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#1 2019-04-02 19:22:28

jasonrohrer
Administrator
Registered: 2017-02-13
Posts: 4,804

A rough, incomplete sketch for makng family survival more meaningful

There are lots of possibilities for re-wiring the game to make family survival more meaningful.

Here's one that I'm currently toying with.  It's not complete.  It has a bunch of bad side-effects.  It was the first thing I thought of, and there are undoubtedly better systems out there.  But I just wanted to get your heads around the kinds of things that I'm thinking about.


Area ban, lineage ban, etc, would be removed.

When you join the server for the first time, your mother is picked in the usual way.  Nothing changes there.

At your moment of birth, your complete family tree is marked as A and all other family trees currently alive on the server are marked as B.

LOOP:
In future lives, as long as fertile mothers from the A family exist, you can only get reborn to those A mothers.

You are NEVER ever born to any of the B families, forever, no matter what.  But no new families are marked as B as long as the A family continues to exist.

If the A family dies out, then your next mother is picked from any families on the server not currently marked B (any family that came into existence after your initial birth on the server), or you are Eve if there are no non-marked families.

After that, that new family is marked A, and all other families currently on the server are marked B.

Goto LOOP

Essentially, you get "stuck" into a new family, and stick with that family long term, as long as it continues to exist.

Problems:

1.  In the case of a good family, you'd want to keep it going.  But in the case of a bad family (in a bad town, or that didn't sculpt the town to your liking), you might want to kill it off, just to give yourself a chance at a re-roll

2.  People would still be attached to their towns, which the family would usually be a good proxy for.  But in the example stories of a daughter fleeing a failing town to keep the family line going, that daughter would be starting over from scratch, and losing the town.  What's the point of continued family survival at that point?

(1. and 2. are signs that this solution doesn't really motivate family survival at all costs, and we're still stuck with town survival, which limits the kinds of dramatic stories that will occur).

3.  Of course, this undermines the "saying goodbye" part of the game, and would enable all-day play sessions working on the same solo project.  Though it still makes offspring absolutely crucial to these long-term projects (which is at least better than all Eves spawning in a tiny central server so everyone can just walk back no matter what, like it was in the very early days).  Also, if someone is so focused on their solo project that they put the family survival at risk, that would be a big problem for the family (and ever for the solo project).



Some other designs that operate in similar space:

--Instead of an entire A-marked family tree, you are limited to your pool of direct descendants (or your sisters' descendants if you are male).  This might be too fine-grained (you'd be competing with your sister over who's children survive).  It would also be hard for players to reason about (no longer would last name alone be a sufficient marker).

--Some kind of a actual chromosome-tracking simulation, with cross-breeding between nearby men and women, or whatever (people have been asking for this for ages).  Your pool of potential mothers for future lives includes any that have any of your chromosomes.  This allows chromosome spread into other towns and families through bride- or group-swapping.  Again, this would probably be too fine-grained, and extremely hard for players to reason about.

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#2 2019-04-02 19:33:50

Whatever
Member
Registered: 2019-02-23
Posts: 491

Re: A rough, incomplete sketch for makng family survival more meaningful

You said you love the idea of the burial enabling return. (from the other thread https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewt … 987#p51987)

The way i would imagine this:
- If you get buried the lineage will be added to your special lineage list
- Before you get born, you can choose one of your lineages that are still alive or you can choose a new random lineage.
- This way you can have multiple lineages to choose from before you get born (but only if they buried you)

Disadvantages:
- It will be difficult to bury people in an eve camp

Last edited by Whatever (2019-04-02 19:34:37)

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#3 2019-04-02 19:36:09

Twisted
Member
Registered: 2018-10-12
Posts: 663

Re: A rough, incomplete sketch for makng family survival more meaningful

I really dislike this idea. The main draw of OHOL for me is spawning into a brand new situation every life. If I get spawned into the same family every time I play that means death has no real meaning, it's just a slight annoyance as I can just respawn in the same town immediately.

Any family gets Tarr or some other highly skilled player is going to be basically immortal until server reset. What's going to happen is there's going to be ~5 families that keep building up their city until it gets massive and people get bored.

This would also completely screw over players who enjoy playing in Eve towns.

The more I think about this the more I dislike it honestly.

On a different note we just had two straight months of mechanic tweaks, bug fixes, and redesigns. I really enjoyed the content update last week and I was hoping you'd focus on those for some time.

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#4 2019-04-02 19:38:22

AmyJ
Member
Registered: 2018-05-17
Posts: 62

Re: A rough, incomplete sketch for makng family survival more meaningful

I like all of those suggestions. The game's become a bit stale for me recently, this would certainly liven it up again. I've always preferred the social aspects of the game than all the crafting/tech stuff. This would add an interesting dynamic for sure.

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#5 2019-04-02 19:42:56

Guppy
Member
Registered: 2019-03-14
Posts: 202

Re: A rough, incomplete sketch for makng family survival more meaningful

Whatever wrote:

You said you love the idea of the burial enabling return. (from the other thread https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewt … 987#p51987)

The way i would imagine this:
- If you get buried the lineage will be added to your special lineage list
- Before you get born, you can choose one of your lineages that are still alive or you can choose a new random lineage.
- This way you can have multiple lineages to choose from before you get born (but only if they buried you)

Disadvantages:
- It will be difficult to bury people in an eve camp



+1 to this.
That way, you dont get stuck with bad families, can pick a new one every time if you like, and still keep all the advantages of your idea

Maybe limit it to one lineage, so if you get burried somewhere else, it overwrites your " savefile"

Last edited by Guppy (2019-04-02 19:49:03)

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#6 2019-04-02 19:50:32

Glassius
Member
Registered: 2018-04-22
Posts: 326

Re: A rough, incomplete sketch for makng family survival more meaningful

Jason, the community supports you, but do not enforce them either way of gameplay!

Enforcing players to continue the lineage will prohibit them from challenging Eve's run! Such an innoviation will make half of players griefers, trying to completely kill off their own families. You would have only civil wars, much toxic behaviour around players and you will have to abandon it in shame. I completely agree with Whatever, that much better would be a possiblity to be reborn to one of the families you already lived within!

But, not for free. Make two deals at once! You can, Jason, apply here still lineage/area ban (but make it apply earlier, like after 10 min, so no work-suicide chain possible to do by Tarr), and allow to disable it for certain area/lineage as a reward for:
- living to the old age
- being buried
- being blessed by enough family members, just an anti-curse system

This way, being nice to other players and making close relationship will be crucial to allow you to continue your multigenerational projects! You can make connection between roleplayers and powerplayers, many of us requested for!

Last edited by Glassius (2019-04-02 19:52:10)

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#7 2019-04-02 19:51:30

Jk Howling
Member
From: Washington State
Registered: 2018-06-16
Posts: 468

Re: A rough, incomplete sketch for makng family survival more meaningful

I agree with Twisted on this one. One of the main premises of the game is the fact that you never know where you'll end up. Every life is different, unique, special. Some lives are better than others, but that's part of the game. And while some people would prefer to stick to the same town for hours at a time, others wouldn't.

This would also enable griefers to spawn into the same town over and over with no repercussions- something that the lineage/area bans helped prevent when they were implemented.



I think, if you did implement family locks, you'd have to be able to balance it out. Return lineage bans rather than area bans, and have murders and SIDS continue to lineage ban. This would enable us to get rid of griefers from the lineage, and for players to have the option of opting out of that family.

I do think it still has too many disadvantages, however.


As for the burial returns.. I love this idea. It'd be a great way to enable us to return to a life we enjoy, without being able to truly abuse it. The idea that it'd be out of our control, and in the hands of our family, seems to fit this game perfectly. It reminds me a bit of the "blessing" concept that cropped up when curses rolled around- a way for other players to reward someone, as well as a way for us to return to a scenario we enjoyed.


-Has ascended to better games-

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#8 2019-04-02 19:58:29

happynova
Member
Registered: 2018-03-31
Posts: 362

Re: A rough, incomplete sketch for makng family survival more meaningful

jasonrohrer wrote:

1.  In the case of a good family, you'd want to keep it going.  But in the case of a bad family (in a bad town, or that didn't sculpt the town to your liking), you might want to kill it off, just to give yourself a chance at a re-roll

Which... sounds pretty horrible.  Not least because there are a significant number of players who seem to want to be Eve at all costs.

jasonrohrer wrote:

2.  People would still be attached to their towns, which the family would usually be a good proxy for.  But in the example stories of a daughter fleeing a failing town to keep the family line going, that daughter would be starting over from scratch, and losing the town.  What's the point of continued family survival at that point?

Same is it ever was.  People may care about town survival more than family survival, but that doesn't mean they don't care about family survival at all, and people really, really care about the survival of towns they personally founded.

jasonrohrer wrote:

(1. and 2. are signs that this solution doesn't really motivate family survival at all costs, and we're still stuck with town survival, which limits the kinds of dramatic stories that will occur).

I very seriously question whether it limits them, so much as it just means that they're different from the kinds of stories you've been assuming you'd get.

Not that it isn't an interesting idea.  But it makes me feel very, very uncertain.

jasonrohrer wrote:

3.  Of course, this undermines the "saying goodbye" part of the game, and would enable all-day play sessions working on the same solo project.  Though it still makes offspring absolutely crucial to these long-term projects (which is at least better than all Eves spawning in a tiny central server so everyone can just walk back no matter what, like it was in the very early days).  Also, if someone is so focused on their solo project that they put the family survival at risk, that would be a big problem for the family (and ever for the solo project).

Which does seem to undermine the whole concept of the game. From the vast chorus of voices on this forum, I suspect it may do so in a way that turns it into the kind of game that a lot of people want to play.  But it may or may not be a game I'd want to keep playing. I really liked your "life is ephemeral and you get one experience in this place and then have to deal with losing it" philosophy.  It's given me a lot of feelings.

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#9 2019-04-02 20:06:26

Twisted
Member
Registered: 2018-10-12
Posts: 663

Re: A rough, incomplete sketch for makng family survival more meaningful

The more I think about this idea the more I'm certain that it would achieve the complete opposite of what you're trying to do.

What gives life in OHOL meaning is the fact that you only have a limited time to achieve your goal. Once you die that's it, there's no coming back, which means you have to do your best to leave the town in the best possible shape for future generations.

If you can just respawn death loses all meaning. You got killed by a wolf? Who cares, you'll just respawn back in town and go loot your old corpse when you're a bit older. Village running out of girls? Better go suicide as soon as you hit age 40. You gave birth to a boy? You should starve your own child so he can come back as a girl - after all, you want to have daughters so you can respawn to them when you hit 40. Your mother got mauled by a bear? That's OK, she'll respawn immediately.

Bleh.

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#10 2019-04-02 20:09:52

happynova
Member
Registered: 2018-03-31
Posts: 362

Re: A rough, incomplete sketch for makng family survival more meaningful

Also, Jason it occurs to me that this isn't something that gives you your "sneaking into the walled city" scenario at all.  If I'm a member of family A and a fertile B woman shows up at my town, I'm going to be even more overjoyed at the new blood.  She's just opened up a whole new population for us that can keep the town going!  (Well, that's assuming I'm still attached to towns in the same way under this scheme, which I'm not entirely sure of at all, because I think it maybe loses something precious and cool about town-building.)

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#11 2019-04-02 20:17:55

jasonrohrer
Administrator
Registered: 2017-02-13
Posts: 4,804

Re: A rough, incomplete sketch for makng family survival more meaningful

Twisted, this is long-term thinking on my part.  Something that I would probably implement a month or so from now.

Regarding each life being unique, if we go back to your first video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu7kXKuShks

That was a full month before any reasonable Eve spreading algorithm was in place.  This meant that a family dying out did not result in a town being lost.  Certainly, the current Eve spreading makes for much more unique situations, instead of people just repopulating the same city over and over.

On the other hand, the interactions between villages is much less frequent now and much less interesting.

I guess part of what I'm trying to do here is figure out a way to bring villages closer together without it degenerating into one big "mush" of civilization, or without short-circuiting the idea that a village really will be lost if it dies out.

The fact that a village can get lost does make people care.  And makes people care about the last female child in the village, etc.  "You are our miracle"


However, I fear that I cannot have it both ways.  Villages can't be close enough to interact AND still get lost when they die out.  I mean, not without "magic" of some kind (where the village is insta-wiped as soon as the last family member dies).

I guess this is an interesting way to frame the problem.  Instead of thinking about a lack of drama, or story variety, or war, we can think just about that problem.  How can villages be close together and still lost when they die out?


The above sketched solution accomplishes this somewhat, because your only "access" to your village comes from the A family.  And B families can be nearby without giving you additional access, because you can never be born in a B family.  Thus, if A dies out, the town will be lost to you and anyone who was ever born in an A family there.  (And yes, B families can take over later, but they are taking over ruins that they have never accessed before, and if they die out, it will be lost to them too.)



Maybe, if we just focus on that one problem, a different kind of hybrid solution arises.


Maybe, instead of every existing family on the server being marked as B, and locking you into only one family, instead we simply lock you out of the one nearby family to your family in an area.

Maybe each area has an A and a B family in it, and when you're first born in that area, you are assigned to one.  If you're ever reborn in that area, you will be reborn to that same family.

Essentially, in each area, there is a Montague and Capulet family.  Maybe their Eves spawn together, nearby.  But elsewhere on the server, there are other, different Montague2 and Capulet2 families, and Montague3 and Capulet3.

So if Montague3 dies out, then that town is lost to whoever lived there in the Montague3 family, as they will never get born as Capulet3.

And area bans, etc, would still be in effect.  So life-to-life, you'd experience different things.  But long-term, the survival of the families that you lived in before would matter more.

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#12 2019-04-02 20:23:16

Whatever
Member
Registered: 2019-02-23
Posts: 491

Re: A rough, incomplete sketch for makng family survival more meaningful

Update about the burial idea:

- If someone buries you, you can get reborn to that lineage.
- There will be an option on the start screen "get reborn to X lineage" as long as the lineage is alive and your last dead body got buried.
- You can also choose to get born into a random lineage instead (how it works now)
- If you die at the age of 52, you need to wait 8 minutes + 5 minutes = 13 minutes until you can get reborn into your lineage again.
- If you die at the age of 60, you can get reborn in 5 minutes again.
- If you die at the age of 30, you need to wait 30 minutes + 5 minutes = 35 minutes until you can get reborn into your lineage again.
(real life time, not in game time, you dont need to play to spend this time)

The exact details of this idea can be changed. Maybe you should only be able to respawn to one lineage at a time.
Maybe the minimum time you need to wait should be longer than 5 min or maybe shorter.

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#13 2019-04-02 20:23:47

happynova
Member
Registered: 2018-03-31
Posts: 362

Re: A rough, incomplete sketch for makng family survival more meaningful

jasonrohrer wrote:

Maybe, instead of every existing family on the server being marked as B, and locking you into only one family, instead we simply lock you out of the one nearby family to your family in an area.

Maybe each area has an A and a B family in it, and when you're first born in that area, you are assigned to one.  If you're ever reborn in that area, you will be reborn to that same family.

Essentially, in each area, there is a Montague and Capulet family.  Maybe their Eves spawn together, nearby.  But elsewhere on the server, there are other, different Montague2 and Capulet2 families, and Montague3 and Capulet3.

This... seems to me at least potentially more interesting.

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#14 2019-04-02 20:38:15

Amon
Member
From: Under your bed
Registered: 2019-02-17
Posts: 781

Re: A rough, incomplete sketch for makng family survival more meaningful

I like the duality aspect. Might be interesting in preventing this thing nobody pointed out directly:
OOC-Meta-knowledge griefing. IF you can't get born in a family against which you are feuding, you can't internally grief it. That. There. That's very good jason.

However villages can move, and linages can too! ^^ how will that be solved?

some other thing
Very recently in the other thread I suggested something along the lines of only being reborn(wording: getting imediate priority to be born) to your IMEDIATE relations, that is...your own children, grandchildren etc., not your third cousin's children or any other people's children in your family tree.(maybe replace lineage ban with your distnt relatives ban)(or if male, your sister's children, grandchildren, great grandchildren?) This doesen't change spawning by much since it doesen't bar much, but it gives some incentive in this, if I take care of MY children or my sister's children, I can return to my village if I want to. (action -> reward)
(no barring from the family, but only if you give priority to your children over strangers)

Last edited by Amon (2019-04-02 20:58:05)


My favourite all time lives are Unity Dawn, who was married to Sachin Gedeon.
Art!!

PIES 2.0 <- Pie diversification mod

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#15 2019-04-02 20:42:04

jasonrohrer
Administrator
Registered: 2017-02-13
Posts: 4,804

Re: A rough, incomplete sketch for makng family survival more meaningful

The other thing that should be pointed out here is that, during the first month of the game, before the Eve spreading stuff was added, the death of a family didn't matter at all, because it didn't result in towns being lost.  There was a map of the whole civilized world.  You could always find your way back.  Remember checkered floor roads?

n8BI4Wx.png

https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=236


I think the game is much better now than it was back then, because there is something on the line.  We can screw this up, folks, and all this will be lost.  And this does lead to more interesting stories.  As the last elders dies out in a childless village, there's a real feeling there.... a real sense of despair.

So, more interesting, dramatic stories in individual towns, but less interesting, long-term stories between neighboring towns.

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#16 2019-04-02 20:46:03

Glassius
Member
Registered: 2018-04-22
Posts: 326

Re: A rough, incomplete sketch for makng family survival more meaningful

jasonrohrer wrote:

I guess part of what I'm trying to do here is figure out a way to bring villages closer together without it degenerating into one big "mush" of civilization, or without short-circuiting the idea that a village really will be lost if it dies out.
[...]
I guess this is an interesting way to frame the problem.  Instead of thinking about a lack of drama, or story variety, or war, we can think just about that problem.  How can villages be close together and still lost when they die out?

Such close villages is a great thing! Don't be worry, if they keep to repopulate each other, they will both die at the same moment because of lack of resources!

And this lack of resources will allow for a very interesting problem: Tragedy of the commons..

But, it will require one more thing: a constantly regrowing resource, which can be gathered at sustainable level, but overexploiting it will destroy it. If the resource would not regrow, both cities will end up in exploit race without chance to peacefullt manage the resource. What would it be? Branches? Berries? Regrowable milkweed?

Last edited by Glassius (2019-04-02 21:13:24)

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#17 2019-04-02 20:49:51

Amon
Member
From: Under your bed
Registered: 2019-02-17
Posts: 781

Re: A rough, incomplete sketch for makng family survival more meaningful

jasonrohrer wrote:

I think the game is much better now than it was back then, because there is something on the line.  We can screw this up, folks, and all this will be lost.  And this does lead to more interesting stories.  As the last elders dies out in a childless village, there's a real feeling there.... a real sense of despair.

So, more interesting, dramatic stories in individual towns, but less interesting, long-term stories between neighboring towns.


Many things are lost! And the family tree doesen't really tell much of what all happned in a bloodline smile it's all hush hush untill people come up and tell their stories.
I sure do feel dread, and many other people do feel dread when we're the last, or feel sucess when we almost were the last. It's definitely in a good place.


My favourite all time lives are Unity Dawn, who was married to Sachin Gedeon.
Art!!

PIES 2.0 <- Pie diversification mod

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#18 2019-04-02 20:52:04

BlueDiamondAvatar
Member
Registered: 2018-11-19
Posts: 322

Re: A rough, incomplete sketch for makng family survival more meaningful

happynova wrote:

Also, Jason it occurs to me that this isn't something that gives you your "sneaking into the walled city" scenario at all.  If I'm a member of family A and a fertile B woman shows up at my town, I'm going to be even more overjoyed at the new blood.  She's just opened up a whole new population for us that can keep the town going!  (Well, that's assuming I'm still attached to towns in the same way under this scheme, which I'm not entirely sure of at all, because I think it maybe loses something precious and cool about town-building.)


This triggered a realization for me.... locking people out of half the towns currently alive would be TERRIBLE.  We are already noticing area ban rebounding and killing towns a generation or two after a population boom, anything that further restricts the pool of available players for a town would make it worse.


--Blue Diamond

I aim to leave behind a world that is easier for people to live in that it was before I got there.

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#19 2019-04-02 20:55:46

Turnipseed
Member
Registered: 2018-04-05
Posts: 680

Re: A rough, incomplete sketch for makng family survival more meaningful

jasonrohrer wrote:

The other thing that should be pointed out here is that, during the first month of the game, before the Eve spreading stuff was added, the death of a family didn't matter at all, because it didn't result in towns being lost.  There was a map of the whole civilized world.  You could always find your way back.  Remember checkered floor roads?

https://i.imgur.com/n8BI4Wx.png

https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=236


I think the game is much better now than it was back then, because there is something on the line.  We can screw this up, folks, and all this will be lost.  And this does lead to more interesting stories.  As the last elders dies out in a childless village, there's a real feeling there.... a real sense of despair.

So, more interesting, dramatic stories in individual towns, but less interesting, long-term stories between neighboring towns.

This was only a problem when nothing ran out if things become scarce the central area will be forced to spread far and wide to keep feeding its population outlying villages will ither be traded with or destroyed. Eventually horses, cars, and planes will be necessary just to bring in supplies. Leading up to a final death of the area where there are two choices survive by leaving the land you have raped of its resources, or trigger the apocalypse in order to try again.


Be kind, generous, and work together my potatoes.

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#20 2019-04-02 20:58:01

Twisted
Member
Registered: 2018-10-12
Posts: 663

Re: A rough, incomplete sketch for makng family survival more meaningful

jasonrohrer wrote:

Maybe, instead of every existing family on the server being marked as B, and locking you into only one family, instead we simply lock you out of the one nearby family to your family in an area.

Maybe each area has an A and a B family in it, and when you're first born in that area, you are assigned to one.  If you're ever reborn in that area, you will be reborn to that same family.

Essentially, in each area, there is a Montague and Capulet family.  Maybe their Eves spawn together, nearby.  But elsewhere on the server, there are other, different Montague2 and Capulet2 families, and Montague3 and Capulet3.

So if Montague3 dies out, then that town is lost to whoever lived there in the Montague3 family, as they will never get born as Capulet3.

And area bans, etc, would still be in effect.  So life-to-life, you'd experience different things.  But long-term, the survival of the families that you lived in before would matter more.



This is a very interesting and potentially good idea, but I don't think it would achieve quite what you're aiming for. If both towns survive long enough they'd eventually establish a road between them, and people would mix until you have a 50% split of each family in both towns. Most of the time though either one or both of the towns would die before ever meeting their counterpart.

I don't see how or why I would prefer my Montague family to their Capulet family to such an extent that I decide to do anything that harms the Capulets in order to help my Montagues. We're all players playing the same game.

If a young unrelated girl walks up to me and asks for food I will help her, because she's not a random person - she's another player that was was probably my daughter, mother, grandson, or uncle in one of my past lives. She is not unrelated to me any more than my ingame 'daughter' is.

A town has personality - the layout, the buildings, the roads. The towns are variables that keeps changing over the course of the game - every town that I played in over the past year was its own living thing. That's why we care about towns so much - towns are our creations, birthed from the sweat of our clicks.

The people, on the other hand, have been a constant all along. They just pop in at random. We don't get to shape them, we don't get to affect them. They're their own people with their own existing personalities.. A name doesn't make a person.

In real life you care about your children because you create them from nothing, raise them, and shape their personalities. They become what you make them, and if you don't take care of them they will be gone forever and will be lost forever. Very similar to towns in OHOL.

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#21 2019-04-02 20:58:46

Spockulon
Member
From: Oregon, USA
Registered: 2018-04-17
Posts: 92

Re: A rough, incomplete sketch for makng family survival more meaningful

--Some kind of a actual chromosome-tracking simulation, with cross-breeding between nearby men and women, or whatever (people have been asking for this for ages).  Your pool of potential mothers for future lives includes any that have any of your chromosomes.  This allows chromosome spread into other towns and families through bride- or group-swapping.  Again, this would probably be too fine-grained, and extremely hard for players to reason about.

I don't know that being able reason out the chromosome tracking would be essential in-game for me personally. I can see the advantages of being able to track it while in game, but IRL humans aren't able to do so anyway.

I actually think adding a chromosome system to the game would be interesting and would provide additional societal dynamics. As an example, the family you are born to is your immediate family (just like IRL), but perhaps some of your ancestors migrated or inter-married with another family. Now that inter-married family is your extended family. Maybe they'll help you out in times of need. Maybe one of your ancestors did something heinous and now there is a feud between the families.

I think intermixing families/towns in a meaningful way is missing from the game and I would enjoy that dynamic.


If you've got time to lean, you've got time to clean (the village, that is)!

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#22 2019-04-02 21:17:32

Booklat1
Member
Registered: 2018-07-21
Posts: 1,062

Re: A rough, incomplete sketch for makng family survival more meaningful

players will force themselves into different families, they'll wipe entire lines if needed


I think you should focus on the average player experience, it sucks to have anti-tarr measures every few updates. To me whats hurting ohol as a survival game is how cheap are berries, composting and sheep byproducts. It hurts to have fundamental parts of the techtree with little use (buildings). As a family simulator i feel some lives lack purpose, no one cares about kids in big towns since they can do whatever and there's no pressure to try to ensure continuity of your projects.

I miss struggle, lines fighting over resources and an abundant playerbase to keep many cities alive. Some people will always force a playstyle but most players play close enough to your intentions

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#23 2019-04-02 21:33:00

BlueDiamondAvatar
Member
Registered: 2018-11-19
Posts: 322

Re: A rough, incomplete sketch for makng family survival more meaningful

jasonrohrer wrote:

I guess part of what I'm trying to do here is figure out a way to bring villages closer together without it degenerating into one big "mush" of civilization, or without short-circuiting the idea that a village really will be lost if it dies out.

The fact that a village can get lost does make people care.  And makes people care about the last female child in the village, etc.  "You are our miracle"

What's wrong with a mush of civilization?  That's what happens in real life.  Cultures blend and shade and mush together all the time.  And why do villages have to die?  There are very few places IRL that people have inhabited that haven't eventually been taken over by others.  A place that can sustain life will eventually be discovered by another group and exploited by another group.  It might be immediate, or it might take millennia, but it's going to happen.

jasonrohrer wrote:

Maybe, instead of every existing family on the server being marked as B, and locking you into only one family, instead we simply lock you out of the one nearby family to your family in an area.

Maybe each area has an A and a B family in it, and when you're first born in that area, you are assigned to one.  If you're ever reborn in that area, you will be reborn to that same family.


I get that there are some benefits here... making people care if their family dies, avoiding reincarnating in a rival family and greifing from the inside, etc.

But anything that systematically locks potential players out of a family or town is going to doom that town.  Period.  And it would filter out experienced players more often than the casual players.  We'd need to have two to three times the number of experienced players on the server to make any exclusion mechanic viable.  I don't think if you implement this a month from now it will work well.

At least for now, I think OHOL needs a mechanic that makes people more likely to return to a family.  Not just because that makes people more likely to be attached to the survival of that family, but because it makes the family more likely to survive .   For the macro-dramas you want to enact, we need more families that survive longer than a day.

A lot of the suggestions for whether or not players return to a family are very black and white - you either go back to that family or you don't.  But it doesn't have to be that way.  It can be a percentage.  You have a 50% chance of having a normal random life.  You have a 50% chance of getting back to a family in which you have some connection (genetic, burial plot, whatever). Tweak the percentages based on how things work out.
 
Or increase the chance that someone can return to their pool of prior families based on the number or complexity of their burial grounds, or whatever behavior you want to incentivize.   I mean, it could be anything - more chances to return the more cycles of compost you start, or number of trees you planted, etc.

Last edited by BlueDiamondAvatar (2019-04-02 21:42:58)


--Blue Diamond

I aim to leave behind a world that is easier for people to live in that it was before I got there.

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#24 2019-04-02 21:40:26

Amon
Member
From: Under your bed
Registered: 2019-02-17
Posts: 781

Re: A rough, incomplete sketch for makng family survival more meaningful

I think weather you can return or not should not depend on what your descendants or relatives do, but depend on your own actions.

If you put a lotta love in it? You'll probably keep putting more love into it. Other people are a wildcard and might either garner you an extra /die if you wanna get away from that hellhole.


My favourite all time lives are Unity Dawn, who was married to Sachin Gedeon.
Art!!

PIES 2.0 <- Pie diversification mod

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#25 2019-04-02 21:41:43

jasonrohrer
Administrator
Registered: 2017-02-13
Posts: 4,804

Re: A rough, incomplete sketch for makng family survival more meaningful

The problem with the mush is that it never ends, and stagnates, and there's no dramatic arc there.  There's also no fundamental challenge there.  A game has to be challenging, or it is boring.

When a village dies, that brings an end to that dramatic arc, and it's a grand challenge to forestall that death/end.

If all villages are close together, or people are using sniffed map coordinates, and they can just walk back to it in a few days, the village really didn't die, and the drama that occurred leading up to that death is weakened.  It wasn't real.  There was no real danger of loss.  We can get this village back online any time we want.  No big deal.

I'm trying to fill this game with big deals.  Difficult decisions.  Far-reaching consequences.

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