Welcome to the Crafting, storage, and buildings thread. Try your hardest to only post new ideas and constructive criticism. Posting "I agree with _____" and other non-constructive thigns only clutters up the thread. That's not to say you shouldn't compliment other peoples ideas, but when you do, try and think about how to make them even better!
Now for quick overview of the points of discussion. These are just some example questions, if you think something else is relevant, tell us!
Crafting
How should making things like swords and armor work? Should we have to craft arrows? What else should we be able to craft?
Storage
All those blocks are heavy, and our inventory fill up fast! Should we be able to store blocks in any way? Would storing blocks be like crafting a storage chest? Can we store mushrooms forever? How many blocks would we be able to store in a single cube?
Buildings
We already have signs, but what other buildings will there be? Can we build furnaces, work benches, fences? What about functional chairs and tables? How will buildings be related to crafting? Can we build defenses or siege engines?
Crafting: For weapons/armour, simply have a workshop that you must be near to craft. Rock = lowest grade of sword, maybe steel being the best (you get steel my melting ore together). Bows/arrows are made from wood. To make, you'd pretty much walk up to a workshop and press a button (maybe a little menu?). Then have a 1-2 second delay, and that's it.
Storage: Simple again. Have special blocks that drop 10 of their respective type, and only take 0.5 seconds to mine out. Some button to place these (maybe a mode switch?).
Buildings: I think most big stuff with moving parts will have to be left out (like siege engines, sadly) -- besides, there are so many other things you can do. Do you think Notch could make buildings that can be built on angles (not tilted down/up, rotated clock/counter) and stuff? I mean, prefab stuff like a "Forge" which can be placed down, and it would need a flat surface, and would act essentially like a player or enemy who doesn't move, and which can be smacked around and destroyed. Could work for doors and stuff, too, maybe...
---> In any case, it'd be fun to break into an enemy town and run in and start sabotaging NOT their structure in a griefer-like manner (which doesn't work that well in Survival and nor is it very useful) but rather their forges and constructed workshops or items.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"I want to see forum posts saying "how do i kill dragon" with replies reading "lol"."
---> vede claimed Notch said this (and it is awesome).
Etc. All blocks get harder to dig the farther you go up (Hardened dirt 5 times longer than dirt, for instance), useful if a digging mob ever shows up, except storage, which takes a short time.
Rotten -> I read that idea, but I think it might be better if there was... some kind of tool, as opposed to some kind of button.
'Fortification Tool': While equipped, attacking a block, instead of digging it out, will begin to strengthen it if you have any like material. ---> And maybe each block has a fortification limit, or something, I dunno. Like dirt can only be made into Hardened Dirt, while Stone could be made into Toughened Stone, then into Fortified Stone, then into... I dunno, Iron-Braced Stone.
I'm suddenly reminded of Dungeon Keeper. Anyone ever play that game? You could dig around underground, but it was pretty much a 2-dimensional plane. You could, however, get your minions to fortify walls which the enemy couldn't destroy (either that or they were really slow or something). The only problem with that is there shouldn't be any colours/teams in Minecraft, for the most part...
I'd personally prefer to see some kind of Chest object for storing materials. The concept of 'Storage Blocks' comes from a system which has no other method by which to count blocks (RP servers based upon the current Creative Mode). A 'chest' would have clearly defined what is inside it and how much there is upon... mouseover, or clicking or something.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"I want to see forum posts saying "how do i kill dragon" with replies reading "lol"."
---> vede claimed Notch said this (and it is awesome).
I admit that it just doesn't make sense for a forge to work without some form of intense heat (like lava). However, if all forges need to be sitting on a tile of lava, as things stand right now all of our bases would be far, far underground (assuming there even is lava- on some Survival maps I've found there simply isn't any). I don't think this is what our Demipotent Overlord intended when he promised us a crafting system.
I see two possible solutions to this:
1) We could be able to build some kind of "lava pump". Something that shoots one block of lava straight up, oh, say 5 blocks. If you needed it to be higher you would build multiple pumps. Of course, lava would need to be made finite for this to work. And one problem with this is that you still need to find lava at some point, then build your base on top of the molten lake you discovered.
2) There could be some other form of heat. Fire seems obvious, but a simple campfire is nowhere near hot enough to smelt things. Perhaps a forge could be a compound structure? Build some kind of fire bellows next to the forge for it to work, maybe? In fact, that could just be the way we make things- rather than building "a forge", we make a stone crucible, a wood bellows, a stone or steel puddling furnace, wooden or dirt containers for various cooling agents (fresh water, salt water and olive oil for different metal consistencies)- that might be too complex, but it's worth thinking about.
I'm afraid I don't see any function in beds, tables, or chairs even if they are usable. A /sit command or button would be helpful and a player can use it on a bed or chair, but it would be more work than it's worth to make individual systems designed specifically for chairs or beds.
I think forging should be based on two things: the temperature of your heat source and the quality of your furnace. Furnaces could be built out of dirt (compact dirt if that is what storage becomes), stone, iron, or steel. You would select a furnace like you would a chest and but in however much fuel you want. Fuel can be (in order of increasing temperature) wood, charcoal(maybe, probably to complicated), coal, and if you built your forge within 2 blocks of lava you could select lava. Then you would select the ore you wanted to refine and right click. If you wanted to combine iron and coal into steel you would select that option when you put in the fuel.
Fuel and quality would each effect their own thing. Fuel would effect how long forging would take, less time for a higher temperature. Maybe 5 seconds for wood and < 0.5 seconds for magma. Forge quality would effect how likely your forging would be successful. Maybe 30% successful for dirt and 90% successful for steel.
Fuel and quality would each affect their own thing. Fuel would affect how long forging would take, less time for a higher temperature. Maybe 5 seconds for wood and < 0.5 seconds for magma. Forge quality would affect how likely your forging would be successful. Maybe 30% successful for dirt and 90% successful for steel.
I like this whole idea, but I only quoted the bit I think I'd improve upon.
I think you should really embrace the power of sheer amount required:
Wood - 4 blocks (for example) would be needed for each job, using up tons of valuable build resources. (Maybe somewhere between 2-4)
Coal - 1 block would be needed.
Lava - Always free!
Maybe you already had that in mind. (Just imagine someone flooding your underground lava forge... that would suck xD)
Anyway, I'd say your time for forging is fairly good -- I might say it's a bit long for wood, because that might end up being the primary supply, but as long as the time for coal isn't very long it should be okay.
Finally, the % chances of various things succeeding should be affected by its difficulty, too.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"I want to see forum posts saying "how do i kill dragon" with replies reading "lol"."
---> vede claimed Notch said this (and it is awesome).
Wooo. *was exploding to put this up* Hmmm, now where to begin?
The Inventory The Problem:
As many have said, being able to stack up to (and no more than) 99 of a block type causes all sorts of weird issues (e.g. carrying approx. 1000 heavy types of block while you can only carry 99 cloth). The Solution:
I see a system in which you can carry X amount of weight to be the best solution here. Each block would be assigned a weight (in nice rounded units, for example cloth being 1lb and iron ore being 4lb, while I doubt notch would use pounds, it springs to mind since i'm American). We can assign a maximum weight such as 200lb. Now, the player can carry 200 cloth blocks (and no others) maximum, or 50 iron blocks. Likewise, he could carry 100 cloth and 25 iron, or any other combination.
This system saves the easiness of stacking, is realistic, but still simple and intuitive (if people can handle differing destruction times on blocks, they can handle differing weights).
On Alchemy/Merging/Refining
I will start here by suggesting we shy from the first two and go with the concept of Refining. The Problem:
We MineCraftians (is that what we're to call ourselves?) realize that there is a definite relationship between gold ore and gold. We know that some dirt is harder than other dirt, and we think its just silly that gravel can't go back to being cobblestone (and vice versa). Notch has partially acknowledged this, but we're looking for something solid to go by. The Solution:
Refining - Verb, 1. Something one does at a refinery**. I propose (as others have), that we use a refinery (a.k.a forge) to take and combine the blocks into something greater than they currently are. I will expound on this process in a few minutes when I cover my views on crafting. At any rate, I think we're missing a vital chance here that can do us a world of good. Cross-block refining. How awesome would iron-reinforced wood be? Copper/gold inlaid stone(heck, we could set up heat conduction!)? It'll be hell to convince Notch of this though, because as a coder myself, i'm aware of the exponentially increased block types this would cause. To that end i'd like to suggest procedural generation of blocks (Coders or other logic savvy people may feel free to ask me to expound, but i'd hate to make my Wall of Text even longer by including programming theory that will glaze the average MineCraftian's eyes over). At any rate, now to explain the refining system.
Crafting:
The big whammy. Possibly the most controversial aspect of Survival Mode. Time to see how on the ball I am. xD The Problem: Even Notch wants to see an element of RPG in the game, and has done a lot of talking about crafting. Most of us are eating it up with spoons, and for good reason. MineCraft can potentially be one of those handful of genre breakers that pop up and change everyone's perception of games, depending on how well crafting is implemented. Problem is, I think not even Notch knows how he wants it to play out yet. I believe i've the method that will do that genre breaking. The Solution:
*Big breath* Since the dawn of time, man has fashioned for himself many a simple tool. However, when man discovered fire, his knowledge of such tools took such a leap as to jump start a whole new era. For you see, fire was, and still is, the ultimate way to make tools. A few people have brushed upon my conception of the crafting system, but i've yet to see it all united into one post. To begin with, we need to acknowledge that we need some way to give buildings a whole greater than the sum of their parts. One idea i've heard and had mixed feelings about was a sort of "blueprint" (generally dropped by monsters) which gives you an exact configuration of blocks that will then take on a specific form. I have mixed feelings about this. My biggest problem with it is that it takes away from the creativity of the game. Every player needs to build this exact doodad in order to craft tools. Not cool.
Instead, I say we take a page out of our own book. I'm sure many of you recall that when water touches lava, a peculiar thing happens... stone emerges. When a block of air is under a block of water? The air changes to water. Why not then extend this to be so much more?
I'll begin with the hardest thing that will need passed in order to make this work. The concept of heat will need to be added to MineCraft. However, it won't need to be precise heat, luckily. We can get away with the very same simplified physics that water follows. I propose that any source of heat (lava, flame [will discuss in a bit]) etc. heat up the surrounding blocks by a certain amount [see the aforementioned later]). Heat will be cumulative (i.e. a block touching two lava blocks is hotter than a block touching one). Additionally, each block will have both a melting point and a point of flammability. We can express heat in a variety of ways, the easiest being tinging the texture red. Likewise, heat can be subtracted from by cool things (water).
If you can accept that, at least in theory, then the rest will naturally fall into place. If you have a pit of lava, and drop stone into it, (and the stone is directly in contact with more than four blocks of lava to get enough heat) it will melt into lava. A block of wood touching more than 1 block of lava will be hot enough to burn (and I do mean catch fire). Same with a piece of cloth or sod. However, refined metal such as iron is impervious even to being fully immersed in lava. Therefore, if you built a small container made of iron in a pit of lava, the iron would heat up cherry red. You could then drop ores in there to smelt and refine (for example, plop copper ore in there and it will melt. with a slightly larger container, you could put two blocks of ore in, that would then run together and combine into a purer form of copper, which you could then cool down by removing the heat and harvest. The hotter the heat source, the higher the melting/burning point of the container must be, but the more things (and higher level things) can be smelted within it.
To craft with the refined materials, simply use the hammer tool (which I really, really want to see added) and be presented with a menu of possible tools you can construct from the material you made. Grades of tool (and/or build times for them) can be decided by the material you use to build them.
Too difficult? Simplify it. Require a block to be in contact with a source of heat (lava, coal, wood) and a source of cool (water). By stacking blocks onto it, they'll automatically be refined into whatever that combination makes. the material can then be worked with the hammer tool I previously mentioned into whatever tool you like, or simply harvested to use later (or possibly trade to others in multiplayer).
At any rate, I burnt a LOT of good time to get physics homework or programming done on this Wall of Text, so i'll stop here and leave it in all of your capable hands.
**Not an actual dictionary definition, I just felt it'd get the point across.
I've wondered about a heat system before. I think it'd be better if it used proper conduction instead of "this thing is hot if it is touching lava and otherwise it is not". And I think a major change would need to be that lava needs to be finite. Maybe in the heat system, lava could literally just be superheated stone? Then when it gets below the temperature threshold (eg. if it is on its own) then it could reform into solids.
The inventory system you've proposed doesn't deal with stacking -- what if I want to carry one of each colour of cloth? I will go beyond the stacking limit WAY before I ever hit a weight limit. Seems unfair to me. Maybe have a Creative-esque inventory where all the blocks and things you have are selectable with B (which niow stands for Backpack, of course), and your inventory bar along the bottom is just a set of quickslots?
Ah, but my system does deal with stacking. Its quite simple really. If you have more thab one of a block type, it stacks. Provided its within the weight limit of course. It counts blocks separately by weight.
Now for quick overview of the points of discussion. These are just some example questions, if you think something else is relevant, tell us!
Crafting
How should making things like swords and armor work? Should we have to craft arrows? What else should we be able to craft?
Storage
All those blocks are heavy, and our inventory fill up fast! Should we be able to store blocks in any way? Would storing blocks be like crafting a storage chest? Can we store mushrooms forever? How many blocks would we be able to store in a single cube?
Buildings
We already have signs, but what other buildings will there be? Can we build furnaces, work benches, fences? What about functional chairs and tables? How will buildings be related to crafting? Can we build defenses or siege engines?
Storage: Simple again. Have special blocks that drop 10 of their respective type, and only take 0.5 seconds to mine out. Some button to place these (maybe a mode switch?).
---> In any case, it'd be fun to break into an enemy town and run in and start sabotaging NOT their structure in a griefer-like manner (which doesn't work that well in Survival and nor is it very useful) but rather their forges and constructed workshops or items.
---> vede claimed Notch said this (and it is awesome).
Ex.
Gold Ore -> Refined Gold Ore (takes 2 ore) -> Pure gold (Takes 4 Refined gold) -> Storage (Takes as many Pures as you want)
Dirt -> Fertilized Dirt -> Hardened Dirt -> Storage
Etc. All blocks get harder to dig the farther you go up (Hardened dirt 5 times longer than dirt, for instance), useful if a digging mob ever shows up, except storage, which takes a short time.
EDIT: Schwerpunk came up with it. Bow down.
'Fortification Tool': While equipped, attacking a block, instead of digging it out, will begin to strengthen it if you have any like material. ---> And maybe each block has a fortification limit, or something, I dunno. Like dirt can only be made into Hardened Dirt, while Stone could be made into Toughened Stone, then into Fortified Stone, then into... I dunno, Iron-Braced Stone.
I'm suddenly reminded of Dungeon Keeper. Anyone ever play that game? You could dig around underground, but it was pretty much a 2-dimensional plane. You could, however, get your minions to fortify walls which the enemy couldn't destroy (either that or they were really slow or something). The only problem with that is there shouldn't be any colours/teams in Minecraft, for the most part...
I'd personally prefer to see some kind of Chest object for storing materials. The concept of 'Storage Blocks' comes from a system which has no other method by which to count blocks (RP servers based upon the current Creative Mode). A 'chest' would have clearly defined what is inside it and how much there is upon... mouseover, or clicking or something.
---> vede claimed Notch said this (and it is awesome).
I see two possible solutions to this:
1) We could be able to build some kind of "lava pump". Something that shoots one block of lava straight up, oh, say 5 blocks. If you needed it to be higher you would build multiple pumps. Of course, lava would need to be made finite for this to work. And one problem with this is that you still need to find lava at some point, then build your base on top of the molten lake you discovered.
2) There could be some other form of heat. Fire seems obvious, but a simple campfire is nowhere near hot enough to smelt things. Perhaps a forge could be a compound structure? Build some kind of fire bellows next to the forge for it to work, maybe? In fact, that could just be the way we make things- rather than building "a forge", we make a stone crucible, a wood bellows, a stone or steel puddling furnace, wooden or dirt containers for various cooling agents (fresh water, salt water and olive oil for different metal consistencies)- that might be too complex, but it's worth thinking about.
Fuel and quality would each effect their own thing. Fuel would effect how long forging would take, less time for a higher temperature. Maybe 5 seconds for wood and < 0.5 seconds for magma. Forge quality would effect how likely your forging would be successful. Maybe 30% successful for dirt and 90% successful for steel.
I like this whole idea, but I only quoted the bit I think I'd improve upon.
I think you should really embrace the power of sheer amount required:
Wood - 4 blocks (for example) would be needed for each job, using up tons of valuable build resources. (Maybe somewhere between 2-4)
Coal - 1 block would be needed.
Lava - Always free!
Maybe you already had that in mind. (Just imagine someone flooding your underground lava forge... that would suck xD)
Anyway, I'd say your time for forging is fairly good -- I might say it's a bit long for wood, because that might end up being the primary supply, but as long as the time for coal isn't very long it should be okay.
Finally, the % chances of various things succeeding should be affected by its difficulty, too.
---> vede claimed Notch said this (and it is awesome).
The Inventory
The Problem:
As many have said, being able to stack up to (and no more than) 99 of a block type causes all sorts of weird issues (e.g. carrying approx. 1000 heavy types of block while you can only carry 99 cloth).
The Solution:
I see a system in which you can carry X amount of weight to be the best solution here. Each block would be assigned a weight (in nice rounded units, for example cloth being 1lb and iron ore being 4lb, while I doubt notch would use pounds, it springs to mind since i'm American). We can assign a maximum weight such as 200lb. Now, the player can carry 200 cloth blocks (and no others) maximum, or 50 iron blocks. Likewise, he could carry 100 cloth and 25 iron, or any other combination.
This system saves the easiness of stacking, is realistic, but still simple and intuitive (if people can handle differing destruction times on blocks, they can handle differing weights).
On Alchemy/Merging/Refining
I will start here by suggesting we shy from the first two and go with the concept of Refining.
The Problem:
We MineCraftians (is that what we're to call ourselves?) realize that there is a definite relationship between gold ore and gold. We know that some dirt is harder than other dirt, and we think its just silly that gravel can't go back to being cobblestone (and vice versa). Notch has partially acknowledged this, but we're looking for something solid to go by.
The Solution:
Refining - Verb, 1. Something one does at a refinery**. I propose (as others have), that we use a refinery (a.k.a forge) to take and combine the blocks into something greater than they currently are. I will expound on this process in a few minutes when I cover my views on crafting. At any rate, I think we're missing a vital chance here that can do us a world of good. Cross-block refining. How awesome would iron-reinforced wood be? Copper/gold inlaid stone(heck, we could set up heat conduction!)? It'll be hell to convince Notch of this though, because as a coder myself, i'm aware of the exponentially increased block types this would cause. To that end i'd like to suggest procedural generation of blocks (Coders or other logic savvy people may feel free to ask me to expound, but i'd hate to make my Wall of Text even longer by including programming theory that will glaze the average MineCraftian's eyes over). At any rate, now to explain the refining system.
Crafting:
The big whammy. Possibly the most controversial aspect of Survival Mode. Time to see how on the ball I am. xD
The Problem: Even Notch wants to see an element of RPG in the game, and has done a lot of talking about crafting. Most of us are eating it up with spoons, and for good reason. MineCraft can potentially be one of those handful of genre breakers that pop up and change everyone's perception of games, depending on how well crafting is implemented. Problem is, I think not even Notch knows how he wants it to play out yet. I believe i've the method that will do that genre breaking.
The Solution:
*Big breath* Since the dawn of time, man has fashioned for himself many a simple tool. However, when man discovered fire, his knowledge of such tools took such a leap as to jump start a whole new era. For you see, fire was, and still is, the ultimate way to make tools. A few people have brushed upon my conception of the crafting system, but i've yet to see it all united into one post. To begin with, we need to acknowledge that we need some way to give buildings a whole greater than the sum of their parts. One idea i've heard and had mixed feelings about was a sort of "blueprint" (generally dropped by monsters) which gives you an exact configuration of blocks that will then take on a specific form. I have mixed feelings about this. My biggest problem with it is that it takes away from the creativity of the game. Every player needs to build this exact doodad in order to craft tools. Not cool.
Instead, I say we take a page out of our own book. I'm sure many of you recall that when water touches lava, a peculiar thing happens... stone emerges. When a block of air is under a block of water? The air changes to water. Why not then extend this to be so much more?
I'll begin with the hardest thing that will need passed in order to make this work. The concept of heat will need to be added to MineCraft. However, it won't need to be precise heat, luckily. We can get away with the very same simplified physics that water follows. I propose that any source of heat (lava, flame [will discuss in a bit]) etc. heat up the surrounding blocks by a certain amount [see the aforementioned later]). Heat will be cumulative (i.e. a block touching two lava blocks is hotter than a block touching one). Additionally, each block will have both a melting point and a point of flammability. We can express heat in a variety of ways, the easiest being tinging the texture red. Likewise, heat can be subtracted from by cool things (water).
If you can accept that, at least in theory, then the rest will naturally fall into place. If you have a pit of lava, and drop stone into it, (and the stone is directly in contact with more than four blocks of lava to get enough heat) it will melt into lava. A block of wood touching more than 1 block of lava will be hot enough to burn (and I do mean catch fire). Same with a piece of cloth or sod. However, refined metal such as iron is impervious even to being fully immersed in lava. Therefore, if you built a small container made of iron in a pit of lava, the iron would heat up cherry red. You could then drop ores in there to smelt and refine (for example, plop copper ore in there and it will melt. with a slightly larger container, you could put two blocks of ore in, that would then run together and combine into a purer form of copper, which you could then cool down by removing the heat and harvest. The hotter the heat source, the higher the melting/burning point of the container must be, but the more things (and higher level things) can be smelted within it.
To craft with the refined materials, simply use the hammer tool (which I really, really want to see added) and be presented with a menu of possible tools you can construct from the material you made. Grades of tool (and/or build times for them) can be decided by the material you use to build them.
Too difficult? Simplify it. Require a block to be in contact with a source of heat (lava, coal, wood) and a source of cool (water). By stacking blocks onto it, they'll automatically be refined into whatever that combination makes. the material can then be worked with the hammer tool I previously mentioned into whatever tool you like, or simply harvested to use later (or possibly trade to others in multiplayer).
At any rate, I burnt a LOT of good time to get physics homework or programming done on this Wall of Text, so i'll stop here and leave it in all of your capable hands.
**Not an actual dictionary definition, I just felt it'd get the point across.
Ah, but my system does deal with stacking. Its quite simple really. If you have more thab one of a block type, it stacks. Provided its within the weight limit of course. It counts blocks separately by weight.