My Favorite Things about OHOL (top 3)

forman · 2021-10-29 03:05:08

#1 Dynamic Environment with History

The map is an environment that is constantly changing. As players continuously migrate west, in search of iron, water and oil, we write a timeline across the world.

Beyond the basic setup of raw resources, everything on the map is placed deliberately and has a story.

I often wander around and find little farms with basic tools and some bones and wonder what happened. Did a child wander too far, get lost and try to survive?

What did they build and why? How old were they? Based on what is left behind, did they make a mistake? What was it? Were they wearing fancy clothes or fur skins?

All of these little details tell me a little more about what happened.

Then what is left behind becomes a part of my story. I can't express my glee when I'm mostly naked and run across a backpack, decent clothes, or a very difficult to craft tool.

On several occasions, I have travelled east along the highways and witnessed town after town of rich and complex history, much of which I majorly contributed to, including the road itself.

It may seem straight forward because the dynamic environment is emergent but most games do not have this. It is incredibly difficult to program and most of the online

implementations I've seen are not great. Moreover, AAA games cannot and most likely will not ever be able capture this gameplay because it would be too demanding on system resources.

#2 Open Design with Culture

OHOL is setup such that you can do things in nearly any fashion you want. I prefer games like this because it presents the opportunity for our mushy human brains to slowly scrape the

edges of the possibility space. We can explore different building shapes, survival strategies, smithing designs and general patterns of behavior. What is really interesting is that certain

strategies have been accepted as the community standard and repeat despite no external demand they must. Some examples include the 3x3 farm meta, potato ovens, taco buildings

and more. One I personally started was marking highways with road signs and then eventually waystones to coordinate exact position.

Once more, this complex interaction of players and the environment would be nearly impossible to program and I can't think of many games that capture this dynamic as well as OHOL does.

#3 Skill Based/ Reward

OHOL has a pretty vast system of crafting that took me probably hundreds of hours to understand completely. I started being mostly useless, to then mostly gathering things.

I then learned cooking, smithing, farming and eventually everything else. There were many lives along the way where towns would fail because there was no cook/smith/farmer.

There was a distinct reward in knowing that I did posses the necessary skills and gradually became a more and more vital member of each family I was born into.

Also the process of learning itself and having people teach me the very fine details and eventually becoming exceptionally fast and effective. At this point I know the exact process

to transform a handful of naked people standing confused around a fire into a thriving metropolis with wine, airplanes, and sports cars.

Conclusion: Why I Don't Play (much) Anymore

I debated whether or not I would include this but I came up with a simple answer: I beat the game. It's no fault of the developer, or the community or anyone else.

I have mastered every job, explored a vast variety of building layouts, paved tens of thousands of tiles, built colossal structures and labyrinths, ventured far out and lived by myself in fully

advanced, locked paver outposts thousands of tiles away from nearest settlement. I've memorized nearly all of the crafting formulas and developed some of the most mathematically

efficient systems for doing just about everything.

If anything, the fact I fully explored the game is makes it a massive success. I'm sure I put more hours into OHOL than I did into Skyrim and I believe that OHOL's gameplay is far superior.

This game will always be in my top 10, probably closer to top 5. This is not simply because of what it is but because I understand how it works and how AAA companies with massive teams

and huge budgets still fall short in terms of gameplay by comparison to something as simple and elegant as OHOL.

Spoonwood · 2021-10-29 05:12:53

forman wrote:

I debated whether or not I would include this but I came up with a simple answer: I beat the game. It's no fault of the developer, or the community or anyone else.
I have mastered every job, explored a vast variety of building layouts, paved tens of thousands of tiles, built colossal structures and labyrinths, ventured far out and lived by myself in fully

You seem to approach this as some sort of individual base play game. I have no doubt you can make a truck, when to make it, and understand it's functions. But, the game is supposedly to be a cooperative multiplayer experience. There has existed some discussion as to why it doesn't function as such by some people like JonySky. However, I digress. In terms of "beating the game", I have my doubts that you can effectively lead a bunch of mostly or entirely new players in an Eve camp when naked. Teaching and leadership are not things that one can win at. There's always room for improvement, and usually some sort of communication that was either lacking when needed or can use substantial improvement (not with vets... with new players). So, I have to disagree that you beat the game. But, make no mistake, I do understand your claim that you have mastered the in-game jobs and individual skills and believe that part of what you said.

forman · 2021-10-29 16:54:39

I never said I would teach them all. I just know that I can do the entire process by myself and produce enough food for them to not die. I typically tell noobs to start with gathering stuff or rabbit hunting but really I think the best way to learn is to leave the town and survive on your own for a dozen lives or so.

The point of my post is that there is nothing wrong with the game and that it is a success that one person was able achieve as much as he did.

Players consume game content much faster than developers can churn it out and then turn around and complain when it runs out.

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#1 2021-10-29 03:05:08

My Favorite Things about OHOL (top 3)

#2 2021-10-29 05:12:53

Re: My Favorite Things about OHOL (top 3)

#3 2021-10-29 16:54:39

Re: My Favorite Things about OHOL (top 3)

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