Race restrictions don't serve their purpose…

LilyFox · 2021-08-10 22:39:41

… so why are they still a thing again?

First, let's see why Jason originally wanted to implement them, as described in this thread:

jasonrohrer wrote:

Why:
To make life in each parallel family feel unique
To encourage players to explore outside of their village bubbles and find other families
To encourage inter-family interaction, cooperation, and trade
To encourage players to bridge language barriers between families
To make climbing the upper reaches of the tech tree less linear, monotone, and certain
To give you more complex, interpersonal challenges
To partially model a beautiful facet of the real world, where different people from different areas specialize in different things

So, have race restrictions actually achieved ANY of those things?

1. Lives feel less and less unique because having to depend on race-locked resources encourages people to rush through tech and dump trucks and engines in Eve towns to make THEM rush through tech as well, so others get their precious resources. The opposite was achieved here

2. Personally I don't think finding another race through a magic way stone is the same as “exploration”, though I can see that it forced people to go outside their villages more often. HOWEVER I believe people would have explored the world without race restrictions anyway, just out of curiosity or boredom. Restricting a huge part of the game just to make people do something they would have done anyway doesn't seem justified to me.

3. People dump resources after they get asked for them via a third party mod or just so other people don't have to go through the effort of getting them. That's not “trade”. Cooperation doesn't happen between “families” but between veteran players on phex who try to keep the game alive despite all its broken mechanics.

Quick note here: the one time I witnessed anything that came close to actual “trade” in this game was when I saw a guy build up a property with a few tables, gather some fancy clothes in there and “sell” them in exchange for pies. Obviously it was purely for RP purposes and he could have just gotten the pies from the kitchen but the point is, if people want to simulate something, they will find ways to make it happen. Yet despite race restrictions, trade for resources is still not happening (again, dumping stuff is not the same as trading), so I guess most people are simply not interested in this kind of gameplay.

4. Not happening, people just talk to each other on phex where there's no language barriers at all. If anything it encouraged more people to use a third party mod rather than engage with the actual game mechanics.

5. Not happening since there's no “alternative” ways to climb up the tech tree as everyone depends on the same resources. If there was a way to make rubber without going to the jungle for example, there would be an interesting point here but right now, it's just restriction for the sake of restriction.

6. The greatest challenge race restrictions provided to players is the challenge of finding ways around this awful mechanic like phex, dumping stuff for future lives, etc. And making the game less and less intuitive for new players of course

7. Yes because it's totally reflective of the real world that black people can't touch snow and Gingers can place a bucket to get latex but won't be able to get it back because the player number suddenly got over 30. The latter example is particularly bad currently because often the number will hover somewhere around 30.

Again, awful for new players. One minute they can go into the desert just fine and five minutes later they suffer from a heat stroke? Who's gonna see through that without reading through pages of forum posts? Most will just quit the game out of frustration.

Lastly, Jason, if you actually read this post: I get being tired of improving a game you've been working on for several years now and wanting to focus on more recent stuff. But for the sake of your remaining player base, please remove this awful mechanic that has just made the game worse for almost everyone still playing it. It's not even functioning half of the time when there's less than 30 people on bs2, so just get rid of it altogether. It doesn't do what it was supposed to to.

Spoonwood · 2021-08-11 00:03:55

LilyFox wrote:

The latter example is particularly bad currently because often the number will hover somewhere around 30.

I haven't played much lately, but the Steam numbers do suggest that this happens a lot, since the numbers usually dip early morning EST and the numbers have consistently been in the 30s for months: https://steamcharts.com/app/595690#All Really, the numbers suggest that since March the number of players hovering around thirty has apparently happened a lot (though probably not so much, or as much, on weekends). Sure, not everyone plays on Steam, but those numbers seem close enough for around 30 players to hold in plenty of cases. I've been watching BabyKatie's stream for a few minutes now, it's 8:00 P. M. EST on a Tuesday, and I've seen less than and over 30 players, hovering around that number much of the time.

Last edited by Spoonwood (2021-08-11 06:41:28)

JonySky · 2021-08-11 10:40:49

OHOL has been without updates for 1 year and has died...(Dead of content, dead of player numbers, dead of positive comments, dead of fresh ideas, dead like this forum ...
which is a reflection of this game) all that remains is a very small group of players (some bots) and a developer disinterested in the project

Proposing solutions for this game is absurd for 3 reasons:
1- the developer is deaf and has disappeared
2- the game engine is broken, it is very deficient and does not allow balance, nor the 10% of mechanics that we have exposed in this forum they can be implemented due to the engine (I mean implement it correctly, not sloppy job)
3- there are only 30 players left

As an OHOL player for years, I have put forward many ideas and proposed many possible solutions ... but after seeing where OHOL has moved, my responsibility as a player is to alert that the game is dead and prevent anyone from making the mistake to buy this game.

I think you should do the same to avoid the purchase of the game to uninformed people, and thus avoid disappointment

Last edited by JonySky (2021-08-11 11:49:45)

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2021-08-10 22:39:41

Race restrictions don't serve their purpose…

#2 2021-08-11 00:03:55

Re: Race restrictions don't serve their purpose…

#3 2021-08-11 10:40:49

Re: Race restrictions don't serve their purpose…

Board footer