One Hour One Life Forums

Tebe

Member

Registered: 2018-03-03

Posts: 65

The Ongoing Tale of the Peoples of Ohol

I find it remarkable how much things have changed in such a short time in this miniature world.  What my lifetimes looked like only a few days ago compared to today - As people learn the ways of the world and live out their own cautionary tales, and as more people spread awfully-gained wisdom, the world is beginning to look a little different than it did. The place is wildly alive.

Yesterday - Sunday - was brutal. Infant mortality rates sky-high. Children abandoned more often than not. Massive village settlements with populations that never ventured beyond the nearest marshland. I guess this may continue to be the case on weekends when more people are logging in and creating havoc.

But this evening I noticed a distinct difference. I never died once as a child. Every mother brought me up, whether in a settlement or in the wild. They managed me even with their other burdens, out on trapping missions, or on distant seedhunts and plundering missions. All that was asked of me was that I keep up and cry when starving. I have been brought out of town to neighboring settlements to rebuild. I have been kept and raised at fires that remained fed. I have been clothed and cared for. And I managed to live very full lives in these sessions.

I hear word that some regions are fraught with murderers, marauders, bandits. This seems unthinkable just a couple of days ago. And I have yet to see it firsthand.

For a time, domestic berry bushes were frowned upon and considered wasteful, and now that composting and animal husbandry have been discovered, the farms themselves are changing. Before long we will start seeing a lot more wool clothing on people - But I have yet to see any!

Fur clothing, backpacks, steel tools are becoming the norm in so many places. It is commonplace for milkweed to be re-sown in desolated lands and dried ponds to be rejuvenated. The delicate balance of resource and waste has many villages on a precipice. Soil can be renewed now, but at great cost. Carrot plots can always be recycled. Some regions have clear-cut their precious branch-and-leaf giving trees. Some large villages may be doomed to ruins, ghostly outposts on the road elsewhere, their tools plundered and taken to more fertile country. It's quite touching to see these ghost towns now, to realize that the surrounding country is desolated, and to wonder at the hectic clamor of their building. Somewhere else, it is happening anew, but a little better than before.

I hope to keep some tabs on these changes as they go, at least those that I notice, and I'd love to hear others' experiences of how things have been changing for them.

What was good advice on Saturday is bad advice today - Over 50 generations have come and gone since then, and many lessons brutally learned. Every day I log on, I wonder if things have changed, I wonder what I'm going to step into.

Uncle Gus

Moderator

Registered: 2018-02-28

Posts: 567

Re: The Ongoing Tale of the Peoples of Ohol

Yes, we are learning and improving as a species. I only get about an hour to play each evening and tonight I was only born once. I was born into a village but this time there was no baby boom and famine. Babies were born, but they were cared for and the farm was worked efficiently. There were mistakes made; a few milkweed plants were killed and people were draining ponds but these were exceptions and the lessons were quickly learned.

I expanded the milkweed production and caught rabbits to clothe people. I saw a young girl teaching "three to seed, four to feed". I eventually passed on my clothes to her before spending my last year's by the fire cooking the rabbits I had trapped.

It was a very satisfying life!

Doctor Flintrock

Member

Registered: 2018-03-03

Posts: 34

Re: The Ongoing Tale of the Peoples of Ohol

Yes, the change in a few short days has been remarkable.

I wonder what the player experiences have been like? Did they push through frustrations of not knowing what to do? Did some of the players just give up? (Another positive of this game not being on Steam: no easy refunds. It's not a game that is strictly speaking, fun all of the time. It doesn't have to be, that's why certain stories are so memorable.)

I also agree that Sunday was just a bizarre day. I was abandoned many times and ran into annoying characters.