Modded Custom Server

forman · 2021-06-02 09:42:16

I don't mod and I haven't actually looked at the source yet but I keep hearing about people wanting to change features, or bring back the rift, or remove culture restricted biomed etc

It occurred to me that all of these things are possible by hosting one's own server -- or so I think?

If people want to make changes I think they should host such a server and then the player base can decide where they want to play.

DestinyCall · 2021-06-02 17:17:01

I am also not a modder, at least not for this game, so I am not in a position to fix the problems I see with the game. I have joined a couple different modded servers over the years, like Community Crucible, One City server, and 2HOL. There's also You are Hope, on mobile platforms, although I haven't played that one myself since I prefer to play on PC.

From what I've seen, there are a couple of problems with starting your own server to fix the problems with this game. Probably the biggest issue is userbase. You can move to a low-pop server if you want to play alone or with a few close friends. Most of the worst mechanics aren't in effect on a low pop server. But to have the full experience of living in a multi-player village, you need more than just a few people on the server. If you make your own modded server to fix the major issues with the game, remove the worst "features" and provide a better over-all player experience, that would be amazing ... but you would still need to get players to join your server to try out the new features and ensure that they keep coming back to play on the server to maintain its popularity. If your userbase is too small, then it becomes a low-pop server and the player experience is quite a bit different than what you get on the game's main server.

Joining a modded server is harder than just booting up the vanilla client and joining bigserver2. It isn't THAT much harder, but it is an extra step or two. You aren't going to get any brand-new OHOL players and the number of veteran players that are willing to abandon the main game to come play on your server is a minority of a minority. And in order for those players to access your server, you must host the server and keep it running 24/7 without any down-time. That's one thing that Jason is very good at providing. We rarely experience service outages or server down-time on the official servers. When playing on smaller modded servers, this was a much more common issue. If the modded server is off-line and I want to play OHOL, I have to make a choice between not playing right now or playing on a different server. If I try for a couple of days, but the modded server is always off-line when I want to play, I'm going to stop trying to play on that server. If your userbase is already quite small, even losing one player is a big hit and it adds up quickly. You could make the best version of OHOL imaginable, but if you can't draw in enough new players to replace the ones that stop playing, you will have an empty server eventually. Meanwhile, you would not be earning any money to support the time and effort that you are pouring into your modded server. And you would need to continually update the server to keep up with any positive changes that occur on the main branch or your spin-off server will eventually fall behind and lose interest.

I'm not saying it isn't possible to do it. But I am saying that it is much easier to complain about the job that Jason is doing than it is to steal his job and do it better than him.

...

If you are interested, this is a super old and certainly very out-dated list of private servers:

https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=689

I think the only one of these that is still functioning is 2HOL.

And here's my personal favorite (but not working last time I checked) modded server, Community Crucible:

https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=6794

And One City Server, which was also dead the last time I checked:

https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=4868

And here's a link to Two Hour One Life, which is currently the most successful modded server that I know of:

https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=9240

Morti · 2021-06-03 18:56:31

forman wrote:

I don't mod and I haven't actually looked at the source yet but I keep hearing about people wanting to change features, or bring back the rift, or remove culture restricted biomed etc
It occurred to me that all of these things are possible by hosting one's own server -- or so I think?
If people want to make changes I think they should host such a server and then the player base can decide where they want to play.

It would be nice if people would stopped asking Jason to modify his own game, and instead let him decide for himself, what sort of game he wants this to become.

If he's done, he's done.

If it's going to be an update a year, rather than a week, so be it.

Just let him decide, please.
Encourage him with good spirits, don't antagonize him into working for you.
Game design, especially of Jason's variety, needs to come from passion, not pressure.

Go play Passage http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/
or Gravitation http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/gravitation/

Maybe you will start to understand what kind of designer you are talking to.
What kind of person.

Gremlynn · 2021-06-03 19:40:30

To be fair expecting this community to not make demands of jason or complain is basically like expecting jason to take everything we say seriously and have it influence his decisions.

Jasons a big boy and he's made it abundantly clear that we have little to no impact on his overall process or vision.

jasonrohrer · 2021-06-07 17:37:13

You don't really need modding/coding skills to make most of these changes.

Almost all of this stuff can be turned on and off via simple server settings.

I think you can even bring back the rift, and define how big it is, etc., via server settings.

Arcurus · 2021-06-08 11:59:42

jasonrohrer wrote:

You don't really need modding/coding skills to make most of these changes...

Hey Jason, you are alife, great to hear!

Gremlynn wrote:

Jasons a big boy and he's made it abundantly clear that we have little to no impact on his overall process or vision.

That's not my experience, of course with some stuff like changing the Engine or keeping design decisions like no fathers Jason is very reluctant, but with others like cravings or biome bands to mention some Jason took from the community.

Some other stuff like the family iron i guess Jason wont listen, because he spent lot of considerations in implementing it and now does not feel to change it... but at least tool slots are gone for good...

So i would say in my experience you can have a little to medium impact in the overall process, but ok, Jason is mainly an Artist, so its his baby after all and he made it even open source...

And to the custom server, the main problem as already said is to get an big enough userbase. New users come mainly through steam sell to OHOL. So if you want to make a real new server you would need to put it on steam and that i don't know if it would be allowed by Jasons policies...

Last edited by Arcurus (2021-06-08 12:03:33)

Gremlynn · 2021-06-08 13:46:25

If we had any more than a small impact race restrictions would have been removed by now. I get its jason's baby but when something is bad its bad. The community has been saying this for almost two years to no consideration by jason. Not what i would call influence. Sure the community throws ideas out there jason find intriguing but more often then not hes either thought of the concept before or twists it in his own way it doesn't resemble the original idea much. Mechanically speaking i do think he takes people seriously. If there is a fault in the structure of things or in his script hes much more willing to hear you out. That said our overall voice as a community doesnt make much of a dent, especially when compared to other indie games.

Palacio · 2021-06-08 19:13:38

First of all it is his game, and he is developing his ideas, so in principle he does not owe the community to do whatever they say. Actually it is really awesome that he makes the game open source so that everyone can make their own version, if they chose to do so, but for the moment I am quite happy with many of the ideas that are in the game as it is now.

Secondly, you say that the community says that "race restrictions are bad", and I hear this from several people, but there is no way of knowing how many people actually find this. For example, I don't think it is a bad idea at all! I like that there is a sense of adventure of trying to reach other tribes and trading with them. Especially for more experienced players it adds another level of game play. I can see that it is a difficult feature to really make it work correctly, because it requires families to be close, for them to depend on each other in a balanced way. Also to make sure that we are actually trading and not stealing is not fully developed I would say.

The one thing I don't like is the language barrier, because it just makes everything more difficult and does not really add much. But it is a personal opinion.

Gremlynn · 2021-06-08 20:33:52

You play the game before they were added? Did you enjoy tool slots as well? Its been expressed in excessive detail by hundreds of people for almost two years. Sure you might be in the 1% that likes them but the majority dont. Sure jason doesnt owe us anything. But ignoring your community and their voice is different. When the majority of people dont enjoy something you're doing it might be worth taking note of and adjusting things. Is that unreasonable?

Palacio · 2021-06-08 21:50:24

I didn't play the game before they were added. I didn't enjoy the tool slots and was glad that they were removed. It is hard to tell whether I am part of 1%, 10%, or 50%, but I think race restrictions do add to the end-game, which is important to me. The thing I hate most is when "everything is done already". I enjoy getting a ton of oil because I know all families will depend on it, which is a nice responsibility. I do agree that in its current state it is quite rough and it needs to be improved. So maybe it is part of the ongoing experiment, which only works if Jason regularly updates the game. I would be fine with trading it with another end-game mechanic (like disasters or so).

Gremlynn · 2021-06-08 23:05:16

As someone who played over 500 hours before they were added, believe me they dont. Race restrictions really only slow down tech progression and force artificial interactions between families. Organic interactions used to be much more along the lines of raiding and pillaging each other. Blood feuds that would last generations. Trust me it was a better system for late game. As soon as a family got too powerful or too rich another family would ride in and nearly destroy them. The survivors would be given the difficult task of rebuilding their family back to their former status. Some families would be driven from their homes and forced to start over somewhere in the wilderness. Believe me, this was a much more interesting and dynamic late game situation. Forced cooperation has only made things boring and removed these types of interactions.

Palacio · 2021-06-09 11:34:54

Raiding and pillaging? Blood feuds? That doesn't sound like fun! It sounds like organized griefers. I am glad this is not a hack 'n slash game, and I would get frustrated if it went in that direction. "Too powerful families" what does that even mean? It is not a competition right? Players come to play a part in their village and build things and help each other, and that is what makes it charming.

War as a game element can have its place, but it would require the game to operate more on a 'civilizations' level, with empires (families) trading and waging war with each other, much like the Mediterranean civilizations at the late bronze age. But then still trade would be an important element to that, and you only have trade if you have biome restrictions (and a large number of players).

Also slower tech progression is a good thing.

Villanelle · 2021-06-09 13:00:55

Raiding and pillaging sounds fun if there is enough of players and civilization is getting so developed players have nothing else to do and are bored and so it would add meaning to end game and replayability, but it needs more players and especially more players that know well how to rebuild the civilization, meaning the knowledge of full tech tree.

Speaking of fun - no, this is not your harvest moon or animal crossing and if you find fun in playing your part it's good, it's part of OHOL. Yet OHOL isn't about that. OHOL is about stories. Always was about stories from the start, that's why Jason used to publish user stories and that's why OHOL game reviews are full of stories.

OHOL is about our society. It's about that we could kill each other any time but we agree not to.

It's about culture, it's about religion.

OHOL is a living art object that Jason Made.

You can read more about what I mean in the article he posted the link on his "Arthouse games" magazine.

Reading list of Jason Rorher

Realtime Art Manifest that Jason seems to follow and it is important to read it to understand what game you are playing.

To make it sure you read it I'm gonna post some spoilers from the article:

"Ignore the critics and the fanboys."
"Leave interpretation open where appropriate"
"but keep the user focused and immersed the worlds that you create."

"Make art for people,
not for documentation.
Make art to experience
and not to read about.
Use the language of your medium to communicate all there is to know.
The user should never be required to read a description or a manual."

Last edited by Villanelle (2021-06-09 13:05:05)

Arcurus · 2021-06-09 13:41:51

Villanelle wrote:

Raiding and pillaging sounds fun if there is enough of players and civilization is getting so developed players have nothing else to do and are bored and so it would add meaning to end game and replayability, but it needs more players and especially more players that know well how to rebuild the civilization, meaning the knowledge of full tech tree.
Speaking of fun - no, this is not your harvest moon or animal crossing and if you find fun in playing your part it's good, it's part of OHOL. Yet OHOL isn't about that. OHOL is about stories. Always was about stories from the start, that's why Jason used to publish user stories and that's why OHOL game reviews are full of stories.
OHOL is about our society. It's about that we could kill each other any time but we agree not to.
It's about culture, it's about religion.
OHOL is a living art object that Jason Made.
You can read more about what I mean in the article he posted the link on his "Arthouse games" magazine.
Reading list of Jason Rorher
Realtime Art Manifest that Jason seems to follow and it is important to read it to understand what game you are playing.
To make it sure you read it I'm gonna post some spoilers from the article:
"Ignore the critics and the fanboys."
"Leave interpretation open where appropriate"
"but keep the user focused and immersed the worlds that you create."
"Make art for people,
not for documentation.
Make art to experience
and not to read about.
Use the language of your medium to communicate all there is to know.
The user should never be required to read a description or a manual."

wow yea fully agree!

I think Jason wanted to fix the war mechanics at some point.
I posted some GitHub suggestions how they could be fixed, sadly Twisted was not so much in favor of it, since he does want to play peacefully it seems...

Last edited by Arcurus (2021-06-09 18:39:24)

Gremlynn · 2021-06-09 14:36:40

What it sounds like is natural human behavior that has persisted and been a part of our history for thousands of years. Wars, raiders, and the brutal realities of survival used to be a major thing in this game.

If your entire family was dying and desperately needed steel. You found a village with tons. You're telling me you wouldnt sneak in to take some for the benefit of your family? Is that griefing when you're hurting to help? Maybe, but at least its a natural behavior prompted by real emotions and motivations. Rather than just wanting to be destructive.

Now say your grandma went to another village to make peace with them. After a good while she does not come back and you and your family grows worried. You, your mother, sister, and niece all travel to check if she was still there. On your arrival you see a bloody pile of bones. Confused you go up to ask someone what happened. Suddenly the person yells in a strange language and begins to run around the town repeating the same word over and over again. Villagers begin to grab weapons and hurry over to you. In the confusion your mother and sister were stabbed. Still in a state of shock you grab your niece and run as fast as you can back to your village. Gripped by heart ache and resentment you rally some of the villagers for a counter attack. Your town doesnt have many weapons but it has some. You march to the village, stopping at the outskirts. You stage a plan. "Acquire the medical supplies and any weaponry to disable their defense and offensive capabilities". Kill anyone who tries to attack you. The battle is short. Several casualties on both sides, but the towns ability to attack again have been disabled for now. Most of the townsfolk ran into the woods. You return the healing supplies to their former position. Satisfied with your revenge and with the knowledge that the village will not be as much of s threat in the future you head back home.

These kind of situations happened often. They were interesting and always left you with a unique emotional reaction that used to be a defining trait of this game. Were you the grandma who was killed for peace. The mom or sister who were killed for fear and xenophobia, the niece who lost most of her loved ones, or one of the villagers who was rallied to avenge your family? Perhaps you were in the other village and had to flee from your village after the attack. These kind of interactions made for unique lives. They left a mark. They also balanced progression stages because families were always chipping away at each other. Which im sorry, is what rival villages would do. Griefing or not. Peace did happen, some families lived together in peace, but it was very rare. Just like true peace is rare irl.

Palacio · 2021-06-09 19:46:09

Villanelle wrote:

OHOL is about stories. Always was about stories from the start, that's why Jason used to publish user stories and that's why OHOL game reviews are full of stories.

Sure I can agree with that! That is why I think trading can be a part of this. If your family needs rubber and you sent a young man on a quest to find another family and get a few buckets, and he returns an older man, with the rubber, which saves the family, that is a good story.

Gremlynn · 2021-06-09 20:30:43

Palacio wrote:

Villanelle wrote:
OHOL is about stories. Always was about stories from the start, that's why Jason used to publish user stories and that's why OHOL game reviews are full of stories.
Sure I can agree with that! That is why I think trading can be a part of this. If your family needs rubber and you sent a young man on a quest to find another family and get a few buckets, and he returns an older man, with the rubber, which saves the family, that is a good story.

Thats a nice thought but its unlikely. 90% of those essential resources are made and cycled to the different families by veteran players. Its also promoted by an artificial system which im sorry, does not promote stories and if fact discourages a lot of behavior that used to enable organic stories. Race restrictions promote one type of story "aw man i cant dye my clothes yellow because im black..". Which is extremely immersion breaking. Trade does not happen, its been a joke since the beginning. People used to help or hurt other families because they wanted to, not because they were forced to. The game was very different before artificial structure and mechanics were added. I wish you could have seen it. I doubt you would carry the opinions you have if you had. Race restrictions are not the cure, they're the disease. Artificial mechanics have only limited the total experience of this game.

Last edited by Gremlynn (2021-06-09 20:33:24)

Spoonwood · 2021-06-11 17:53:55

Palacio wrote:

First of all it is his game

The game is open source. It is not Jason Rohrer's personal property.

Palacio wrote:

and he is developing his ideas, so in principle he does not owe the community to do whatever they say.

A public game where the desires of the public don't matter? Not a good situation.

Palacio wrote:

Secondly, you say that the community says that "race restrictions are bad", and I hear this from several people, but there is no way of knowing how many people actually find this.

There exists a tool to survey players. It's been used twice before. You can point out flaws with it or how it might not give true numbers, but it certainly could estimate such. However, even though the game is public, there is no interest in surveying the public by Mr. Rohrer.

Palacio wrote:

For example, I don't think it is a bad idea at all!

One person compared to a few hundred people doesn't tell you much about what people in general think. Your example has a very, very small effect in terms of estimating what the public thinks. There exist a good number of negative reviews on steam concerning race restrictions. There exist consistent complaints from many people over a long period of time for different reasons on both the forums and the discord. I've heard from a streamer who plays 2HOL that she's been too bothered by them lately to consider playing OHOL. Race restrictions are the contrary of a selling point to many people being a turn off for many members of the general public, since they are race based.

Palacio wrote:

Especially for more experienced players it adds another level of game play.

No, it does not. Before race restrictions, one could venture into a jungle, for oneself, on any server at any time and then do something with jungle materials in that life. There was time to do such usually in a life. Since race restrictions, that sort of possibility has become less common. Thus, for experienced players it took away a level of gameply. Also, exchanging resources with other tribes or people or locations was still possible if you could find them. So, nothing was added in terms of possibility in terms of gameplay, only things were taken away.

Spoonwood · 2021-06-11 17:58:11

Palacio wrote:

Raiding and pillaging? Blood feuds? That doesn't sound like fun! It sounds like organized griefers. I am glad this is not a hack 'n slash game, and I would get frustrated if it went in that direction. "Too powerful families" what does that even mean? It is not a competition right? Players come to play a part in their village and build things and help each other, and that is what makes it charming.
War as a game element can have its place, but it would require the game to operate more on a 'civilizations' level, with empires (families) trading and waging war with each other, much like the Mediterranean civilizations at the late bronze age. But then still trade would be an important element to that, and you only have trade if you have biome restrictions (and a large number of players).
Also slower tech progression is a good thing.

So, though there was a time period when what Gremlynn describes was the case, there were times before that where such wasn't likely to happen, or not that much.

Also, have you ever seen a button down shirt or trousers in an Eve camp? Or someone with a truck bringing things to a camp with a shallow well or deep well? Race restrictions with closeness of families has the effect of increasing the tech pace from when families were isolated, because rightly or wrongly someone soon throws advanced objects at families that haven't even made the tools to make those things themselves.

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Modded Custom Server

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