Update: Precious Life

futurebird · 2019-06-09 12:50:26

denriguez wrote:

All a choice screen would do is further cheapen life. When every life can be Eve, Eve has no significance. Every Eve would be just another player with a vanity project, someone refusing to die to themselves, insistent on their preferred play style. It'd be a game of 1000 Eves and no children. Sounds like a blast. ?

Really good observation, denriguez! Thinking about it were there a choice screen I would have the same hang-up with being the child of Eve that I do with being the child of a fake run away Eve's you are being roped into someone's else's vanity project because they want to be Eve and they want to pick you last name. Feels bad, man.

Part of what makes Eve runs work is the sense that you and your family have been thrown in to this difficult situation and you must work together to overcome it. None of you choose for things to be so hard, but they are and you gotta survive.

I'm really glad that Jason didn't make a choice screen for this reason even though I was supportive of it as a possible solution to the /die issue.

But this solution seems much better. It's in line with the game's core concept "one hour one life" I'm excited to see how well it works.

SirCaio · 2019-06-09 13:04:06

InSpace wrote:

I played a life, and it was so different, no /die babies, everyone doing hard work, no skeletons in town, it was great

NO SKELETONS IN TOWN?! Damn that's nice to hear

RodneyC86 · 2019-06-09 13:55:02

SirCaio wrote:

InSpace wrote:
I played a life, and it was so different, no /die babies, everyone doing hard work, no skeletons in town, it was great
NO SKELETONS IN TOWN?! Damn that's nice to hear

It's WAAAAAAAAYYYYY less now, and less clutter actually encourage players to start projects since there's more room for actual work.

Think I only saw one /die happen. And i did not see a single griefer through a full life. This has not happened in a while

*lived a life in Mino family twin town* there was rudimentary trade going on I think between the two towns

jasonrohrer · 2019-06-09 15:47:37

To explain a bit more:

It is not about trying to make players happy, at all. I've done this long enough to know that you definitely can't make all players happy, even if that was your goal, and if you try to make the majority happy, you end up with something bland. I guess you could think about making a game that makes a particular minority REALLY happy, while ignoring the rest. I mean, sheesh, how many people hate Rust or Demon's Souls or Far Cry 2 or... Synecdoche New York or Antichrist or Natural Born Killers?

In fact, that is something that I'm deeply interested in, given the prevalence of Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic: the very very best films are often not the ones with the highest scores, but the ones with 50% scores, where half the critics gave it 100, and the other half gave it a 0. This is more true on Metacritic than RT (because RT only has binary scores). The interesting films are the ones with the highest standard deviation. I even made a script a while back to figure this out:

http://onehouronelife.com/metascoreStdDev.html

The screen-scraping code is old, and each movie is now showing up twice. But there's a BIG difference between Captive State and The Secret Life Of Pets 2. They both have an average score of about 55, but for SLOP2, everyone agrees that it's mediocre, whereas for CS, there's disagreement and more love vs hate.

Here's 2017, with no bugs (it's not screen-scraped live):

http://onehouronelife.com/metascoreMovi … tdDev.html

http://onehouronelife.com/metascoreGames2017StdDev.html

The new Zelda game got a 96...

Looking at the all-time top films:

https://www.metacritic.com/browse/movie … l/filtered

Look at how many Pixar movies are on there. I mean, Pixar is great and all---I guess we can agree on that. But... the movies don't really shake things up too much.

So, if it's not about pleasing people, then what's it about?

It's about making a truly great game. One Hour One Life is close, but not there yet. It has a great and novel concept that captures a lot of people's imagination, but as with a lot of novel concepts, they've never been made before for a reason, because there are loads of fundamental problems with the concept.

Of course, as soon as I say, "You're born to another random player, who is your mother, and you depend on her for your survival," your gears start turning. "Interesting idea, but what about...." And you can instantly imagine a whole heap of problems that could arise. We're still dealing with some of those problems 15 months later.

The truth is that some of the problems may not have solutions. I'll try my best to find solutions, but if the problems can't be solved in the end, they will prevent OHOL from being a truly great game. That happened with The Castle Doctrine. So so close.... and it really is an amazing game in so many ways.... but after 11 months of trying, I never was able to solve a few over-arching issues that held it back. TCD was an almost great game.

But that's simply my way of working: find a totally novel concept that has never been done before, and try to do it. If you look through my catalog, you'll see almost nothing but that, especially in recent years.

Spoonwood · 2019-06-09 17:48:28

jasonrohrer wrote:

It is not about trying to make players happy, at all. I've done this long enough to know that you definitely can't make all players happy, even if that was your goal, and if you try to make the majority happy, you end up with something bland. I guess you could think about making a game that makes a particular minority REALLY happy, while ignoring the rest.

Jason, the players of a game who feel happy with that game do NOT regard such as bland. If they regarded such as bland, then they would feel bored, and wouldn't feel happy with it.

jasonrohrer wrote:

The interesting films are the ones with the highest standard deviation.

That's interesting from the perspective of cultural analysis of the films, but that doesn't make them interesting in some general sense of the word, as most people aren't film critics or historians. Such movies require more analysis than something more consistently popular or unpopular. That's different from something interesting to the paying public.

jasonrohrer wrote:

So, if it's not about pleasing people, then what's it about?
It's about making a truly great game.

A truly great game pleases more people than the vast majority of other games over time. Why? Because all preferences are equally valid, and one person's taste doesn't matter more than another's. So, the number of people satistified comes as the measure of success.

testo · 2019-06-09 18:24:36

Testo applauds. Better game experience overall.

testo · 2019-06-09 18:35:54

After reading a lot of complains and troubles I must say that I would rather change the output to a system where you are sent to donkey town instead of a server denial when you have 0 tokens. That way nobody can complain about a server lifetime account being changed.

Grim_Arbiter · 2019-06-09 19:06:04

testo wrote:

After reading a lot of complains and troubles I must say that I would rather change the output to a system where you are sent to donkey town instead of a server denial when you have 0 tokens. That way nobody can complain about a server lifetime account being changed.

+1

I agree with this pretty strongly

Last edited by Grim_Arbiter (2019-06-09 19:08:07)

Spoonwood · 2019-06-09 19:20:23

testo wrote:

After reading a lot of complains and troubles I must say that I would rather change the output to a system where you are sent to donkey town instead of a server denial when you have 0 tokens. That way nobody can complain about a server lifetime account being changed.

I wouldn't say that's all that great of a solution, but it's better than being locked out of the system.

Additionally, even in Donkey Town, one could practice playing the Eve game (at least as I understand things, children do exist in DonkeyTown).

Amon · 2019-06-09 20:13:48

Spoonwood wrote:

(at least as I understand things, children do exist in DonkeyTown).

Wherever these players get sent, they should not have children, why? Because then it's no different at all, and people might intentionally burn through their lives simply to get there and do tiny civilisations, something they were locked out by burning through their lives so casually.

Last edited by Amon (2019-06-09 20:14:19)

DestinyCall · 2019-06-09 21:32:39

Amon wrote:

Spoonwood wrote:
(at least as I understand things, children do exist in DonkeyTown).
Wherever these players get sent, they should not have children, why? Because then it's no different at all, and people might intentionally burn through their lives simply to get there and do tiny civilisations, something they were locked out by burning through their lives so casually.

I don't think there should be an official way to keep playing once your lives are gone. That defeats the whole purpose of having a limited number of lives.

However, I assume that the lives are only tracked on the official servers. If you want to keep playing after all lives are gone, just join one of the many custom servers or host your own private server to play for an hour.

Amon · 2019-06-09 23:06:56

Considering I was absent from the in-game for so long, actually returning to it, in this current state as it is.
The game is really wonderful.

Hstrike · 2019-06-10 01:39:45

Great fix, Jason.
However, wanted to highlight that some players experience life token losses during disconnects:

https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=6896

You may want to look into that. Fantastic work anyway. Your thoughts on cartography, since it was proposed several times on the suggestion subreddit?

Last edited by Hstrike (2019-06-10 01:40:18)

happynova · 2019-06-10 02:21:59

jasonrohrer wrote:

But that's simply my way of working: find a totally novel concept that has never been done before, and try to do it. If you look through my catalog, you'll see almost nothing but that, especially in recent years.

I just wanted to say that I appreciate the hell out of this. I really do. And I say that even as someone who felt negative enough about one of your attempts at figuring out how to do this -- the fence update -- that I felt it was a good idea to back away from the forums for a while lest I, well, risk turning into Spoonwood. I may not agree with every attempt to improve things or every philosophy behind those attempts but I love that you keep trying to make the best game you feel like you can make, no matter what anybody says.

I also feel like this update is a great solution to the /die issue, even if you're never going to make everyone happy about it. (And, if I'm honest, I have to admit that I really don't care much whether the people who were /die-ing on me every ten seconds are happy or not, anyway. They were making the game kind of suck for the rest of us, you know? So let 'em complain.)

While, I'm at it, I'll add that I was deeply impressed by the implementation of the language thing, and while I have some reservations about the swords, I have to admit that the game has become interesting in recent weeks in ways that it hadn't been for me in a while. Also more frustrating, at times. But interesting. And that is important.

jasonrohrer · 2019-06-10 17:30:14

FYI, there have been 1531 people who have played since the update went live.

1196 of them still are working through their initial 24 lives and still haven't reached 12 yet.

46 people currently have 0 lives left. Though server-side, the lives don't recharge until they try to spend them (so if they ran out at midnight yesterday, they have 10 lives that will be added when they try to join again).

But anyway, 46 people, at least, have hit 0 at some point.

jasonrohrer · 2019-06-10 17:30:37

Also, Donkey Town may be removed this week, but I need to think about it.

FYI, one of the game's biggest all-time griefers currently has 0 lives.

Amon · 2019-06-10 17:39:50

That's cool! Figures griefers would run through their lives sooner. Any time they grief they will likely be killed prematurely. They might try to grief often and sooner than later...well it adds up.

denriguez · 2019-06-10 19:36:29

jasonrohrer wrote:

FYI, one of the game's biggest all-time griefers currently has 0 lives.

Hell yeah! I hadn't thought of this. Dispatching a griefer has so much more significance now that *their* lives aren't cheap, either!

voy178 · 2019-06-11 10:17:37

jasonrohrer wrote:

Also, Donkey Town may be removed this week, but I need to think about it.
FYI, one of the game's biggest all-time griefers currently has 0 lives.

I thought you liked griefers? Did you not say it's a job? Drama? Why nerf it if you want it?

RodneyC86 · 2019-06-11 13:12:40

voy178 wrote:

jasonrohrer wrote:
Also, Donkey Town may be removed this week, but I need to think about it.
FYI, one of the game's biggest all-time griefers currently has 0 lives.
I thought you liked griefers? Did you not say it's a job? Drama? Why nerf it if you want it?

It's not a job, it's a side effect. I'll say it again, griefing will happen regardless of making it official , and no amount of countermeasures will remove it, they will find a way to grief.

We don't need an endorsement to grief. I only hope Jason has seen the light.

Guppy · 2019-06-11 13:47:25

jasonrohrer wrote:

Also, Donkey Town may be removed this week, but I need to think about it.
FYI, one of the game's biggest all-time griefers currently has 0 lives.

You should keep the inverted speech bubbles though. Allows griefers to be sorted out quick

jasonrohrer · 2019-06-11 19:03:00

I'm going to hold off on removing DT just yet.

I do still believe that at least a few people causing trouble now and again is an important ingredient for an interesting and varied and well-rounded game. It gives you something to come together over---a shared challenge that is different every time (whereas the shared challenges provided by non-human elements in the game are more the same every time).

That said, I'm certain that part of the game doesn't feel quite right yet, which is (I believe) the actual reason why people complain about it and wish it could be removed (even though it is impossible to remove). The dancing griefer is a perfect example of this. I will continue to work on this in the future, bolstering safety in numbers, enabling real detective and police work, etc.

I mean, a game about peaceful village life that everyone once in a while turns into a compelling murder mystery.... if the game actually worked that way, it would be splendid indeed.

Amon · 2019-06-12 00:06:20

Yeah that would be interesting, but it would need to be a rare occurance. If you get murdered once in a while you brush it off. If you get murdered extremely frequently...well.
People don't grow thicker skin with their patience. This should be apparent by now with how people progressively reacted worse and worse.
People will just get tired more frequently and quicker and anti griefer rants will be more common and common.

I think the focus should be to minimasing lethal griefing, and including other means like nonlethal combat.
Imagine if that girl that threathned to kill me over me marrying the boy she loved, would have initiated a slappy fight with me whenever we saw eachother?

Lily · 2019-06-12 05:55:33

The one concern I have with this, is that it is fairly normal to die a bunch of times in a row through no fault of your own. Often times you start playing and die a few times to bad parents before you have a good start. I do think the number is high enough that it isn't going to be an issue for most people, though I could see a newbie who plays a lot possibly reaching it.

ProNice · 2019-06-12 07:39:03

I feel very content with the change. Feels like I would have to seriously try to hit zero lives.

One Hour One Life Forums

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Re: Update: Precious Life

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