The game has been out now for more than 2 years.

The fact that there are still between 40 and 100 concurrent players is a MIRACLE.

Into The Breach was another game that launched on Steam the same day as OHOL, and was a MASSIVE hit, bringing in loads more money and players than OHOL.

But look at the graph:

https://steamcharts.com/app/590380#All

From a peak of 14,000 concurrent players down to a peak 310 in current times. That's a 98% drop.

Legend of Bum-Bo was a much bigger hit than OHOL when it launched (Edmund is a mega-star), and it's only been out for 3 months, and the player numbers have already dropped to OHOL levels:

https://steamcharts.com/app/1148650#6m

In three months. A 95% drop in concurrent players.

OHOL's Steam peak was only 590 concurrent players, having dropped to a peak of 73 in current times, which is only an 88% drop.

So you see that's 88% drop in 15 months, vs. a 95% drop in 3 months.

Most games have a decline in players over time. That is just what happens.

Show me a game where that hasn't happened.

Now that you've found one game that stayed steady or even climbed in the 2 years after release, find 5 games that did that.

Then I will show you thousands of games that had a gradual decline in players over time.

OHOL is the outlier because it still has so many players 2 years later compared to most other games. It's dying slower than most other games.

Can you explain this to me:

What is the value in coming in here, week after week, and proclaiming that the game is dying?

If it's dying, then why are you still here posting?

I'm still working on the game every week, and still putting out updates every week, and people are still playing the game, and I'm still making really good money from the game every week.

So... the only thing that's out of step with reality is you with your claim that the game is dying.

It's obviously not. Especially not for a 2-year-old game made entirely by one person that is about to ship weekly update #95

Please show me another game that has been updated 95 times in two years. Even one other game.

And as for your "reason of the week" for why the game is "dying," which is always your least favorite mechanic that the majority of players don't seem to be bothered by... I can assure you that tool slots or specialty biomes or the lack of pink walls or whatever you think it is has nothing to do with the gradual player decline that has happened over time.

All that said, the game is not nearly as good as it could be, and I'm working on it and thinking about it night and day, but there are several hard design problems that don't have obvious solutions (and may not have ANY solutions, in the end).

For example, which do you want:

1. Long-lived lineages that don't die out due to forces beyond their control, and permanent, every-growing, player-created buildings and transportation networks?

2. Lots of Eve camps and a large variety of other towns at different levels of tech?

People complain about both things, but you can't solve both at the same time. If new towns spring up constantly, then they pull babies away from the existing towns and lineages, causing them to die out, and causing the permanent structures to be lost, because new towns need to be put far away so that they can actually start over with no tech.

You all complained about (1) for 2 years, and I finally solved it, but now you're complaining about (2).

DestinyCall · 2020-03-06 02:37:54

Perhaps we are ALL dead.

This is purgatory and we are doomed to post an endless stream of circular arguements and contradictory complaints for all eternity. Tormented by our constant craving for fresh content to distract from the emptiness and lack of meaning in our un-lives.

Coconut Fruit · 2020-03-06 03:38:50

jasonrohrer wrote:

For example, which do you want:
1. Long-lived lineages that don't die out due to forces beyond their control, and permanent, every-growing, player-created buildings and transportation networks?
2. Lots of Eve camps and a large variety of other towns at different levels of tech?

I prefer 2 because all I'm looking for in this game is survival. People like survival games so maybe I'm in the majority... or maybe not. An in-game pool could tell more.

Infinite wild berries? meh
Infinite rabbits? meh
I don't even like that backpacks don't decay.
Why planting milkweed if there is tons of milkweed in the wild? I would like milkweed spawn rate be decreased by even 10 times.
Mono diet of water efficient foods is too good and very comparable to making one big yum chain. I wish yum was the only truly efficient way of saving food.

I mean, I can be fine with living in big towns, if it becomes more interesting.

DestinyCall · 2020-03-06 04:24:14

I have no idea which sentiment is more common, but I think there's probably a decent number of people who like completely different things. Some prefer being an Eve and building a camp from nothing. Some prefer being in a young village, shaping the raw beginning into something functional and nice. Some prefer being in an established town, where you can dedicate yourself to making something big and unique. And some people like being in a mature town, where they can enjoy the hard-work of others, seeing and doing things that are impossible to achieve in a small village.

Personally, I tend to like larger towns, because there are more options for exploring upper level tech. I've done the early game so much that I get bored rather quickly when I'm stuck in pre-sheep villages over and over. That used to be 80% of the game and it was just as boring as being stuck in bell towns 80% of the time. Back then, big towns were rare and quickly lost to the sands of time, since the Eve spiral moved new villages far away from the older cities and lineage death by RNG was much more common.

I like being able to return to the same town occasionally to see how it has changed in my absence ... or repeatedly return to work on a favorite project. That used to not be an option without extreme measures and it was deeply frustrating to be locked out of returning to a favorite village until after it was dead.

I do not like being restricted by make skin tone or my tool slots, so I'm cut off from exploring certain aspects of the game or delving deeper into the tech tree. I've never made a tattoo or seen anyone make a tattoo. I'd like to do it someday, but I don't want it badly enough to fight against the race restrictions. I'd like to make ice cream too ... also not likely to happen. To find myself in the right kind of life that I could dedicate myself to the frivolous pursuit of ice cream making AND also be a ginger ... it has never happened yet. Probably never will.

I think this game is at its best when there is a lot of variety. The option to live in a bell-town or a little village. The ability to play as an Eve or as the mayor of a town. I don't know how to balance it properly. i don't know if it is even POSSIBLE to find a perfect balance. The current system doesn't feel right to me and I wish it was not this way. But I don't think that all of our complaints would evaporate if tool slots and race restrictions were gone tomorrow. They are partially responsible for forcing a bell-town meta AND restricting tech tree exploration, which makes all the towns feel too much the same. But we would still climb the tech tree too fast and hit the end of the existing content far too quickly. In fact, we'd reach that point even faster without artificial constraints holding back rubber and oil.

Personally, I'd like to see Jason experiment with removing the restrictions AND increasing the Eve spawn rate. More Eves would spread the player population out more and the lack of racial specializations would allow us to remain farther apart since we wouldn't be dependent on other families for oil/water. We could develop independently without feeling that strong pressure to merge back together at bell towns. Traveling between bells or even finding another family would be a much rarer occurrence ... and towns would be more likely to get lost when their population falls. But we would still be able to build roads and try to re-discover lost villages.

I doubt it would be completely perfect, but I can see this sort of system allowing for greater variety and less melting-pot.

testo · 2020-03-06 05:11:24

DestinyCall wrote:

Perhaps we are ALL dead.
This is purgatory and we are doomed to post an endless stream of circular arguements and contradictory complaints for all eternity. Tormented by our constant craving for fresh content to distract from the emptiness and lack of meaning in our un-lives.

I need to stop reading your messages for mental sanity.

sigmen4020 · 2020-03-06 12:19:29

Coconut Fruit wrote:

jasonrohrer wrote:
For example, which do you want:
1. Long-lived lineages that don't die out due to forces beyond their control, and permanent, every-growing, player-created buildings and transportation networks?
2. Lots of Eve camps and a large variety of other towns at different levels of tech?
I prefer 2 because all I'm looking for in this game is survival. People like survival games so maybe I'm in the majority... or maybe not. An in-game pool could tell more.
Infinite wild berries? meh
Infinite rabbits? meh
I don't even like that backpacks don't decay.
Why planting milkweed if there is tons of milkweed in the wild? I would like milkweed spawn rate be decreased by even 10 times.
Mono diet of water efficient foods is too good and very comparable to making one big yum chain. I wish yum was the only truly efficient way of saving food.
I mean, I can be fine with living in big towns, if it becomes more interesting.

Wild milkweed only spawns after a week or so if the tile it was on hasn’t been seen in that week. Milkweed barely regenerate as is, so decreasing it’s spawn rate would be an exercise in pointlessness. If you want more people to farm milkweed, then make milkweed farming a more efficient and fun task. As of right to farm enough milkweed for one rope (4) would cost you either 8 hoe charges and 4 soil, or 4 hoe charges and 12 soil. This is way too expensive compared to the value you get from other crops. Like it would be a joke to compare the efficiency of wheat farming to milkweed farming. Imo the removal of 2-tile soil tilling affected by far milkweed farming the most, which already had little value to begin with.

Last edited by sigmen4020 (2020-03-06 12:20:57)

Wuatduhf · 2020-03-06 13:58:45

jasonrohrer wrote:

Most games have a decline in players over time. That is just what happens.

Show me a game where that hasn't happened.

Space Station 13 has actually rebounded from its original starting playerbase of a couple hundred people, to now somewhere in the thousands.

For years, the stable populated servers see peaks of 40-70 people daily, depending on the part of the week.

For Colonial Marines in SS13, they've consistently sported 200+ players at almost all hours.

When major code shifts happen, that playerbase tends to fluctuate and move around. I've seen some servers that were only pulling 40-50 on weeknights suddenly have to deal with 80+ every single evening because of players migrating to different servers.

Last edited by Wuatduhf (2020-03-06 13:59:05)

Spoonwood · 2020-03-27 05:30:23

jasonrohrer wrote:

For example, which do you want:
1. Long-lived lineages that don't die out due to forces beyond their control, and permanent, every-growing, player-created buildings and transportation networks?
2. Lots of Eve camps and a large variety of other towns at different levels of tech?
People complain about both things, but you can't solve both at the same time. If new towns spring up constantly, then they pull babies away from the existing towns and lineages, causing them to die out, and causing the permanent structures to be lost, because new towns need to be put far away so that they can actually start over with no tech.
You all complained about (1) for 2 years, and I finally solved it, but now you're complaining about (2).

Lineage length is a number. The game already has already had contradictions (or 'paradoxes' if you prefer) like a player being one of their own ancestors. And the frequency of such contradictions has gone up recently. From a contradiction, any proposition can follow. Thus, in principle, it ends up within the scope of the game for a player to reappear on the same family tree within one generation. Thus, lineage length could get increased by reincarnation. Reincarnation in the same spot of a player where that player died could also enable preservation of structures by itself. Babies going elsewhere doesn't necessarily kill off a lineage, since a lineage could continue in its existence after some break in time via reincarnation. And really, all lineages ALREADY have breaks in time, as everything that runs on a digital computer is discrete.

Eve camps *out in the wild* could happen by choice or by players not selecting to reincarnate to likely/necessarily get put there. The idea of an Eve button is likely preferable, because then players who want to login in and in end up in a seemingly randomly generated spot could do so.

And players choosing their birth spot is also within the scope of the game, as again, the scope of the game has many contradictions of individual players being their own ancestors.

karltown_veteran · 2020-03-27 14:47:24

Game pop levels were around 62 back in September too. People have been saying this game is dead for as long as it’s been alive, although it’s true that it’s stopped having the baby booms it had in its earlier days (caused by YouTubers playing it, I think)

MrGold · 2020-03-27 14:59:20

All vets mad game is not dying you are I'm also a vet but on forums it don't count funny as hell

Gogo · 2020-03-27 17:37:36

Game is not dead, lol.

pein · 2020-03-27 18:52:34

jasonrohrer wrote:

For example, which do you want:
1. Long-lived lineages that don't die out due to forces beyond their control, and permanent, every-growing, player-created buildings and transportation networks?
2. Lots of Eve camps and a large variety of other towns at different levels of tech?

People complain about both things, but you can't solve both at the same time. If new towns spring up constantly, then they pull babies away from the existing towns and lineages, causing them to die out, and causing the permanent structures to be lost, because new towns need to be put far away so that they can actually start over with no tech.
You all complained about (1) for 2 years, and I finally solved it, but now you're complaining about (2).

Long-lived lineages are good, but we had like 25-30 gens that's like 8-10 hours. I think too long lineages are overkill.

My general lives were like this: born in the forest, everyone died before we made a farm. Later when I learned to do things faster, generally I was born in a small camp, I did sheep pen, iron, we ran out of girls within 45 minutes. Especially when people started suiciding over and over, maybe some discord towns were good, others were starved out indirectly. I was a pretty good Eve but I never really got a chance to be the Eve, since others just suicided over and over until they became the eve, even if they couldn't do a decent camp, just so they can name the family, I guess it's good when your kids survive for long so that's why people check back daily, so 1 day long lineages should be possible.

A lot of things I asked for that reason and Jason implemented some, like the boost on girls under 3 females, limiting the family numbers, equal distribution of kids, etc. I think it's way better than before. But we cannot really split into so many families. Not sure how many people would like to play as Eve, I'm sure some people don't want at all, some just fine with it, I think it would be a preference over 50% between veterans and over 90% with the people who are new but started to get invested in the game. You can't have families of 2.

Maybe we could have NPC baby machines to keep families alive. Maybe some AI animal or bandit attacks to increase fun on low population.

Eve tokens would be fun, where people need would get point each life and they could spend it to buy an Eve run, maybe Adam runs to help others out. That way it would be an active process where people need to do something in order to play Eve, the limits could decrease when the world needs another Eve.
I think that the best way to do it would be that the difficulty would be increased and players would need to meet a target. So they could only blame themselves for not meeting it, keeping alive families would need increasing upkeep.
For buildings I think, they should have a gameplay reason to make them, first of all, a size requirement and maybe module requirement, like a bed for bedroom, kitchen appliances, central heating etc. Something that worth gameplay-wise or a requirement for advancing in the tech tree.
Upgrades that make things better over time.

I don't think that logistics or transport is fun at the moment, and the map isn't varied enough to matter where you are. So that part is pretty boring, single maps for each family would be fine, similar to the rift, but with the ability to unlock new places, move out, expand.
I think that it should be more requirements toward tech, more tech, more steps. People should actively seek to increase population, production to reach a goal. Right now I don't see many goals, it's just survival, there are no win conditions.
The map could be more strategical so politics and strategy matters on a large scale. Simplify the map to have a mini map, with a lot of small towns around and easy travel to each other via transport points, more cost-based travel and transport, less time based wandering.

I think that instead of families we could have teams, and people could be more often Eves or Adams, choose their own name, mix families.
Teams would have the bonus of loyalty so the opposing team would work against you and compete, but your own team would try to reach the same goal as you. Since we die each 60 minutes, there is no reason to be loyal, next life you might take the resources from your previous town. And since there is no long term goal, server wipes would be okay I guess, either time based or a win condition, Apocalypse can be called a win conditions but we just fight amongst us, people who try to end it, are called griefers. If I would be 2 or more teams, would be an opposition of interest and others couldn't complain that the opposing team tries to destroy us. People can't set up equal sides and fun rivalry in an organic manner, especially if we switch sides so often.

Let's say the red team would have 4 families, one each colour, you could be born to any of them during the day, so you would like them more and despise the other side, you could change once at the start but then you would be locked for the rest of the week. Some sort of point system to keep track which team is better. New players could choose to go with the leading team but the underdog would give better rewards to balance out the sides. Loyalty could be also rewarded over time. This reward could be life tokens or Eve tokens so skill would matter a bit.
We can't have persistent upgrades to characters but we could have slight advantages and choices unlocked via working hard and making good decisions.

We can't have a variety of different tech when there is no tech. Instead of adding more limiters and artificial slowdown, we would need constant upgrades and different problems to solve other than water. A good tech tree would involve parallel tech that you can get your results in a different way, and adapting to the map would make choices more important. Also some unique choices that a town can take, but others can't. 4 type of advanced resources but you can only make one of them. Then an ability to overproduce, sell, trade. Right now we got similar things but it's intertwined between races so overall is just beyond our ability to do advance.
It should be always a goal, a way to improve, to produce more, to use workers more, time and workers should be precious. High tech is better than low tech. Always be able to tone down and cope with dangers if you made the right choices. Reward people who care and punish who don't.
Basically, if you want more population, do something for it, and you would need population to unlock a tech. That is also hard but achievable. Right now no matter how smart or fast you are you can't do oil by yourself, even your entire family scattering around the map has no chance if others are too far.
There should be always a way to produce something out of nothing so time worth more, people worth more, the city worth more over time.

Coconut: the current yum mechanics have an emphasis on a long "unique" personal chain.
It should be a medium or high overall variety within the city, therefore we need an upper limit to it, if 10 foods are needed to reach the maximum value, the city can produce exactly 10 types or 15, but only 10 gets used. You can't call a city better cause one person eats a varied diet, you can cook one goose but you won't cook 1 for everyone so overall you did nothing. And since you didn't even build up the prerequisites for a goose production, no one else will eat that food.
But if a town has a steady potato production, and some carnitas, it will be overall more efficient. That should be the goal, not a personal gain.
If there is an upper limit, it wouldn't matter what you eat, you could have 10 people and 10 pies, 10 carnitas, 10 milk, 10 stew, then just 5 from all the different foods. That's long term insurance and a proof that the city cares. One person spending all his life to eat 1 thing from each is a dumb selfish and ineffective thing that gives no benefit to others, often even ruins it for others, since they eat a carrot or raw corn, or plant a single tile of green beans so they don't care at all what is efficient and whats not.

Football manager has still had tons of users and their game mechanics didn't change much in the last 14-18 years, the graphics barely changed after the first few years (text-based, dots, chess figures, 3d view).
Sure it helps that each year they add real-world figures to the game but the system is well built, very random, lots of hours to play, lots of fun each time, replaying the same thing is always different a bit, it's a lot of information to learn, process, lots of choices and even after a lot of hours to see the results of your work. Is not multiplayer really, and it's 1 release per year, so hard to compare with OHOL. The trading system is fun, investing is fun, replaying is always different there, the "duels" are fun and involves luck and skill.

Mount and blade. It's also not really a multiplayer, the "bannerlord" had some multi-feature. It's an old game by now. 4 days till the Bannerlord 2, people hyping over it last 3 years, very complex dynamics, very random, good replayability, fun mechanics. Lots of games were inspired by it. OHOL could implement some siege mechanics, town/village/castle systems, or just the production lines are fun. Villages are different, producing a few things that they can locally, cities converting those to higher tier resources, prices are depending on demand and the world is alive, 5 different levels of prosperity, bandits attack if they got a chance, so each choice you do affects the world over time, the struggle between the nations is interesting.

I think Rust is similar to OHOL, they add a lot of stuff always, so there are always goal to achieve. The wipes clean off the map and you need to start over, the buildings are useful and need upkeep to preserve them. Getting resources needs time, stealing from others needs skill and strategy. Code locks could be implemented in OHOL, maybe respawning resources and blueprints. The fighting wouldn't fit since it's not 3d, that should be more strategical/turn-based.

Age of empires 2- it's 20 years old, tile-based, buildings got like 35 different skins by nations, lately it got picked up by gamers again and Microsoft will do esports from it. Interesting that their 3d games failed, age 3 wasn't good enough, everybody forgot it. but it's the same thing with other games like Stronghold, going back to the roots. 2d games can be very strategical and players are more interested in dynamics and strategy than the looks.

I think browser games are quite similar to OHOL. Grepolis is still doing well, same for Tribal wars, Travian or The west.
It's simple graphics, weekly or monthly updates. Generally, they got a persistent world. The West is hell a lot like OHOL, even the clothing sprite sizes match and are very similar. Their fort fights are fun. Their original game was good, the new devs are quite lame, you get bored of their game in max 1-2 years.

Albion Online is similar o OHOL as well, also has a persistent world, but there is crafting, resources, biomes, quite complex game, never played it cause it kinda pay to win.

And obviously Oxygen not included and Don't starve are quite similar, maybe Factorio.

Most of them are made by big studios.

I appreciate that OHOL is a one-time payment, and we already had a lot of fun with it, I got 2 copies I can access and I got the value out of it. If it would be new fun mechanics, I would be down to pay for a DLC price. Saying that the game is dead is quite rude, we would need more players that's true, we had more players that is also true, but you can't have a steady player base without constant advertising and more content. Since veterans are important to teach others and help them engage in the game, it would be important to have some complex systems. I think more territory battles and politics on a higher level.

Most games that have long term player base, are persistent world games, persistent characters, some way to improve yourself, the world.
In this game, neither of it can be accomplished since you die every 60 minutes, so it's hard to find a good mid-life system that gives you advantages but it's not overwhelming.

MOBA games are still popular, unlocking characters and skins is a way they get money. The auto-battle games were popular lately. Also, they are quite competitive so fighting over and over in the same map is still fun. I could imagine ohol having some auto battles with minimal skills, maybe turn-based or strategical mini games to duel, team fights and sieges could be also possible.

I think that some win conditions and weekly wipes would be also fun.

Gogo · 2020-03-27 20:42:49

Surviving is winning, tech is for being ahead of competition. But there's no need to be ahead, they won't attack us. Nothing to compete for. Today I was brown lady, a griefer, I messed in gingers town, then came back to my home. I gathered about 4 ppl for war against gingers. During attack I was thinking "hmm, there's no point to make these raids". At rift there was a purpouse, it was like 'last family wins' (it wasn't, but some of us thought this way). I made this war for personal vendetta, because gingers cursed me and my brethrens goes to war, because gingers were talking shit to us through radio. xD Things just escalated because of somebody's mood.

Still one and same thing is missing and blocking many things, owning. I don't directly point to current system, fences and chests and how to pass it to next gens, I'm talking about need to actually stash something - others won't make any harm to us, so we don't need to stash something to make us stronger and others weaker.

pein · 2020-03-28 01:51:13

That why I say teams would be better than families. Right now there are no sides, you might attack someone and die before they retaliate and a bunch of innocent people die.
Also no honour in fights, you can't challenge someone officially, they can't answer with a no when you rush them, it's slaughter not duel.
Also, there is no advantage in attacking others, maybe if both sides throw in some reward and then the winner takes all, that would be -50% +50% wager at least. I wouldn't even mind if it would be non-deadly sports challenge, the game could force families to fight and count some points, and the winner would get some points, maybe to unlock techs or special items.

Ownership is also interesting, I mean if we would have teams then probably we could return to our base and use code locks to enter rooms, that would be safer than having a physical item, dunno but any time I make a key my place gets raided and ruined. It's not so hard to pick a lock, people either find the key or make one.

Gogo · 2020-03-28 08:58:05

"Open sesame".

schmloo · 2020-03-28 12:26:06

Yeah, pretty sure it’s died a slow, agonising death. All the while that the end-game can be reached in less than a day, because there’s no further levels of technology, and people want to restart the cycle again, even if it means sacrificing those hours of work. Need content.

Morti · 2020-03-28 13:47:15

schmloo wrote:

Yeah, pretty sure it’s died a slow, agonising death. All the while that the end-game can be reached in less than a day, because there’s no further levels of technology, and people want to restart the cycle again, even if it means sacrificing those hours of work. Need content.

Anyone that does rush to kerosene in a day, should just quit. Let new players discover the tech tree among each other.
If you are capable of that, and still want to play, you should probably just be teaching, not doing it for other people and riding into an Eve village with a horse cart of bottles, filled with sulfur and palm oil... that's what really makes the game uninteresting; looting towns for the sake of someone on Discord that just spawned as an Eve.
Give players the chance to experience the foundational stages of the game, when it really counts. Don't force them to go off in the woods and die alone, lot of them don't even know the steps to make fire, or what it takes to make a firebow, and they never will, because they'll play a dozen lives and go back to Minecraft.

You might think that's a good thing for Jason; easy money, but it's not, it doesn't grow the game, doesn't help his career, not going to get word of mouth going that's for sure "One what? Oh yeah, I played that game, it was pretty boring. Nothing to do." because you did it all for them. I'd appreciate if you stopped making them feel useless. Not necessarily you, schmloo, but you catch my drift. Slow down folks, savor the finer things. And if you want to hook up your friends Eve village, drop off a few horse carts full of rabbit carcasses, 40 meters away, let a new player discover them on his own and make sense of what to do with them. They'll keep their temps up, food consumption lower and the water will last.

Maybe the players should be divided into 3 servers: 0-100 hours, 100-1000 hours, and 1000+, or even 0-10, 10-100 and 100+ or just make it more obvious for people to choose different servers, by listing them all from the start, the way most other games do it. Most new players probably have no clue there are other servers.

Elsayal · 2020-03-28 14:09:38

Morti wrote:

lot of them don't even know the steps to make fire, or what it takes to make a firebow

I love to teach new players these things.

Morti · 2020-03-28 14:55:54

Elsayal wrote:

Morti wrote:
lot of them don't even know the steps to make fire, or what it takes to make a firebow
I love to teach new players these things.

A lot of us do, and that's why we're here. But that's not why Mr. Horse Cart full of kero rides into an 8 hour old town, proclaiming he's solved the water crisis, when he is the crisis. New players have no clue whats what, and rushing a town with an engine and radio, is never going to help them learn.

This is the lesson of the game.

Can you make a cell phone on your own? No, you know why, because it takes the whole world, and all of life's history, to make a cell phone.

We really need to slow down, reinforce some basic lessons, the really important ones, otherwise these folks won't fully understand temp, they won't understand the wells and they won't understand iron. And if that's what any of you want so you can feel better about yourself, that other people be left in the dark, while you pretend you're a star, then you should just fuck off.

schmloo · 2020-03-28 20:56:55

Morti wrote:

...it doesn't grow the game, doesn't help his career, not going to get word of mouth going that's for sure "One what? Oh yeah, I played that game, it was pretty boring. Nothing to do." because you did it all for them...

I see what you’re getting at. But why should experienced players stop being good at the game and stop trying to progress society if that’s the enjoyment they get out of the game? Of course people should be teaching. That is a fundamental part of the game itself, to pass down knowledge. But oral tradition only works for a while, and when families stop being small and relatives grow distant people should be relying on other methods of “education”, if you like. Which is why books are a good idea. Experienced players should be doing what they do best, and progressing civilisation as they know how, not holding back because there’s not enough to do. It’s all well and good appealing to a small playerbase, and asking the fraction of experienced players to hold back for the sake of a fair portion of new players, but think about potential towns of nearly 100, which has its own established governing body that reports to a bigger town in a hierachy, where people would need to learn what’s in demand for the city in the span of about 15 minutes. Their mum’s not going to tell them, because she has little to no clue through near-impossible communication, because the city became less intimate as soon as it became impossible to know and recognise everyone.

I don’t play much anymore at all, so all tech in one day is likely a great over-exaggeration. But I remember the belltown in the theatre was pretty well developed after a couple of days. If the zoom wasn’t so god damn close, I’m sure people would be fine to take on apprentices, since they’re more reliably not likely to be a huge burden and die, and be a major setback. I’m all for teaching people, but there comes a point where you need to teach yourself advanced things, because I’m confident to assume that’s what we all did.

I’m sure at this point I’ve just spat out a load of nonsense, but I’ve written too much to skim back through it. I think a general idea should be not to introduce nerfs that negatively affect new people just as much as experienced people, but nerfs that bring experienced players to a better proportionate level as new people. Like, for example, time taken to complete a task based off of how much of that task you’ve done that life.

Glassius · 2020-03-28 23:00:11

Quotes goes first

jasonrohrer wrote:

The game has been out now for more than 2 years.
For example, which do you want:
1. Long-lived lineages that don't die out due to forces beyond their control, and permanent, every-growing, player-created buildings and transportation networks?
2. Lots of Eve camps and a large variety of other towns at different levels of tech?

I like sometimes to read the same old problems the game and developer have, despite solutions being provided a long time ago...

Coconut Fruit wrote:

I prefer 2 because all I'm looking for in this game is survival. People like survival games so maybe I'm in the majority... or maybe not. An in-game pool could tell more.

You prefer Eve camps today, but after 20 runs maybe you will want to teach newbies in advanced town? Consider, Jason will balance the game as you currently wish. Will newbies be able to learn and feel important in an early village, which is the hardest part of the game? I used to enjoy teaching and it was more viable in advanced cities. I can always jump back to the backery for the pie and I have time for explanations and discussion without constant fear of starving.

DestinyCall wrote:

I think there's probably a decent number of people who like completely different things
[...]
I do not like being restricted by make skin tone or my tool slots, so I'm cut off from exploring certain aspects of the game or delving deeper into the tech tree.
[...]
I think this game is at its best when there is a lot of variety. The option to live in a bell-town or a little village. The ability to play as an Eve or as the mayor of a town.
[...]
I don't know how to balance it properly. i don't know if it is even POSSIBLE to find a perfect balance.

DesitnyCall, you are almost there!. You see the problem: we need variety. The solution is just one step ahead!

Spoonwood wrote:

Eve camps *out in the wild* could happen by choice or by players not selecting to reincarnate to likely/necessarily get put there. The idea of an Eve button is likely preferable, because then players who want to login in and in end up in a seemingly randomly generated spot could do so.
And players choosing their birth spot is also within the scope of the game, as again, the scope of the game has many contradictions of individual players being their own ancestors.

And we have a winner with a solution!

Now, a longer explanation

People want variety and it is the easiest part to implement. Consider, how different will be your gameplay experience, if you have below spawn options:
1. gender
2. generation (let player be able to choose [min, max]. [1,1] would be always Eve, [2,5] will indicate early settlement, [15,_] is almost for sure an advanced town
3. skin tone
4. reborn to one of previous families (choose from list of family names you lived previously)
5. Family proficiency. You do not have to roll babies suicide to try be a blacksmith
It is an easy solution for a variety. Much less suicide babies.

But it is against Jason will!

It is obvious Jason made multiple compromises. This is why I think spawn options should not be for free. Easy implementation: microtransactions.

But much better is something I proposed a long time ago: life tokens (or karma), Playing according to Jason's will will grant you currency you can spent on your personal preferences. Let reward players for
1. Living to threshold ages. Like, one for passing 15 years, than 30 and dying of old age
2. Being blessed by others. It is a clear indication you are bringing enjoyment to other players. It is also a way to encourage experienced players and technlogoy rushers for more social interaction
3. Surviving of next 5 generations each
4. Living a live without any options choosen, allowing for Jasons algorithm to decide about everything

Another fun thing would be, if players would be able to buy bonuses!
1. Skipping donkey town punishment
2. Aureola. An expensive thing, which will indicate very experienced player. This way some players will have a big charisma, they may be natural leaders. I would definitely follow aureola owner!
3. Hunger bonuses (extra pips, or pips declining slower)
4. Extra life, like starting to loosing pips due to age 10 minutes later.

One more advantage of that system: If Jason decides there are too much Eves around, he can just increase the price in life tokens. If he considers players cooperation as more important, he can increase the reward! No more code grinding for brilliant algorithms solving no problems.

But I know where it is going. Jason will still force players to play one way and in-game min-maxing of advanced players will shape others gameplay, reducing variety. If you consider it valid I propose a flood. Propose life tokens every time, you will talk about low variety, too much/few of Eves/early settelements/cities, suicide babies, no ingame interaction, spawn algorithms. Or just put link to this post as I did in my signature.

Last edited by Glassius (2020-03-28 23:02:55)

Morti · 2020-03-29 02:33:18

schmloo wrote:

but think about potential towns of nearly 100

We'll cross that bridge after we build it, if, we manage to build it, together; by our choice of playstyles and Jason's choice of mechanics.

pein · 2020-03-29 03:24:53

I remember the population of 95

people killed each other for sport, mainly with snowballs

some guy stole the cart I made and killed me for mentioning that I made it

it had like 4x4x4 berry bushes and it was always empty, it went for quite some time, there were more people than items to interact with xD

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Quotes goes first

Now, a longer explanation

But it is against Jason will!

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