One Hour One Life Forums

Yes, they are the stories of the same experience, but the real in-game experience is not as great as the story is, that’s why it’s cynical. That was the point. The story sounds more epic than the experience ever was. Same situation, but it’s just not that great in-game.

The third person thoughts show how bland the experience feels in-game. Forgetting the purely gameplay related things and reworking it into an experience outside of the game creates an epic story. Some craft the story while playing and some do it afterwards, but I feel like the majority don’t do either much, so they get bored or disappointed with the game and leave. Hence the talk about retention and player types.

Surely putting in some effort on the emotional investment side gives motivation to some players, but at the end of the day, it won’t be enough to make the game appeal to masses. I’m trying to think if we could see with the brains of an average player, who leaves after few hours; would they stay if the game dropped them into a life of a raider or into the arms of an angelic mother? I’m curious how the epic stories don’t match up with the in-game experience, and people say they ’just get the boring lives’.

Yeah. I think it's really shining a light on some areas of this game and player experience. And retention.

We do know that OHOL attracts attention but only minority stay. The stories and other players' experiences sell very well, and there are aspects in the game that draw in people. But it seems that the loyal players are the ones who can make their lives interesting or the ones who want to master the game. Then there is the big slice of people who feel like crafting is hard and give up, then those who get bored before getting to interesting stuff; people who felt like the game wasn't as epic as it sounded after all. They couldn't quite pull out enough entertainment out of it, and/or they expected the game to offer them more.

To me, roleplay is not so interesting. It's players playing pretend to humor themselves. I don't want to have to pretend and craft scenarios, I want the game to spur them for me. Made up challenge like roleplaying a murderer is just not good enough for me. It feels cheap and imaginary instead of an actual challenge to conquer. It's not a must-do, so whoever does it, seems quite crappy.

I hate chasing griefers, but if I make a dramatic, realistic story of it, it's epic and inspiring. That's how my fan art happens. The life might've been crappy and stressful, but if I extract the story, I could animate a whole movie around the scenarios. Yet, I don't want to live a life chasing griefers ever again. The story is great but the experience was crap.

Will Wright said that people attach a whole bunch of story to a simulation. We give reasoning and thoughts to things even if the simulation is something very simple.
In Sims, they made a game where simulation was vague enough yet detailed enough to appeal to majority. It could attract a lot of loyal players with never ending drama you would deal with however you'd like to. Some details were left for the player's imagination to fill to give them some room for interpretation, but players could engage with things to spur game side challenges for them. The game may have offered a limited amount of scenarios, but every time it'd be different because the character or the player is different.
Very imaginative player would relish with their imagination and interpretations, always crafting stories with all kinds of people and scenarios.
Average player would find enough things to do and learn, finding things they enjoy, while the game pokes at their sparking imagination.
Not so imaginative player would find the challenges of living interesting, scanning the game and trying out everything, then creating their own challenges.

Maybe this could all somehow help OHOL to become more hospitable for everyone, so it caters to more player types than "I love RP" and "I love challenge" and "I love trolling".

This makes me think, the game can deliver great stories, but perhaps the experience rarely holds up to the level of awesomeness the told story has.

Let's see. As a story:
"I was born into cold little camp as a boy whose mother wanted to kill a nearby town and wanted me to join her in her plan. My mother wouldn't clothe me, keeping herself fully clothed. Not a single rag was given to me. The moment my mother birthed my little sister, she left me on my own. I couldn't trust her to come back to feed me before I'd starve, so I ran. I was so cold and I was starving. But I managed to find wild berries and then fences and a road, which led me to the town my mother had told me about. There were farmers farming, children running around adults who were talking and a man selling drugs from a cart. Unnoticed, I made myself at home, ate their food and grew up there, nobody questioning me even once.

I tracked my mother's camp as a teenager, and as she was nowhere to be found, I stole her knife. Now she couldn't kill anyone with it. I hid it in a forest near the town, behind some trees.

I visited my mother's camp again, this time I saw her remains. Suddenly, a wild boar ran in, stopping right before me. I realized that boar had killed my mother. ...Good. The boar ran back to the forest.
Then a warmly clothed woman walked to the camp, with a small boy in her arms. I realized it was my little sister. A bit worried if she was like my mother, I carefully asked her about things. We'd exchange our stories, and I realized she was against my mother as I was, fortunately. She wasn't in on the plan of murdering the town. We decided we'd move to another town further away. A nice and quiet northern town.

I bumped into a teen girl on my way to the northern town. Out of nowhere, she asked me about "the plan"; how was it going. I realized it was my mother reincarnated. Swiftly, I pulled out her old knife and stabbed her then and there, and she died on the road, far from everything.

In the end, I never really kept in touch with my little sister, instead, I focused on writing poetic things, and started getting highs from mushrooms to add some excitement to my life. I died telling a small girl to not judge me for my choices, as I held onto my last poem."

In reality:
Oh great, this type of mom. I don't want to kill a town, it's stupid. I'll stop her when I'm older if she goes after innocent players.
Damn it, I'm not old enough to eat, and I'm in a tundra-swamp area, I'm gonna starve as she probably doesn't come back in time. I have to run now or it's gonna be too late, let's try south, maybe the town is close.
Phew, wild gooseberries, and hey, that's a fence and a road. Oh nice, a town.
Great, drug roleplayer, whatever.
Okay I'll just yoink a few clothes and start working.
Hmm, I wonder if mom is going to attack, I'll go see the camp.
It's empty, but there's her knife. Yoink dat shiet. Hide it, I don't have anything to hold it in. Yeah Yew tree should do it.
Ok round 2, is mom here now? Huh, this random boar probably got her, nice.
Oh that's my little sister, I wonder if she wants to kill the town, playing along with the roleplay murder-mom. Oh nice, she's cool, great. Her son is cool too.
Well maybe now I can do some paper. Wait who is this teen girl, oh of course, mom reincarnated, UGH, well she doesn't know I'm against her so insta STAB, nice, she is down.
Okay NOW I get to do paper. I'm almost dead.
Yay paper, I'll write some crazy stuff and do shrooms. Haha I look like a unicorn.
Aaaand dead.

OP:
Someone who has been with the game for a long time as a member of the community. They tracked down bugs, tested and broke in-game stuff to point out things for Jason to fix. Often a voice of wisdom and always ready to debate about changes or design choices.

Well Tarr said they'd lurk in the forums and in the community, they just got their fill of the game and took some distance from it, never saying they wouldn't come back or anything.

Eves mass producing stuff with niche tools sounds about right.
Steep learning curve getting steeper sounds about right.
It sounds quite unintuitive. An odd, dare I say, magical limitation is blocking you from learning more tools even if your uncle is using the tool right under your nose.

Wasn’t there a thread about this just a while ago? Skills and such.

Not gonna stay and be the party pooper more but I’m sailing on the same boat with fug and Spoon and Legs. Gonna see this through Twisted and Cothfotmeoo.

Please don't make it so that we have specific skills or perks that are tied to a profession. That'd just make us feel like we HAVE to do the thing we got skills in. I want to decide for myself what I'll be doing and my real life knowledge of the game will determine how efficiently I will be doing it. I think the best long term goal in OHOL is learning everything and becoming a master of everything (crafting and survival). That mastery of the game carries over to every life and we have something we can conquer and keep forever. Taking that away from me, even for a moment, is just annoying.

I don't want to be appointed with a gift nor do I want to choose my gift. I do whatever my town needs and want to be as good as anything as I am regarding the mastery of recipes and quick mouse hand.

I like the puzzle idea but it'd lose its charm reeeeal quick.

Rarely, people do get benefit from asking for someone to teach them how to smith or such. But usually the smiths and oil drillers are busy saving the town. And I'd rather go to Onetech than bother people in-game. It's horrid when you sit and wait for speech bubbles, trying to explain what the "bit" part is in a rig to someone and how to make it. Or why the bellows can't be placed on empty kilns before charcoal. Or why there are no watering cans and why you need a bucket for a cistern. Inconsistencies and oddities and no patience for explaining.

Also you can't just make chatting/socializing/talking give you boosts or perks, or people will be going like "LALALALALALALALALALA" around the place to get the boosts.

Yeah, I’m not a chatter. You’d need to have something really important (knowledge/item) for me to stop to talk. But everyone has everything and it’s hard to get people to talk when wells are drying out, last shovel breaks, gate owner has gone missing, someone is being murdered and fire is going out.

No perks, boosts or any reason to talk except when you feel like work is not fulfilling you.

I do adore random praises, little friendships and gifts in-game. Those are always worth words and emotes.

That’s why I said you’d need to pace it. Figure out how often and why, then see what you could design around that. Maybe pseudo-Eves start working if they can have their own surname or special split in the family tree.
Personally I don’t need to Eve to enjoy the game but I would like a chance to Eve once in a while. Others might want to Eve more and are ready to fulfill requirements for it. Such as ’playing to old age adds to your Eve probability’ and you playing in many families is beneficial to you, always, because it always plays into your Eve bank or something. Just an idea. I know you don’t want answers so I’m stopping here. Think what players you want to support and how you could accommodate them and make them useful for everyone. Not everything is possible, yeah. Shrug.

Didn’t see my toddler make any faces, or got any notifications. I was changing a shirt when a guy next to me shot me. Could be just me focusing on the shirt and missing any indications but I don’t remember hearing anything or seeing any facial expressions change, on me or the murderer.
Toddlers are slow, aren’t they?
The next life I got plenty of notifications from the three people trying to kill me.

Well that sounds just.. like it's a must to be in a voice chat.

Surely it is not the right way to play to abuse loopholes and make others' experience miserable? I'm fine if someone wants to play this game to kill but I am not fine when they get to have overpower with things like juggling war swords, first growl kills, zoom out kill trigger and so on so forth. I believe you are making a game of parenting and civilization, and someone spamming suicides to get back to destroying others' work surely cannot be the right way to play? It's not fair and it's not part of the game to abuse things like these with no consequences.

I like that we can be the judge but I don't like how it makes newbies and passive players leak in players we blacklisted. I'd also love to blacklist people for life, not for 7 days. And I'd love to be able to run to the horizon however far I want and never see a fence again.
When I got my dose of griefers before the Rift, I'd just run into the wilderness and seclude myself, remove myself from the toxic people. But now I don't have that freedom, and boy does it suck.

And genetics were added to make your close family’s survival beneficial for you gameplay wise, basically (imo) better way to make your family matter than war swords.

This is a good list of Jason’s implementations and what he meant to achieve with them. Also resources running out seemed to be in his vision too, so at some point you play in like a dystopian future of doom and gloom.

I also wish the Rift got scrapped, or limited to some server. I tried playing two lives over the weekend and it was basically being trapped inside the Rift and inside a property fence which owner was running in the wilderness, never to be seen. Listening to some people chant about war and how they lived in the other family and now want to quickstart a new Arc by killing off the other family. Had to kill an annoying griefer too. Otherwise had fun saving the family from famine and being useful.