One Hour One Life Forums

I think we all have to look at this in a couple lenses, including Jason's.

**Gamer's View**

We get back from our workplace or school every day and want to feel like we're doing something meaningful, fun and exciting in our free time. Spending half your life in game getting a full set of clothes that you can pass on to your kids when you die and getting them the tools they need to build up things like carts was awesome, if you knew that they could make use of it going forward. It's been hashed out over and over that most people dislike how slowly the games become more and more grindy with the advent of the apocalypse, then the changes to the Eve respawning algorithm that made it very unlikely to find a formerly established dead village, to now making even our tools useless within a generation. These changes make people feel like they are getting kicked in the nuts over and over when a lot of the player base really got into the game initially and enjoyed what they thought were "core" concepts to the game like leaving a legacy for others.

@Jason, the comment you just made is not a good way to address players concerns. Being brutally honest with people is appreciated by some, myself included, but will leave a tarnish on some to not want to keep at this game and help you play test the game as it is developing. On average, before this update, user totals on servers were roughly 120 to 180 on a good day. Now only about half of that are still playing whenever I check. I fear you need to find new ways of approaching certain updates or people will experience shell shock......become emotional.... and they will move on to a different game and forget about this game. You can't just force a drug addict to cold turkey and expect good results from it usually. You have to ween them off of the drug and give them rewards and something to look forward to. Here is how I would recommend going forward:

A. Everyone likes to have "good" stuff and you can never give them too much of that. But no one likes "bad" stuff and everyone has a certain tolerance to this before they want to send their fist through a wall. So if you want to add "bad" stuff in, you really need to hide it under a nice layer of "good" stuff that will keep the drug addict from having a relapse withdrawal. Or give the bad stuff in smaller doses over the course of patches and not in massive amounts.

B. We all love this game but we want to look to the future. It's important to keep us game testers in the loop because we are also invested in this game. But we don't always know why you do things. I know I'm sure somewhere buried deep in the forums is probably some vague answers but most of us don't have the time to invest in that. You do a great job of addressing things after the facts and do a fantastic job with the limited time you have to talk with us. I know this has to be insanely stressful considering you have a family and are doing this all solo over 12 hour shifts. But maybe a big fat picture on the front of the website news page showing us what your current and future projects are would at least help us see some of the reasoning for why you might have just added some ,at least in our eyes, random change to the game. This would give us hope in the dark hours when we are given a dose of the "bad" stuff and help us get through the withdrawals.... kind of like a safety blanket.

C. Update the front page because it's a bit misleading to players. "Building something to use in your lifetime, but inevitably realizing that, in the end, what you build is not for YOU, but for your children and all the countless others that will come after you." This patch kind of put that statement to shame in it's current installment. "Proudly using your grandfather's ax, and then passing it on to your own grandchild as the end of your life nears." from front page. "Not sure what part of the trailer or marketing gave any of you the impression that you would build something in the game and it would last forever.....The fact that the game originally had things lasting forever was essentially a bug.  You got used to it, and grew to like it.  But it never was the long-term intent." Ouch. You did say "countless others after you". I think you did actually imply forever. Clear communication is key my good sir.

D. Hire some programmers m8. We all respect taking pride in doing something yourself, but sometimes things are greater than you and need to be allowed to grow. Getting like minded people on this project and directing them would allow this game to go from a "cult" game of 200 players to a game millions could enjoy if you are willing to turn the pride switch off. There are so many passionate people out there that I'm sure would love to work with you Jason. You are a god among geeks and many would love to work under you.

**Possibly Jason's View**

He has a plan for this game and I'm sure that he isn't just making the game a certain way to destroy what he has spent thousands of hours working long hours on. The aspect I can only contemplate on is how much future planning he's doing versus on the fly programming to the game that's happening. Game design is a friggen massive undertaking and there are many ways to get to the end result. But just simply reading the front page of the website about the game, I get the feeling that the games evolving outside the normal parameters that Jason had initially put together. Now that's natural! If things didn't evolve.... that would probably lead down the path of insanity. Now most people feel a bit butt hurt because of the direction the games been going but it's just Jason working on this and he's doing everything. He doesn't exactly have a PR team or project manager with him telling him what best course of action to take. He's just one dude with a family probably working in the office of his house while hes being pestered by little brats.... I mean angels and RL problems. With the substantial changes that Jason has been putting in the game though, you should all be excited to see how this game changes over the next two years. I'm sure he knows there will be bumps and bruises along the way but he's putting his heart into this.

FINAL NOTE

As Hitchhikers Guide has told us "DON'T PANIC". I platonically love you all.