He made them terrible because he knew modders would go crazy and make tons of unique mods to make endermen awesome! He's giving a chance to modders to edit something in vanilla minecraft, as many ideas are available, from changing Endermen behaviors, to making up uses for Ender Pearls.
This is just my opinion and conclusion, as I noticed many different Endermen mods being released.
*EDIT: Also, please read ZAKK9090's post below mine. He gives a well-developed explaination from the developers' point of view.
Why the crap would a game dev purposefully make a game bad so modders can mod it? Would you purposefully make a faulty parachute because you expect somebody else to improve it?
Edit: Not saying endermen are bad or anything, although the block pickup is a bit annoying...
Why the crap would a game dev purposefully make a game bad so modders can mod it? Would you purposefully make a faulty parachute because you expect somebody else to improve it?
Edit: Not saying endermen are bad or anything, although the block pickup is a bit annoying...
I'll spell it out for ya.
Minecraft is still in Beta and therefore is subject to many possible changes to the base game prior to the official release.
Notch must make a game that the MAJORITY of the customers (players) can agree on. This means the changes he makes to the game with each successive update cannot be too "out there" meaning that something that is added must be widely liked. For example, the only rationale behind adding experience points to the game is because so many servers, and therefore most players, are utilizing something such as MCMMO to provide extra benefits to players through various personal-development-related means. Another fine example is achievements. Look at Xbox Live, Playstation Network, Battle.net, and Steam. It's clear that a good majority of people playing video games love achievements.
Given the above it can be said that Notch's creativity is restricted by his customer base. Modders are not so constrained. They are free to make whatever changes they wish to the game. If people like it they'll make use of it. If enough people make use of it to the point that it catches Notch's attention then the mod shall probably find itself incorporated into the game in some form. This has happened with games such as World of Warcraft so such things are not unique (addons have made game-changing additions after Blizzard decided either to implement their own version of the addon's feature(s) or to "outlaw" something that they consider rule-breaking in some fashion).
It's a brilliant way to "farm" for good ideas if you think about it. Look at PC games from the past. Elder Scrolls, Unreal Tournament, Half Life, etc. These franchises and many MANY more have been host to stupifying amounts of mods. Good mods. Mods that do, in fact, substantially improve the base game. Understand that I'm not drawing attention to these games to say that they caught the developer's attention (only a few really do that for most games; Mechwarrior Living Legends for Crysis is one such case) I'm merely saying that random coders who are determined enough can churn out substantial amounts of good content. Minecraft, being in a "beta" state currently, is flexible enough such that mods that turn out to be widely praised and used, as I've stated above, can still be incorporated to the base game. After Minecraft's release such additions shall have to come in the form of optional expansion packs and mods; no more additions shall be made to the "vanilla" version of the game.
In short: This is a good move on the developer's part.
Minecraft is still in Beta and therefore is subject to many possible changes to the base game prior to the official release.
Notch must make a game that the MAJORITY of the customers (players) can agree on. This means the changes he makes to the game with each successive update cannot be too "out there" meaning that something that is added must be widely liked. For example, the only rationale behind adding experience points to the game is because so many servers, and therefore most players, are utilizing something such as MCMMO to provide extra benefits to players through various personal-development-related means. Another fine example is achievements. Look at Xbox Live, Playstation Network, Battle.net, and Steam. It's clear that a good majority of people playing video games love achievements.
Given the above it can be said that Notch's creativity is restricted by his customer base. Modders are not so constrained. They are free to make whatever changes they wish to the game. If people like it they'll make use of it. If enough people make use of it to the point that it catches Notch's attention then the mod shall probably find itself incorporated into the game in some form. This has happened with games such as World of Warcraft so such things are not unique (addons have made game-changing additions after Blizzard decided either to implement their own version of the addon's feature(s) or to "outlaw" something that they consider rule-breaking in some fashion).
It's a brilliant way to "farm" for good ideas if you think about it. Look at PC games from the past. Elder Scrolls, Unreal Tournament, Half Life, etc. These franchises and many MANY more have been host to stupifying amounts of mods. Good mods. Mods that do, in fact, substantially improve the base game. Understand that I'm not drawing attention to these games to say that they caught the developer's attention (only a few really do that for most games; Mechwarrior Living Legends for Crysis is one such case) I'm merely saying that random coders who are determined enough can churn out substantial amounts of good content. Minecraft, being in a "beta" state currently, is flexible enough such that mods that turn out to be widely praised and used, as I've stated above, can still be incorporated to the base game. After Minecraft's release such additions shall have to come in the form of optional expansion packs and mods; no more additions shall be made to the "vanilla" version of the game.
In short: This is a good move on the developer's part.
He's nerfing them because people kept complaining about them picking up blocks. He then realized it isn't such a good idea and wouldn't be worth it to "fix" it because people would still be annoyed at the fact that it touches blocks.
Yeah that's a bit farfetched . . . honestly people are just grasping as straws now to explain Endermen . . . really all their problem is:
Health is too low.
Damage is too low.
They pick up any old block (except halves, cake, beds, fences, etc.)
That's it . . . easily fixed, even without the fix they are a welcome member of the baddy mob crew and they are by far my favorite.
Making up tall tales to explain it, will not get these minor things fixed.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts."
::Quote from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Yeah that's a bit farfetched . . . honestly people are just grasping as straws now to explain Endermen . . . really all their problem is:
Health is too low.
Damage is too low.
They pick up any old block (except halves, cake, beds, fences, etc.)
That's it . . . easily fixed, even without the fix they are a welcome member of the baddy mob crew and they are by far my favorite.
Making up tall tales to explain it, will not get these minor things fixed.
This is not necessarily an easy thing to fix. It's one thing to identify a problem. Finding the best possible solution to that problem is another story. Certain parts of the right solution may be easier to find than others however.
I agree that their health and damage are much too low to make them a terrible threat.
They could also use some better AI when attacking you; they like to teleport out to arrow range and run back at you when they teleport to escape further blows.
At a distance, upon staring at them and therefore agroing them, they start having a seizure. They would be much creepier if they stayed perfectly still. Hell, close their mouth and give them a not-pink eye color (maybe blue or red) while we're on the creepiness subject.
Their sounds also need to be unique, but that is something already on the to-do list and shall be changed eventually.
I personally never had a problem with the block-pick-up thing. A solution there could be simply to have the endermen drop whatever they are holding upon death so that you can get whatever they took so long as you can find the culprit. Currently they take whatever they took to the grave, and they only pick up one block for their entire life as far as I know.
Another change I would probably recommend for endermen would be to have them change how cursor-sensitive they are depending on distance. At a long distance, their maximum agro distance, they should only attack if you look directly at them. At close-range however they should probably give you a stare-down and attack even if you're just close to looking at them. As it stands its pretty stupid that you can just basically back up to them and then wail on them like a pinata (two or three smacks and their dead anyways).
The above statements would probably require a fair amount of coding for whomever at Mojang would be in-chanrge of updating the endermen with said theoretical changes. It wouldn't be necessarily difficult, but it would take time and planning to execute properly. Never mind the debugging that would be required.
Yeah that's a bit farfetched . . . honestly people are just grasping as straws now to explain Endermen . . . really all their problem is:
Health is too low.
Damage is too low.
They pick up any old block (except halves, cake, beds, fences, etc.)
That's it . . . easily fixed, even without the fix they are a welcome member of the baddy mob crew and they are by far my favorite.
Making up tall tales to explain it, will not get these minor things fixed.
The problem with you is your perspective. You see everything as small and more insignificant than it really is.
In reality, these small changes add up to make a huge difference.
Another problem is that you consider few factors that make up the whole picture. Mobs are not just about health and damage. And Endermen have many more factors that make them who they are today. ie. teleporting, reticle attention, and lots of other stuff. Like i said, Notch made it so that whatever the endermen were lacking, could be improved by modders by editing or adding factors.
What if creepers were to only do damage by touching you, like zombies. If Notch looked at it from your perspective/viewpoint, he would only consider increasing its health or damage, or make it walk faster.
ZAKK9090
koolasad, on 21 September 2011 - 09:36 PM, said:
*EDIT: Also, please read ZAKK9090's post below mine. He gives a well-developed explaination from the developers' point of view.
This is not necessarily an easy thing to fix. It's one thing to identify a problem. Finding the best possible solution to that problem is another story. Certain parts of the right solution may be easier to find than others however.
I agree that their health and damage are much too low to make them a terrible threat.
They could also use some better AI when attacking you; they like to teleport out to arrow range and run back at you when they teleport to escape further blows.
At a distance, upon staring at them and therefore agroing them, they start having a seizure. They would be much creepier if they stayed perfectly still. Hell, close their mouth and give them a not-pink eye color (maybe blue or red) while we're on the creepiness subject.
Their sounds also need to be unique, but that is something already on the to-do list and shall be changed eventually.
I personally never had a problem with the block-pick-up thing. A solution there could be simply to have the endermen drop whatever they are holding upon death so that you can get whatever they took so long as you can find the culprit. Currently they take whatever they took to the grave, and they only pick up one block for their entire life as far as I know.
Another change I would probably recommend for endermen would be to have them change how cursor-sensitive they are depending on distance. At a long distance, their maximum agro distance, they should only attack if you look directly at them. At close-range however they should probably give you a stare-down and attack even if you're just close to looking at them. As it stands its pretty stupid that you can just basically back up to them and then wail on them like a pinata (two or three smacks and their dead anyways).
The above statements would probably require a fair amount of coding for whomever at Mojang would be in-chanrge of updating the endermen with said theoretical changes. It wouldn't be necessarily difficult, but it would take time and planning to execute properly. Never mind the debugging that would be required.
Yes, that's a good analysis. As I said, modders can do a lot of those things, as well as many other unique ideas. There's a wide variety and open selection. People have a choice of whether they want to download and apply the mod or not. This relates to the customer appeal you mentioned earlier.
This is just my opinion and conclusion, as I noticed many different Endermen mods being released.
*EDIT: Also, please read ZAKK9090's post below mine. He gives a well-developed explaination from the developers' point of view.
Edit: Not saying endermen are bad or anything, although the block pickup is a bit annoying...
YUM YUM YUM!
I'll spell it out for ya.
Minecraft is still in Beta and therefore is subject to many possible changes to the base game prior to the official release.
Notch must make a game that the MAJORITY of the customers (players) can agree on. This means the changes he makes to the game with each successive update cannot be too "out there" meaning that something that is added must be widely liked. For example, the only rationale behind adding experience points to the game is because so many servers, and therefore most players, are utilizing something such as MCMMO to provide extra benefits to players through various personal-development-related means. Another fine example is achievements. Look at Xbox Live, Playstation Network, Battle.net, and Steam. It's clear that a good majority of people playing video games love achievements.
Given the above it can be said that Notch's creativity is restricted by his customer base. Modders are not so constrained. They are free to make whatever changes they wish to the game. If people like it they'll make use of it. If enough people make use of it to the point that it catches Notch's attention then the mod shall probably find itself incorporated into the game in some form. This has happened with games such as World of Warcraft so such things are not unique (addons have made game-changing additions after Blizzard decided either to implement their own version of the addon's feature(s) or to "outlaw" something that they consider rule-breaking in some fashion).
It's a brilliant way to "farm" for good ideas if you think about it. Look at PC games from the past. Elder Scrolls, Unreal Tournament, Half Life, etc. These franchises and many MANY more have been host to stupifying amounts of mods. Good mods. Mods that do, in fact, substantially improve the base game. Understand that I'm not drawing attention to these games to say that they caught the developer's attention (only a few really do that for most games; Mechwarrior Living Legends for Crysis is one such case) I'm merely saying that random coders who are determined enough can churn out substantial amounts of good content. Minecraft, being in a "beta" state currently, is flexible enough such that mods that turn out to be widely praised and used, as I've stated above, can still be incorporated to the base game. After Minecraft's release such additions shall have to come in the form of optional expansion packs and mods; no more additions shall be made to the "vanilla" version of the game.
In short: This is a good move on the developer's part.
OMG. I couldn't have said it better. +1
lol or he could take advantage of it and use it as an excuse.
Notch: "Oh..ummm...err..yeah..YEAH. OF COURSE, THAT'S THE REASON I DID THAT!"
And rule 34 rears its ugly head again.
Health is too low.
Damage is too low.
They pick up any old block (except halves, cake, beds, fences, etc.)
That's it . . . easily fixed, even without the fix they are a welcome member of the baddy mob crew and they are by far my favorite.
Making up tall tales to explain it, will not get these minor things fixed.
::Quote from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
This is not necessarily an easy thing to fix. It's one thing to identify a problem. Finding the best possible solution to that problem is another story. Certain parts of the right solution may be easier to find than others however.
I agree that their health and damage are much too low to make them a terrible threat.
They could also use some better AI when attacking you; they like to teleport out to arrow range and run back at you when they teleport to escape further blows.
At a distance, upon staring at them and therefore agroing them, they start having a seizure. They would be much creepier if they stayed perfectly still. Hell, close their mouth and give them a not-pink eye color (maybe blue or red) while we're on the creepiness subject.
Their sounds also need to be unique, but that is something already on the to-do list and shall be changed eventually.
I personally never had a problem with the block-pick-up thing. A solution there could be simply to have the endermen drop whatever they are holding upon death so that you can get whatever they took so long as you can find the culprit. Currently they take whatever they took to the grave, and they only pick up one block for their entire life as far as I know.
Another change I would probably recommend for endermen would be to have them change how cursor-sensitive they are depending on distance. At a long distance, their maximum agro distance, they should only attack if you look directly at them. At close-range however they should probably give you a stare-down and attack even if you're just close to looking at them. As it stands its pretty stupid that you can just basically back up to them and then wail on them like a pinata (two or three smacks and their dead anyways).
The above statements would probably require a fair amount of coding for whomever at Mojang would be in-chanrge of updating the endermen with said theoretical changes. It wouldn't be necessarily difficult, but it would take time and planning to execute properly. Never mind the debugging that would be required.
Damn right I did.
The problem with you is your perspective. You see everything as small and more insignificant than it really is.
In reality, these small changes add up to make a huge difference.
Another problem is that you consider few factors that make up the whole picture. Mobs are not just about health and damage. And Endermen have many more factors that make them who they are today. ie. teleporting, reticle attention, and lots of other stuff. Like i said, Notch made it so that whatever the endermen were lacking, could be improved by modders by editing or adding factors.
What if creepers were to only do damage by touching you, like zombies. If Notch looked at it from your perspective/viewpoint, he would only consider increasing its health or damage, or make it walk faster.
I lol'd :laugh.gif:
Yes, that's a good analysis. As I said, modders can do a lot of those things, as well as many other unique ideas. There's a wide variety and open selection. People have a choice of whether they want to download and apply the mod or not. This relates to the customer appeal you mentioned earlier.