Are We Having Fun Yet? A Critique by Flowchart

[kobnach]

Logon.
Are there any crucibles needing feeding? feed them.
Is there some kind of crisis? If yes, deal with crisis.
Is it light? Will it stay light for 2 RL hours? Can I keep playing for 2 hours? If yes, I might be able to plant trees.
Do I have any clay? If yes, fill plant pots and get on tables
If no, is the cart functional, and are there four empty chests? If yes, load cart, head for clay pit.
If not, either start sorting, or figure on spending ages digging clay, harvesting, replanting and landscaping. Do I have _3_ hours?
Fetch clay, load plant pots, place on table.
Am I red barred? Is anyone else? If yes, is there prepared food appropriate to their/my stat needs?
If not, start harvesting and cooking. (Do we have any butter? Oops - and with folks red barred, no time to find cows.)
While I'm at it, repair the loom.
Check palisade. Since it needs repairs again, start hiking in search of wood. What about the trees I planted? The ones in the palisade were planted on grassland, since I'm public spirited and don't claim or palisade forest. And the ones I planted in the clear cut forest? it appears we have a new neighbour, and he chopped the immature saplings for a palisade/house/bucket/LP.
Check brick wall. If it needs repairs, go back to question of clay in town...
Are the trees ready yet? If yes, plant them.
Is anyone red barred yet? if yes, see above.
Is it too dark to play? If so, log
Have I run out of time? If yes, log.

Great, all urgent tasks attended to. I can start on routine tasks.
Check the state of leather. Put hides to soak.
Empty curding tubs. Refill with rennet.
Put grapes to become raisins.
Harvest and prepare baked goods.
Is butter desperately low? Try to find some cows. Ditto if curding tubs desperately need milk - but prefer to wait until cows get into the palisade again.
Harvest some wheat and put it on herbalism tables, if any are free.
Check cheeses and move if appropriate.

Is it dark yet? Do I have to go to work or to sleep yet? Has the game crashed?

It's still up, still light, and I don't need to go to work or sleep yet!? Wow! Must be a weekend, one where I don't have to do much of anything but play. I get to go hunting for LP and meat, or even explore some new feature. Wow! I win - for once. But those weekdays, and busy weekend days? - I'm on haven to work, and can barely keep pace with the urgent tasks, never mind routine ones.

[Jackard]

sounds like you need some more teammates

[Ferinex]

The downsides to a productive townlife become apparent to you, eh?

[Curudan]

It seems to me that your problem is that you are trying to do everything. You're really best off just doing one or two things to excess and selling of the extra to buy the other things.

[theTrav]

It seems to me that your problem is that you are trying to do everything. You're really best off just doing one or two things to excess and selling of the extra to buy the other things.

Yup, or live in a communal society that actually works. In lake-town, I log on, walk around for a bit, talk to whoever is on, if I've got my own project I put half an hour or so into ticking it over, otherwise if someone else is doing something I'll help them with it, otherwise I'll just harvest as much of whatever crop we have the least of at the moment.

There's not always heaps of food around, and it's not already stat appropriate, but I can always eat apples, or just be a little less anal about keeping my stats PERFECTLY level (I typically allow a variance of about 5, so there's really only one food at any time that I'm really gunning for and one or two that I'm trying to avoid).

I'm not a grinder though, I don't care if it takes me half a year to get a top hat and monocle, so long as I get to play around in my little front garden and interact with the local residents I'm happy.

[Ferinex]

It seems to me that your problem is that you are trying to do everything. You're really best off just doing one or two things to excess and selling of the extra to buy the other things.

Yup, or live in a communal society that actually works. In lake-town, I log on, walk around for a bit, talk to whoever is on, if I've got my own project I put half an hour or so into ticking it over, otherwise if someone else is doing something I'll help them with it, otherwise I'll just harvest as much of whatever crop we have the least of at the moment.

There's not always heaps of food around, and it's not already stat appropriate, but I can always eat apples, or just be a little less anal about keeping my stats PERFECTLY level (I typically allow a variance of about 5, so there's really only one food at any time that I'm really gunning for and one or two that I'm trying to avoid).

I'm not a grinder though, I don't care if it takes me half a year to get a top hat and monocle, so long as I get to play around in my little front garden and interact with the local residents I'm happy.

My ingame life is almost exactly the same. I rarely even leave the front gate, and when I do it's to wander around and explore.

[Erik_the_Blue]

Not long ago we had people arguing that it's too easy to generalize; now we see the other side of the argument: generalization brings with it practical difficulties. Given that the game is young, and there's much more to add to it, this should only further become the case.

[kobnach]

This isn't a generalist's log, it's the life of the one really active nature person in a village where too many of the original founders have stopped logging in. And it left out other things a nature person could (should) be doing, like silk.

It's not a complaint about there being so much to do - it's a complaint about the pace. There are too many things that have to be done in 2 hours, or 8, or every 12 hours. Combine that with a day-night cycle, a real life, and frequent crashes - and servicing those timed tasks gets very difficult. Add the repair load on top - and damn it, I want to go back to the way the game was when I joined, where people mostly wouldn't abuse unclaimed fields, palisades weren't needed (or available), repairs weren't required, saplings were left to grow up [except by JTG], and I could make some completely safe space with a hearth fire in my doorway, if I had a few expensive things to store.

As for trading - I'll believe in trading in H&H when I manage to make some trades happen with people outside my village.

[Jackard]

the halcyon days of our youth

[sabinati]

you just need to find the right people. i'd be happy to do some trading. i'm sure pinevalley would as well, as they have multiple threads in the apples for oranges forum.