We’ve talked quite a bit about communities as a function of networks, and I found the community element of One Hour, One Life to be especially interesting. Every time I was born into a new game, I found myself in a new community with new rules and norms that had developed long before my arrival. As I grew up and tried to become useful, I found that the community imposed certain rules on me about what my function would be, as my parents taught me specific skills in the hopes that I would take up farming, or when older members of the community instructed me to focus on a task they wanted taken care of. In this way, the community felt like an essential and very visible part of One Hour, One Life in a different way than many networked games. The community is the essential mechanism for survival, as no character in the game can achieve much alone.
At the same time, however, I often found the communities I was born into quite hostile and unfriendly to new members. Other characters performed their tasks without any attention to other parts or needs of the village, and often reacted with anger and even violence when children or inexperienced players made mistakes or did not behave as desired. Characters rarely communicated with each other or strategized about the best way for the village to survive as a whole. Everyone in the village was reliant on each other for survival, yet atomized as no one wanted to waste their precious minutes of life talking.
In general, many network-based communities, whether in games or on the internet, coalesce out of a shared interest in an activity, piece of media, or other type of entertainment or knowledge. In One Hour, One Life our only shared interest is survival, and that changes the community dynamic significantly. While characters are not in competition with each other, they are also only nominally allies, generally working towards the same goal, but rarely collaborating closely. The community in this game is held together by desperation, and there is very little incentive to create other bonds, since no one wants to die. But human communities in real life, even in very attenuated circumstances, do have pleasurable aspects. People seek and need the support of others in ways beyond that of basic survival. In that way, I think One Hour, One Life misses an important element in its human life simulation, as it builds a community missing any pleasure or companionship.
I definitely get your point about how OHOL relies on survival as the bare minimum justification for player unification and collaboration. But I don't, however, think that the emphasis on survival is unpleasurable in of itself; for me, it created a sense of urgency (what some call "exquisite pressure" (which rhymes nicely with pleasure!)) that was actually quite pleasant and exhilarating — this feeling that you are working with(in) a vast network of other people to build something greater than all of you, where every moment is precious and valuable and must not be lost. There is a camaraderie born out of this exigency that I personally felt I missed, even when I have, to my memory, never experienced such…
I had a very different experience in the time that I played OHOL, and that difference might speak to how cultures can emerge from networked games. After several neglectful (although certainly not hostile) families that lead to my early death, I played a life for long enough that my in-game mother passed away. When I was a teen, she had taught me how to hunt, patiently taking time away from her own duties to teach me step-by-step how to trap, skin, and cook rabbits for food and clothing. She was the first player to do this for me. When she reached the end of her life, she told me that she was proud I had learned something from her an…
Your point brings up an aspect that not only One Hour, One Life, struggles with, but many other games as well. In an MMORPG, it is not uncommon for many players to be upset if you do not have the right "build" and/or are undergeared, and shooters and MOBAs expect you to know the right strategies and tactics. Even in other, more casual communities, there's still a hidden pressure to focus on acting right. But the thing about it, is that what they really want?
Games generally have a simulated space bubble, where a concept is simplified into certain rules and controls, and people enjoy that space, despite it not replicating the finer aspects. 2K19 does not strictly simulate the…
Ah, I see your criticisms. At the same time, I think the beauty of OHOL comes when you finally are able to cooperate with someone. Professor Jagoda mentioned appeal to strong feelings such as "sacrifice." On one of my first games, someone had gotten to the end of their lifespan and was giving advice to the rest of the server. People stood around and mourned his death, thanking him for all the work you had done. It felt like a very emotional moment. The shared experience of making something great for players to come. I think OHOL shows that cooperation and building something greater than yourself is a much more difficult, rare, but rewarding task.
Interesting. I was just writing about the emotional family bonding in OHOL, but I do agree with some of the criticisms about players not teaching new players. I wonder if that is a problem most games have--I definitely have experienced this in many games--but how could game design change this? What could make players more altruistic and willing to help each other?