Before I get into another lengthy thread, I figured it might be wise to summarize why (And how) I think cities could be added to Vanilla Minecraft. And this is going to be a pretty lengthy thread, I can assure you. I usually try to keep my threads more as general discussion topics, but this is one topic I have some pretty concise ideas regarding. Take that as you will.
- Exploration is currently lacking in Minecraft, and cities offer new incentives to Explore.
- Cities fit, to some extent, with the existing quasi-lore of Minecraft, if they are implemented in a Vanillaesque way.
-Cities could offer unique new challenges and scenarios for players to deal with as they see fit.
-This Wouldn't necessitate any considerable changes to the game, in regards to new blocks, entities, etc.
Also, just to be clear from the offset, this is just my Idea for how this could be implemented. It's by no means the only way- and whether or not such a thing is necessary is also up for debate, along with whether or not such a change would even be plausible to the main game. I would appreciate feedback on this idea! Does this seem brilliant? Does it totally not fit with Vanilla Minecraft, and just generally sound ridiculous? Criticism is important for any idea to develop properly. Or for particularly bad ideas to kick the bucket if they're really that silly, I suppose.
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Why Should Cities be Implemented?
As I've certainly said before, exploration is lacking in Minecraft. There aren't any particularly biome specific resources to necessitate exploration, which is a real shame considering how scenic the game can be. (I in particular think shaders, and a simple resource pack like Stay True enhance the game's atmosphere.) Ironically, this doesn't stop players from exploring- there should just be a better reason to do so then to see what's over the next hill, while already knowing that it's probably going to be more pretty terrain with nothing particularly new or useful to it.
The main problem is that many parts of the game still feel outdated and predictable, even as interesting new content and overhauls are added to the game. Strongholds aren't particularly challenging, there isn't any particular reason to explore an Ocean Monument, you get better loot in a Desert Pyramid than a Woodland Mansion- which is both rarer and harder... I don't mean to simply be negative, but the general vibe is that once you've seen one of these structures, there's no point in finding more of them. (I ramble more on the topic in this post.)
However, Mojang has shown us that this doesn't have to be the case. The addition of biome specific villages not only adds to the game's atmosphere, but makes exploration far more interesting. While I can appreciate the iconic nature of the previous village buildings, these places feel more alive- albeit in their own unique, minecrafty way.
One way to encourage exploration is, simply put, to have structures or biomes rare enough that they necessitate a lengthy journey. This exists in the game as far as finding the Stronghold, searching for a Woodland Mansion, or hunting down the Elusive Mushroom Isle. However, these sort of things seem to be a let down. Both the woodland mansion and the mushroom isle are incredibly difficult to find... and neither one is particularily useful. The Woodland Mansion has some decent loot, but it's ridiculously challenging, and odds are you're going to use up more resources getting through it than you'll actually obtain. As for the Mushroom Isle... well, it isn't as if there's much there worth making the journey. The Mooshrooms are cute, I suppose, but they're not even a sustainable source of Mushrooms.
If cities were implemented, they could do multiple things: Firstly, (And most importantly, at least to me), they would offer a new reason to explore. Secondly, they would do this by providing new challenges, new risk-reward scenarios, and new means of obtaining rare resources- or even unique ones.
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How Would Cities be Implemented?
To begin this bit, a disclaimer: I'm not a programmer, nor am I privy to Mojang's plans. That being said, if such a thing were to be added to Minecraft, this is how I imagine it would be added. Or at least, how I wish such a feature would be added- honestly, if I could add one thing to Vanilla Minecraft, it would be something like this.
Generation
Cities would be, like other parts of the game, procedural generated, but not exactly like villages. The goal wouldn't be to simply be to add larger villages.
One of the problems with villages is their tendency towards weird generation. It's actually uncommon, (At least for me), to find a village that hasn't generated on top of a cave, or too close to a ravine, or partly buried, or merged with another structure... you get the idea. One way sandbox games like Starbound seem to avoid this problem is to have their larger NPC structures generate an area of flat terrain nearby, with a gradient of terrain transition between the normal, random terrain, and the flatter terrain around the structure itself. Usually, this is pretty seamless, and prevents weird generation on the part of the structure. (Something that Minecraft seems to have a bit of trouble with.)
In order to avoid this problem, a simple solution would be more or less as follows: Cities have a very rare chance of generating in the same biomes that villages generate. When they do so, they first randomly select a tier, ranging from two to four- which would determine the size of the city. (Tier four being the rarest.) Once the size of the city is determined, it generates an area of flat terrain around the city that then merges with surrounding terrain, and prevents other structures from generating nearby. (It would be kind of problematic if, say, a pillager outpost generated in the same area as a city full of villagers.) I'm fairly certain, (Don't quote me on this), that most NPC structures are generated after the actual terrain, which means this would probably be sort of hard to implement, unless cities were somehow made to generate before or during terrain generation itself. (This wouldn't be perfectly flat- it would just be mostly flat and without caves in order to prevent weird generation.
The cities themselves would all be more or less circular- consisting of multiple 'Tiers' separated by protective walls intended to keep out mobs. In a two tier city, there would be a short outer wall surrounding the bulk of the city, with a smaller inner wall protecting the middle part. Whereas a Four-Tier city would have three tiers of city, with four significantly more imposing walls. The width of each tier would be subject to vary within reasonable parameters- meaning that you could have a large city consisting mostly of simple housing with a low surrounding wall... or a smaller city with multiple tiers and more imposing walls. (Though rarer, tier four cities are invariably larger.)
Cities would have a considerably higher chance of generating ruined than villages- with something like a 2 in 3 chance of being ruined. (That may seem a bit high, but I intend to go into it further a bit later.) They would, however, be very rare- slightly more common than Woodland Mansions, but not by much.
On a side note, some other generation bits that might be useful-
-Villages would be much, much more likely to generate in close proximity to a city.
-Some sort of system would have to be implemented to try and make sure all of the city was properly lit. Considering how difficult this would be, it might be simpler just to prevent mobs from spawning within city walls.
-Cities shouldn't be able to generate near each other- there ought to be at least a couple thousand blocks around a city where other cities cannot generate. They should, again, be a fairly rare thing to find.
-Each of the city's 'Lots' would have plenty of different buildings that could generate on top of it- housing complexes, gardens, shops or workplaces- in order to prevent a city from consisting entirely of, say, carpenters; it would be important to prioritize a certain amount of houses, a certain amount of utilities, etc.
-Cities would mostly generate in biomes similar to villages, (Plains, Desert, Savannah, Taigas, and Tundras), but there could also be more options, such as a jungle, coastal, or badlands city. Since cities are fairly large, it's also possible for them to generate between multiple biomes, and thus having architectural styles from multiple biome types.
-Finally, for reasons I at least think are obvious, cities shouldn't generate near spawn.
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Aesthetic & Variation
An important part of cities would be making sure that they fit the existing vibe of vanilla Minecraft- otherwise, they would just feel out of place. (That kind of goes without saying.) One of my favorite world-gen mods is Mcjty's 'Lost Cities,' (You can check it out here), which adds configurable, ruined cities to the game. Key word being ruined. If it added fully functional, modern cities, that would be neat... but it wouldn't fit at all with the game's aesthetic, and wouldn't be particularly playable besides. (Furthermore, the attention to detail in terms of how explosions and ruined buildings generate realisticly is fantastic.) More notably, this mod doesn't add any new blocks or entities to the game- and players tempted to mine the ruins for materials will have to deal with a great deal of mob spawners found in the ruins.
Firstly, the cities should share a similar aesthetic to villages- that is, the sort of medieval, steampunkish, somewhat whimsical vibe that the game's structures tend to share. I know I said earlier that they shouldn't just be bigger villages... but that doesn't mean they should look completly different from villages. The general idea regarding lore, (Which, in a game like Minecraft, is really up to interpretation), is that an ancient race of builders is responsible for the various monoliths found in the game- as well as the villages. As such, (if this is the case), it sort of makes sense that this ancient race ought to have left behind some sort of cities.
Cities, like villages, could have multiple aesthetic variations depending on which biome they generated in. (In the same way as villages, and with similar architectural styles.) The buildings themselves could essentially be larger versions of the village buildings. Each 'Tier' of the city would increase in development- the outermost tier being slums of a sort, each consecutive tier becoming more developed, with the innermost tier being some sort of temple or monolith. Different buildings would generate depending on the size and space available. There are several different ways that this could work- I'm half inclined to think this might be easier than normal villages, simply because in this case, you would know in advance that you were working with flat terrain and areas of predetermined sizes. The fact that the cities were roughly circular wouldn't be too much of an issue. (I included some concept art for generation.)
Each biome would have a unique architectural style, again, similar to villages, with some cities on biome borders featuring multiple architectural styles, taken to their logical extreme.
Notably, in addition to the normal generation, cities have a decent chance of being generated ruined. A ruined city would be a dangerous place. The loot would be yours for the taking, if you were willing to deal with a variety of monster spawners and other hazards within. It's similar to how ruined nether portals generate as if they're collapsed- and the same could be done with ruined cities. Fallen buildings could block streets, trees could grow up from the ruins, past explosions would leave debris scattered, vines and foliage would sprout for the rubble... this would be a great opportunity both to show off some neat structure generation... and to make a really atmospheric, (And dangerous) environment.
Functions & Intricacies
The cities themselves would be a great means of introducing new game mechanics, while improving upon existing ones. Villagers could still trade things, to be sure, but offering better trades could unlock even bigger trades over time throughout the city. Most of this section, at this point, falls under the 'vague concepts' category, and more ideas as to what cities could be used for would be interesting.
--- A status effect that warns players they are within city limits- in order to make them aware that breaking or attacking things will be frowned upon.
---In addition to Iron Golems, new types of robotic entities could be added to protect the city- seeing as villagers seem to be more pacificts. I mean, goodness knows if they even have arms. 'Sentinels' could be a smaller sort of golem that patrols the city, and could become angered if the player broke things or stole things in the city. This system would be important to prevent players from just immediately razing the city and taking all the valuable stuff. A sort of counter system would keep track of how angry the sentinels are at the player. Their anger could be decreased by giving them emeralds, in order to get away with smaller crimes. However, bigger crimes- like attacking villagers or golems- would result in all the sentinels in an area becoming very unhappy, in the same way as village iron golems turn hostile when provoked. If a player is really intent on bringing a city to its knees, they may have to worry about even more powerful sentinel variants. (...Though calling them 'sentinels' might be a bit too much like No Mans Sky.) This would also be important for the next bit. Perhaps there are also ranged golems to deal with invaders from the city walls/watchtowers?
---Catacombs could exist beneath cities! Infested with monsters, or perhaps malfunctioning golems and sentinels, Exploring them would be considerably more difficult- because breaking things angers the sentinels, players would be forced to navigate the catacombs without resorting to just mining away traps or circumnavigating tricky bits.
---Thought Pillager raids were bad enough in villages? Well, cities would provide an opportunity to make them even worse! Regarding the walls, a new unit of Pillager could be added- 'Griefers,' whose attacks involve explosions of some sort. (Of course, this would also require some means of repairing the city. Possibly another unit of robot, since I can't really imagine villagers building things?) Considering what a disaster an attack on a city ought to be, they shouldn't happen randomly. Perhaps the player does some sort of ritual in the city's center in order to summon a massive Pillager attack? The city, of course, wouldn't be defenseless. In addition to walls and golems, other protective measures could be added. (See here for a long winded idea regarding 'Shulker Turrets.') Maybe griefers also light things on fire?
---Some sort of bulletin board system that allows players to complete missions in exchange for emeralds with which to buy neat stuff?
---A way to make things even more complicated would be to add a sort of dynamic economy to cities based on what sort of utilities are present, that the player could influence in some way.
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Even Crazier Concepts
To finish this spiel off, some other random ideas.
---Special, super rare variants of cities- such as a floating city that generates in the middle of an ocean, a sunken city beneath the waves, a molten city in the depths of the nether, or a flying city that generates in the sky. (I mean, there already is one reference to Laputa, isn't there? Anyone remember what it is?)
---Partly ruined minecart networks connecting cities. It would be so cool to be exploring, find a dilapidated minecart rail bridging a fair distance above the land, and follow it to a city. Stretching between cities, over terrain, and tunneling through higher terrain, repairing these crumbled rail networks would allow players quick access between cities. (Pre-Elytra, that is.) Edit: This would probably be really, really hard to implement. It might be easier to just add specific ruined rail structures, rail bridges, etc; that would generate near cities.
---Cities taken over by pillagers! It would be pretty irritating to finally spy a city on the horizon- only to notice giant pillager banners hanging from the main keep and off the walls. In addition to housing the usual axe-wielding maniacs, malfunctioning golems could roam the streets. This would be a partly ruined city that houses pillagers, with dark rituals taking place in its center...
---Cities would also be a great way of hiding Easter eggs- just make a certain type of room or building rare enough, and who knows what players might find in it. This one is pretty random, but it would be a good way of mixing things up and preventing players from getting bored. Imagine finding a secret jukebox room beneath a villager's house! It would certainly raise questions.
Additional Concept Art below ~
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Hello,
while this would be a great addition to Minecraft, it is already available with mods, and as Mojang like to induce creativity in players they have confirmed that they will not add chairs to Minecraft.