Latitude

Greenwood · 2019-12-06 11:37:32

Building on previous suggestions, how about this alternative to the family speciality system?

1: The world generation changes to one based upon latitude. An impassible rift would be at the far north and far south while the east and west would remain infinite. In between, the common biomes would spawn everywhere, but exotic biomes would only spawn at specific latitudes. For example, oil would only be available near the poles, whereas mid-game pump materials could only be harvested around the equator.

2: Eve race is determined by the latitude they spawn at rather than a random roll of the dice.

3: Race would provide heavy advantage and disadvantage in certain biomes, but not prevent players from manipulating objects. For example, a brown skinned player might be resistant to mosquito bites and able to more easily regulate their temperature in the jungle, but in the tundra they would lose food very quickly and perhaps be slowed.

4: Eves would spawn closer together, perhaps on the same longitude as each other on the world map, so that civilisations can more easily experience cooperation, competition or even conflict between each other.

The theory behind such an update would be to put the fate of a civilisation back in the hands of players, rather than simply making it a question of which races stumble upon which cities in the infinite expanse. With this change to the game, civilisations would be forced to expand and develop complex supply routes in order to survive. Infrastructure, imagination and the ability to dominate/work with other civilisations would become the definining factors of a civilisation's survival. However, the races would retain some biome speciality, meaning that societies that work with others have an advantage on those that don't.

Advantages:

- Socities would no longer be able to survive in isolation with a multicultural population. No matter the races you have helping you, for a civilisation to survive it must expand, naturally bringing it into contact with other nations. This increases the likelihood of more complex societies developing, trade and war, making for a more varied and interesting experience.
- For low population servers with too few races, survival would still be possible. However, in high population servers, societies that do not work with others or have a multicultural population will be outcompeted by those that do.
- The world would become better defined, encouraging exploration and cartography while creating more immersive and detailed game-worlds.
- There would be more than one way to succeed. An expansionist empire that raids other civilisations and develops a massive transport infrastructure could be just as successful as a peaceful trading nation that cooperates with its neighbours to get the resources it needs. This gives more initiative to the decision makers of families.

Disadvantages:

- Relatively hard to code. Such an update would be a big one.
- Cooperation would be encouraged, but not necessitated, potentially allowing some civilisations to avoid working with other families even in high population servers. Hopefully this could be avoided simply by making the disadvantages imposed on players in exotic biomes they do not specialise in great enough.

Last edited by Greenwood (2019-12-06 11:49:16)

Punkypal · 2019-12-06 15:43:36

I posted an idea pretty much exactly like this on the Reddit OHOL /suggestions thread.

One advantage you missed was the ability to determine roughly how you are positioned to the "equator". If you are seeing lots of jungle, you know you are near the 0 "Y" coordinate. Lots of arctic, you must be north or south. I suggested also that penguin only appear in the south and maybe above a certain latitude the bears spawn as white polar bears. That would be fun I think.

I don't think you'd need a northern/southern rift. Just after a certain point, it's all arctic with no trees.

Also, instead of Eves moving always to the West, they should spawn out on both sides of the center. Furthermore, if an area sees no activity for 7 days and is "reset" That area should be able to spawn a new Eve, even if it's back closer to the center than other Eves have spawned. This would put an effective cap on the maximum amount the player base can get spread out, depending on the amount of people playing.

Spoonwood · 2019-12-06 18:34:58

I don't like it. The every family can do X, but not X as well as family Y which has increased efficiency at doing X, I do like (and suggested something similar elsewhere AFTER identifying the problem of characters being too similar... see the post here where I say "imagine this" https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewt … p?id=8439). But, race should not be the determining factor for special abilities. It should be family, because the problem is that characters are too similar and there's another problem in that's unrealistic that all families know the same thing, or all races know the same things.

Also, there's no need to have these sorts of changes for a server having population less than 15. I mean, currently, whenever a server is low pop, the dropsy is disabled and gingers can get horses and the like.

DestinyCall · 2019-12-06 18:46:03

I like the idea of a latitudes-based map. It would mean that you would only need to search in two possible directions to run into other civilizations and heading north/south would lead you to specialty biomes. And at the same time, it would still give people plenty of space to spread out and build their own towns in an infinite playspace. East/west roads could be built to connect distant villages. Assuming the distance between north/south was fairly wide, you could have villages at various latitudes and the world would still feel big and expansive, while being easier to navigate around and locate other families when you need to trade or coordinate activities.

I think this could help reduce some of the major issues with the family specializations update.

jasonrohrer · 2019-12-06 20:51:39

If finding people by searching in a 5-row grid is too hard, why not just make the grid smaller? Why not a line, with only one row?

If you knew you could walk E or W, and all the villages were along that line, would that help? It would push people farther apart, but at least you'd know where to look.

I suppose there could be a N and S rift line just to reign people in a bit, to narrow the search down.

Twisted · 2019-12-06 22:12:49

The problem IMO is not knowing when you're outside of the Eve belt. What if fault lines outside the Eve belt were a different color or maybe a different shape? That way you'd know if you are inside the belt or in the frontier.

How about a 3 row grid for Eve spawns - that means people are still fairly condensed (if you're an Eve there will be between 5 and 8 other Eves spawning near you), but the Eve spawn location wouldn't move as fast as with a single line.

I don't like the idea of having a Rift line - I like being able to explore the frontier.

DestinyCall · 2019-12-06 22:19:39

Perhaps a special Eve fault line that looks visually distinct. Following that line would lead to other towns and people. Building far away from it would decrease encounters with outsiders.

The nice thing about having a huge desert to the south and a huge artic to the north is that the center area could be pretty thick without letting you get completely lost.

If the Eve band is a single line and I'm born far away from it .. am I north or south of the line? I don't know.

Last edited by DestinyCall (2019-12-06 22:22:39)

Spoonwood · 2019-12-06 23:30:52

jasonrohrer wrote:

If finding people by searching in a 5-row grid is too hard, why not just make the grid smaller? Why not a line, with only one row?
If you knew you could walk E or W, and all the villages were along that line, would that help? It would push people farther apart, but at least you'd know where to look.
I suppose there could be a N and S rift line just to reign people in a bit, to narrow the search down.

Please don't implement any sort of uncrossable rift line for servers 2-15. Some people's connected towns might no longer be connected.

Also, the one-direction concept basically kills off the Tarr monument as accessible content on bs2... at least for people finding it accidently and after things have spread out.

DestinyCall · 2019-12-06 23:44:27

We still have a Tarr monument?

Spoonwood · 2019-12-07 01:40:02

DestinyCall wrote:

We still have a Tarr monument?

I've seen it on a low pop server today. I hunted some wolves today on the road leading up to it that I and a co-player completed last night. If you want to know which one, check your inbox on the discord, and I think you'll figure out which one. I don't think things are coded differently for bs2 (other than bs2 and s1 don't have a protection against wipes). So, I feel sure in saying that it's still there on bs2.

Last edited by Spoonwood (2019-12-07 01:41:02)

jasonrohrer · 2019-12-07 02:37:24

Yes, still there at good old (0,0)

Yeah, there could be an "center line" of some kind.

But currently, you kinda know that if you walk E or W, you're more likely to find civs than N or S.

Punkypal · 2019-12-07 04:47:49

I think we all know that east or south is the way to find others, but hold on.....

The Eve spawn "box" is only a 200 space max from north to south?! Basically only 5 ley lines? Why so few? That's another reason we've been moving way too far west if this is so.

And yea, we can't tell if we are in the Eve zone, so that might explain how I've run down a ley line for most of a life and found nothing. I thought the zig-zag of Eve spawing was about 1000 spaces total. 500 above the zero line and 500 below. It wouldn't feel so spread out if we were in the shape of a box, not a giant pancake.

wondible · 2019-12-07 05:12:43

Punkypal wrote:

And yea, we can't tell if we are in the Eve zone, so that might explain how I've run down a ley line for most of a life and found nothing. I thought the zig-zag of Eve spawing was about 1000 spaces total. 500 above the zero line and 500 below. It wouldn't feel so spread out if we were in the shape of a box, not a giant pancake.

It's more like 1000 below, I think it started at 0,0 and zigged south first. I haven't been playing attention to if the start level resets on server restart or stays based on the 0 line.

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2019-12-06 11:37:32

Latitude

#2 2019-12-06 15:43:36

Re: Latitude

#3 2019-12-06 18:34:58

Re: Latitude

#4 2019-12-06 18:46:03

Re: Latitude

#5 2019-12-06 20:51:39

Re: Latitude

#6 2019-12-06 22:12:49

Re: Latitude

#7 2019-12-06 22:19:39

Re: Latitude

#8 2019-12-06 23:30:52

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#9 2019-12-06 23:44:27

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#10 2019-12-07 01:40:02

Re: Latitude

#11 2019-12-07 02:37:24

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#12 2019-12-07 04:47:49

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