A few days ago I was trying to recreate one of the ships added in 1.13 as a regular ship I could use as a home in the ocean. This involved searching around trying to find a mostly intact sunken ship that I could use as a model before I eventually realized someone had already made a wiki page detailing the design of the structure. This led me to thinking about other structures within the game that people may want to build, including some that exist however nothing in the game indicates you can make them.
A blueprint would do just that. This item looks similar to a map, however it is blue with white lines on it. There are many different blueprints for each of the larger or more challenging structures that can be found in the game, including ones that don't generate in the world naturally. Each blueprint item would be set to a specific structure within the game. When you put your cursor over the blueprint it will tell you what the blueprint is for. Blueprints can be found in chests or purchased from a new Villager known as the Architect.
How to Use
After obtaining a blueprint you just hold it in your hand and it will display a silhouette of the structure in front of you. The direction the structure faces is based on two things, which are the direction you are facing and the "Anchor Block" (more on that later). Generally, it will be so that the entrance is facing the player. If there are blocks that overlap the outline of the structure, those blocks will be highlighted in red. This doesn't stop you from setting up the blueprint, it is just to let you know you will need to break some blocks to build the structure there.
When you find a suitable location, all you do is right click and use the Blueprint. Then the structure will be locked to that position. Other people cannot see the silhouette, only the person who has the Blueprint can and only when they have it in one of their hands. With dual-wielding you can hold the Blueprint in one hand and place blocks with the other. This changes the description of the item to include the coordinates of the structure. If you want to reset the Blueprint, you put it in the crafting grid which will craft a version of the Blueprint that has not been locked to a location.
Structure Silhouette
When looking at a structure silhouette after using the Blueprint, it will give you some general information about the structure. If you look at a specific block in the silhouette and have that block in your hotbar, the slot that it is in will light up to indicate that it is the correct block. Using the "pick block" feature (Middle Mouse Button) will automatically switch to that block (in Creative Mode it will act like "Pick Block" does for that mode and just give you the block).
Right-clicking the structure with the appropriate block will place that block in the correct space. When using a Blueprint you don't have to place the block against another block, just right-clicking the correct part of the structure will place it in that spot. If the block can have multiple orientations (such as stairs), the game will automatically place it in the correct orientation, regardless of how you were facing. So building with a Blueprint is a bit easier than doing it freehand.
Anchor Block
The Anchor Block is a specific block within the blueprint structure that determines there it is placed and what direction it faces. It always faces the player and the position depends on where it makes the most sense to make placing the structure easily. For smaller houses this will be the block under the door or entrance. For a large structure like a ship the anchor block is positioned so that the boat is placed sideways in front of you and low enough that the windows on the lower deck are 1 block above the water's surface.
Architect Villagers
First, let's get this out of the way and say that these Villagers don't help you build things. They buy some building materials (in large quantities) and sell some craftable building materials as well as Blueprints. Examples of things they could buy or sell are (I didn't put any effort into balancing these, they are just rough examples):
Buys Clay Blocks (32-44) for 1 Emerald
Buys Nether Bricks (28-36) for 1 Emerald
Buys Glowstone (14-20) for 1 Emerald
Sells Glazed Terracotta (6-10) for 3-5 Emeralds
Sells 1 Piston for 8-10 Emerald
Sells Small Blueprint (Small Village Houses, Wells, Witch Huts, etc.) for 4-6 Emeralds
Sells Medium Blueprint (Village Church, Village Blacksmith, Larger Villager Houses) for 10-15 Emeralds
To make a copy of a Blueprint, surround a Blueprint with 8 Paper in the Crafting Bench.
You can also create custom Blueprints in Creative Mode with commands. You just build the structure, remove any blocks you don't want within the structure (best done on custom flat worlds so you have lots of space upwards to build) and use a command:
This selects everything in a box going from the first X/Y/Z to the second X/Y/Z, and sets the Anchor Block to the third X/Y/Z with whatever rotation you specify. Then you give it a name and if you want, a short item description. This will put a copy of the blueprint file in your game's save folder and puts a copy in your inventory. You can then use the file that was created in other worlds. The name of these files are "Custom_Blueprint_<Name>"
These custom blueprints can be added to Villager Trades or Loot Tables, or they can be given to players using the following: /give <player> minecraft:Custom_Blueprint_<Name>
The game will check for that blueprint name in the world folder of the host server and give it to the player if it exists. If the name isn't correct it fails. Auto-fill will include blueprints within your world folder.
To get a list of blueprints in your world folder you type /blueprint list
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Are these really needed? While I like how you've addressed the problem, I don't know if it's a concern in the first place. These are your examples:
• 12-16 emeralds for a small village house, well, and witch huts. The small houses and wells are very easy to make and remember- besides they are kind of ugly. Maybe if you want to replicate a witch hut, but even then its use is questionable. If I was so desperate to rebuild one I could just look it up.
• 28-35 for the village church, blacksmith , and large house. Again, not worth the price or effort.
• 56-64 for ship, temple, nether portal, conduit, beacon. The portal and beacon shouldn't cost that much- everyone knows how to make that. The ship and temple are bigger, but it's still a high cost that you can just look up. But most importantly, why would anyone use this?
It's a smart and efficient concept but lacks a reason. Maybe if you could create your own blueprints?
Whoops, I knew I was forgetting something. Yes people can make their own blueprints. I'll edit the OP and add a section for that. And the trades can be adjusted, I just threw out some numbers following the general idea that most items that a Villager sells are a bit of a ripoff. All of the blueprint prices could probably be halved.
As for the necessity, maybe they aren't really necessary because of the way it was developed and how late in the game's life cycle these would be added. I've always believed there are 2 cardinal sins in game development that all games should avoid. The first is making the game too "handhold-ey" by walking you through absolutely everything like you are teaching a preschooler how to spell. The other is not explaining enough, to the point where players aren't aware of entire parts of the game without having to resort to using a walkthrough/wiki or asking online. Minecraft is a shining example of the second sin.
Dinnerbone also seems aware of this, when he scrapped the old achievement system and added the advancement system, saying that is was basically to act as a tutorial for the vanilla game. This change is good. The old achievement system for entering the Nether just says to build a Nether Portal and has an Obisidian icon, which basically tells you you make some kind of portal out of Obsidian. The new system first explains how to make Obsidian and it says to light the Nether Portal, which is more helpful because most people would never think to light a Nether Portal without first being told how.
The last piece of the puzzle that is not shown is how to actually build the portal. With the blueprint it would give you the frame, which is the last thing you need to know. But your hand is never held through the process, you have to find each detail separately.
That is what this idea is meant to help fix. Yeah there are other blueprints for common structures (which still saves time rather than trying to memorize a structure, taking a bunch of screenshots of a structure, or looking it up online), but the main purpose is to fill in the blanks on some game mechanics you would never know about without being told about them from outside the game. You have an advancement for bringing a beacon to maximum power, but nothing implies how to actually do that. You're stuck relying on 3rd party info. Nothing tells you what a Conduit is for or how to make the Conduit structure. This is just plain bad game design.
To make it more useful beyond helping new players or those short on internet access, it could also include other structures that aren't normally found in the game world. Possibly multiple different ship types, or additional house types, or other things like that.
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As for the necessity, maybe they aren't really necessary because of the way it was developed and how late in the game's life cycle these would be added. I've always believed there are 2 cardinal sins in game development that all games should avoid. The first is making the game too "handhold-ey" by walking you through absolutely everything like you are teaching a preschooler how to spell. The other is not explaining enough, to the point where players aren't aware of entire parts of the game without having to resort to using a walkthrough/wiki or asking online. Minecraft is a shining example of the second sin.
Dinnerbone also seems aware of this, when he scrapped the old achievement system and added the advancement system, saying that is was basically to act as a tutorial for the vanilla game. This change is good. The old achievement system for entering the Nether just says to build a Nether Portal and has an Obisidian icon, which basically tells you you make some kind of portal out of Obsidian. The new system first explains how to make Obsidian and it says to light the Nether Portal, which is more helpful because most people would never think to light a Nether Portal without first being told how.
The last piece of the puzzle that is not shown is how to actually build the portal. With the blueprint it would give you the frame, which is the last thing you need to know. But your hand is never held through the process, you have to find each detail separately.
The achievements (the advancement-equivalent on Bedrock and the Legacy Console editions) have significantly better icons in this respect. For example, the advancement icon for the "Diamonds!" advancement (the one you get when first mining diamonds) shows a diamond, while in the achievement system that exists on other platforms it displays a diamond ore block. This might not be as big of an issue as the Nether portal, though, since it's pretty obvious that the light blue ore gives you diamonds, so let's go to your Nether portal example.
In the current advancement system, you get an advancement for picking up lava in a bucket, making obsidian, and then... building and lighting a Nether portal. As you said, this is bad game design because it doesn't show the player how to make a Nether portal since its icon is just a flint-and-steel. However, on the achievement system, the icon for that is an actual Nether portal, showing the player how to build it. The only thing it doesn't show the player is how to light it, so here is my suggestion: there's an advancement for crafting a flint-and-steel which is also connected to the "We need to go deeper" achievement.
That is what this idea is meant to help fix. Yeah there are other blueprints for common structures (which still saves time rather than trying to memorize a structure, taking a bunch of screenshots of a structure, or looking it up online), but the main purpose is to fill in the blanks on some game mechanics you would never know about without being told about them from outside the game. You have an advancement for bringing a beacon to maximum power, but nothing implies how to actually do that. You're stuck relying on 3rd party info. Nothing tells you what a Conduit is for or how to make the Conduit structure. This is just plain bad game design.
To make it more useful beyond helping new players or those short on internet access, it could also include other structures that aren't normally found in the game world. Possibly multiple different ship types, or additional house types, or other things like that.
If the main use/reason for this idea is to telegraph how to progress through the game, it's flawed, because players don't always stumble upon villages. A better way to telegraph these things to the player are through things that they are more likely to find. For example, maybe there are cave paintings (found in the above-ground part of caves) that show how to build a Nether portal. These could even be more frequent in the spawn chunks to increase the chances that players find them. The beacon pyramid could be shown in the desert temples and in a relic (which is implied to have come from the desert temple) that is found in dungeons.
Also, I think that if this were implemented, there should be a way for players to make their own blueprints in survival mode for if they want to replicate something they found or have already built.
A few days ago I was trying to recreate one of the ships added in 1.13 as a regular ship I could use as a home in the ocean. This involved searching around trying to find a mostly intact sunken ship that I could use as a model before I eventually realized someone had already made a wiki page detailing the design of the structure. This led me to thinking about other structures within the game that people may want to build, including some that exist however nothing in the game indicates you can make them.
A blueprint would do just that. This item looks similar to a map, however it is blue with white lines on it. There are many different blueprints for each of the larger or more challenging structures that can be found in the game, including ones that don't generate in the world naturally. Each blueprint item would be set to a specific structure within the game. When you put your cursor over the blueprint it will tell you what the blueprint is for. Blueprints can be found in chests or purchased from a new Villager known as the Architect. It would be weird if shipwrecks had a blueprint, but regular ships would be a great idea.
How to Use
After obtaining a blueprint you just hold it in your hand and it will display a silhouette of the structure in front of you. The direction the structure faces is based on two things, which are the direction you are facing and the "Anchor Block" (more on that later). Generally, it will be so that the entrance is facing the player. If there are blocks that overlap the outline of the structure, those blocks will be highlighted in red. This doesn't stop you from setting up the blueprint, it is just to let you know you will need to break some blocks to build the structure there.
When you find a suitable location, all you do is right click and use the Blueprint. Then the structure will be locked to that position. Other people cannot see the silhouette, only the person who has the Blueprint can and only when they have it in one of their hands. With dual-wielding you can hold the Blueprint in one hand and place blocks with the other. This changes the description of the item to include the coordinates of the structure. If you want to reset the Blueprint, you put it in the crafting grid which will craft a version of the Blueprint that has not been locked to a location. Make it so that the player just rights clicks the blueprint again to reset the silouhette. (I suggest you look at the schematica mod. The blue prints should be similiar to this)
Structure Silhouette
When looking at a structure silhouette after using the Blueprint, it will give you some general information about the structure. If you look at a specific block in the silhouette and have that block in your hotbar, the slot that it is in will light up to indicate that it is the correct block. Using the "pick block" feature (Middle Mouse Button) will automatically switch to that block (in Creative Mode it will act like "Pick Block" does for that mode and just give you the block). Perhaps it would me more useful if the player holds the block, and then the appropriate blocks in the silouhette light up a shade of yellow so you can still see the blocks.
Right-clicking the structure with the appropriate block will place that block in the correct space. When using a Blueprint you don't have to place the block against another block, just right-clicking the correct part of the structure will place it in that spot. If the block can have multiple orientations (such as stairs), the game will automatically place it in the correct orientation, regardless of how you were facing. So building with a Blueprint is a bit easier than doing it freehand. This whole paragraph could be difficult to code. The blueprint as it is has multiple uses already,
Anchor Block
The Anchor Block is a specific block within the blueprint structure that determines there it is placed and what direction it faces. It always faces the player and the position depends on where it makes the most sense to make placing the structure easily. For smaller houses this will be the block under the door or entrance. For a large structure like a ship the anchor block is positioned so that the boat is placed sideways in front of you and low enough that the windows on the lower deck are 1 block above the water's surface. Nice.
Architect Villagers
First, let's get this out of the way and say that these Villagers don't help you build things. They buy some building materials (in large quantities) and sell some craftable building materials as well as Blueprints. Examples of things they could buy or sell are (I didn't put any effort into balancing these, they are just rough examples):
Buys Clay Blocks (32-44) for 1 Emerald
Buys Nether Bricks (28-36) for 1 Emerald I think that buying regulare bricks would be better and make more sense, but that's just imo.
Buys Glowstone (14-20) for 1 Emerald
Sells Glazed Terracotta (6-10) for 3-5 Emeralds Maybe they should sell regular terracotta because you can always make it glazed later.
Sells 1 Piston for 8-10 Emerald
Sells Small Blueprint (Small Village Houses, Wells, Witch Huts, etc.) for 4-6 Emeralds
Sells Medium Blueprint (Village Church, Village Blacksmith, Larger Villager Houses) for 10-15 Emeralds
Sells Large/Rare Blueprint (Ship, Desert/Jungle Temple, Nether Portal Frame, Conduit, Beacon) for 20-26 Emeralds Get rid of the nether portal frame, conduit, and beacon and then we're good
Creating Blueprints
To make a copy of a Blueprint, surround a Blueprint with 8 Paper in the Crafting Bench. Why?
You can also create custom Blueprints in Creative Mode with commands. You just build the structure, remove any blocks you don't want within the structure (best done on custom flat worlds so you have lots of space upwards to build) and use a command:
This selects everything in a box going from the first X/Y/Z to the second X/Y/Z, and sets the Anchor Block to the third X/Y/Z with whatever rotation you specify. Then you give it a name and if you want, a short item description. This will put a copy of the blueprint file in your game's save folder and puts a copy in your inventory. You can then use the file that was created in other worlds. The name of these files are "Custom_Blueprint_<Name>"
These custom blueprints can be added to Villager Trades or Loot Tables, or they can be given to players using the following: /give <player> minecraft:Custom_Blueprint_<Name>
The game will check for that blueprint name in the world folder of the host server and give it to the player if it exists. If the name isn't correct it fails. Auto-fill will include blueprints within your world folder.
To get a list of blueprints in your world folder you type /blueprint list All of this seems useful. Maybe, blueprints should be craftable by surrounding lapis with paper. You would then be able to right click your two points with the blueprint to create it. This way, you could copy structures more easily in your survival world.
I enjoyed the thread, This would be a great addition to Minecraft. 90% Support.
A few days ago I was trying to recreate one of the ships added in 1.13 as a regular ship I could use as a home in the ocean. This involved searching around trying to find a mostly intact sunken ship that I could use as a model before I eventually realized someone had already made a wiki page detailing the design of the structure. This led me to thinking about other structures within the game that people may want to build, including some that exist however nothing in the game indicates you can make them.
A blueprint would do just that. This item looks similar to a map, however it is blue with white lines on it. There are many different blueprints for each of the larger or more challenging structures that can be found in the game, including ones that don't generate in the world naturally. Each blueprint item would be set to a specific structure within the game. When you put your cursor over the blueprint it will tell you what the blueprint is for. Blueprints can be found in chests or purchased from a new Villager known as the Architect.
How to Use
After obtaining a blueprint you just hold it in your hand and it will display a silhouette of the structure in front of you. The direction the structure faces is based on two things, which are the direction you are facing and the "Anchor Block" (more on that later). Generally, it will be so that the entrance is facing the player. If there are blocks that overlap the outline of the structure, those blocks will be highlighted in red. This doesn't stop you from setting up the blueprint, it is just to let you know you will need to break some blocks to build the structure there.
When you find a suitable location, all you do is right click and use the Blueprint. Then the structure will be locked to that position. Other people cannot see the silhouette, only the person who has the Blueprint can and only when they have it in one of their hands. With dual-wielding you can hold the Blueprint in one hand and place blocks with the other. This changes the description of the item to include the coordinates of the structure. If you want to reset the Blueprint, you put it in the crafting grid which will craft a version of the Blueprint that has not been locked to a location.
Structure Silhouette
When looking at a structure silhouette after using the Blueprint, it will give you some general information about the structure. If you look at a specific block in the silhouette and have that block in your hotbar, the slot that it is in will light up to indicate that it is the correct block. Using the "pick block" feature (Middle Mouse Button) will automatically switch to that block (in Creative Mode it will act like "Pick Block" does for that mode and just give you the block).
Right-clicking the structure with the appropriate block will place that block in the correct space. When using a Blueprint you don't have to place the block against another block, just right-clicking the correct part of the structure will place it in that spot. If the block can have multiple orientations (such as stairs), the game will automatically place it in the correct orientation, regardless of how you were facing. So building with a Blueprint is a bit easier than doing it freehand.
Anchor Block
The Anchor Block is a specific block within the blueprint structure that determines there it is placed and what direction it faces. It always faces the player and the position depends on where it makes the most sense to make placing the structure easily. For smaller houses this will be the block under the door or entrance. For a large structure like a ship the anchor block is positioned so that the boat is placed sideways in front of you and low enough that the windows on the lower deck are 1 block above the water's surface.
Architect Villagers
First, let's get this out of the way and say that these Villagers don't help you build things. They buy some building materials (in large quantities) and sell some craftable building materials as well as Blueprints. Examples of things they could buy or sell are (I didn't put any effort into balancing these, they are just rough examples):
Creating Blueprints
To make a copy of a Blueprint, surround a Blueprint with 8 Paper in the Crafting Bench.
You can also create custom Blueprints in Creative Mode with commands. You just build the structure, remove any blocks you don't want within the structure (best done on custom flat worlds so you have lots of space upwards to build) and use a command:
/blueprint create <X1, Y1, Z1,> <X2, Y2, Z2>, <X3, Y3, Z3, rotation> <name> <optional description>
This selects everything in a box going from the first X/Y/Z to the second X/Y/Z, and sets the Anchor Block to the third X/Y/Z with whatever rotation you specify. Then you give it a name and if you want, a short item description. This will put a copy of the blueprint file in your game's save folder and puts a copy in your inventory. You can then use the file that was created in other worlds. The name of these files are "Custom_Blueprint_<Name>"
These custom blueprints can be added to Villager Trades or Loot Tables, or they can be given to players using the following: /give <player> minecraft:Custom_Blueprint_<Name>
The game will check for that blueprint name in the world folder of the host server and give it to the player if it exists. If the name isn't correct it fails. Auto-fill will include blueprints within your world folder.
To get a list of blueprints in your world folder you type /blueprint list
Want some advice on how to thrive in the Suggestions section? Check this handy list of guidelines and tips for posting your ideas and responding to the ideas of others!
http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-discussion/suggestions/2775557-guidelines-for-the-suggestions-forum
Are these really needed? While I like how you've addressed the problem, I don't know if it's a concern in the first place. These are your examples:
• 12-16 emeralds for a small village house, well, and witch huts. The small houses and wells are very easy to make and remember- besides they are kind of ugly. Maybe if you want to replicate a witch hut, but even then its use is questionable. If I was so desperate to rebuild one I could just look it up.
• 28-35 for the village church, blacksmith , and large house. Again, not worth the price or effort.
• 56-64 for ship, temple, nether portal, conduit, beacon. The portal and beacon shouldn't cost that much- everyone knows how to make that. The ship and temple are bigger, but it's still a high cost that you can just look up. But most importantly, why would anyone use this?
It's a smart and efficient concept but lacks a reason. Maybe if you could create your own blueprints?
Whoops, I knew I was forgetting something. Yes people can make their own blueprints. I'll edit the OP and add a section for that. And the trades can be adjusted, I just threw out some numbers following the general idea that most items that a Villager sells are a bit of a ripoff. All of the blueprint prices could probably be halved.
As for the necessity, maybe they aren't really necessary because of the way it was developed and how late in the game's life cycle these would be added. I've always believed there are 2 cardinal sins in game development that all games should avoid. The first is making the game too "handhold-ey" by walking you through absolutely everything like you are teaching a preschooler how to spell. The other is not explaining enough, to the point where players aren't aware of entire parts of the game without having to resort to using a walkthrough/wiki or asking online. Minecraft is a shining example of the second sin.
Dinnerbone also seems aware of this, when he scrapped the old achievement system and added the advancement system, saying that is was basically to act as a tutorial for the vanilla game. This change is good. The old achievement system for entering the Nether just says to build a Nether Portal and has an Obisidian icon, which basically tells you you make some kind of portal out of Obsidian. The new system first explains how to make Obsidian and it says to light the Nether Portal, which is more helpful because most people would never think to light a Nether Portal without first being told how.
The last piece of the puzzle that is not shown is how to actually build the portal. With the blueprint it would give you the frame, which is the last thing you need to know. But your hand is never held through the process, you have to find each detail separately.
That is what this idea is meant to help fix. Yeah there are other blueprints for common structures (which still saves time rather than trying to memorize a structure, taking a bunch of screenshots of a structure, or looking it up online), but the main purpose is to fill in the blanks on some game mechanics you would never know about without being told about them from outside the game. You have an advancement for bringing a beacon to maximum power, but nothing implies how to actually do that. You're stuck relying on 3rd party info. Nothing tells you what a Conduit is for or how to make the Conduit structure. This is just plain bad game design.
To make it more useful beyond helping new players or those short on internet access, it could also include other structures that aren't normally found in the game world. Possibly multiple different ship types, or additional house types, or other things like that.
Want some advice on how to thrive in the Suggestions section? Check this handy list of guidelines and tips for posting your ideas and responding to the ideas of others!
http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-discussion/suggestions/2775557-guidelines-for-the-suggestions-forum
The achievements (the advancement-equivalent on Bedrock and the Legacy Console editions) have significantly better icons in this respect. For example, the advancement icon for the "Diamonds!" advancement (the one you get when first mining diamonds) shows a diamond, while in the achievement system that exists on other platforms it displays a diamond ore block. This might not be as big of an issue as the Nether portal, though, since it's pretty obvious that the light blue ore gives you diamonds, so let's go to your Nether portal example.
In the current advancement system, you get an advancement for picking up lava in a bucket, making obsidian, and then... building and lighting a Nether portal. As you said, this is bad game design because it doesn't show the player how to make a Nether portal since its icon is just a flint-and-steel. However, on the achievement system, the icon for that is an actual Nether portal, showing the player how to build it. The only thing it doesn't show the player is how to light it, so here is my suggestion: there's an advancement for crafting a flint-and-steel which is also connected to the "We need to go deeper" achievement.
Achievement icons:
If the main use/reason for this idea is to telegraph how to progress through the game, it's flawed, because players don't always stumble upon villages. A better way to telegraph these things to the player are through things that they are more likely to find. For example, maybe there are cave paintings (found in the above-ground part of caves) that show how to build a Nether portal. These could even be more frequent in the spawn chunks to increase the chances that players find them. The beacon pyramid could be shown in the desert temples and in a relic (which is implied to have come from the desert temple) that is found in dungeons.
Also, I think that if this were implemented, there should be a way for players to make their own blueprints in survival mode for if they want to replicate something they found or have already built.
Check out my suggestions! Here is one of them:
I enjoyed the thread, This would be a great addition to Minecraft. 90% Support.