a multiplayer game of parenting and civilization building
You are not logged in.
Pages: 1
For instance, sometimes I want to express sadness for longer than the default /sad duration. To do this, I have a choice between typing in /sad obsessively to keep it going, or letting my expression revert back to neutral before typing /sad again. Both options kind of spoil the mood for me when I'm trying to roleplay.
I've seen people use a mod to switch between emotes rapidly, which I'm assuming is done with hotkeys. I don't see myself using a modded client, but this kind of functionality in the base game would be cool. Alternatively, some way to set an emotion to default in place of the neutral expression would work.
Two cents.
It would be neat to sometimes see the bigger picture in a city without being involved. Just watching people interact, resources deplete, the city change shape.
I imagine by default there is a zoomed-out camera focused on a city's center (the oldest home marker in the family? the oldest slow-burning fire?) that the spectator can then move around, zooming in and out at will. Maybe some sort of integration with the Family Trees in order to select the starting location for the camera.
Some more thoughts in no particular order:
-Creates this weird incentive to open both spectator mode along with the regular game to gain more information.
-Impacts what it feels like to play. With the prospect of someone watching, maybe an eve that would otherwise give up plays on. Encourages theatrics in general.
-Could be described as redundant because of live streams, but I would argue it gives the spectator more control along with a different feeling (streams are necessarily focused on the streamer and the story of their character).
-A spectator new to the game can focus on players doing tasks they want to learn without concerns like being annoying or consuming resources.
-Easy way for a player to check up on a city they are invested in, perhaps think about their next contribution before joining in.
Of course this represents a large technical challenge to implement, but it was a passing fancy I wanted to at least share.
Edit: Here is another thread where this idea is discussed, which I found after submitting.
I didn't see this mentioned, so I'll add that this creates an incentive for mothers to name their children with their own name to reduce the likelihood of being cursed. Longer names are essentially more curse resistant, since you have to wait longer before having enough characters to type the curse. (None of this necessarily bad, just interesting.)
I think recognizing 'reincarnation' as core to the game's lore is the correct direction (admittedly, I really like most magical aesthetics, so I'm biased). I would even go as far as implementing some sort of craftable required to curse, in order to increase the cost of cursing and add flavor, e.g. bloodied yew staff, bowl of rabbit bones, etc.
To clarify, I'm posting my own failed attempt. It was a desert bordering grass with swamp near to the south. It was definitely a little sparse in terms of berries, but I feel that my children didn't manage their temperature properly. I typically avoid monologues about how temperature and hunger work in-game, since I always find it condescending when I'm on the receiving end of that as a kid, but maybe that was one of my failures as a mother in this instance.
Personally experiencing more lag (longer response time when clicking to pick up an object, some bouncing) in last the couple weeks (I felt this way before reading this post), but I haven't seen anyone else in game type "lag", so it could just be me.
A recent attempt I found amusing. Sometimes the best thing you can do as a kid is just survive until you're a teenager without doing any work.
I've actually been thinking about this for a while and think the use of rare resources might work for people wanting to try a nomadic play style. The rare resources could be of use either as practical tools or just instruments for trade.
...
The other rare resources might have a more aesthetic value rather than a practical, but could be great for encouraging trade.
I think this is one important factor in encouraging nomads. I'll note that I don't think trade is a thing in the current state of the game; no-relation individuals can walk into any town and start taking things with a low chance of consequence. Otherwise what Feldspar says here makes a lot of sense for encouraging people to explore without settling.
The factor I want to examine is the social one: how do nomadic mothers raise children and how/why do bands of nomads keep together?
A nomadic mother can pretty easily raise a single child just by carrying them around to maturity. Juggling of children in order to keep moving with more than one is an option, but I don't think many players will decide it's correct over just standing by some bushes until you only have one child to carry around. Indeed, the heat retention "mechanic" punishes players every time they stop to perform an action outside of the desert, so it seems one child at a time is the clear choice for nomads. This feels fine to me, it just creates a contrast between the choices of a settled mother and a wandering one.
Once a child reaches maturity, following another player around is a technical challenge. Latency and desync come into play to create situations where, even if you make an effort to keep in sight of one another, you can become separated. I think this would need to be addressed with a new mechanic. The simplest I can think of is allowing you to set your home marker to another player somehow. Perhaps [flint chip + player = lock of player's hair] and if you are carrying that player's hair, your home marker points to them. Another interesting solution would be to implement "footsteps", sort of like the erased information in the UI, where at first players' steps are clear and then fade over time.
Beyond just the technical challenge of keeping together, raising a child into a nomadic life represents competition for resources. Even in a settlement, where the work of another player adds value in the form of tools, infrastructure, task specialization, it is possible to create too much competition for food. Living as a nomad, it's unclear to me what value a child adds beyond a potential to socialize. Why should I allocate work to a child when, because of the circumstance, completing it myself would be easier? I think the answer to this question is inherently tied to the sorts of items Feldspar is talking about, and what it requires to collect them.
tl;dr Give players some ability to find another specific player. Create more mechanics for players to increase each others value without settling down.
You can build a box on a tile where you would normally build a wall in order to pass items over the wall without opening a door. That said, the game currently doesn't have enough features to make prisoners a thing.
As for trade, here is what I imagine. A long hall with locked doors on both ends. In the middle, there are two locked doors right next to each other. Two traders each have baskets containing two keys: One for a door on the end so that they can enter, one for a door in the middle that corresponds to the side they enter. They unlock the doors on either end, then they retrieve a cart with the goods that they want to trade from some hidden location. Their key basket goes in the cart. They bring their carts through the doors they unlocked and then lock the doors while inside.
So, now we have two traders with two carts in a locked hall, separated by two locked doors in the middle. Each trader makes sure their cart is in the tile adjacent to the door they entered through. Each trader makes sure they can see their partner's cart and that it contains the goods agreed on. Each trader puts the key that opens the door they came through in the tile behind them, and they make sure their partner has done the same. Each trader takes a key that opens their middle door and opens it.
What should happen: Both traders switch sides, taking the key that was dropped, opening the door at the end, and then taking the cart out through that door.
What might happen: One trader defects, they open their door, but then pick up the key they dropped behind them. In this instance, the trade has failed. But, because the trader that isn't defecting is closer to their own cart and key, they should have time to realize this, grab the key they dropped, and then exit through the door they originally came through with their cart.
Other ways to defect if one trader is not vigilant: A third dummy key is smuggled in by a trader wishing to defect. This dummy key is the one they drop, leaving one trader locked in the hall. The defecting trader is free to make a weapon at their leisure and kill the trapped trader to reclaim their cart. So, both traders must be absolutely certain that the other trader has only brought two keys into the room.
As the game currently stands, this process requires too much time to execute to make trading valuable. The process of trading must take less time than (the time to acquire the goods you are giving away)+(the time it would take to acquire the goods you are receiving) before it becomes worth considering. It also must take less time than the time it would take to kill the player you are trying to trade with and take their goods. Maybe eventually we will see something like this.
I didn't proofread this, so sorry for any typos.
Pages: 1