Okay so my new roommate is a psychopath. I have to move out immediately, my kids cannot be anywhere near this alcoholic nutjob. Sorry if I go on radio silence for a while.
I did experiment with fill clocks and due to the one-time nature of this mechanism, this contraption is the most economical and easy to maintain, and does not rely on chunk loading unlike fill clocks (as this map extends well past reasonable basic chunk load limits!). Fill clocks also rely on the destroy mode which produces tile drops which must remain enabled during the majority of the map for the game to function as intended, although I have thought of ways to deal with the fill clocks I will be using (permanently loaded spawn chunk with a lava bath).
By the latter comment I meant that it will (should) be possible to skip Book I altogether and begin a fresh adventure from Book II if one does not wish to slog though the whole map to sample the new goodness. Previous saves are not supported however, sorry. Although if you copied in your old level.dat or whatever, depending on version compatibility, who knows. Not recommended though at this time. I can't even guarantee that the very next release will support a Book II quickstart because the scope of the map at this point will require quite a bit of beta testing to keep everything working as intended in every situation.
With command blocks and the scoreboard it is already obvious to me that thinking of every contingent situation is going to prove a serious challenge with so much of the map already established in legacy versions. I plan to work high-functioning command block circuits into the map in a conservative fashion to avoid gamebreaking bugs as much as can be anticipated.
That was an idea which has been scrapped since, to build your emblem on the monuments to claim a town in multiplayer with collected wool, but the commands did not make this possible early on, and as Owl_Exterminator pointed out, RFW is way played out, and it would require the player to learn their emblems in order to build them which is its own set of problems. The monuments may gain functionality in another way, with the emblem of the player who completes the local town quest (such as the Gillis Dungeon Beacon) being built automatically upon activation using /clone and perhaps bestowing some unique perk to that player, but this is not a high priority idea at the moment.
Today I completed the first new command block mechanism for Book II, which I am pretty stoked on. Access to Rogue's Cove will now cost 1 Diamond (it is possible to find a diamond nearby if you are starting a new game directly from Book II). A trapped chest near the gate with a sign demanding 1 diamond is wired to a NOT gate so that when the chest is opened, then closed, a testforblock command looks in the chest for a diamond, and if detected, permanently activates the (now) iron door, deletes the chest in a puff of smoke so you can't recover the payment, and changes the sign text to acknowledge receipt. We will probably see quite a few variations of this circuit with chests, frames, jukeboxes etc. such as detection of Rental Agreements and other key-type items.
e: Just successfully created an item-based Lightning spellbook that calls down 5 bolts of lightning on nearby mobs. May have limited uses. Have some other ideas for powerful spells now, hehe. Firestorm? Freeze? Group Invisibility? This is wicked.
So, the building phase of Book II is about 90% done, most of the territory I wanted to sketch out is defined with paths and structures which are ready to be turned into adventures. There is a lot to do underground still but the routes are there. I'm starting on the gameplay phase now and switching modes to development of puzzles, traps, NPCs, monsters and loot. Book II has seen a ton of progress so far which I'm really happy with and I'm ready to change gears.
The last bit of building will become more obvious to me as I see where this story takes us, and I should save a few new areas to work on anyway to provide some relief from this next, intensely detail-oriented phase where I have to switch from MCEdit, Minecraft and Excel constantly, which I found quite draining with the last release. Although a lot of that was laying the groundwork for project organization which will actually make everything easier going forward.
I'll still be providing updates as I can, but there is a lot I have in mind that I don't want to spoil too much, I hope I can keep a lid on a few surprises!
I look forward to that too Minnan, unfortunately my internet here is not stable enough to play games online at the moment. I'll have to take a raincheck on that for the time. Hopefully a better situation will present itself soon.
Is there a reason the latest version is in 1.3? and making that more obvious would be nice, it took a lot of searching.
The first post is kinda borked at the moment since I guess it had some older formatting tags from the previous forum layout. I'm not sure what you mean about 1.3 but I do need to fix the OP, hopefully that will clarify things. I'm not online much right now unfortunately but I am working on the map still.
And great work on the additions Spooky and Minnan, I'm really excited to see more!
Did the guidelines in the readme make sense? I kinda banged them out. I will probably release an updated MDK once I see room for great improvement, but the map area open for contributions will not change significantly. I might expand it slightly if I get a clear concept of the boundaries where Book III will terminate. I plan to have a great deal more transportation options to open up the world in the final episode: rail, horse, boat, portal and other means.
My method with this map is to work with the landscape, not fight it overly. Some terraforming is unavoidable, but overall I view the terrain as a primed canvas and its features should generally be enhanced, not destroyed. Plant trees and fields, and carve into mountains. Build them up, but don't flatten them. Find the Venus de Milo within the block of uncut marble.
I am now situated in my new place in Los Angeles, but the wifi only works on my laptop, no internet yet on my main rig. So I'm working offline mostly for now. Hope to have some progress updates during this week, we'll see how this works out.
Any feedback from those who grabbed the MDK would be most welcome.
I do like the lore-as-hints route, I was planning on including that as well and can certainly use your help in fleshing this out. I appreciate your thoughtful input and will keep in in mind as I work with the scoreboard to track objectives. I am not a fan of the constant overlay of the sidebar and whatever solution I come up with using it will not display all the time, only timed, critical notifications. The Tab list can hold most data that needs tracking (lives, score, etc.), maybe schematics unlocked could be tracked there since I don't get the feeling that people use the guidebooks for notes, or even have time to. I found it tedious myself since there are so many schematics (consolidating some schems into sets would alleviate this to an extent).
What are your feelings about using /title splashes for introducing the various chapters?
One thing that you don't have to worry about the map becoming is linear. There is no way to make the map linear without eliminating side routes, and this is a major part of the design, I have no intention of taking that out. Book II is even less linear, once you get your horses (or wander the backroads on foot if you are bold), there are many options for exploration. Even the interior of the Gorgulvalt has multiple routes that allow taking the challenge head on, or circumventing difficult areas (i.e.: the Cell Block) with stealth. You may even find a way to be launched over the wall directly to the guard towers and skip the fun of being incarcerated and (spoiler)
having all your gear confiscated.
I am pretty happy with the way the maps work to guide the player to areas of interest. I don't really think we need a naggy overlay to remind us. I do feel like it could serve some purpose if it would flash up for a few seconds and then go away, at the very least for achievements. As the designer, the challenge for me is to use the features of vanilla MC fully and effectively, and demonstrate mastery of the toolset. As a side goal I envision this map as an extensive tutorial on mapmaking itself. Open to further suggestions.
Regarding the scoreboard, if and as much as possible I want to have it hidden, although I want players to be able to see their next objective somehow, maybe when holding certain items such as maps, and to track kills/deaths and other events in an actual automatic scoring system improving on the original honor-based scoring system (including for finding relics etc.). Basically if it's a feature in Minecraft that can be used to add some polish to make the map feel more like it's own game, I'm going to use it.
If people want a map just for free roleplay with no hand-holding, I don't know that the next version is going to support that. I'm trying to reduce confusion and the amount of manual tracking of objectives and abilities as possible, which is going to make the map more game-y. Which is what I really want, a game that makes sense by itself, with no honor system required, something first-timers can grasp readily. The overarching purpose of this project is to create a self-contained adventure game inside vanilla Minecraft, then possibly evolve it from that into a full mod, but that's putting the cart way in front of the horse at this point.
The biggest complaint I get about the map usually is that people don't know where to go next or what order to do objectives in, and of course in Criswelvania they can do them in almost any order, but there is definitely an optimal flow through the full map that I could help nudge them towards as far as my intention for full exploration.
There already are relic hunt challenges, the Hardcore in this case refers to the fact that the game mode would be finite with clear win/lose conditions, not related to the Hardcore Survival mode native to Minecraft. Maybe the map is too long for such a game mode, I dunno really. It's an idea that is spun out of the Rachen features in development, as I do like the idea that the Rachen can kill players off to gain more allies. We'll see, it's a complicated idea for sure.
At any rate, I've been at this pretty steady every single day for the past month, think I'm gonna take the weekend off from Minecraft and maybe just mess with some ideas on paper. See you guys on Monday!
Yes Deep_Pixel did a really great job and I totally dropped the ball earlier this year keeping on top on submissions, too much work and no play time made Criswell a sad man.
I need a name for the Hero team in the scoreboard. Thinking Lightbringers vs Darkness. What do you think? This might turn into the Rachen update.
Also, what do you think of having the option for a set number of lives? For Hardcore multiplayer, this could result in fully killed-off players being switched to the Rachen team. I could also include 1up rewards for certain challenges.
The Rachen will sooner or later be getting his own parallel storyline and goals. Breaking through the ice of using the scoreboard properly, it doesn't seem that far off any more.
What if you could regain your humanity somehow? With at least one player constantly "it" (in the proposed Hardcore Multiplayer mode). I am also considering the Rachen to have some challenges which would be more platform-y, as well as strategic than the heroes, such as the ability to possess and curse entire towns, in-between harassing the players, or the ability to mass-convert all torches in an area to burnt-out (redstone) torches or similar effect. I'm also seeing new possiblilties for some powerful spells for Zederakh and maybe even some miracles from Vandrake. Ooh, maybe even shurikens for Jyodi, wow. Character ultimate attacks?
1
1
By the latter comment I meant that it will (should) be possible to skip Book I altogether and begin a fresh adventure from Book II if one does not wish to slog though the whole map to sample the new goodness. Previous saves are not supported however, sorry. Although if you copied in your old level.dat or whatever, depending on version compatibility, who knows. Not recommended though at this time. I can't even guarantee that the very next release will support a Book II quickstart because the scope of the map at this point will require quite a bit of beta testing to keep everything working as intended in every situation.
With command blocks and the scoreboard it is already obvious to me that thinking of every contingent situation is going to prove a serious challenge with so much of the map already established in legacy versions. I plan to work high-functioning command block circuits into the map in a conservative fashion to avoid gamebreaking bugs as much as can be anticipated.
1
Today I completed the first new command block mechanism for Book II, which I am pretty stoked on. Access to Rogue's Cove will now cost 1 Diamond (it is possible to find a diamond nearby if you are starting a new game directly from Book II). A trapped chest near the gate with a sign demanding 1 diamond is wired to a NOT gate so that when the chest is opened, then closed, a testforblock command looks in the chest for a diamond, and if detected, permanently activates the (now) iron door, deletes the chest in a puff of smoke so you can't recover the payment, and changes the sign text to acknowledge receipt. We will probably see quite a few variations of this circuit with chests, frames, jukeboxes etc. such as detection of Rental Agreements and other key-type items.
e: Just successfully created an item-based Lightning spellbook that calls down 5 bolts of lightning on nearby mobs. May have limited uses. Have some other ideas for powerful spells now, hehe. Firestorm? Freeze? Group Invisibility? This is wicked.
0
Some really awesome stuff in here, glad I went back to check it out!
2
The last bit of building will become more obvious to me as I see where this story takes us, and I should save a few new areas to work on anyway to provide some relief from this next, intensely detail-oriented phase where I have to switch from MCEdit, Minecraft and Excel constantly, which I found quite draining with the last release. Although a lot of that was laying the groundwork for project organization which will actually make everything easier going forward.
I'll still be providing updates as I can, but there is a lot I have in mind that I don't want to spoil too much, I hope I can keep a lid on a few surprises!
2
Thanks Miney, that means a lot to me to hear right now. Welcome back to the thread!
0
3
New haunted manor!
Coastal Fortress with drydocks/shipyards
More in the full album.
1
The first post is kinda borked at the moment since I guess it had some older formatting tags from the previous forum layout. I'm not sure what you mean about 1.3 but I do need to fix the OP, hopefully that will clarify things. I'm not online much right now unfortunately but I am working on the map still.
And great work on the additions Spooky and Minnan, I'm really excited to see more!
0
My method with this map is to work with the landscape, not fight it overly. Some terraforming is unavoidable, but overall I view the terrain as a primed canvas and its features should generally be enhanced, not destroyed. Plant trees and fields, and carve into mountains. Build them up, but don't flatten them. Find the Venus de Milo within the block of uncut marble.
0
Any feedback from those who grabbed the MDK would be most welcome.
1
1
What are your feelings about using /title splashes for introducing the various chapters?
One thing that you don't have to worry about the map becoming is linear. There is no way to make the map linear without eliminating side routes, and this is a major part of the design, I have no intention of taking that out. Book II is even less linear, once you get your horses (or wander the backroads on foot if you are bold), there are many options for exploration. Even the interior of the Gorgulvalt has multiple routes that allow taking the challenge head on, or circumventing difficult areas (i.e.: the Cell Block) with stealth. You may even find a way to be launched over the wall directly to the guard towers and skip the fun of being incarcerated and (spoiler)
1
If people want a map just for free roleplay with no hand-holding, I don't know that the next version is going to support that. I'm trying to reduce confusion and the amount of manual tracking of objectives and abilities as possible, which is going to make the map more game-y. Which is what I really want, a game that makes sense by itself, with no honor system required, something first-timers can grasp readily. The overarching purpose of this project is to create a self-contained adventure game inside vanilla Minecraft, then possibly evolve it from that into a full mod, but that's putting the cart way in front of the horse at this point.
The biggest complaint I get about the map usually is that people don't know where to go next or what order to do objectives in, and of course in Criswelvania they can do them in almost any order, but there is definitely an optimal flow through the full map that I could help nudge them towards as far as my intention for full exploration.
There already are relic hunt challenges, the Hardcore in this case refers to the fact that the game mode would be finite with clear win/lose conditions, not related to the Hardcore Survival mode native to Minecraft. Maybe the map is too long for such a game mode, I dunno really. It's an idea that is spun out of the Rachen features in development, as I do like the idea that the Rachen can kill players off to gain more allies. We'll see, it's a complicated idea for sure.
At any rate, I've been at this pretty steady every single day for the past month, think I'm gonna take the weekend off from Minecraft and maybe just mess with some ideas on paper. See you guys on Monday!
0
I need a name for the Hero team in the scoreboard. Thinking Lightbringers vs Darkness. What do you think? This might turn into the Rachen update.
Also, what do you think of having the option for a set number of lives? For Hardcore multiplayer, this could result in fully killed-off players being switched to the Rachen team. I could also include 1up rewards for certain challenges.
The Rachen will sooner or later be getting his own parallel storyline and goals. Breaking through the ice of using the scoreboard properly, it doesn't seem that far off any more.
What if you could regain your humanity somehow? With at least one player constantly "it" (in the proposed Hardcore Multiplayer mode). I am also considering the Rachen to have some challenges which would be more platform-y, as well as strategic than the heroes, such as the ability to possess and curse entire towns, in-between harassing the players, or the ability to mass-convert all torches in an area to burnt-out (redstone) torches or similar effect. I'm also seeing new possiblilties for some powerful spells for Zederakh and maybe even some miracles from Vandrake. Ooh, maybe even shurikens for Jyodi, wow. Character ultimate attacks?