Preventing the collapse of civilization -- Jonathan Blow

lychee · 2019-05-22 06:11:05

Spoonwood wrote:

jasonrohrer wrote:
One thing that was suggested a long time ago was a procedurally generated tech tree. It would be an insane undertaking....
But anyway, the general idea for a game about actually learning stuff in each life would be something like, "You're on an alien planet with totally different rules. On this planet, a bleep plus a blorp makes a blat."
Then after civ dies out there, it's reborn on a different planet with different rules, where bleep + blorp does not make a blat.
The tech tree would only be known by the server, and it would be up to the players to discover it through experimentation and pass the knowledge on to future generations.

I believe that with a non-proc-gen tech tree, any artificial limits on the tech tree ("you don't know baking") would be frustrating. I mean, you KNOW how to bake, dammit, but the game just won't let you do it. Maybe I'm wrong about that.... I mean, there are RPGs and all kinds of other games where you learn skills over time (even if you've played the game before...). And Rust had blueprints, at least for a while. But I've always been pretty frustrated by those mechanics myself. Combining bluprint "points" at a "research table" never really felt like inventing stuff to me. Nor did leveling up skill points in an RPG.
I would find such frustrating. I already find it frustrating enough when I can't do certain things, such as pick up stone block for a belltower (alright... that was before the recent can't curse outsiders and everyone is close now system... but still can't pick up a boiler until mature), because of age.

Haha I didn't realize that people felt that way. XD

Personally, I would love to see something like a procedural-ish tech tree. OHOL always appealed to me because of the "parenting" and "teaching" aspects, so in this sense I really love anything that emphasizes the bond between a parent and their child. I always felt it was kind of silly that a 5-year-old baby can run off and start smithing immediately (and to be fair, I'm one of those kids...). I feel like there's some untapped potential in terms of how currently in OHOL, the extent of a mom-child interaction is really just dressing them and asking if they're new. I feel like it would be nice if there was something a little bit more on top of this.

Childhood, to me, is a time of rapid learning -- so I've been wondering about the possibilities of what kinds of vertical transmission could be better incorporated into the game. Languages have that kind of vertical transmission -- and I'd love to see a lot more of that kind of thing!

Regarding a limited non-proc-tech-tree, what if:

- There was a success rate associated with each action.
- If your "experience points" (heritable) are lower, there's an increased chance of failure.
- Higher-tier/complicated recipes have increased chance of failure.
- For instance, picking gooseberries is super easy/intuitive, so there's a virtual 0% chance of failure.
- For instance, you maybe you try to bake pies, but you have a chance to burn them.
- Children absorb "experience points" in activities simply just by watching. Therefore, by standing in a bakery during childhood, they're naturally absorb experience points watching people bake.
- Children absorb "experience points" from their mother (or anybody carrying) as she holds and *talks* to them.

You could also start Eve's with excellent foraging/wildlife skills:

- For instance, very good at starting fires from scratch
- For instance, good at snaring rabbits
- For instance, cooking over coals (as opposed to a stove)

And in the mean time, you can apply a skill decay if a person doesn't use skills. Over many generations in a modern future, people might lose the ability to start fires easily (e.g. many failed tries before they succeed), or they might lose talent with a bow if society starts to use guns.

The tradeoff would be for enriched "experience points" in advanced topics like engineering, smithing, etc. An eve might be "bad" at these topics (e.g. higher failure rate, kind of like the oil drill failure rate), although a modern factory worker would probably be conversely bad at shooting a bear. The heritability of skills, particularly from your mother (whoever carries you), encourages the type of play where kids would have a strong incentive to socialize and bond with the adult they want to "apprentice" with (meanwhile your mom likely wants you to inherit the family business and family legacy"). Also this would give a reason for old grannies to pick up kids and just talk about anything, as the skills get transferred at a certain rate by osmosis.

I think it would make a much more colorful society too. When you need a hoe, you're more likely to go looking for the best smith in town to ask them to make it for you, because perhaps you don't want to risk the 25% chance that you screw up doing it yourself (wasting materials). I think this reflects reality too -- in theory we could do maintenance on our own cars at home in our garages (especially if you're good at it), but I take mine to the bodyshop because I trust the pros to do a better job than I can. And obviously I don't want to break my car.

But then again -- this is solely what I would find interesting for a game like OHOL -- idk if others feel the same way as me.

Last edited by lychee (2019-05-22 06:31:33)

wio · 2019-05-22 11:39:59

jasonrohrer wrote:

One thing that was suggested a long time ago was a procedurally generated tech tree. It would be an insane undertaking....
But anyway, the general idea for a game about actually learning stuff in each life would be something like, "You're on an alien planet with totally different rules. On this planet, a bleep plus a blorp makes a blat."
Then after civ dies out there, it's reborn on a different planet with different rules, where bleep + blorp does not make a blat.
The tech tree would only be known by the server, and it would be up to the players to discover it through experimentation and pass the knowledge on to future generations.

I believe that with a non-proc-gen tech tree, any artificial limits on the tech tree ("you don't know baking") would be frustrating. I mean, you KNOW how to bake, dammit, but the game just won't let you do it. Maybe I'm wrong about that.... I mean, there are RPGs and all kinds of other games where you learn skills over time (even if you've played the game before...). And Rust had blueprints, at least for a while. But I've always been pretty frustrated by those mechanics myself. Combining bluprint "points" at a "research table" never really felt like inventing stuff to me. Nor did leveling up skill points in an RPG.

What is the core of what we want here? Imagine only the objects had their appearance procedurally generated but transitions remained the same. Would that be very good? In such a case you would need to learn what each object is. Mothers would probably game this by having one of every item in the center and just go through saying what they are. There would always be some meta to game the system.

More importantly, if everything is alien then I predict the game would lose its impact, because part of its meaning comes from the fact that we know what we're doing. By that I mean, we know what farming is, but if farming become sufficiently alien... then would there really be satisfaction from it? We wouldn't see it as farming so much as the thing that produces the thing that we consume to raise our pips. It makes it more obvious to us how meaningless the game truly is when it's not anchored to something we're familiar with outside of the game.

I think that artificial limits would be just fine. Why does it matter that you know it on a meta level if you've done nothing to earn the ability to do it in the game. A lot of us know the high level method of doing something, but we can't do it in reality because we've not actually practiced it. Even if I know where every key is on the keyboard, it doesn't mean I can type 100 WPM. Given the simple control interface of OHOL, complexity of execution and skill has to be implemented artificially by mechanics. The real question is, how do we go from being unable to perform a transition to being able to do so? Whatever that system is, it will be the learning mechanic in the game.

Actually, before the "how to become able" question, we should ask what it means to be unable to perform a transition. This could be done multiple ways, but I'll provide two that come to mind. The first is for the game to act as if the transition doesn't exist when the player attempts it, which is implemented by giving keeping track of what transitions a player can perform. The second is for there the be a failure transition, where they get an undesirable or less desirable result. This would take more effort to introduce failure transitions, and it would still need to keep track of the players proficiency.

The next question becomes how does one obtain a transition? A lot of transitions are just going to come free, so we really only need the key transitions or skills to be locked. There needs to be a process of discovery that is sufficiently hard so as to encourage people learn through teaching. This self discovery could be as simple as only a small percentage are born with the ability innately and they must teach it others. It could also be that one much do other transitions enough times to unlock the desired transition. If you implement a failure transition, then it could be done by having the player attempting the transition, wasting resources in the process via the failure transition, until they unlock the success transition (or maybe there is always a failure probability that goes decreases with each failure).

Finally, how would teaching work? I think the simple answer is just that you must be near a capable player and watch them do it a certain number of times. Then you have a window in which you yourself must do it. If you fail to repeat the action then you fail to learn it permanently. I suppose there could be a skill degradation system such that if you don't use it you lose it in the long term as well, but I think this almost certainly need to exist for the initial learning process.

I'm really hoping I get some sort of reply to this mess I've typed out, because lately it seems like whenever I put effort into posts like this they get ignored.

Last edited by wio (2019-05-22 11:51:00)

Wuatduhf · 2019-05-22 12:48:40

jasonrohrer (abridged) wrote:

One thing that was suggested a long time ago was a procedurally generated tech tree. It would be an insane undertaking....
But anyway, the general idea for a game about actually learning stuff in each life would be something like, "You're on an alien planet with totally different rules. On this planet, a bleep plus a blorp makes a blat."
Then after civ dies out there, it's reborn on a different planet with different rules, where bleep + blorp does not make a blat.
The tech tree would only be known by the server, and it would be up to the players to discover it through experimentation and pass the knowledge on to future generations.

I believe that with a non-proc-gen tech tree, any artificial limits on the tech tree ("you don't know baking") would be frustrating. I mean, you KNOW how to bake, dammit, but the game just won't let you do it. Maybe I'm wrong about that.... I mean, there are RPGs and all kinds of other games where you learn skills over time (even if you've played the game before...). And Rust had blueprints, at least for a while. But I've always been pretty frustrated by those mechanics myself. Combining bluprint "points" at a "research table" never really felt like inventing stuff to me. Nor did leveling up skill points in an RPG.

wio (also abridged) wrote:

What is the core of what we want here? Imagine only the objects had their appearance procedurally generated but transitions remained the same. Would that be very good? In such a case you would need to learn what each object is. Mothers would probably game this by having one of every item in the center and just go through saying what they are. There would always be some meta to game the system.
... [talking about bad interactions of 'alien' tech trees] ...
... [okay w/ artificial limits, but not sure how to implement w/o creating a meta] ...
Actually, before the "how to become able" question, we should ask what it means to be unable to perform a transition. This could be done multiple ways, but I'll provide two that come to mind. The first is for the game to act as if the transition doesn't exist when the player attempts it, which is implemented by giving keeping track of what transitions a player can perform. The second is for there the be a failure transition, where they get get a garbage result. This would take more effort to introduce failure transitions, and it would still need to keep track of the players proficiency.
The next question becomes how does one obtain a transition? A lot of transitions are just going to come free, so we really only need the key transitions or skills to be locked. There needs to be a process of discovery that is sufficiently hard so as to encourage people learn through teaching. This self discovery could be as simple as only a small percentage are born with the ability innately and they must teach it others. It could also be that one much do other transitions enough times to unlock the desired transition. If you implement a failure transition, then it could be done by having the player perform the failure transition, wasting resources in the process, until you unlock the success transition (or maybe there is always a success probability that goes up with each execution).
... [discussion on how this mechanic would be taught to others] ...
I'm really hoping I get some sort of reply to this mess I've typed out, because lately it seems like whenever I put effort into posts like this they get ignored.

To condense everything down from what Jason said, and what Wio said, this is what I think on the subject:

It is impossible to avoid the 'meta' picking up on how these specialized technologies would work.
OHOL's tech tree is fine as it is. Procedurally generating a new one is only going to add information overload similar to how languages are painful to attempt to decode when there are hundreds of variations that you're constantly having to re-learn every hour.
The only logical way to add specialized technology without it being easily meta'd is by not removing existing tech, but adding new, advanced versions of what we already have.
- Special tech has a 'random % chance' every time you successfully interact w/ a structure. It would mirror accidental discovery.
- Every time a player successfully interacts w/ a Kiln, Newcomen, Iron Vein, etc., they could have a 0.001% (1 out of 100,000) chance to learn the superior version of the technology they were interacting with. (A lightbulb w/ sound effect could appear above their head the moment that happens)
- When that happens, that specific player has unlocked the specialized technology, infrastructure, etc. They have until Old Age (or other means of death) to try and build the superior version of that tech. Ideally, they would be upgrading the tech structure the village currently has. (upgrading the forge, upgrading the Newcomen, etc.)
The special technology would be attached to the individual to build, but is not restricted on use. No one else "learns" how it was built, per se, but they are able to interact with the advanced technology and use it for as long as the technology survives.
The technology survives until all family lineages that were aware of it die off. The technology can be known to multiple family lineages, as long as they are in its presence when it is being used.
- Once all lineages have died, the upgraded tech decays until either the normal version or a "dillapidated" version of itself, no longer able to be used or removed.

This is my take-away from the video linked at the start.

In my opinion, this is the most fair and playerbase-friendly method of implementing specialized technology that can vary from village to village. Everyone keeps their current tech tree, BUT everyone also has the chance to 'discover' a much better version of certain parts of the tech tree. As a result, they are passing that infrastructure on to their civilization, and any other family lineages that are able to travel to their town/village to see its use.

Since we have Property Gate Fences, the system could borrow the coding from that. Everyone in the lineage and any other families that see the 'special tech' become pseudo-owners, and keep the thing alive for as long as their lineages don't die. Once all lineages associated with the technology die, that's when it can 'crumble' and its knowledge is once again lost to the server.

lychee · 2019-05-22 14:00:09

I think wio sold me on why a procedural tech tree my suck. XD

That said, I still like some idea of the limited tech tree. Mio and whatduhf both discussed methods of potential implementation (I personally favor the probability failure transitions, with vertical generational learning by osmosis). I think it would be especially cool if the tech tree was more parallel with lots of redundant technologies. For instance, the fire plow, hand drill, bow drill, fire saw, etc. are all different methods of starting fires. A proc tech tree could be approximated (without really being procedural), by giving an eve a random set of equivalent skills that they’re talented at. One eve might be a pro at a fire plough, and another might be awesome at the hand drill.

Of course, even if you’re not talented at something (and have zero experience in a subject), clearly you can attempt to craft it. However the failure rate would be high, and you could learn from your mistakes with an improving rate over time. Perhaps you could gain some amount of passive experience by practicing on similar subjects. The balance of this is nuanced and has a lot of potential — how much knowledge should be “heritable” and “taught” versus personally experienced through trial and error?

Finally, there’s the UI.

Would there be a similar “YUM” and “MEH” box when people are crafting now? To represent how confident they are they’ll succeed?

On a side note, I think think it would be nice if the tab recipe section autofocused according to mouseover. When a person holds a sharp rock and they mouseover long straight shaft, I think it would be a huge QOL improvement if the recipe section auto filtered for that recipe to show it would make a short shaft.

futurebird · 2019-05-22 14:07:34

One way to force a choice in the tech tree is to use a mechanic like the springs. You need to build your factory on a spring, or on some other rare spaced out source block so it just isn't possible for every town to have every kind of mass production. You have to choose if you want to mass produce pies or wool or steel tools.

Once you get a factory going you'll have a glut of whatever you choose to produce. Since different towns will choose to produce different things you'll have trade.

Amon · 2019-05-22 14:37:53

It seems like those things might be frustrating, however if tools went up and made the old ones obsolete or changed the old tool in a line of growing bigger nad better, it might be more difficult to stop and rewind back and having to reinvent everything again than keep going ahead and hope something doesen't ruin the fragile state of being.

Spoonwood · 2019-05-22 15:50:25

RodneyC86 wrote:

You know what Newton said. Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.

That quote doesn't appear to have come from Newton, but rather appears to have come from Thomas Edison.

Guppy · 2019-05-22 16:02:02

futurebird wrote:

One way to force a choice in the tech tree is to use a mechanic like the springs. You need to build your factory on a spring, or on some other rare spaced out source block so it just isn't possible for every town to have every kind of mass production.

Since rivers have been suggested alot of times, it would fit to make it linked to them, maybe only a few tiles of rivers would be suitable (strong enough current for example?)
Just how it did work in the real world before the invention of big steam engines

RodneyC86 · 2019-05-22 16:43:46

Spoonwood wrote:

RodneyC86 wrote:
You know what Newton said. Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.
That quote doesn't appear to have come from Newton, but rather appears to have come from Thomas Edison.

Oooof you are right

Sukallinen · 2019-05-24 20:37:13

jasonrohrer wrote:

I hope you all see how relevant that talk is to what OHOL is about---the transmission of knowledge across generations. I'm also working on a very complicated software project currently.
Anyone who underestimates Jonathan Blow's intelligence or capabilities is just.... sheesh...

o/ that'd be me, most bad words afaik.

(Next post about OHOL this one about the talk)
Disclaimer: my post had nothing to do with OHOL (oh it might since low population count in bigserver2 even).

I think I questioned his ability to convey a point. He MAY be good at his special field, but speech and his "this is everyone's problem" -nope.

Now, I've had some (few tbh) disucssions about programmers in usa universities (in, also one in our country irl), I understand the dude may have a point - that people don't know what's "under the hood" - in our small country we make people first learn the basics THEN tell how to program in higher-tier like Cpp, Java, Fortran (yes still used in math stuff a lot).

But you know what-we have professional schools (that's not college/university) that do basic teaching for that kind of high-level language teaching.
So I can see how non-college ppl can fast be taught to do non-critical parts of project (also, again, depending on expected life-cycle). But no college should (again, IMO) teach "programmers" that have no clue how hardware down there works.
I.e. how to optimize for constants, saving states, moving stuff either to other parts inside processor, which bridges are faster and need to be (almost)forced to be used. Those things can be done by higher educated/specialized people.

The project-managers (M.Sc) do choose who does what and such, so no major problem.

But critical stuff should always be coded by people who know what they do, not someone who starts programming with c++, doesn't have a clue how fast is push/pop from each processors internal storages not to mention calculations done inside processor(s).

Edit: I'll reduce my bet for Trump not to be elected to 2k€, but I still hope they build the wall. Around whole of USA, not just some borders Just kidding, thing I've wanted to say... But one wall, why not all. Some towns do it in ohol atm

Last edited by Sukallinen (2019-05-24 21:10:35)

Sukallinen · 2019-05-24 21:07:40

Procedural tech-tree:

I see no harm (as long as apocalypses of tech-tree would happen in low enough timerate you'd still be interested in the game) in making parts of tech-tree procedurally generated.

So, farming mostly same (maybe number of hits on smithing hammer two to change or such this time, next time maybe make two at a time, double or half coal...) no harm. I don't know time-period but it would be very frustrating if it were per Eve (not to mention making eternal machines with two lineage eves creating stuff from nothing). Or per two months. For low-ping it'd hurt some things, like mentioned two-stroke-smithing hammer.

Since major changes seem to be happening very fast (see how long Tarr, respected player, had to kill people in order to be noticed after he said sword is unbalanced), I'd suggest IF this will be implemented start it by helping rather than slowing down. Not every item should be included, and things could converge at some point, like newcomen.

If you want some family to matter, and people not kill feral eves (every one is dangerous, even with sword nerf) make it so each eve has undiscovered family trait (mentioned make sometimes two items instead of one when making one item)...

Btw I've played a lot of hours, and not one eve, what's up with that ? Is it b/c I never /die and get areaban ? Or kill very rarely. (following not important) : Today I killed one, I saw her (my daughter) pick every carrot (had seeds hidden so np) when I told not, cut and spread all wheat, when I told I have several soil I made left, please farm wheat here she went on to shear all sheep.
So I stabbed her. That's how patient I am. I offered teaching earlier too.

Last edited by Sukallinen (2019-05-24 21:13:45)

futurebird · 2019-05-24 21:11:03

Sukallinen wrote:

Btw I've played a lot of hours, and not one eve, what's up with that ? Is it b/c I never /die and get areaban ? Or kill very rarely. (following not important) : Today I killed one, I saw her (my daughter) pick every carrot (had seeds hidden so np) when I told not, cut and spread all wheat, when I told I have several soil I made left, please farm wheat here she went on to shear all sheep.
So I stabbed her. That's how patient I am. I offered teaching earlier too.

The first person I killed was also for picking all the carrots after being told not to. I almost lost it with my daughter today who was putting traps on non-family rabbit holes even though I showed here which rabbits to get as a child. But, I decided to let it go. It seemed like she just didn't know any better.

Anyway I agree with most of your points about the video.

One Hour One Life Forums

#26 2019-05-22 06:11:05

Re: Preventing the collapse of civilization -- Jonathan Blow

#27 2019-05-22 11:39:59

Re: Preventing the collapse of civilization -- Jonathan Blow

#28 2019-05-22 12:48:40

Re: Preventing the collapse of civilization -- Jonathan Blow

#29 2019-05-22 14:00:09

Re: Preventing the collapse of civilization -- Jonathan Blow

#30 2019-05-22 14:07:34

Re: Preventing the collapse of civilization -- Jonathan Blow

#31 2019-05-22 14:37:53

Re: Preventing the collapse of civilization -- Jonathan Blow

#32 2019-05-22 15:50:25

Re: Preventing the collapse of civilization -- Jonathan Blow

#33 2019-05-22 16:02:02

Re: Preventing the collapse of civilization -- Jonathan Blow

#34 2019-05-22 16:43:46

Re: Preventing the collapse of civilization -- Jonathan Blow

#35 2019-05-24 20:37:13

Re: Preventing the collapse of civilization -- Jonathan Blow

#36 2019-05-24 21:07:40

Re: Preventing the collapse of civilization -- Jonathan Blow

#37 2019-05-24 21:11:03

Re: Preventing the collapse of civilization -- Jonathan Blow

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