One Hour One Life Forums

a multiplayer game of parenting and civilization building

You are not logged in.

#1 2018-03-11 19:10:19

Portager
Member
Registered: 2018-03-09
Posts: 217

Creating a Sense of Family should be a #1 Priority

Aside from eating, I am convinced that the most important thing in this game is family.

In order to grow a sustainable multi-generational village, it is absolutely vital to establish social connections with your children and camp members ASAP. I have noticed that in many of the camps that I have spawned in, nobody seems to talk to each other and everyone seems to be running around doing random things. Half the time people are working on the same task (ie. building a fire, when one of them should actually be trapping rabbits for instance). This causes long term sustainability issues that are difficult to overcome. Even when tasks are given, half the time people don't know how to do them and end up dying (wasting precious resources and time).

Every successful village/camp I have spawned into has a well established social hierarchy. You are given a name at birth, and everyone in these villages talks to one another by name. If you need help, your family is there to help you. This type of family environment also helps encourage people to conduct their roles with pride and to feel as though they are part of something special. I will never forget my Uncle Winston and Aunt Annie and how they taught me how to compost for the first time, when I was struggling to get the steps right. Neither will I forget the mother who put her wolf pelt on me and named me Wolfie, she taught me the ways of the smith, and I was able to eventually pass these ways onto another little girl who would become the new Wolfie jr.

I am sure that many of you who have logged a decent number of hours also have stories like this. The greatest experiences in this game come from being part of something that is bigger than just yourself. It is not about the composting, the water way-finding or the carrot farming...it is about the journey and working on these tasks with other great people.

Offline

#2 2018-03-11 19:56:54

RainbowMochaSunshine
Member
Registered: 2018-03-10
Posts: 1

Re: Creating a Sense of Family should be a #1 Priority

I completely agree. I make it a thing to communicate in an RP way with my family members and give every baby a task. This makes everything run smoothly and lowers the amount of babies that run off or fuck things up.

Offline

#3 2018-03-11 21:19:24

Portager
Member
Registered: 2018-03-09
Posts: 217

Re: Creating a Sense of Family should be a #1 Priority

RainbowMochaSunshine wrote:

I completely agree. I make it a thing to communicate in an RP way with my family members and give every baby a task. This makes everything run smoothly and lowers the amount of babies that run off or fuck things up.

Yes that is a huge problem. I hate when the only baby girl waddles away at camp and gets herself killed. If somebody named her, and showed her the ropes, hopefully she would be guilted into helping. I know I would have a hard time disobeying a mother who named me, nursed me and confided her trust into me.

Offline

#4 2018-03-12 13:04:04

Jon whitaker
Member
Registered: 2018-03-10
Posts: 3

Re: Creating a Sense of Family should be a #1 Priority

thanks for all your help i got it to run finally.

Offline

#5 2018-03-12 22:42:22

ajdrex
Member
From: WA, US
Registered: 2018-03-11
Posts: 9

Re: Creating a Sense of Family should be a #1 Priority

Totally agree, the most fun and the most successful playthroughs I have had so far have been spawning into groups who take the social/community/familial aspect of the game seriously. Honestly, it's kind of an emotional experience to have someone who taught you the ropes of how to farm and where to get the necessary resources for your group pass on their clothes and other items to you and bid you goodbye. That happened and then I passed the knowledge he taught me on to the next generation, and eventually passed the belongings that gramps gave to me on to the next generation, wished them good luck, said my goodbyes, and died.

Other groups I have joined have been bigger and had more things, but I have yet to join one where I had more fun or learned more about the game. I think it would be easier to cultivate a feeling of family or community if it were easier to chat in-game. Often times half the text is off the screen or players aren't always right next to each other. If there was some kind of a text box that made it easier to read full sentences or text cut off-screen, or even what players nearby but not on-screen at all are saying (though, not too far away, I would not want it to feel like conversing with a phone or telepathy, but rather shouting from a distance or something like that). Anyway, that's just my two cents.

Offline

#6 2018-03-12 23:24:55

Hans Lemurson
Member
Registered: 2018-03-12
Posts: 45

Re: Creating a Sense of Family should be a #1 Priority

In a game like this, Role-Playing, rather than being a waste of time, is actually central to survival.

Offline

#7 2018-03-12 23:53:13

Portager
Member
Registered: 2018-03-09
Posts: 217

Re: Creating a Sense of Family should be a #1 Priority

Hans Lemurson wrote:

In a game like this, Role-Playing, rather than being a waste of time, is actually central to survival.


True. This is the only game that immediately comes to mind where role-playing can be the difference between life or death.

Offline

#8 2018-03-13 01:15:11

aFilthyPeasant
Member
Registered: 2018-03-12
Posts: 19

Re: Creating a Sense of Family should be a #1 Priority

ajdrex wrote:

I think it would be easier to cultivate a feeling of family or community if it were easier to chat in-game. Often times half the text is off the screen or players aren't always right next to each other. If there was some kind of a text box that made it easier to read full sentences or text cut off-screen, or even what players nearby but not on-screen at all are saying (though, not too far away, I would not want it to feel like conversing with a phone or telepathy, but rather shouting from a distance or something like that).

I think to help strengthen the bonds you have with your parents and siblings, along with extended family even (to a point) would be names and generational titles above people's heads. In the real world, we can look at someone at tell who they are. At the moment, with the limited number of characters available, it is quite the guessing game. But being able to look at your mother and know that's your mother is somewhat intuitive. Looking at a stranger and knowing their name is less intuitive, so perhaps you can be able to learn their name?

A naming system could also be implemented where the mother chooses a name immediately when the child is born (with maybe a gender symbol so you know how to name the child).

But being able to look at who is around and walk up to someone and designate a task, without having to ask who they are and what they have been doing, could be super beneficial. Knowing if someone is an outsider because you don't recognize them (i.e. not knowing their name) would also help create an us versus them situation where the community knows that this person is an outsider and not the guy who just went to go get water.

Offline

#9 2018-03-13 01:32:19

Portager
Member
Registered: 2018-03-09
Posts: 217

Re: Creating a Sense of Family should be a #1 Priority

aFilthyPeasant wrote:
ajdrex wrote:

I think it would be easier to cultivate a feeling of family or community if it were easier to chat in-game. Often times half the text is off the screen or players aren't always right next to each other. If there was some kind of a text box that made it easier to read full sentences or text cut off-screen, or even what players nearby but not on-screen at all are saying (though, not too far away, I would not want it to feel like conversing with a phone or telepathy, but rather shouting from a distance or something like that).

I think to help strengthen the bonds you have with your parents and siblings, along with extended family even (to a point) would be names and generational titles above people's heads. In the real world, we can look at someone at tell who they are. At the moment, with the limited number of characters available, it is quite the guessing game. But being able to look at your mother and know that's your mother is somewhat intuitive. Looking at a stranger and knowing their name is less intuitive, so perhaps you can be able to learn their name?

A naming system could also be implemented where the mother chooses a name immediately when the child is born (with maybe a gender symbol so you know how to name the child).

But being able to look at who is around and walk up to someone and designate a task, without having to ask who they are and what they have been doing, could be super beneficial. Knowing if someone is an outsider because you don't recognize them (i.e. not knowing their name) would also help create an us versus them situation where the community knows that this person is an outsider and not the guy who just went to go get water.

I think others have floated this idea before as well.

I haven't checked the suggestion reddit, is this one on there?

Offline

#10 2018-03-13 01:55:07

aFilthyPeasant
Member
Registered: 2018-03-12
Posts: 19

Re: Creating a Sense of Family should be a #1 Priority

Portager wrote:
aFilthyPeasant wrote:
ajdrex wrote:

I think it would be easier to cultivate a feeling of family or community if it were easier to chat in-game. Often times half the text is off the screen or players aren't always right next to each other. If there was some kind of a text box that made it easier to read full sentences or text cut off-screen, or even what players nearby but not on-screen at all are saying (though, not too far away, I would not want it to feel like conversing with a phone or telepathy, but rather shouting from a distance or something like that).

I think to help strengthen the bonds you have with your parents and siblings, along with extended family even (to a point) would be names and generational titles above people's heads. In the real world, we can look at someone at tell who they are. At the moment, with the limited number of characters available, it is quite the guessing game. But being able to look at your mother and know that's your mother is somewhat intuitive. Looking at a stranger and knowing their name is less intuitive, so perhaps you can be able to learn their name?

A naming system could also be implemented where the mother chooses a name immediately when the child is born (with maybe a gender symbol so you know how to name the child).

But being able to look at who is around and walk up to someone and designate a task, without having to ask who they are and what they have been doing, could be super beneficial. Knowing if someone is an outsider because you don't recognize them (i.e. not knowing their name) would also help create an us versus them situation where the community knows that this person is an outsider and not the guy who just went to go get water.

I think others have floated this idea before as well.

I haven't checked the suggestion reddit, is this one on there?

not to my knowledge, but I dont really go on reddit anymore. I could head over to make this suggestion, or you can post it if you'd like.

If anything of my post gets noticed, I think the ideas of generational titles ("Mother", "Brother", "Nephew", etc) would be most important. Eventually, if a community grew enough from a single mother, everyone there would see each other's titles. But the concept of knowing who you who or not is pretty important as well. Real life civilizations have tangoed with "us vs them" mentality for centuries, using anything from phenotypic traits (skin tone, hair color/texture, eye shape) to cultural creations (clothing style, language, food, armor/weapon style) to differentiate between who is part of their civilization or not.

Offline

#11 2018-03-13 12:25:28

OneBoot
Member
Registered: 2018-03-13
Posts: 1

Re: Creating a Sense of Family should be a #1 Priority

I absolutely agree! I only just started playing today (after learning the ropes via the wiki and watching various GOOD Youtube videos), and by far the best playthrough I had was where I spawned in such an environment. The village was tiny population-wise, but with lots of resources. My mom was happy to see me and introduced me to her mother, who taught me the ropes and gave me a job. I felt a strong desire to help out this little community that had welcomed me with open arms, so when I was old enough to venture out on my own, I decided to go looking for milkweed (the one thing we didn't have). Grandma gave me her cart and backpack and mom loaded me up with food. I searched for quite some time with no luck, but as I was heading home I got eaten by a bear. sad

I still feel so sad and guilty that this lovely little community will never know what happened to me, and will never be able to recover those resources they gave me, even though I was trying my best to help them out. But at least it gave me a template for how to treat my children when I have them, to welcome them to the world and teach them the basics. I just wish there was an easier way to communicate!

Offline

Board footer

Powered by FluxBB