One area that Minecraft is very obviously lacking is ambience. After the awe of first playing wears off, the world doesn't feel alive anymore, and that's because there's little to hear and little to see moving. With this suggestion I'm going to propose some small additions that would go together to completely revamp the Minecraft experience, and bring new life to the game.
Audio Loops
Just like there are music tracks that play, there will now be somewhat quiet audio loops that play depending on the biome you're in. These are constant and represent the animals in the biome. In biomes with birds you'll hear birds chirping. In deserts and mountains you'll hear the wind. In beaches you'll hear the seagulls. At night, depending on the biome, you would also be able to faintly hear crickets or cicadas.
SmallDetails
Trees now have a leaf falling animation. This only plays sometimes, and all trees will be synced up in it as if there were seasons. If seasons were ever implemented, this would be correlated with the "fall" season.
In addition to this, leaves will also now occasionally drop sticks as long as there is a block of air below them, even if they aren't decaying.
Fireflies would now spawn at night in plains and swamps. They'd look like floating XP orbs, and could be collected with an empty bottle to get a firefly in a bottle, which can be placed and emits as much light as glowstone.
At night, if near or in a spruce forest / pack of wolves, you can hear the wolves howling. This does not happen every night, but almost always happens when there is a full moon.
As suggested by Reddit user u/PieterHugo2, passive farm animal mobs (cows, sheep, etc.) should lay down at night and shut their eyes.
Dust storms can happen in deserts, which create a thick sand-colored fog.
Now I'd like to talk about mobs. I'm not asking for anything major, but having some new common mobs would definitely make the game feel more alive.
Birds
We already have the chicken and parrot, but not anything that is common, dynamic, and in a common biome. Here I propose four birds: the blue jay, the cardinal, the seagull, and the hawk.
Blue jays spawn in all forest biomes except for dark oak forests and mega taigas. They sit in trees and occasionally fly from tree to tree, or onto the ground to pick up a stick.
[Model in Progress]
Cardinals look almost identical to blue jays, but are red and 1 pixel shorter. They spawn in all forest biomes and will not spawn in areas where there are blue jays within 50 blocks. Blue jays have the spawn priority, meaning blue jays are slightly more common. Cardinals will also go to the ground to pick up or search for sticks.
[Model in Progress]
Seagulls spawn in beaches, and spend just as much time on the ground as they do in the air. They make
Hawk model courtesy of MCvinnyq
Hawks are different than the other birds I've mentioned so far. They are not common, and spawn alone. They swoop down and will pick up rabbits with their talons, taking the rabbit far away. If you get too close to a hawk, it will swoop down and attack you until you go away, dealing 4 () damage.
Frogs
At the moment, swamps are pretty empty during the day. There are sometimes pigs or cows in the more open spaces, but other than that, there really isn't much.
Spawning in swamps and ponds, frogs would look like retextured rabbits without ears, and would have a distinctive croaking sound. They hop around from lily pad to lily pad, and cover great distance in each leap. They will quickly stick their tongue out to attack spiders, dealing 2() damage. Frogs will follow you if you're holding spider eyes, and can be bred with the spider eyes.
Frogs are a great aesthetic mob, and can also be taken back to your base to help defend against spiders.
Larger Details
Just as in shaders (but to a lesser degree), leaves, grass, and flowers now blow in the wind. Unlike how most shaders make it look like there's a tornado nearby, this would just be a faint effect. Because this might lag lower end PCs, this has its own toggle button in the Video Settings.
Water that is in any kind of ocean biome has a similar effect, but amplified in the y-axis, making it look like there are waves. This is amplified more when it's raining, and even more when there is a thunder storm. As with the moving leaves, this has its own toggle button in the Video Settings.
Music
There are some tracks which are currently unused in Minecraft for unknown reasons. This includes C418's "Excuse" (which should play when above ground at night, as it'd create a spooky mood with the monsters about), C418's "Equinoxe" (which could play when the Ender Dragon is defeated or when in a stronghold), C418's "Door" (which could play while in a village). I think these should all be used.
yay, more performance decreases for everybody. I like those ideas, but mojang would really need to clean up their existing code first in order to add anything else. As it is right now, a computer pretty much has an easier time playing Far Cry 4 on max settings than playing minecraft. Granted FC4 uses more of the graphics card than the cpu.
yay, more performance decreases for everybody. I like those ideas, but mojang would really need to clean up their existing code first in order to add anything else. As it is right now, a computer pretty much has an easier time playing Far Cry 4 on max settings than playing minecraft. Granted FC4 uses more of the graphics card than the cpu.
The game needs to be seriously optimized anyway. Plus, the laggy features I'm suggesting (moving leaves and waves) can be easily disabled in the video settings.
(Also, why does a firefly jar produce 15 light? they aren't that bright.)
I guess it doesn't have to be quite as bright as glowstone. I definitely want it to be brighter than torches, though, so they are worth collecting for reasons other than just aesthetics.
I guess it doesn't have to be quite as bright as glowstone. I definitely want it to be brighter than torches, though, so they are worth collecting for reasons other than just aesthetics.
Ah, that makes sense.
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GENERATION 22: The first time you see this, copy it into your signature and add 1 to the generation.
First off, we do need more ambient mobs. However, before they add any more birds, I'd suggest that they revise the parrot AI; it is simply not up to standards, as no aerodynamically-adapted bird flies that pathetically IRL.
Also, I am not too keen on animals sleeping, or any of these new additions, as they seem like they'd take a lot of work to make something that wouldn't matter too much, anyways. They definitely wouldn't hurt the game, though.
Finally, for the most part, all of those music tracks you suggested would fit the game nicely. However, I'm of the opinion that no music should play when you defeat a boss, as it doesn't make too much sense; I'd like to keep "Equinoxe" to the strongholds, please.
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Cool ideas! This would definitely make the game far more interesting and fun to explore!
Though the game would require a couple of stabilising updates before it was implemented.
Also, (Old grouch mode activated) at what point does this stop being minecraft? This is the problem I have with most mods and recent updates. The game is having so many extra features added it becomes less simple - which is a core element of minecraft.
Then again if new features weren’t added the game would become boring quickly.
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“There are no evil weapons, only evil people” - Someone, I guess?
Cool ideas! This would definitely make the game far more interesting and fun to explore!
Though the game would require a couple of stabilising updates before it was implemented.
Also, (Old grouch mode activated) at what point does this stop being minecraft? This is the problem I have with most mods and recent updates. The game is having so many extra features added it becomes less simple - which is a core element of minecraft.
Then again if new features weren’t added the game would become boring quickly.
Complex features are what take simplicity away from the game, not all new features. This is why I've not suggested 20 different kinds of birds.
CAVEAT: The preformance issues with 1.13.1 are sufficiently severe to render the game unplayable for a considerable number of users; until and unless this is fixed, I cannot support any additions to ambience.
[I do not believe the guy who does Optifine is the greatest undiscovered computer genius of the age, with a paid, full time staff MS/Mj should be able to do better than is he.]
Assuming MS/Mj is able(and willing)to upgrade 1.13 to provide reasonable performance:
Audio Loops:
I don't find this desirable, but (as long as these don't effect performance and I have an easy way to control/turn them off) I don't see any objection provided the disk space required is "small".
Small details:
Falling leaves – unless seasons are implemented (another debate) I don't see the point and this one I think would entail substantial computation to check every leaf block periodically. Other than the computer resource issue, however, I see no objection.
Dropping Sticks — again a concern about computational load (both checking if they should be dropped and tracking the despawning items).
Fireflys & firefly in a bottle —
Given light goes from 0-15 and torches are 14, there isn't a way to make this greater than torches but less than glowstone.
Possibly you could use a variant of the sea pickle mechanics with individual fireflys giving light level 6 when airborne (just less than a RS torch & too low to stop hostile spawns). One firefly in a bottle woudl also give 6-light and teh level would rise by 3 for each additional firefly to a mazimum of 15.
"Firefly in a bottle" would need to be placable (preferably without using an item frame). They might, however, follow the new item frame placement rules.
Wolf howls – probably fine as the resource load should be minimal. Tying the probability to the moon phase is a nice additional element. Limiting this to near a wolf (a pack of one if you will) would avoid 'ghost' howls in untenanted spruce forests and provide a minor occassionally available aid to finding wolves to tame.
Animal sleep behavior – lying down and closing eyes would be a one time expense for the work on the models and a minor[?] continuing expense to track the time and update mobs at dusk.
Having each passive check for and pathfind to nearby trees would be considerably more expensive.
[Note that this behavior would make mobs easier to hunt at night, particularly rabbits.]
Desert dust storms – more details needed.
Would these allow mob spawns due to reduced light levels (like rain/thunderstorms)?
How frequent?
How long would these last?
Birds:
Jays & Cardinals – as I don'y like the dropped sticks idea, I'd substitute fly down and walk on the ground for a bit.
Adding a startle response when players or hostile mobs came near would increase the computational overload but also the utility and verisimilitude of the additions.
Another case where I think this is a nice idea IF it can be done without significant additional lag.
Seagulls – entry seems chopped off.
If they spend much time in the air [~50% as stated] this may increase the needed computations. [Same comment is true for hawks.]
Hawks – this is a hostile not an ambient mob. What defines the 5x5 attack area? and what is its Y dimension? (or is it truly an area?)
In RL two basic types of hawks; short hawks and long hawks (formally accipitrine and buteonine): the first tend to hunt by rushing from tree perches, the second take a soar and 'dive bomb' approach. The description sounds like you're planning on the long hawk type, in which case savanna or other open biomes would be best (certainly not roofed forest or similar).
Hawks might also be coded to consider phantoms natural enemies attacking them by mechanics similar to dogs and skeletons.
Frogs:
The description sounds as if they might they stay on lilypads, which I don't suggest. (If their AI does not avoid water [reasonable enough] random movement would avoid the need for pathfinding.)
How far is a "great distance"?
If one can breed them, I'd call these passive not ambient mobs.
Do spiders attack them back?
Larger Details:
This strikes me as writing a shader (albeit one intended to be subtle) into vanilla; in a word, no!
People who want this (and are willing to pay the price in terms of more expensive computers and/or poorer performance) can already get this. I see no reason to add it to vanilla.
Music:
I can see an argument that if its in the game (costing resources, however trivial) it ought be used… and if its not used it ought be removed.
I am indifferent to which course is choosen in this instance.
— — — — —
In addition to the concerns espressed above about the extra resources needed by any of these additions, a case can be made that:
MS/Mj having shown great reluctance to fix long term serious issues (various lighting and block glitches as well as the ever worsening performance), giving them ANYTHING else to work on is contrary to the interests of the player community.
Wolftopia has come up with a number of interesting ideas and — were 1.13 running with even a semblance of 1.12's performance — I would likely support some of them.
Under the current circumstances I cannot, preferring to see no distractions from the essential task of making the game once again playable on modest equipment without the need for aftermarket additions.
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"Why does everything have to be so stoopid?" Harvey Pekar (from American Splendor)
WARNING: I have an extemely "grindy" playstyle; YMMV — if this doesn't seem fun to you, mine what you can from it & bin the rest.
This feature in general I don't like, as there are no entities currently emmiting light as far as I know, but I bet it won't be that hard to do anyway. And also,15 light levels would really top over mob spawning in plains and swamps if it's that common. Maybe make it 6 so players can see but mobs won't spawn?
Else than that, the music segment is a little bit questionable, as I've heard somewhere that the current code can't really detect if you are near structures. (The way villagers spawn is because of the 6 wood in a crafting table blocks, you guessed it, doors.) And the enderdragon can be respawned.
And also there's an uncomplete section at Seagulls, maybe check that out? And maybe make them hunt fish in oceans.
Most of it I support
I believe that only the Bottled Firefly emits light, not the actual fireflies themselves.
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Ambient Rework: Making Minecraft Feel Alive
One area that Minecraft is very obviously lacking is ambience. After the awe of first playing wears off, the world doesn't feel alive anymore, and that's because there's little to hear and little to see moving. With this suggestion I'm going to propose some small additions that would go together to completely revamp the Minecraft experience, and bring new life to the game.
Audio Loops
Just like there are music tracks that play, there will now be somewhat quiet audio loops that play depending on the biome you're in. These are constant and represent the animals in the biome. In biomes with birds you'll hear birds chirping. In deserts and mountains you'll hear the wind. In beaches you'll hear the seagulls. At night, depending on the biome, you would also be able to faintly hear crickets or cicadas.
Small Details
Trees now have a leaf falling animation. This only plays sometimes, and all trees will be synced up in it as if there were seasons. If seasons were ever implemented, this would be correlated with the "fall" season.
In addition to this, leaves will also now occasionally drop sticks as long as there is a block of air below them, even if they aren't decaying.
Fireflies would now spawn at night in plains and swamps. They'd look like floating XP orbs, and could be collected with an empty bottle to get a firefly in a bottle, which can be placed and emits as much light as glowstone.
At night, if near or in a spruce forest / pack of wolves, you can hear the wolves howling. This does not happen every night, but almost always happens when there is a full moon.
As suggested by Reddit user u/PieterHugo2, passive farm animal mobs (cows, sheep, etc.) should lay down at night and shut their eyes.
Dust storms can happen in deserts, which create a thick sand-colored fog.
Now I'd like to talk about mobs. I'm not asking for anything major, but having some new common mobs would definitely make the game feel more alive.
Birds
We already have the chicken and parrot, but not anything that is common, dynamic, and in a common biome. Here I propose four birds: the blue jay, the cardinal, the seagull, and the hawk.
Blue jays spawn in all forest biomes except for dark oak forests and mega taigas. They sit in trees and occasionally fly from tree to tree, or onto the ground to pick up a stick.
[Model in Progress]
Cardinals look almost identical to blue jays, but are red and 1 pixel shorter. They spawn in all forest biomes and will not spawn in areas where there are blue jays within 50 blocks. Blue jays have the spawn priority, meaning blue jays are slightly more common. Cardinals will also go to the ground to pick up or search for sticks.
[Model in Progress]
Seagulls spawn in beaches, and spend just as much time on the ground as they do in the air. They make
Hawk model courtesy of MCvinnyq
Hawks are different than the other birds I've mentioned so far. They are not common, and spawn alone. They swoop down and will pick up rabbits with their talons, taking the rabbit far away. If you get too close to a hawk, it will swoop down and attack you until you go away, dealing 4 () damage.
Frogs
At the moment, swamps are pretty empty during the day. There are sometimes pigs or cows in the more open spaces, but other than that, there really isn't much.
Spawning in swamps and ponds, frogs would look like retextured rabbits without ears, and would have a distinctive croaking sound. They hop around from lily pad to lily pad, and cover great distance in each leap. They will quickly stick their tongue out to attack spiders, dealing 2() damage. Frogs will follow you if you're holding spider eyes, and can be bred with the spider eyes.
Frogs are a great aesthetic mob, and can also be taken back to your base to help defend against spiders.
Larger Details
Just as in shaders (but to a lesser degree), leaves, grass, and flowers now blow in the wind. Unlike how most shaders make it look like there's a tornado nearby, this would just be a faint effect. Because this might lag lower end PCs, this has its own toggle button in the Video Settings.
Water that is in any kind of ocean biome has a similar effect, but amplified in the y-axis, making it look like there are waves. This is amplified more when it's raining, and even more when there is a thunder storm. As with the moving leaves, this has its own toggle button in the Video Settings.
Music
There are some tracks which are currently unused in Minecraft for unknown reasons. This includes C418's "Excuse" (which should play when above ground at night, as it'd create a spooky mood with the monsters about), C418's "Equinoxe" (which could play when the Ender Dragon is defeated or when in a stronghold), C418's "Door" (which could play while in a village). I think these should all be used.
Check out my suggestions! Here is one of them:
Listen
ur idea is good and everything
but some of ur ideas are changing the game in a too major way that can ruin it
Which ideas are "good" and why? Which ideas are "changing the game in a too major way that can ruin it" and how so?
Check out my suggestions! Here is one of them:
yay, more performance decreases for everybody. I like those ideas, but mojang would really need to clean up their existing code first in order to add anything else. As it is right now, a computer pretty much has an easier time playing Far Cry 4 on max settings than playing minecraft. Granted FC4 uses more of the graphics card than the cpu.
The game needs to be seriously optimized anyway. Plus, the laggy features I'm suggesting (moving leaves and waves) can be easily disabled in the video settings.
Check out my suggestions! Here is one of them:
I really love this, I've been thinking about things like it but this is better than anything I'd think of.
Support.
(Also, why does a firefly jar produce 15 light? they aren't that bright.)
GENERATION 22: The first time you see this, copy it into your signature and add 1 to the generation.
Thanks!
I guess it doesn't have to be quite as bright as glowstone. I definitely want it to be brighter than torches, though, so they are worth collecting for reasons other than just aesthetics.
Check out my suggestions! Here is one of them:
Ah, that makes sense.
GENERATION 22: The first time you see this, copy it into your signature and add 1 to the generation.
Nice suggestion!
First off, we do need more ambient mobs. However, before they add any more birds, I'd suggest that they revise the parrot AI; it is simply not up to standards, as no aerodynamically-adapted bird flies that pathetically IRL.
Also, I am not too keen on animals sleeping, or any of these new additions, as they seem like they'd take a lot of work to make something that wouldn't matter too much, anyways. They definitely wouldn't hurt the game, though.
Finally, for the most part, all of those music tracks you suggested would fit the game nicely. However, I'm of the opinion that no music should play when you defeat a boss, as it doesn't make too much sense; I'd like to keep "Equinoxe" to the strongholds, please.
75% support.
Cool ideas! This would definitely make the game far more interesting and fun to explore!
Though the game would require a couple of stabilising updates before it was implemented.
Also, (Old grouch mode activated) at what point does this stop being minecraft? This is the problem I have with most mods and recent updates. The game is having so many extra features added it becomes less simple - which is a core element of minecraft.
Then again if new features weren’t added the game would become boring quickly.
“There are no evil weapons, only evil people” - Someone, I guess?
Complex features are what take simplicity away from the game, not all new features. This is why I've not suggested 20 different kinds of birds.
Check out my suggestions! Here is one of them:
To me this does take the simplicity out of the game, not as much as complex features, but nonetheless it removes simplicity.
“There are no evil weapons, only evil people” - Someone, I guess?
CAVEAT: The preformance issues with 1.13.1 are sufficiently severe to render the game unplayable for a considerable number of users; until and unless this is fixed, I cannot support any additions to ambience.
[I do not believe the guy who does Optifine is the greatest undiscovered computer genius of the age, with a paid, full time staff MS/Mj should be able to do better than is he.]
Assuming MS/Mj is able(and willing)to upgrade 1.13 to provide reasonable performance:
Audio Loops:
I don't find this desirable, but (as long as these don't effect performance and I have an easy way to control/turn them off) I don't see any objection provided the disk space required is "small".
Small details:
Falling leaves – unless seasons are implemented (another debate) I don't see the point and this one I think would entail substantial computation to check every leaf block periodically. Other than the computer resource issue, however, I see no objection.
Dropping Sticks — again a concern about computational load (both checking if they should be dropped and tracking the despawning items).
Fireflys & firefly in a bottle —
Given light goes from 0-15 and torches are 14, there isn't a way to make this greater than torches but less than glowstone.
Possibly you could use a variant of the sea pickle mechanics with individual fireflys giving light level 6 when airborne (just less than a RS torch & too low to stop hostile spawns). One firefly in a bottle woudl also give 6-light and teh level would rise by 3 for each additional firefly to a mazimum of 15.
"Firefly in a bottle" would need to be placable (preferably without using an item frame). They might, however, follow the new item frame placement rules.
Wolf howls – probably fine as the resource load should be minimal. Tying the probability to the moon phase is a nice additional element. Limiting this to near a wolf (a pack of one if you will) would avoid 'ghost' howls in untenanted spruce forests and provide a minor occassionally available aid to finding wolves to tame.
Animal sleep behavior – lying down and closing eyes would be a one time expense for the work on the models and a minor[?] continuing expense to track the time and update mobs at dusk.
Having each passive check for and pathfind to nearby trees would be considerably more expensive.
[Note that this behavior would make mobs easier to hunt at night, particularly rabbits.]
Desert dust storms – more details needed.
Would these allow mob spawns due to reduced light levels (like rain/thunderstorms)?
How frequent?
How long would these last?
Birds:
Jays & Cardinals – as I don'y like the dropped sticks idea, I'd substitute fly down and walk on the ground for a bit.
Adding a startle response when players or hostile mobs came near would increase the computational overload but also the utility and verisimilitude of the additions.
Another case where I think this is a nice idea IF it can be done without significant additional lag.
Seagulls – entry seems chopped off.
If they spend much time in the air [~50% as stated] this may increase the needed computations. [Same comment is true for hawks.]
Hawks – this is a hostile not an ambient mob. What defines the 5x5 attack area? and what is its Y dimension? (or is it truly an area?)
In RL two basic types of hawks; short hawks and long hawks (formally accipitrine and buteonine): the first tend to hunt by rushing from tree perches, the second take a soar and 'dive bomb' approach. The description sounds like you're planning on the long hawk type, in which case savanna or other open biomes would be best (certainly not roofed forest or similar).
Hawks might also be coded to consider phantoms natural enemies attacking them by mechanics similar to dogs and skeletons.
Frogs:
The description sounds as if they might they stay on lilypads, which I don't suggest. (If their AI does not avoid water [reasonable enough] random movement would avoid the need for pathfinding.)
How far is a "great distance"?
If one can breed them, I'd call these passive not ambient mobs.
Do spiders attack them back?
Larger Details:
This strikes me as writing a shader (albeit one intended to be subtle) into vanilla; in a word, no!
People who want this (and are willing to pay the price in terms of more expensive computers and/or poorer performance) can already get this. I see no reason to add it to vanilla.
Music:
I can see an argument that if its in the game (costing resources, however trivial) it ought be used… and if its not used it ought be removed.
I am indifferent to which course is choosen in this instance.
In addition to the concerns espressed above about the extra resources needed by any of these additions, a case can be made that:
MS/Mj having shown great reluctance to fix long term serious issues (various lighting and block glitches as well as the ever worsening performance), giving them ANYTHING else to work on is contrary to the interests of the player community.
Wolftopia has come up with a number of interesting ideas and — were 1.13 running with even a semblance of 1.12's performance — I would likely support some of them.
Under the current circumstances I cannot, preferring to see no distractions from the essential task of making the game once again playable on modest equipment without the need for aftermarket additions.
I believe that only the Bottled Firefly emits light, not the actual fireflies themselves.
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