Quote from Piginabag
Mods do not work on multiplayer. Plugins are limited. It's very difficult, especially with rampant xray problems, for server owners to make an actaully difficult PvE experience on SMP servers.
You can tell people to get a mod when they have a problem with vanilla minecraft; what do you tell SMP servers?
AFAIK hardcore mode (instead of just hard difficulty) is not even an option for SMP for obvious reasons.
One thing I noticed going all the way back to beta 1.2_01. The harder it is to reach equilibrium (the point whereat you could explore no new chunks and be able to survive indefinitely) the longer players will take to get bored of the game. This means more players on your server at any given time. It also means each player has a relatively smaller scope of influence, building projects take longer, are more modest in size, etc.
All these have a beneficial effect on a public server. It means people step on each others' toes less, and maybe even cooperate to boost each other.
Of course, you have a crossover point where it's so difficult to get started, players will quit playing on your server and go elsewhere. Hard difficulty is not even close to that line though.
The x-ray problem is tangent to making a truly difficult PVE based on ore rarity and distribution. There are plugins that let you change ore rarity and distribution (among other terrain features) but this doesn't really make PVE more difficult, only slower. Eventually you find a regular tree, get cobble, and have food, shelter, and light. X-ray doesn't change this process, it merely accelerates it (which is bad for SMP for its own reasons).
That's a fundamental problem with Minecraft. It's only difficult until you stabilize, and after that it becomes a farmville game with the option of going outside of your comfort zone. Everything else is a matter of time. Eventually, you will find lots of diamonds. Eventually, you will have a nether portal and an automated cactus farm and an automated wheat farm and a castle and a pixel art megaman floating in the sky over your base.
So before we see a Very Hard mode, we need to see either a way to force people outside of their comfort zone, or a fundamental motivation to take that option. As we've seen, Mojang tried to take the former road, and it was a flop (Endermen). They then took the latter road with the End/enchantments/potions, but it's simply not enough of an enticement to most players.
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Enough already. Stop with these useless posts. None of you bring anything to the conversation. Every single one of you is blatantly ignoring the topic of discussion here. Mojang's programming etiquette has led people into this mode of thinking that you should just accept problems, inconstancies, errors and mistakes without voicing an opinion, and people have eased into this niche of learned helplessness.
Some of us complain, in this case, because we see what we consider a significant problem in the state of the CURRENT, UNMODDED game, being played as it was meant to be played; ie, using every tool, armor, enchant, potion, and block available to us.
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I don't doubt the inadequacy of many of todays youth, but that still doesn't mean that hard mode should be so unbearably easy. There are still plenty of youngsters, teens, young adults and older players that would enjoy a real challenge when playing this wonderful game of minecraft. Allow us our hard mode. Right now, the players opting for an easier experience can play freely on just about any difficulty, while those of us who seek the challenge and desire a higher difficulty are told to "go download a mod" or "stop whining".
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Iron armor is not hard to get. Hard mode is mind-numbingly easy even in full iron.
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I absolutely love minecraft, and the concept of PvP in a completely dynamic and customizable world is above and beyond the possibilites of many other PvP oriented games. In what other game can I construct my own base, be it a castle or a a floating hotdog? How many other games let me use my imagination to BUILD and DESIGN traps to kill other players? Minecraft has the potential to be one of the most immersive PvP experiences out there.
In my opinion, armor absorbs way too much damage now. Hardcore mode is a cakewalk with iron armor, and enchanted diamond armor in PvP is absurd. I just think they need to lower the damage reduction values a little.
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The only new biomes in 1.0 are swamp, ocean and mushroom, and from what I've seen, they aren't being recieved very well. We lost transition and temperate biomes, like the rainforest, beach, and savahnna biomes, as well as a few others I can't remember.
We have.. more variety than before? Care to back that up? Every world I load nowadays is forest, pine forest, plain, desert, mountain; oh, and I can't forget the glorious ocean biome. There's almost no variation within topography or tree density within actual biomes, every biome is about the same size, and... wait a second. I'm repeating everything this thread has already brought up. You clearly don't understand the issue here.
If Minecraft ISN'T a game about fighting and combat, then why did Mojang add enchanting, potions, and an END BOSS? If it ISN'T an adventure game, then what in the world is the ADVENTURE UPDATE all about? Would you honestly be satisfied with a flat plot of land, no monsters? Why limit the potential for minecraft to be a highly customizable building, adventure AND survival game?
There's no backing to your position; from what I've read of your posts, you're just yes-manning any changes Notch makes. I respect your opinion on the matter, but please think about your post before you post it.
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I'm sure the devs didn't want players to get shot with arrows, blown up by creepers, and eaten by spiders at every turn. Absolutely, minecraft is a game about creativity, imagination and invention.
However, why bother putting in a "hard", let alone a "hardcore" mode, if they're going to be mind-numbingly easy? Would it somehow offend casual minecraft players if there was a difficulty that was too hard for them? I don't understand where the opposition to higher modes of difficulty, or simply enough, increasing the difficulty of HARD mode is coming from. It seems totally illogical that the community supports HARD and HARDCORE modes being easy as pie (this complaint is mainly directed at the changes to armor). Some people would like to have a challenge when they play minecraft.
This is a downright stupid argument, and I'm amazed people are still trying to use it. I shouldn't need to abstain from a games features just to make it more difficult, or to better my experience. I want to use armor. I enjoy trying to gather items which I can use to better my chances of survival. Minecraft loses a significant dimension to its gameplay with the exclusion of armor.
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Why have a hard difficulty, if it isn't even remotely close to being hard? It doesn't usually take me more than 30 minutes for me to get full set of armor on a new file (now that iron spawns in great numbers, visibly, in SURFACE CAVES... a seperate issue). After I'm fully armored, I've pretty much ascended into the realm of immortality. I wouldn't mind this sort of godlike protection if I was playing on easy difficulty. But at the very least, I should have to be careful when I'm playing on hard, or hardcore. This is not the case. I charge into groups of monsters and chop away without a care about how much health I have. I can flat out ignore creepers, regardless of difficulty. Not once have I been dropped below half health when wearing armor. The only thing which I fear is falling in lava, and fighting blazes. I hate blazes.
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Shine your hook, polish your peg leg, and adjust your eyepatch. You, sir, are a pirate!
Avast, landlubber! Be it a yearning for adventure that brings you here? Your sea legs in need of a good workout? Well then, you've come to the right place. Set out on the hostile seas with the wind at your back, and adventure into the great salty yonder!
Covecraft offers a unique PvP experience set on the open ocean. Once you have left spawn protection, you enter the salty world of a pirates. Explore a massive 6000x6000 ocean full of all manner of islands, ranging from tiny to colossal. Carve your house into the side of a mountainous island, or nestle it within the depths of a cave system. Form alliances with other players, or scour the seas in search of houses to plunder. PvP is encouraged, and griefing is allowed outside of town protection; you may raid, loot and plunder anything you find out in the ocean. Even if you can't find anything else, you are guaranteed to stumble upon some ADVENTURE!
There are six large shops in the marketplace available for rent, which you can use to sell your wares. Shops must pay a rent of 1 gold bar per day. If all the shops are occupied, you can talk to the owner of the shop to try to buy it off of them.
Screenshots:
Whitelist:
No such thing!
Rules:
No cheating!
No xray texture packs!
If we catch you cheating, thou shall be BANNED
Plugins:
Towny
iConomy
Chestshop
/home, /spawn, and /warp (to pre-designated areas) are enabled on a short cooldown, to prevent abuse