The Struggles of Organizing in an Era With No Writing

BlueRock · 2018-04-20 03:40:07

Over the past week we have planned a city. Over the past three days, we have been working almost non-stop on the project, and were nearing completion. The exact layout will be posted later, but it had a collective expertise behind its creation, and had taken many hours to complete not only the setup, but hauling the resources needed to create it. It was created in a way which, when properly run, would be incredibly efficient. Each Farm Plot had the nearby Water Capacity in the form of Wells, and Cisterns, including the many Berry Bushes, 108 to be precise. 49 Berry Bushes were dried out, and many Wells were dried out, in less than two hours. Many others had berries picked, despite entire cart loads of berries being in plain sight only a few paces away. All of the Wheat in the settlement was cut down, despite the Seed Wheat being separated from the row dedicated to being cut. No one made compost from the cut Wheat, or even used the cut Wheat for Pies, it simply was Cut, and left there for the entire duration. A bunch of random people appeared and destroyed days of work without even knowing it, and likely without even considering it.

The closest description for what occurred is that a massive flock of locusts flew in, and chewed all of the food away from the settlement, and destroyed all the useful crops they could. They started to try and tell us how to run the settlement, giving advice such as "Don't pick the last Berry.", and claiming "I will be the Leader of this town, Mushrooms for everyone!". At the time this was going on, I was too young to type enough for anyone to comprehend my message. By the time I had aged to be able to speak, I noticed being able to only say two simple words at a time is rather detrimental to getting any sort of effective message across, let alone explaining WHY the settlement needed to be run a certain way, especially something as simple as not picking from multiple berry bushes with six berries on them, which are needed for both Mutton, and Compost, and you cannot put together Six Berries any other way.

We only have so much time to effectively speak, however the 25 Minutes of 'effective' speech is horrible for developing Oral Tradition, which is our only option outside passing on general concepts such as 'f for food' on the forums and discord. With no way to leave any Laws, any organized attempts crumble quicker in obscurity than the many hours and days it takes to build them. We have outpaced the limited speech in the game, and desperately need more effective ways to communicate. We do not have the time to teach the population over and over again, but it is also an essential part of having a city. Without order, and law, we have to resort to mass removal of the uneducated populace, or else more destruction than any amount of Murder could cause will happen. It was so bad that when there was actually a murderer in town, their efforts to kill us ended up benefiting the Settlement greatly, and helped prolong the inevitable self destruction of the Public.

If you got killed off from a really nice town where every 12 Berry Bushes had a Well, with quite a few cisterns, the whole place was walled, and had Milkweed as far as the eye could see, that you didn't build, then apologies, but without even knowing it, you were destroying days of organized effort, and it was very disheartening to come back after a long day and see everything falling apart because we stepped away for what felt like only a couple hours. I observed as people quickly undid any efforts I made to maintain the damage done, but no matter how fast I could grab water, I saw the Berry Bushes I left, the 108 of them all loaded with 6 berries each, crumble and languish into half of them dying out, when before it was uncommon to see even a single Languishing bush. I watched as they seeded every soil plot away in half of the Carrot farms, I watched as the Wheat was senselessly cut down, seeing people stand and eat, consuming and not replacing what they took, as I ran around as much as I could trying to keep up. The Bears, the Knives, asking you all to go North to the towns we setup for the Public... We didn't have much choice.

Maybe if there were a way to leave rules, this could have been avoided. We can only do so much to leave everything needed close by, and we can only design it so balanced, but if there's not anything to tell you which plot is seeding... No amount of clever design can save you.

For an example, I will show you a few of our modular designs. Not every station was completed yet, but again, this takes multiple days of effort.

(x = Empty Slot, useful for Baskets)
Berries:
Bush Bush Well Bush Bush
Bush Bush x Bush Bush
Bush Bush Cistern Bush Bush

Carrots:
Carrot x Well x Carrot
Carrot x Seed x Carrot
Carrot x Cistern x Carrot

Wheat/Compost (Wedged between two of the above Carrot Farms):
Fence Fence Seed Fence Fence
Wheat Wheat Wheat Wheat Wheat
Compost Compost Compost Compost Compost

thirdplanet · 2018-04-20 04:16:32

I think even just sharing your modular design here on the forums is a really helpful start! These are great designs, and it reminds me of how sheep pens have taken on a pretty standard design - nobody really takes the time to tell each other in-game how to set up the airlock for a sheep pen, but you see them everywhere and they work really well. So hopefully as more people see this design and it gets set up and used in game more often, it will become more recognizable and more people will set it up and use it effectively.

Lily · 2018-04-20 05:29:49

I don't know if that was the same place I spawned in early today. However, I was in a really nice city. It was pretty huge and had a wall all around it, and lots of bushes and milkweed. However it was in total chaos when I spawned there as a baby. People made fires all over the place, carrots were all seeding and there was like 3 murderers running around killing everyone.

I remember my mother complaining she spent a week building up the village as she tried to murder me, even though I offered to help the fix the village and was actively trying to fix it. I did manage to make some progress in fixing the farm before they eventually did murder me.

The impression I got from them, was some people messed up the city so they said screwed it and just killed everyone and let the city fall into ruin. Which is a shame, because it looked like things could of been salvage, if they weren't killing all their own children. Not sure if the city made it after that, since I was only there for like 6 minutes or so.

Drakulon · 2018-04-20 05:53:15

Imagine we could draw with sticks/skewers in dirt.
While you are holding a skewer, you can just click and drag with the mouse to create a line.
This way we could plan alot of things and could also write text on the ground.
But the dirt line should not stay forever, and diminish over time, faster when people walk over it.

BlueRock · 2018-04-20 05:55:08

Lily wrote:

The impression I got from them, was some people messed up the city so they said screwed it and just killed everyone and let the city fall into ruin. Which is a shame, because it looked like things could of been salvage, if they weren't killing all their own children. Not sure if the city made it after that, since I was only there for like 6 minutes or so.

After a few hours of replacing destroyed crops, and re-organizing things, the city is almost back to where we were earlier today. We tried telling people how to run things, but unfortunately their ability to pop out children and their tendency to move to various parts of the city lead to isolated family pockets that did little but consume food and resources they weren't replacing. Since one of the most common crimes was simply walking into town for a moment, picking off whatever bush that person saw, regardless if it would be turned into a Languishing Bush from this, or if there were other, already picked bushes, with absolutely no watering being done outside us few who built the place, and one person who I managed to teach the importance of said Berry Farm... All the while anyone who needed to hear messages related to the Berry farm were long gone by the time I could even type out the message, there was no choice. There was no way to actually tell which random people were able to 'repair' the damage, and there certainly was a huge risk with keeping random females in the camp, bringing in, and attempting to keep what was at some point almost ten brand new children in less than a couple minutes. Our only theoretical solution seems to be only keeping Males, but this does not solve Eves spawning in town, and while it would be nice if people left town if you asked them to, they don't, and it doesn't feel good having to kill off people like that. Like stated above, there was very little consideration for the peculiar design of the place, how each station was carefully designed, and that design replicated multiple times, and this consideration is required for the setup to work, otherwise you'll end up with a town with no dirt, a bunch of dry bushes, and numerous empty Wells, wasting almost an entire Week of work. They even went as far as saying "We need a pie maker, can you set one up?" to their child, which was the final straw for me, as we had a Bakery already, but this person ran off before they were able to read the message. Keeping any random people showed to be doom for our settlement, so we have decided it's closed off until it's at least finished.

It's not like we didn't expect this either, it's just very shocking how long it took to destroy the work, which wasn't very long at all.

Lily · 2018-04-20 06:16:10

Well I was a boy, born to a mother who was originally from the town. At first they just wanted to let me starve to death, but a nice guy fed me to keep me alive, so they murdered him. Then chased me around for a while as well.

The downside of not allowing any new people to ever show up, is that you can't stay awake forever. It is pretty hard for a group of people to keep a place running day and night by themselves. For any place to be sustainable long term, you need to be able to accept new people and have them do what they need to do.

There is definitely a lot of newbies(who mean well but don't know much) and just plain idiots(who don't even try). I wonder if the answer might be to give them a tour around the city while young and explain everything to them while your carrying them, then quizzing them to see if they were paying attention.

BlueRock · 2018-04-20 06:31:58

Lily wrote:

There is definitely a lot of newbies(who mean well but don't know much) and just plain idiots(who don't even try). I wonder if the answer might be to give them a tour around the city while young and explain everything to them while your carrying them, then quizzing them to see if they were paying attention.

Education is definitely the solution, but we can't always make sure our children raise their children with the tour in mind. At some point, you just have a job that needs to be done that only really you can do, and there's not the time for showing the bb around. But it's hard to teach that in general, and it's even harder to teach people the concept of "If you can't teach it, don't raise it." This is excluding how often people can die, and if that vital teaching role dies out, or is killed, then you'll get a similar result, until the playerbase as a whole learns the importance of how things are placed, even as far as considering "How long it takes to haul a cart of resources to the portion of town that needs it."

The window to teach is so small, and the work demanding. When you can teach, you are limited by who can listen, and who is smart enough to pack food for the lesson, all the while managing nearing the end of your life. This city didn't grow like a normal settlement, it took designs which came about from natural settlement, and refined them. Unfortunately, this means that to run the town, you need to know almost every bit of the engine along the way, as it's all intertwined, and carefully managed. Much like how large empires became dependent on the movement of goods across borders, so too does this complex town rely on a good delivery and management system to move supplies to the correct stations when needed, or else an immense, and terrible looming collapse is inevitable. Two things these empires really loved to help keep them afloat are their laws, and their bookkeeping, two things we have only Oral Tradition to manage.

gbear14275 · 2018-04-20 07:30:19

I saw this amazing town and was awed. I ended up leaving and wandering north and finding an old abandoned town...

Lily · 2018-04-20 08:20:30

You know, I think the best approach might be to wall off each area. So have like the bush area, the carrot farm area, then wheat area, pie area. Then connecting each area is a room full of food. That way whenever you enter a new area, you have to cross a food room first. Then you are full and got food so not going to go picking berries for food, or dig up seed carrots for food.

LavishFox · 2018-04-20 08:28:27

Lily wrote:

You know, I think the best approach might be to wall off each area. So have like the bush area, the carrot farm area, then wheat area, pie area. Then connecting each area is a room full of food. That way whenever you enter a new area, you have to cross a food room first. Then you are full and got food so not going to go picking berries for food, or dig up seed carrots for food.

That kind of set up would produce lag so bad nobody could play

sammoh · 2018-04-20 20:54:38

I have implemented rudimentary signs. They are designed to be used on adobe walls, so you can label boxes along a wall.

Lily · 2018-04-20 22:25:45

I spawned in the city again, and now that I had a good chance to look it over this time, I am sure it was the one the original poster was talking about. It is a good design, though one fetal flaw seems to be a lack of sufficient water. There isn't even a single pond inside the city and far too few wells.

Also when I spawned there this time, there was griefers there again. They killed some people then walled the city in trapping everyone. Had there been more exits, or water inside then things would of been far easier for people to get out.

BlueRock · 2018-04-20 22:36:36

Lily wrote:

I spawned in the city again, and now that I had a good chance to look it over this time, I am sure it was the one the original poster was talking about. It is a good design, though one fetal flaw seems to be a lack of sufficient water. There isn't even a single pond inside the city and far too few wells.
Also when I spawned there this time, there was griefers there again. They killed some people then walled the city in trapping everyone. Had there been more exits, or water inside then things would of been far easier for people to get out.

The reverse Siege was intentional, i.e. walling the 'Locusts' inside. Water is West in cartloads a short few steps outside the Western Entrance. Again, the design needed to be in a biome where we could clear every item in it, for the strict efficient layout. Ponds are only a screen away from the town, you can even find a group of three on the SouthWest Corner There is an area named 'Base Camp' in this nearby region which also has plenty of Cisterns in case of emergency, surrounded by Ponds.

Lily · 2018-04-20 22:51:53

You would still have to leave the city to reach that water though. Which is why it is harder for watering all those bushes and stuff, and the reason probably not many bother.

Though I see your point about these people. When I was born there I made it my first job to do water duty and water all those bushes everyone kept eating from. For like six minutes I was running around, watering them all. Then when I was a bit older I went to check some other stuff out, and came back a few minutes later and there is already like three more bushes dying!

That siege took a massive toll on those bushes though. I only saw one other person who watered a few of them. So outside those few and the ones I personally watered they pretty much all died. I would say 70-80%.

Alleria · 2018-04-21 03:24:42

Lily wrote:

I spawned in the city again, and now that I had a good chance to look it over this time, I am sure it was the one the original poster was talking about. It is a good design, though one fetal flaw seems to be a lack of sufficient water. There isn't even a single pond inside the city and far too few wells.
Also when I spawned there this time, there was griefers there again. They killed some people then walled the city in trapping everyone. Had there been more exits, or water inside then things would of been far easier for people to get out.

Yeh lol. Originally the city was going to be built to the south where there's plenty of water, but it was moved north because the reeds and ponds disrupted the planned design. Ponds need to be conveniently located so that berry bushes and carrots can be watered. Wells ALWAYS dry up and shouldn't be relied upon unless protect and managed. The original plan was to have the wells inaccessible to the public, but that was changed. I think the main overall flaw was the unadaptability of the design. Instead of building with the lay of the land in mind, the design was done in spite of it.

Last edited by Alleria (2018-04-21 03:29:16)

Lily · 2018-04-21 03:52:56

I think you are better off not having any wells in the city at all, and just having cisterns instead. Basically you need to newbie proof the city. It is kind of like covering electrical outlets so children don't stick things into it and get electrocuted. You got to protect them from themselves.

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2018-04-20 03:40:07

The Struggles of Organizing in an Era With No Writing

#2 2018-04-20 04:16:32

Re: The Struggles of Organizing in an Era With No Writing

#3 2018-04-20 05:29:49

Re: The Struggles of Organizing in an Era With No Writing

#4 2018-04-20 05:53:15

Re: The Struggles of Organizing in an Era With No Writing

#5 2018-04-20 05:55:08

Re: The Struggles of Organizing in an Era With No Writing

#6 2018-04-20 06:16:10

Re: The Struggles of Organizing in an Era With No Writing

#7 2018-04-20 06:31:58

Re: The Struggles of Organizing in an Era With No Writing

#8 2018-04-20 07:30:19

Re: The Struggles of Organizing in an Era With No Writing

#9 2018-04-20 08:20:30

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#10 2018-04-20 08:28:27

Re: The Struggles of Organizing in an Era With No Writing

#11 2018-04-20 20:54:38

Re: The Struggles of Organizing in an Era With No Writing

#12 2018-04-20 22:25:45

Re: The Struggles of Organizing in an Era With No Writing

#13 2018-04-20 22:36:36

Re: The Struggles of Organizing in an Era With No Writing

#14 2018-04-20 22:51:53

Re: The Struggles of Organizing in an Era With No Writing

#15 2018-04-21 03:24:42

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#16 2018-04-21 03:52:56

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