I too don't like the transition between swamps and other biomes.
But since that has been said already by over 10 people already i would also like to suggest some things on the NPC villages.
1.The roads need some adjusting,as they seem out of place at times.
2.A bigger variety of buildings is required i think(i find all villages the same right now)
3.The behaviour of NPCs.I know they are still just placeholders(hence the name TESTificate)but i think it's worth mentioning.
4.Not NPC village related,even MORE nether features would be nice.I still don't think it's worth going to the nether in the first place.Maybe some Nether-exclusive ore?
That's about all my suggestions for 1.9.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I don't really despise the new terrain,but this would be a cool mod.
-Rope, for rappelling down caves and ravines, capturing animals, and more. Can be made from a new plant, Hemp, so farming becomes more useful.
-Make redstone wires take up no physical space, and allow for wall placement.
Even a simple device takes up a football field, which makes it, if not useless, very crippled.
Rope would be so, so SO useful. I hate trying to climb down a shaft/ravine/hole, and then trying to carve my way back up it. Ladders are impractical for exploration and fairly expensive to just make tons of them; rope is so needed.
I agree, redstone is difficult to work with. Perhaps circuits could be made in a circuit box... make the box, then use it like a chest. You can then arrange redstone within the 'chest' and make a simple circuit. Outside input could come in from one side, be manipulated or whatever, and sent out another side(s). Circuit boxes could be chained together. This way, you lose none of the flexibility but gain some space saving, the ability to transport circuits from place to place (although without their connections in place), the ability to change a design much faster and easier, etc.
To the people saying nothing changed in 1.9, I'm not in game development at all...but as a player I had a HUGE improvement in performance between 1.8.x and 1.9pre...
People have already pointed out that the houses need some fine tuning...
Snowballs should do some damage (they don't right now do they?)...
As I will say later, performance is a major thing, and I agree it needs tweaking.
I think villages need some tuning as well. Cobblestone streets is a good idea, or else a dirt path (dirt that doesn't grow grass). The way wood looks next to itself is ridiculous; take the wood out of fields and use wood planks. Cobblestone could be used in house construction, but sandstone could be as well- or that could be for roads. Same goes with bricks, and stone bricks- they would make for better looking houses than cobblestone houses. Honestly, the new blocks were my favorite part of the 1.8 update; all of a sudden there was variety in my building materials!
I kinda think snowballs shouldn't do any damage still, but should make the player jump when hit (like when the player is hit with arrows). That way snowball fights are more interesting, but not directly dangerous. In the future, I'd love to see other variations of the Snow Golem idea, such as a golem that shoots arrows. I agree that snow golems look weird, but they serve a very useful function.
The boards seem to be increasingly divided and it just seems to be getting worse. I think it just needs to be faced up to that different parts of the fanbase like different things in the game and to please both there really needs to be two separate modes(which I'll call seige and constructive). Siege would be for all the people who want to go out and fight things all the time and keep calling other people pussies and telling them to play peaceful. So you'd have increased hostile mob spawns, more damaging creepers, zombies digging through walls, endermen lifting blocks all over the place and general mayhem. For constructive just switch off block damage of mobs entirely, so creepers may explode and kill you but they won't destroy what you've been working on and endermen may attack when you look at them but they leave the landscape alone. I think this would allow the different parts of the forums that rage at each other at the moment to each have the gameplay that they want and so wouldn't feel the need to rage about some suggestion the other side makes to make the game more enjoyable for them.
Again, I will talk about the lag later.
Your idea about a siege mode and constructive mode is genius. A "fighting" mode, a "creative" mode, and a "peaceful" mode. I particularly like the idea of zombies digging through some types of blocks (not all though). That would make zombies much, much more scary.
I think Notch already has this in mind (the modes, not zombie digging). Something about "adventure" mode. Hopefully he does; that way people can stop complaining about additions they don't like.
My point is, that IF THIS GAME WAS NEVER RELEASED before beeing finished, ALL of You would just take it as it was wit some kind of "aaaaah" and "oooooh" in it...
I have thought about this. If we didn't know differently, we'd just love it. There are pluses and negatives to this way of releasing a game.
I fee like even in Beta, especially so close to the release, that they should be performing more regression testing to ensure that the base things aren't broken. It is a part of software development at any stage, and should not be getting overlooked. I do feel that they have many unfinished thoughts at the moment. I have faith that Mojang will deliver a game beyond our expectations at launch time. I think this game really needs about another six months to ferment so to speak, before it is given a full release. I see where pieces of great ideas shine through from Mojang, but they have a habit of not finishing them all the way through, or forgetting about them all together.
I realize that we are the beta testers, but standard practices dictates unit testing from development before it gets put out for additional testing.
I completely agree. For too long, there have been major performance issues. Notch has a tendency to drop a project when it gets frustrating- a feeling I completely understand, as I have felt it many times in programming. But after taking a break to add a cool new mob, you have to go back to the less-fun project. Minecraft should be more stable and use fewer resources to run.
As a rule, I think most mods should stay mods. But performance improvements should be part of the core game. I'd love to see some of the features of OptiFine used in the base game. To me, the only performance mods that should be needed are those that remove features or degrade visuals to improve performance on seriously old/under-performing equipment. The core performance improvements should be just that- in the core of Minecraft.
Armor in its current state needs a bit of an update at lower tiers. Leather armor wears out way too fast and provides relatively little armor for the effort. By the time you get a full set of leather armor, you should be up to your neck in iron. Some changes would be warranted, and there's a couple different directions that this can be taken:
1) Simplified leather armor crafting. This would have a much smaller amount of leather required for each piece, roughly half what is currently required. An option on this route would be to replace the 'lost' leather with wool, but this carries its own issues (like spawning in an area where one or the other mob isn't very common). The idea here would be to make leather armor not a significant investment of leather due to leather's current rarity in casual acquisition.
2) Cloth armor & leather as a component of all armors. This route would take current armor designs and replace 1-2 blocks per piece with leather. Leather armor would be replaced with cloth armor (dyable?). This would keep leather relevant throughout the game as you replace your armor and would promote cow husbandry beyond keeping your one milking cow.
3) Mob drop modification. This route would replace current leather drops with 'hide' drops. The hides would be craftable into leather like wood -> planks, maybe 2 leather per hide. Cows would drop 1-2 hide per kill, pigs could drop 0-1. The hide itself wouldn't be very useful in its current incarnation, but it may be useful in the future if cosmetic items are added, like in making chairs or rugs. There could also be hide armor that uses hide instead of leather and provides the same protection but has double the durability.
4) All of the above. Replace leather drops with hide (and have pigs drop hide), have the baseline armor be hide armor, use leather as a component in every armor craft. Each armor craft would have the middle column blocks change to leather (boots would have the 'tops' change to leather). Hide boots, for example, would use 2 hide, 2 leather. Iron boots, 2 iron, 2 leather. This would keep leather relevant throughout, not have a strain on leather farming, provide a new resource for future crafting, and allow earlier armor crafting before diving deep enough to spare the iron on a full suit.
In any case, leather armor's durability needs to be increased, as it now suffers versus iron armor in three different ways (harder to get, less protection, significantly less durability).
These are good suggestions. Here is another perspective:
I always thought it was silly to make armor from iron. To my knowledge, no such armor has ever existed in all of history. Armor was made of steel, or other alloys. It was made from iron, but not completely- there were leather parts, wool padding, etc.
Wool armor was actually very common in many societies. I think you should be able to make the beginning armor from some combination of wool and leather, and the iron armor should contain iron and either wool or leather. Likewise, other advanced armors will still have leather in them. As it stands, leather is a useless resource; it is too difficult to get enough of it for anyone to bother, and leather has no other uses. If it was used in production of other armors, I might actually bother with it.
Now for some other thoughts. Animals, right now, are fun, they are cool, but they are also a little dumb. Let me explain.
As it is, I'm only going to breed chickens when animal breeding comes out; I have no need for cows, pigs, or sheep. Wolves can eat zombie flesh without ill effect, and I always have tons of zombie flesh, so there go pork chops. Leather is useless, milk is rarely needed, and beef is cool but unnecessary. String is so plentiful in mineshafts that I have no need for sheep. All I need is food, which chickens provide, and feathers, which chickens uniquely provide.
Fishing is cool, but much, much slower than other food gathering methods. I also think you should be able to harvest pumpkin seeds, and that melons should grow naturally in the world. Bread should not be found in chests- that is just ridiculous. Bread does not last that long. Wheat can, if properly sealed, so it could stay.
Better rewards in chests for exploration would be things that are uncommon or impossible to find elsewhere. Diamond and saddles are good (although saddles should be useful for more than just pigs), but something else would be fun too. Perhaps special torches that burn brighter, or special tools that you can't make- like steel. Maybe oil, which can be used in lamps or furnaces, or carved statues that can be placed as decorations. Iron is an okay reward, but not ideal. Gold is better, but I'd still like to see more rewards for exploration. Perhaps this is already in the works...
4.Not NPC village related,even MORE nether features would be nice.I still don't think it's worth going to the nether in the first place.Maybe some Nether-exclusive ore?
There is some. Glowstone. It just isn't very useful yet... if we get lanterns, it may be critical. And I find Netherrack very useful (forever burning is a useful property). But I agree, some more Nether-specific things would be nice.
Alright, this post is already huge. I'd better cut myself off.
I still don't think it's worth going to the nether in the first place.Maybe some Nether-exclusive ore?
Notch originally designed the Nether as a dangerous high level fast-travel teleportation system that you had to tame and then use to get around for the purpose of traveling very long distances in short amounts of time. It was never very good for this though, because of how difficult the nether was to navigate, so he added bridges and structures everywhere, and enemies guiarding the bridges, to make it more traversable. Personally I think it is great for this purpose now, and I like the few things you can get there and the added difficulty, he wants portals to corrupt the real world into nether bricks around the portal too (he may not do this though because of all the ragers who would get mad that it changed their house, no matter how cool of an idea it is).
That being said, if you asked me, I'd say to change the world ratios from 1:8 to 1:16, so that the nether takes you twice as far as it currently does. It's a minor alteration though. It would be a good motivation to make even larger biomes than we currently have, though, which would be really fun, if traveling to a desert was such a hassle that you needed a portal to go that great journey in reasonable time, or had to make a map and some small resting huts along the way. I like the idea of great long journeys and adventures through great distances in the wilderness being part of the game, and it would make the nether even more important and a GREAT late game reward as well!
More variant biomes would be nice.
Maybe rare exclusion biomes?
Something like a small patch of trees that appears sometimes in a plains biome
Or a mini plains biome with a pond on the middle of a desert biome I guess it would be an Oasis biome?
It would be a nice touch if snow appeared regularly above a certain block height.
That sorta covers the snow capped mountains aspect of things and adds a slight touch of realism to the game.
Wool armor was actually very common in many societies. I think you should be able to make the beginning armor from some combination of wool and leather, and the iron armor should contain iron and either wool or leather. Likewise, other advanced armors will still have leather in them. As it stands, leather is a useless resource; it is too difficult to get enough of it for anyone to bother, and leather has no other uses. If it was used in production of other armors, I might actually bother with it.
Agreed on the historical accuracy portion, but leather armor is so ingrained in fantasy lore that it would be kind of strange not to have a form of it. A 'wool armor' (or simply clothing that can use dyable wool) tier below leather is something I would really like to have, though. Same with some cosmetic crafts, like being able to make crowns or whatnot.
Better rewards in chests for exploration would be things that are uncommon or impossible to find elsewhere. Diamond and saddles are good (although saddles should be useful for more than just pigs), but something else would be fun too. Perhaps special torches that burn brighter, or special tools that you can't make- like steel. Maybe oil, which can be used in lamps or furnaces, or carved statues that can be placed as decorations. Iron is an okay reward, but not ideal. Gold is better, but I'd still like to see more rewards for exploration. Perhaps this is already in the works...
I think this idea, cosmetic blocks as a reward would be an excellent idea. It would keep with the theme of keeping Minecraft open ended (no Sword +1's from dungeon chests) while still providing an excellent reason to look for the chests. It could also be integrated into the achievement system: if you knock out certain achievements, you get access to reward decorations. Sniper Duel could give a bow and arrow wall decoration, for example.
More variant biomes would be nice.
Maybe rare exclusion biomes?
Something like a small patch of trees that appears sometimes in a plains biome
Or a mini plains biome with a pond on the middle of a desert biome I guess it would be an Oasis biome?
It would be a nice touch if snow appeared regularly above a certain block height.
That sorta covers the snow capped mountains aspect of things and adds a slight touch of realism to the game.
absolutely true. oasis in deserts on very rare occasions (something like an oasis appearing once in 25% of deserts, and twice in 5% of deserts).
There should be a biome rarity system for terrain generation (assuming there is not) so that certain things like giant mushroom biomes or swamp biomes or snowy biomes or deserts were all fairly rare and this made portal travel more important. This goes well with the idea for increased distance of travel in the nether (I suggest making the nether take us twice as far as it currently does). Lots of little details, like snow falling on AND through leaf blocks and also on AND through fences, snow landing on stairs, etc.
also, one HUGE solution to the snow problem notch has been ahving, since he seems to be getting more and more problems with how to implement snow so that it doesnt suck:
So many Testificate haters. Well, here's a solution for everyone. Why not make multiple types of NPCs that have villages throughout your world? For example, why not have the Testificates make their villages in the ocean or a lake? They can build the town on stilts and a large wooden platform. You can have Pigmen villages underground or in swamps and have human villages in every other biome? Hell, I'd like to see some snow villages in the snow biomes as well. They can be snowmen with igloos and such. Mind you, this idea will not necessarily clutter your world with villages; it will simply diversify where they pop up and introduce a wider variety of NPCs to interact with.
Another suggestion concerning the towns; what's up with where they spawn/how they're built? I understand it's a pre-release, but I thought at the very least they would be programed to pop up in X-amount of flat area, or flat enough area (varying between like 0-3 blocks in height in x amount of space.) I spawned in a world where this town was created in a freaking ditch, and the base of the town was in a pond. There was even a building hanging off a cliff and the wall hanging off the cliff had to be at least 30 blocks high lmfao It's interesting, yes, but sloppy? Yes. I don't know what plans they have for "cleaning" up these features, but it seems there are already simple channels they could have taken to avoid these glitches/bugs.
@wintermuet I actually don't like very much travelling throught the nether, as it's not precise at all :sad.gif: I would prefer a nether with some others "hard" mobs and a new ore (just one)...anyway I totally second the season, especially after trying nandonalt's mod, that also has things notch promised us, like ecessive heat/cold dealing damage and show that is actually codeable :biggrin.gif:
as of now, notch and jeb are against new ores in the nether, but they may change their mind.
Also, what is imprecise about the nether? Build both of your portals from the real world and then connect them in the nether with roads, precision solved.
I really don't like the change to jumping. I mean, I understand why they did it. It makes the game a little more realistic and encourages using stairs and such. But it's still irritating as hell >_<
How are the blaze rod, Ghast tear useless items? Its the pre release.. you know it's not even done right? do you even understand what constructive criticism means? he even said it in the very first post but you didn't give any constructive criticism, you just complained..
Runescaperx - wasting space
I don't think anything in the game is wrong to be honest, I'm having fun playing it so I'm happy :smile.gif:
Well, if I have already arrived to the place I want, I usually build a surface railroad :happy.gif:...however my point is that the nether is a great opportunity for expand the gameplay in minecraft, both "creative" with new blocks, and "adventurous" with new mob. If you want an example, I like some ideas from this thread, not all, but some of them are very creative.
He wants to keep the majority of the gameplay focused in the real world, with each 'alternate world' having specific functions that you must overcome to earn some system of reward there, like fast travel, or who knows what in the sky world.
Now think about what we are getting here. There is the main world with the large body of your work, you start there, get quests there, live there, visit biomes and mine underground, sail through oceans, farm and raise animals, fight through abandoned mines and strongholds. You also set your spawn point here and build maps of here.
Now, then there is the nether, it is a realm for fast travel between areas in your real world, and it has many bonus items in it but is not a important world in and of itself, and you never must rely on anything there, only get them as bonuses for specialized situations, which allows the psychological weight of the player to keep them in mind for what they really are: the other path between two points. an alternate road to take that is faster and more dangerous. Its general purpose is not to distract, but rather when you go into it you should generally focus on getting out of it asap to preserve the gameplay feel of it being FAST travel, not a place that is prone to distraction always slowing you down.
Similarly, we have the third world soon to be introduced, the sky realms. Notch has discussed the idea that you may be able to get here by sleeping in your bed, which would be quite an interesting idea. Other than that, we know very little of what will exist there, but my guess is that it will be something also specialized not to server as a distraction but a feature. it is a careful aspect of game design to now let your features become too distracting, otherwise they lose their intended purpose and dilute gameplay.
While I don't have many gripes with the changes that are being made I would like to offer a suggestion that could please everyone: make everything an option in the menu. I know it's been suggested for some things, but why not everything?
Tons of games have menu options to toggle certain features on and off; why not Minecraft? Don't like hunger? Toggle it off. Snow Golems? On or off. Biome diversity? High, medium or low. Biome size? Small, medium, large or epic. Allow the player to select from a menu which mobs (passive and aggressive) that they'd like to interact with in their game. NPC villages and villagers? Toggle. Void fog? Toggle it. Breeding on or off? Perhaps you would even be able to select how many tiles light spreads, or how fast/slow lava and water flow.
This would allow every player to tailor the game to their own specific preferences and hopefully make everyone happy. Notch can continue adding mobs and features at his whim, and the players can elect to have it implemented in their game or not.
I have no idea how difficult this idea would be to implement, though I have seen mods that allow for it, but if they could find a way to do it I think it would silence a lot of the haters.
I don't doubt it, but how do other games implement it?
with massive development teams, using more compact and better languages, or with a complete and utter disregard for game balance. Also their games develop a lot slower. How many games have done this would you list as one of the 100 best games of all time? Think about that. I have read the 100 best games of all time list for nearly every major website and magazine, because im into stuff like that.
I cant think of a single game on that list for any of them that had a million options. After a while it just sort of ruins the ability for two people top lay the game and be able to relate their game experience, it isolates game players and undermines game balance that is crucial to a smooth, seamless game experience that progresses on a well defined curve.
Also, brutal nad unforgiving roguelike games are actually one of the most popular types of games ever invented, and particularly noted for the amount of both rage and addiction that they inspire, as well as the amount of complexity in gameplay. The modern version of RPGs spawned out of them loosely, and they are still very popular in markets like portable/handhelds, and in japan and many underground pc gaming groups, and for flash games and other smaller game formats. Even to this date, games like nethack and dwarf fortress and minecraft are STILL being made and have huge followings!
I don't doubt it, but how do other games implement it?
Some of them are purely single player, or meant to be entirely comical. Or the options are not meant to comply with the normal rules of the game, such as Nazi zombies.
There are mods that do some of what you described, but to make every single feature an option... well, it would take a very long time, and server administration would get more complex. Those would have to be server options to make players capable of interacting with each other.
This is why most options in most games are not feature oriented, but performance and visually oriented. Anti-aliasing, screen resolutions, etc. They don't directly affect game balance, are useable in multiplayer modes, and once created they don't usually change with new features.
As an example, if you disable hunger, then you must change the way health is regenerated. Suddenly the game balance shifts, as food stacking is uber powerful, so that has to change. The food poisoning mechanic has no purpose, so it should go as well, making items of minimal use previously (like zombie flesh) legitimately useable items, further upsetting game balance. Giant mushrooms and mooshrooms are also far more powerful than they are with hunger, causing more balance issues. See how it dominoes and affects other things? And that's with a fairly simple example like hunger.
You can have those options, but any player who changes one or two will have a very different experience, and each option increases coding complexity by a lot. Complexity leads to bugs and performance issues. And before long, you would have to classify them as total conversions instead of options. At that point, as wintermuet said, players can't compare their play style, achievements, or anything anymore, because they are playing two different games.
I was quite surprised at how bad swamps colors transition with other biomes and at how sensitive the change really is. They spent so much time making biomes transition better that this seems like a step backwards, although it is easily fixable.
This is why most options in most games are not feature oriented, but performance and visually oriented. Anti-aliasing, screen resolutions, etc. They don't directly affect game balance, are useable in multiplayer modes, and once created they don't usually change with new features.
And the games that do have manipulable world variables tend to have them simply affect world gen. I don't doubt Minecraft will eventually implement world variable sliders on world gen (how forested the area is, how much water, how high 'ground' level is, etc.), but that's vastly different than eliminating a core game mechanic like hunger.
Hunger drives so many actions naturally - and flushes with a lot of the recent changes so well - that one would have to go back to 1.7 rules on a huge amount of things to justify no hunger bar.
I believe Notch is aware of this, as he can see it too, and likely it is a bug, a silly oversight, or a test idea, and I would not expect him to keep it.
Aye, you're probably right. :smile.gif: That's the great thing about the fact that it's still in beta, lol. It'll be interesting to see just hwo many changes Notch makes to the biomes in the next update, 1.10 (or perhaps even in 1.9).
But since that has been said already by over 10 people already i would also like to suggest some things on the NPC villages.
1.The roads need some adjusting,as they seem out of place at times.
2.A bigger variety of buildings is required i think(i find all villages the same right now)
3.The behaviour of NPCs.I know they are still just placeholders(hence the name TESTificate)but i think it's worth mentioning.
4.Not NPC village related,even MORE nether features would be nice.I still don't think it's worth going to the nether in the first place.Maybe some Nether-exclusive ore?
That's about all my suggestions for 1.9.
Rope would be so, so SO useful. I hate trying to climb down a shaft/ravine/hole, and then trying to carve my way back up it. Ladders are impractical for exploration and fairly expensive to just make tons of them; rope is so needed.
I agree, redstone is difficult to work with. Perhaps circuits could be made in a circuit box... make the box, then use it like a chest. You can then arrange redstone within the 'chest' and make a simple circuit. Outside input could come in from one side, be manipulated or whatever, and sent out another side(s). Circuit boxes could be chained together. This way, you lose none of the flexibility but gain some space saving, the ability to transport circuits from place to place (although without their connections in place), the ability to change a design much faster and easier, etc.
As I will say later, performance is a major thing, and I agree it needs tweaking.
I think villages need some tuning as well. Cobblestone streets is a good idea, or else a dirt path (dirt that doesn't grow grass). The way wood looks next to itself is ridiculous; take the wood out of fields and use wood planks. Cobblestone could be used in house construction, but sandstone could be as well- or that could be for roads. Same goes with bricks, and stone bricks- they would make for better looking houses than cobblestone houses. Honestly, the new blocks were my favorite part of the 1.8 update; all of a sudden there was variety in my building materials!
I kinda think snowballs shouldn't do any damage still, but should make the player jump when hit (like when the player is hit with arrows). That way snowball fights are more interesting, but not directly dangerous. In the future, I'd love to see other variations of the Snow Golem idea, such as a golem that shoots arrows. I agree that snow golems look weird, but they serve a very useful function.
Again, I will talk about the lag later.
Your idea about a siege mode and constructive mode is genius. A "fighting" mode, a "creative" mode, and a "peaceful" mode. I particularly like the idea of zombies digging through some types of blocks (not all though). That would make zombies much, much more scary.
I think Notch already has this in mind (the modes, not zombie digging). Something about "adventure" mode. Hopefully he does; that way people can stop complaining about additions they don't like.
I have thought about this. If we didn't know differently, we'd just love it. There are pluses and negatives to this way of releasing a game.
You, sir, I like.
I completely agree. For too long, there have been major performance issues. Notch has a tendency to drop a project when it gets frustrating- a feeling I completely understand, as I have felt it many times in programming. But after taking a break to add a cool new mob, you have to go back to the less-fun project. Minecraft should be more stable and use fewer resources to run.
As a rule, I think most mods should stay mods. But performance improvements should be part of the core game. I'd love to see some of the features of OptiFine used in the base game. To me, the only performance mods that should be needed are those that remove features or degrade visuals to improve performance on seriously old/under-performing equipment. The core performance improvements should be just that- in the core of Minecraft.
These are good suggestions. Here is another perspective:
I always thought it was silly to make armor from iron. To my knowledge, no such armor has ever existed in all of history. Armor was made of steel, or other alloys. It was made from iron, but not completely- there were leather parts, wool padding, etc.
Wool armor was actually very common in many societies. I think you should be able to make the beginning armor from some combination of wool and leather, and the iron armor should contain iron and either wool or leather. Likewise, other advanced armors will still have leather in them. As it stands, leather is a useless resource; it is too difficult to get enough of it for anyone to bother, and leather has no other uses. If it was used in production of other armors, I might actually bother with it.
Now for some other thoughts. Animals, right now, are fun, they are cool, but they are also a little dumb. Let me explain.
As it is, I'm only going to breed chickens when animal breeding comes out; I have no need for cows, pigs, or sheep. Wolves can eat zombie flesh without ill effect, and I always have tons of zombie flesh, so there go pork chops. Leather is useless, milk is rarely needed, and beef is cool but unnecessary. String is so plentiful in mineshafts that I have no need for sheep. All I need is food, which chickens provide, and feathers, which chickens uniquely provide.
Fishing is cool, but much, much slower than other food gathering methods. I also think you should be able to harvest pumpkin seeds, and that melons should grow naturally in the world. Bread should not be found in chests- that is just ridiculous. Bread does not last that long. Wheat can, if properly sealed, so it could stay.
Better rewards in chests for exploration would be things that are uncommon or impossible to find elsewhere. Diamond and saddles are good (although saddles should be useful for more than just pigs), but something else would be fun too. Perhaps special torches that burn brighter, or special tools that you can't make- like steel. Maybe oil, which can be used in lamps or furnaces, or carved statues that can be placed as decorations. Iron is an okay reward, but not ideal. Gold is better, but I'd still like to see more rewards for exploration. Perhaps this is already in the works...
There is some. Glowstone. It just isn't very useful yet... if we get lanterns, it may be critical. And I find Netherrack very useful (forever burning is a useful property). But I agree, some more Nether-specific things would be nice.
Alright, this post is already huge. I'd better cut myself off.
Notch originally designed the Nether as a dangerous high level fast-travel teleportation system that you had to tame and then use to get around for the purpose of traveling very long distances in short amounts of time. It was never very good for this though, because of how difficult the nether was to navigate, so he added bridges and structures everywhere, and enemies guiarding the bridges, to make it more traversable. Personally I think it is great for this purpose now, and I like the few things you can get there and the added difficulty, he wants portals to corrupt the real world into nether bricks around the portal too (he may not do this though because of all the ragers who would get mad that it changed their house, no matter how cool of an idea it is).
That being said, if you asked me, I'd say to change the world ratios from 1:8 to 1:16, so that the nether takes you twice as far as it currently does. It's a minor alteration though. It would be a good motivation to make even larger biomes than we currently have, though, which would be really fun, if traveling to a desert was such a hassle that you needed a portal to go that great journey in reasonable time, or had to make a map and some small resting huts along the way. I like the idea of great long journeys and adventures through great distances in the wilderness being part of the game, and it would make the nether even more important and a GREAT late game reward as well!
http://notch.tumblr.com/post/123343045/my-vision-for-survival (follow this link if you need proof)
Maybe rare exclusion biomes?
Something like a small patch of trees that appears sometimes in a plains biome
Or a mini plains biome with a pond on the middle of a desert biome I guess it would be an Oasis biome?
It would be a nice touch if snow appeared regularly above a certain block height.
That sorta covers the snow capped mountains aspect of things and adds a slight touch of realism to the game.
Agreed on the historical accuracy portion, but leather armor is so ingrained in fantasy lore that it would be kind of strange not to have a form of it. A 'wool armor' (or simply clothing that can use dyable wool) tier below leather is something I would really like to have, though. Same with some cosmetic crafts, like being able to make crowns or whatnot.
I think this idea, cosmetic blocks as a reward would be an excellent idea. It would keep with the theme of keeping Minecraft open ended (no Sword +1's from dungeon chests) while still providing an excellent reason to look for the chests. It could also be integrated into the achievement system: if you knock out certain achievements, you get access to reward decorations. Sniper Duel could give a bow and arrow wall decoration, for example.
absolutely true. oasis in deserts on very rare occasions (something like an oasis appearing once in 25% of deserts, and twice in 5% of deserts).
There should be a biome rarity system for terrain generation (assuming there is not) so that certain things like giant mushroom biomes or swamp biomes or snowy biomes or deserts were all fairly rare and this made portal travel more important. This goes well with the idea for increased distance of travel in the nether (I suggest making the nether take us twice as far as it currently does). Lots of little details, like snow falling on AND through leaf blocks and also on AND through fences, snow landing on stairs, etc.
also, one HUGE solution to the snow problem notch has been ahving, since he seems to be getting more and more problems with how to implement snow so that it doesnt suck:
add seasons to the game.
http://notch.tumblr.com/post/123343045/my-vision-for-survival (follow this link if you need proof)
Another suggestion concerning the towns; what's up with where they spawn/how they're built? I understand it's a pre-release, but I thought at the very least they would be programed to pop up in X-amount of flat area, or flat enough area (varying between like 0-3 blocks in height in x amount of space.) I spawned in a world where this town was created in a freaking ditch, and the base of the town was in a pond. There was even a building hanging off a cliff and the wall hanging off the cliff had to be at least 30 blocks high lmfao It's interesting, yes, but sloppy? Yes. I don't know what plans they have for "cleaning" up these features, but it seems there are already simple channels they could have taken to avoid these glitches/bugs.
as of now, notch and jeb are against new ores in the nether, but they may change their mind.
Also, what is imprecise about the nether? Build both of your portals from the real world and then connect them in the nether with roads, precision solved.
http://notch.tumblr.com/post/123343045/my-vision-for-survival (follow this link if you need proof)
It's a bug. :tongue.gif:
How are the blaze rod, Ghast tear useless items? Its the pre release.. you know it's not even done right? do you even understand what constructive criticism means? he even said it in the very first post but you didn't give any constructive criticism, you just complained..
Runescaperx - wasting space
I don't think anything in the game is wrong to be honest, I'm having fun playing it so I'm happy :smile.gif:
He wants to keep the majority of the gameplay focused in the real world, with each 'alternate world' having specific functions that you must overcome to earn some system of reward there, like fast travel, or who knows what in the sky world.
Now think about what we are getting here. There is the main world with the large body of your work, you start there, get quests there, live there, visit biomes and mine underground, sail through oceans, farm and raise animals, fight through abandoned mines and strongholds. You also set your spawn point here and build maps of here.
Now, then there is the nether, it is a realm for fast travel between areas in your real world, and it has many bonus items in it but is not a important world in and of itself, and you never must rely on anything there, only get them as bonuses for specialized situations, which allows the psychological weight of the player to keep them in mind for what they really are: the other path between two points. an alternate road to take that is faster and more dangerous. Its general purpose is not to distract, but rather when you go into it you should generally focus on getting out of it asap to preserve the gameplay feel of it being FAST travel, not a place that is prone to distraction always slowing you down.
Similarly, we have the third world soon to be introduced, the sky realms. Notch has discussed the idea that you may be able to get here by sleeping in your bed, which would be quite an interesting idea. Other than that, we know very little of what will exist there, but my guess is that it will be something also specialized not to server as a distraction but a feature. it is a careful aspect of game design to now let your features become too distracting, otherwise they lose their intended purpose and dilute gameplay.
http://notch.tumblr.com/post/123343045/my-vision-for-survival (follow this link if you need proof)
Tons of games have menu options to toggle certain features on and off; why not Minecraft? Don't like hunger? Toggle it off. Snow Golems? On or off. Biome diversity? High, medium or low. Biome size? Small, medium, large or epic. Allow the player to select from a menu which mobs (passive and aggressive) that they'd like to interact with in their game. NPC villages and villagers? Toggle. Void fog? Toggle it. Breeding on or off? Perhaps you would even be able to select how many tiles light spreads, or how fast/slow lava and water flow.
This would allow every player to tailor the game to their own specific preferences and hopefully make everyone happy. Notch can continue adding mobs and features at his whim, and the players can elect to have it implemented in their game or not.
I have no idea how difficult this idea would be to implement, though I have seen mods that allow for it, but if they could find a way to do it I think it would silence a lot of the haters.
Extremely.
This.
The ability to balance the game would just get thrown right out the window, as well.
http://notch.tumblr.com/post/123343045/my-vision-for-survival (follow this link if you need proof)
with massive development teams, using more compact and better languages, or with a complete and utter disregard for game balance. Also their games develop a lot slower. How many games have done this would you list as one of the 100 best games of all time? Think about that. I have read the 100 best games of all time list for nearly every major website and magazine, because im into stuff like that.
I cant think of a single game on that list for any of them that had a million options. After a while it just sort of ruins the ability for two people top lay the game and be able to relate their game experience, it isolates game players and undermines game balance that is crucial to a smooth, seamless game experience that progresses on a well defined curve.
Also, brutal nad unforgiving roguelike games are actually one of the most popular types of games ever invented, and particularly noted for the amount of both rage and addiction that they inspire, as well as the amount of complexity in gameplay. The modern version of RPGs spawned out of them loosely, and they are still very popular in markets like portable/handhelds, and in japan and many underground pc gaming groups, and for flash games and other smaller game formats. Even to this date, games like nethack and dwarf fortress and minecraft are STILL being made and have huge followings!
http://notch.tumblr.com/post/123343045/my-vision-for-survival (follow this link if you need proof)
Some of them are purely single player, or meant to be entirely comical. Or the options are not meant to comply with the normal rules of the game, such as Nazi zombies.
There are mods that do some of what you described, but to make every single feature an option... well, it would take a very long time, and server administration would get more complex. Those would have to be server options to make players capable of interacting with each other.
This is why most options in most games are not feature oriented, but performance and visually oriented. Anti-aliasing, screen resolutions, etc. They don't directly affect game balance, are useable in multiplayer modes, and once created they don't usually change with new features.
As an example, if you disable hunger, then you must change the way health is regenerated. Suddenly the game balance shifts, as food stacking is uber powerful, so that has to change. The food poisoning mechanic has no purpose, so it should go as well, making items of minimal use previously (like zombie flesh) legitimately useable items, further upsetting game balance. Giant mushrooms and mooshrooms are also far more powerful than they are with hunger, causing more balance issues. See how it dominoes and affects other things? And that's with a fairly simple example like hunger.
You can have those options, but any player who changes one or two will have a very different experience, and each option increases coding complexity by a lot. Complexity leads to bugs and performance issues. And before long, you would have to classify them as total conversions instead of options. At that point, as wintermuet said, players can't compare their play style, achievements, or anything anymore, because they are playing two different games.
And the games that do have manipulable world variables tend to have them simply affect world gen. I don't doubt Minecraft will eventually implement world variable sliders on world gen (how forested the area is, how much water, how high 'ground' level is, etc.), but that's vastly different than eliminating a core game mechanic like hunger.
Hunger drives so many actions naturally - and flushes with a lot of the recent changes so well - that one would have to go back to 1.7 rules on a huge amount of things to justify no hunger bar.
Aye, you're probably right. :smile.gif: That's the great thing about the fact that it's still in beta, lol. It'll be interesting to see just hwo many changes Notch makes to the biomes in the next update, 1.10 (or perhaps even in 1.9).