Ups and Downs of Living Together

[Junkfist2]

This is a crafting game. It is not a social game in its current stage. Not really.

Every project beyond village creation is done by and for the individual. Even in villages most persons spread out to have their own large claims by a forest, make their own mines, plant their own crops, and so on.

Then they wonder why when their hermit-home is robbed they have no recourse or protection.

I, for example, live an entirely peaceful existence. I make cheese and grind sausages and all that jazz and do so without any nailbiting concern that looters are coming after me. That's because I live within a community of in-game sociopaths who are practically itching for someone to start trouble so they can follow them home and slit their throats while they sleep. If kobnach could swallow his pride and try to do something like ask Pumpkin to live in the southeast and pay him tribute he'd have a murderous lunatic on a hair-trigger able to sort out any thievery problems. This is kind of how things work in medieval times with warlords and what have you.

But he's kobnach so *sigh*.

Point being it is possible to pursue a peaceful livelihood, but as a part of a community. Maybe if there were more improvements to the social aspect of the game with group actions and group projects (combolifting incredibly heavy things, crafting or resource gathering that requires multiple persons working in tandem) or improvements to village management and general in-game communication and UI most other peaceful crafters would group together in settlements more often.

As it is the only people who group together are the people get the benefit, and the people that see the benefit are PVPers. Crafters don't see the benefit because they don't look for it or process it. They're too busy looking for the most resources they can have for themselves.

Honestly, if the next map has procedural generation I predict most people will live ENTIRELY isolated lives and continually disperse further and further into the wilderness, though maybe item quality and credos and such will avert that as then members in a community will have more roles. I have no idea.

[jorb]

I, for example, live an entirely peaceful existence. I make cheese and grind sausages and all that jazz and do so without any nailbiting concern that looters are coming after me. That's because I live within a community of in-game sociopaths who are practically itching for someone to start trouble so they can follow them home and slit their throats while they sleep. If kobnach could swallow his pride and try to do something like ask Pumpkin to live in the southeast and pay him tribute he'd have a murderous lunatic on a hair-trigger able to sort out any thievery problems. This is kind of how things work in medieval times with warlords and what have you.

I haven't really had the heart to say this myself so I'll quote it for truth instead. Kobnach, Junkfist has a very good point here. Civilization has, IRL, always rested on the principle of, per George Orwell's words: People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

[Colbear]

If you don't like how the game is played, why do you continue to play it?

Because it's not a done deal yet, in spite of claims by various prolific posters.

You might not have realized this but a LOT of goons are carebears. Hell, I play carebear too -- though I have the stats, and I'll use force to protect my lands and kill thieves who steal from me or people I live with. We have dozens of players in-game, living with us, around us, or even in their own settlements under our protection. They're not 100% safe, of course, but they're basically as safe as we can make them, barring accidents.

Have you tried making friends? And asking them to help you out and guard your stuff if necessary? Because I promise you, it works pretty well, and more accurately simulates RL-type conflicts between people, and makes for a compelling experience. You're basically saying "PvP is no fun", which is a valid argument, sure. But... PvP and permadeath are fundamental features of this game, giving it a very different feel than if this were just "Harvest Moon Online".

You have to deliberately find ways to protect yourself, acquire resources, make friends, etc, etc. I do it just fine (Goonheim protects me and I mooch any resources I don't have from the Gooncastle shared stocks and I hang out on IRC to talk to people). Goons do it just fine (they let Goons know they're playing the game, and if anything bad happens to them, they get on IRC or otherwise contact us and we'll beat the shit out of whoever fucked with them, regardless of where they live). Bottleneck does it just fine (they join Bottleneck and presumably chat with other B12ers and stuff).

Honestly, I think you're the only one who seems to have so much trouble with "*sigh* everyone is griefing me" and "*sigh* it's so hard to single-handedly manage a town that's obviously too big for me to deal with" and "*sigh* goons are ruining this game but it had potential."

I can see where you're coming from, to some extent. If I had no friends and no one to play with or talk to and was completely alone in this game and no one was nice to me, I'd probably stop playing too. The difference, though, between you and me is that instead of whining and crying and asking the devs to make the game easier for me to play as a single-player game (hint: MMO is not for solo play), I joined a group of people to stop myself from being lonely, unprotected, and bored.

[kobnach]

I, for example, live an entirely peaceful existence. I make cheese and grind sausages and all that jazz and do so without any nailbiting concern that looters are coming after me. That's because I live within a community of in-game sociopaths who are practically itching for someone to start trouble so they can follow them home and slit their throats while they sleep. If kobnach could swallow his pride and try to do something like ask Pumpkin to live in the southeast and pay him tribute he'd have a murderous lunatic on a hair-trigger able to sort out any thievery problems. This is kind of how things work in medieval times with warlords and what have you.

I haven't really had the heart to say this myself so I'll quote it for truth instead. Kobnach, Junkfist has a very good point here. Civilization has, IRL, always rested on the principle of, per George Orwell's words: People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

With regard to the specifics of my playing style - well, people have drawn a hell of a lot of conclusions from my posted messages, and most of those conclusions have been false. I am to some extent promoting the viewpoint of the friend who got me into this game, who has stopped playing due to serious distaste for conflict. He had hoped, by starting early, to build up a strong enough character that people would leave him alone - or alternatively he'd be able to trivially crush any fool who chose not to do so - kind of like a super-Raephire, but without the history of attacking others, and thus without a Rift coming after him.

He had a whole lot of fun setting up his farm, encouraging his neighbours, assisting newbies, building shrines to the developers, mazes, and other monuments. He even got rather addicted to the game, playing several hours a day, every day. But there were always griefers trashing things for the hell of it, and even when defensive measures came out, they tended to have work arounds - some intentional, some not. They also invalidated past efforts, making e.g. one's previous homestead layout impractical. I did not like this - I'd much rather be let alone - but am rather more of a gamer and less of a builder, so I could cope - even though I've gone through phases of not being inclined to bother playing.My friend started turning up only when someone specifically requested him to log on to assist them. He had hopes for the map reset - his plan was to go as deep into Mordor as he could get, with what friends he could get to go with him - and then hopefully never have contact with other players again - not because he dislikes most people, but because it seemed to him that the only way to stay ungriefed was to completely cut contact with others. Various decisions about the map reset have made that completely impractical.

As for murderous lunatics on a hair trigger - I cultivated some. Rather unsurprisingly, they wound up dead. Others - less lunatic, but combat capable - simply stopped playing. I still do have highly combat capable friends - but there doesn't seem to be much deterrent value unless you live with them. (And even then, look at the experience of the guy who lived with Raephire, after Rift killed Raephire.) Hell, I'm not that combat incapable myself - but the clue mechanism provides a strong deterrent for doing anything about troublemakers unless you are strong enough to be near invulnerable.

The problem for me is that I don't much like the lifestyles on offer in H&H. They are all compromises - the lifestyles I'd prefer seem to be intended to be impossible - assuming forced specialization is on the developers' agenda. I'm not part of some community [of near strangers?] who are loyal to each other because they are all members of some forum or other. And hanging out with friends/allies I don't know, who aren't especially reliable - they might help if they are logged on and non-busy - rather fails to appeal. It's worse if I either have no personal space - or am personally responsible for the defences of that space, as with the Bottleneck model. But those seems to be the current choices for communal living.

[Colbear]

Get better friends.

[Jackard]

or stop posting

[sabinati]

Point being it is possible to pursue a peaceful livelihood, but as a part of a community. Maybe if there were more improvements to the social aspect of the game with group actions and group projects (combolifting incredibly heavy things, crafting or resource gathering that requires multiple persons working in tandem) or improvements to village management and general in-game communication and UI most other peaceful crafters would group together in settlements more often.

while there aren't really any things that require group effort, just about every activity is improved or made easier with a group. get 2 or 3 people plowing a huge field and it goes pretty fucking fast. get two or three people in a hunting party, you end up with more meat. several people can build an object (cabins and mines are especially helped by more people working on them). and then of course there's the interdependency of nature/industry players.

it would be great to add a few things like village chat, group projects, etc though

[loftar]

the lifestyles I'd prefer seem to be intended to be impossible - assuming forced specialization is on the developers' agenda.

Luckily for you, it isn't. :)

To be more precise, we'd like to develop the game so as to promote specialization, but not to force it. It may be possible that we, in the future, introduce a couple of mutually exclusive game elements, but I, for one (and I'm pretty sure Jorb agree with me), would still do it so that there can always be combinations of game elements that form a "complete" way of life in the game, without having to rely on others. Both Jorb and I are quite fond of the "deranged hermit" way of living in the game, which might be the reason why trade is so unnecessary right now, and we'd still like to fix that, but not by making it impossible to live by oneself; just by making it better to be interacting with others.

[KoE]

I'm not part of some community [of near strangers?] who are loyal to each other because they are all members of some forum or other. And hanging out with friends/allies I don't know, who aren't especially reliable - they might help if they are logged on and non-busy - rather fails to appeal. It's worse if I either have no personal space - or am personally responsible for the defences of that space, as with the Bottleneck model. But those seems to be the current choices for communal living.

I'm not sure how it is in the various goon-villes, never having lived there, but I can say that you're pretty much dead wrong for Bottleneck. I'd hardly call any of the well-known Bottleneckers strangers, and I've forged my bonds with them through H&H, not B12. A lot of us (hardly all of us) came from there, but we're more than the forums we come from. If you're referring to how you wouldn't belong, well, you would after you got settled in.

I'm also not entirely sure when the Bottleneck model became based totally on personal responsibility. A lot of people built their own walls (or did so in tandem with others nearby, I think), but we've got a few unhinged sociopaths and a few normal people willing to risk their necks for their neighbors if asked too. I've been part of several thief-dealing-with-parties, with other volunteers or people who jumped at the call when asked to look into it.

[Colbear]

I'm also not entirely sure when the Bottleneck model became based totally on personal responsibility. A lot of people built their own walls (or did so in tandem with others nearby, I think), but we've got a few unhinged sociopaths and a few normal people willing to risk their necks for their neighbors if asked too. I've been part of several thief-dealing-with-parties, with other volunteers or people who jumped at the call when asked to look into it.

This is one of the main reasons you want to be in a town -- because it provides protection for you while you are growing in the game. This is also exactly like how Gooncastle is (people make their own claims if they feel like it, and walls or not, we'll jump to punish thieves). Hell, I've visited BN before, and their town is way bigger than ours -- they have a lot of town and authority space and stuff, while we just have a tiny chunk and everything else is off-town personal claims.