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    posted a message on Am I the only one who hates the new Minecart TNT feature?
    Quote from warfighter67

    Yes, you are the only one who hates it.


    No he's not. It's an absurd contrivance. It's another Mojang easy feature.
    Posted in: Recent Updates and Snapshots
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    posted a message on Dispenser / Dropper What's the difference? - Answer!
    Quote from sparks00

    the difference is that droppers can fire items directly into chests or other storage devices placed in front of them


    Isn't this identical functionality to the hopper itself?
    Posted in: Recent Updates and Snapshots
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    posted a message on Sand pushers broken
    Just watched baj's new video
    and his sand pusher he uses in a logger seems to be broken. I was planning on making something similar but now i don't see the point.

    Can anybody else confirm this Sand pushers are now broken?
    Posted in: Recent Updates and Snapshots
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    posted a message on What are they adding? Well NOT the modding api!
    Quote from FrozenS2M

    Just be patient, Mod API will come out when it's done, which will probably be around 1.6-1.7. Mojang needs to fix up the game.


    They have been promising the API for multiple versions in the past and failed to deliver. There is simply no way minecraft will ever get an official API.
    Posted in: Recent Updates and Snapshots
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    posted a message on Better with Forge
    Quote from SkeltonUK

    I should mention that I meant FC should maybe have discussed it with the Forge instead of responding in that explosive outburst rather than you personally discuss it with them.


    Regardless of what the author does or does not do does no excuse BWF development from diluting BTW.
    Posted in: Mods Discussion
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    posted a message on Better with Forge
    Quote from SkeltonUK

    Then surely it would be a better idea to discuss that with them rather than this communal division. I'm more inclined to listen to someone if they represent a good case rather than if they start screaming abuse and derogatives at me. This slugfest provides the people at BWF with motivation to keep going with their project.


    I don't represent either party and am not here to defend personalities just talent. I don't even know or communicate with mod authors, i just play their titles. My interests are that BTW author flowerchild continues to develop quality product and that hopefully more and more people recognize his talents. I'm very concerned it could become buried under large volumes of additions of other mod components that are not developed around a similar philosophy.

    The opposition of this argument is evoking freedom to play the way you want to play but as i said playing BTW involves limits, not expansion of capabilities of the player.
    Posted in: Mods Discussion
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    posted a message on Better with Forge
    Quote from EnzerDeLeo

    Gameshark, yelling, don't' tread on my play


    The ultimate issue at hand is will new adopters of these forge mods understand the carefully crafted balance and design features implemented into the game. If you say well I want an easy way to transmit things vertically and BTW solution is something I want to bypass then your demonstrating you DO POSSESS an intimate knowledge of what you’re in store for and the costs you’re going to incur. What is not obvious is that everybody who will play BWF with other big tech mods knows this or even has general understanding of the divergence between many of the tech mods were power is granted with very small amounts of effort to achieve.

    If you want windmills eloraam is copying them so you don’t need BTW for that.

    To your second point I made it explicit I was talking about big tech mods not small vanity mods. Naïve gamers who install mods will likely install the big ones and we all know what those are. Balkon’s weapons mod: BTW you really have to automate to get projectile, feathers or rotted arrows, Balkon gives you other sources of projectiles devaluing BTW automated systems that provide projectiles.

    As far as BTB those two techtrees were highly dependent on each other however I will agree that having pneumatic pipes move items vertically was an affront to the pully/rope system. Maybe when BTW techs up to drive-through banking it will make more sense but I always thought pipes that move things other than fluids vertically were OP. Perhaps that’s one reason, among many, that BTB has been retired.

    Also I’m not really here to support perpetual monopolies on ideas. I think IP as it’s practiced is somewhat problematic.

    Also I agree that it would be absurd to yell at somebody for using a gameshark, but the difference here is that in this case will new adoptees even realize they are using a gameshark ?

    Both parties are ultimately guilty here of putting impositions on how people play. Forge compatibility will lead to those ignorant of the carefully designed balance in BTW to not be able to experience it because it’s tremendously diluted in a sea of features. They cannot effectively evaluate BTW because BTW is not a screw pump or a hopper. BTW is the emergent property of those blocks as well as limitations to create a unique experience that would be lost like giving the protagonist in Amnesia a chain gun. Your denying them that experience unless they know for certain what that experience is and elect to have it modified in such a way that it’s made easier.

    Once you have a means to generate infinite lava and move that into a can which goes into a centrifuge which generates infinite iron you have just reduced the incentive to make a mob trap. We cannot simply say give the people everything because BTW is not a choice between a thermopile and a windmill. BTW essence is that it limits player power so by giving them “everything” you eliminating their ability to experience BTW. This should be evident in that recent alterations to BTW involved removing features that vanilla established.

    The pro-BWF position argues that it wants to give players what they want but it’s clear that many people don’t have a clear understanding of the challenges of BTW, as I stated earlier BTW has had big forge tech mod defectors in the past, and will likely now find it even more difficult to truly understand what BTW is like because they will believe they are playing it when they really are not.

    I’m not evoking any legal precedent here, I’m saying that the parties involved with BWF development could invariably be doing a lot of damage to a mod they didn’t make and they have not even acknowledged or failed to recognize these issues. They seem to be operating as if the ultimate outcome of their efforts is Pareto optimal.
    Posted in: Mods Discussion
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    posted a message on Better with Forge
    Quote from EnzerDeLeo

    This is all personal opinion and personal morals.
    Opinions and morals differ from region to region, from religion to religion, from person to person and even change throughout a persons lifespan.
    Not everyone shares the same opinions and morals, you shouldn't force your opinions and morals onto someone else, especially over something as banal as mod compatibility.

    I interpreted this more as a design issue wherein BTW features objectively conflict with other mods features. This is an objective fact as many of the larger tech mods have overlapping functionality which is easier to implement and requires less planning and forethought.

    Now this isn’t an issue if you have an understanding of what sort of experience BTW offers and have rejected that electing to only use particular features of BTW. I don’t think intervening in those cases is productive or the ethically right thing to do.

    The problem comes into play when unknowing users want more content and install the larger tech mods and BTW without knowledge that BTW largely becomes obsolete with the inclusion of other mods. If the intent of the mod user is to derive utility out of BTW they are less likely to obtain this because of the additional “big tech” mods that offer the dis-coordination rather than synergy.

    Ultimately this is not about morality any more than a the exploration of the timeless moral question of what is better Arma or Serious Sam, Burnout or Gran Turismo. These are different game experiences and the value derived is subjective so no maxim or universal is relevant.

    What is objectively fact though is that the BTW mod was not designed to accommodate this extra power. It denies you power and this enhances the gameplay experience and rewards you for achieving things you can do much easier with other big tech mods. By saturating the unknowing player or forcing them to experience target overload when they see MFE, MCE’s, BTE’s, ICBM’s or whatever else they are not going to get the BTW experience as intended without shunning all the other mods in favor of BTW. Will they even know what is a BTW block/ item and what isn’t ?

    The fundamental problem is a game like Amnesia vs a game like Doom 3. The design of Amnesia is such that it cripples you relative to most other horror games by limiting your offensive capabilities. Doom 3 has similar atmosphere but you’re carrying around an advance arsenal in your pocket. These two games, which both have horror elements, alter the game play experience and Amnesia would not be the same game it is if outside forces, like studio execs, came in and demanded developers give the protagonist machine guns and explosives. The original intent is destroyed and we get something that is overrepresented in the market.

    It is not allowed to evolve on it’s own and demonstrate why it’s better at offering some desired experience than other tech mods or allowed to coexist as a niche. It’s integrated forcibly and its’ features become the junk DNA Redpower or Buildcraft.

    In addition the Mattabase’s and Lex Manos’s already have intimate knowledge of what gameplay experience they want. They are in a position to say they want forge mods with BTW but ultimately they are getting a few more ways to do the same thing while the naïve user gets the same thing they do not have the same background to make this informed choice without first actually understanding the process of working through BTW as a standalone game. The gnostic already know what they want but they are getting weaker redundancy and that comes at the experience of a those who will now be less likely to experience BTW as it was intended to be. Since eloram has already implemented similar features of BTW I don’t see how this is a positive outcome for anybody.
    Posted in: Mods Discussion
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    posted a message on Better with Forge
    Quote from ZegenRuki

    -snip-


    I'm talking about somebody who may have exhausted all the content vMC has to offer, which is exceedingly easy, and wants more. They have the potential to become exclusive users of some mod. BTW fulfills those needs for more content and more challenge but simply doesn't syngergize with other mods. We may call them casual mod users or potential adopters of mods exclusively but what this forced integration does is provide a new way to experience BTW that denies them the ability to experience BTW because it overwhelms them with additional options to do things cheaper and easier.

    Unless these adopters have a background with BTW and know of all it's features and it's challenges and which they want to preserve and which they do not when they have to assess how to automate something the big tech mod solutions will, upon analysis, reveal themselves to be much better options from an economic efficiency standpoint regarding resources and time.

    BTW in the mind of the adopter becomes a comparatively weaker mod because this action gives the option to experience it how it was never intended to be experienced.

    This is not a mutualistic outcome for btw because BTW features are likely to be used aesthetically and not to enhance gameplay.

    As far as BTW being imperfect i won't disagree, i don't think thre is any perfect product though. With respect to BWF having a legal right to exist, that's an argument that is being dealt with by others and i'm not exactly a big fan of IP so i won't necessarily disagree with that. My concern is that this forced integration into forge hasn't considered the ramifications of BTW total failure to synergize with other big tech mods and how will that effect the experience with new gamers who have no context to evaluate the options of how they play.

    This move could seriously hurt BTW from a comparative standpoint in the minds of mod users who lack the ability to experience BTW as it was intended.
    Posted in: Mods Discussion
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    posted a message on Better with Forge
    Quote from ZegenRuki

    A naive gamer would also more likely ignore installation instructions and not be able to get it to work. Even then, the average Technic player probably wouldn't touch BTW simply because it doesn't fit their play style the way it is now, as I've touched upon last time I was engaged in conversation about this here.


    Not necessarily. When i say a naive gamer i'm referring to a person with particular technical sophistication, they can read instructions and understand windows/mac architecture enough to move files and unzip them, who is ignorant, not stupid, of the design philosophy of a particular product. I myself hated the idea of automation and water transport before BTW. The very concept of BTW seemed like a bad idea before i played it. Eventually i broke down and played it because the author kept adding cool stuff and it changed my perception of automation.

    Naive simply means unaware or lacking information in the context of this debate, a better word is ignorant.

    As i also stated there have been defectors from the tech mods to BTW because those gamers took it upon themselves to experience BTW as a standalone product. Now while i will agree that some mod users have probably experienced BTW and rejected it others have never used it and dont' have an "informed opinion" about why they dislike BTW other then flowerchild is a misanthropic person. So they, along with the many other adopters of mods will be denied the ability to experience the product as its' intended and so they will more likely have a negative opinion of it's features because they will be compared with features that do the same thing with reduced effort on part of the gamer. As i said before i had a negative opinion of BTW before i played it.

    That is not a problem that has been addressed in my mind.
    Posted in: Mods Discussion
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    posted a message on Better with Forge
    Quote from ZegenRuki

    You're working on the assumption that Technic and FTB are chomping at the bit to include BWF.


    My concern is that a naive gamer will operate on a heuristic level, which is rational, that more is better and want to install the larger tech mods. As a result of this they will not get the BTW experience which is insured by the inclusion of other mods unless you know for certain you don't want BTW challenge because you've experienced it and it is not your taste.

    Partitioning BTW via coding methods preserves the integrity of the gameplay experience and features that themselves conflict with the other big tech mods from a challenge or gameplay standpoint. The creator has more knowledge of what sort fo experience teh gamer will have than most of us. i'll concede BTW is not for everyone i imagine many mod users don't have a good conception of what they would experience if they had to play through the ages and struggle automation how it's envisioned in BTW.
    Posted in: Mods Discussion
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    posted a message on Better with Forge
    Quote from ZeroLevels

    People want to play BetterThanWolves on terms that they find fun. This doesn't interfere with how you play it. The way it is being developed honestly interferes with nothing.


    What about naive gamers who are installing the pack with no knowledge of the individual parts and the intention for their creation. BTW is not just coded to conflict but its' very gameplay features do not synergize and are in fact diluted or made redundant by all the other big tech mods.

    It's wrong to say this interferes with nothing as a first time mod user who installs a forge pack with all the big mods will have no context that a portion of the features are designed to operate without pipes or golems or thermopiles or allocator blocks. This gamer will effectively be denied the ability to experience BTW how it was intended because other features that demand lower cognitive prowess and planning will give them the easy way out.

    This hurts BTW as a standalone mod but does not hurt the mods that give more and more power.

    In fact there have been a few converts from tech mods to BTW who stated they defected specifically due to the increased challenge BTW provided so even having background with multiple mods does not itself provide the requisite familiarity with the challenges that BTW provide. You have to play it standalone to really understand how it challenges and most people are unfamiliar with that type of challenge or totally unaware it even exists. That is how this situation will victimize parties involved.

    The ultimate product they are playing has no coherence or design philosophy other than more is better.
    Posted in: Mods Discussion
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    posted a message on Better with Forge
    I've only heard this mentioned a few times but isn't one of the real problems that the original designer's intent with the game is being diluted in an amalgamation with really no coherence or gameplay balance. The result is a game with tons of overlapping features. Many will argue that systems from IC or Thaum, or buildcraft or forestry or whatever that overlap with systems from BTW are irrelevant because you can regulate yourself and use what you like, MC is a SHOULD be played as a sandbox game, this misses the point which is that many naive gamers will install the "total" package totally unaware that Better Than Wolves was specifically designed as a stand-alone product. Thus a gamer who has no context will be denied a positive experience with BTW because all it's features are subtly or in the case of EE blatantly diluted to the point of absolute obsolescence.

    This doesn't hurt the big forge mods because they are designed to provide more and more power, Thaumcraf 3 seems to invert this trend from Thaum2, but it does ultimately hurt BTW in the eyes of gamers who do not attempt or are not even aware that it's intended design was specifically stand alone.

    In order to ultimately avoid this problem a gamer must have intimate knowledge of all the mods and what sort of solitary experience they provide and not everybody will have this knowledge who necessarily operate on the heuristic more is better.
    Posted in: Mods Discussion
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    posted a message on Better Than Wolves Total Conversion!
    Quote from thetobster

    @ Rafe:
    I can do fine in my hardcore games in the first nights....I personally don't have a problem with the hardcore bed aspect of BTW and as I mentioned earlier in BTW i adjust my playstyle to have dedicated nighttime tasks and so forth....


    This confuses me because earlier you stated that you have to just sit alt tabbing through the first night. Sometimes i even manage to get 3 iron my before the sun sets. But typically what i do is build a tone of ladders and dig straight down with the intent of hitting bedrock diamond and ultimately the nether. I will often find caves on the way there. i'm not sure exactly what your doing first night. Why exactly do you feel you need to remain idle until the sun rises ?
    Posted in: Minecraft Mods
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    posted a message on Better Than Wolves Total Conversion!
    Quote from thetobster

    I do that too :) .....either way you have to be in a hole, though xD


    So after an entire day in a new world you have not been able to acquire enough wood to make a shovel and a pic ? Are you standing around with your client un-paused while not playing ?

    Typically as the sun begins to fall on my first nights i've got at least 20 logs, 4 meat and if i'm lucky some seeds and i've found a cave which i seal up, if i can't find a cave i just dig straight down as close to my spawn as possible. I've never needed a smart bomb to get past the first night.

    Your clearly using your time tremendously inefficiently on the first night. In my opinion first nights are way to easy and need more challenge.
    Posted in: Minecraft Mods
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