New Release! (BTW V4.88)

[FlowerChild]

Version 4.88 of Better Than Wolves is ready for download!

Download Link

This release contains the following changes:

-Added Soul Sand Piles to the game. These function similarly to the other piles, in terms of Soul Sand breaking apart into them if a shovel (or Mattock) isn't used to harvest it. However, they also have some additional functionality associated with them...

-Added the ability to use Soul Sand Piles to locate players after death. Right click with a Soul Sand Pile in your hand to get started, with the subtleties of this behavior left to the player to discover. Note that players who died before this change went into effect can not be tracked in this manner (this means you Charlie ;) ), but dying again will cause it to register.

-Added the ability to pass the various pile types through the appropriate Hopper filters. I had neglected to do so in the past.

-Changed weapons to take damage to their durability when they are successfully used to block damage.

-Changed the name of the "Hunger" status effect to "Food Poisoning" for the sake of clarity.

-Changed Jack O'Lanterns so that they can be placed without having a solid block beneath them. Previously, they couldn't be placed this way, but would remain in place if the supporting block was removed, which was just silly.

-Changed boats and minecarts so that they don't collide with items. This should prevent some rather odd behavior such as boats self-destructing when the player cuts logs while in one.

-Fixed problem with rendering books (of all types) in a Cauldron creating half as much glue as they should have.

-Fixed problem with villagers not being able to open and close wooden doors.

-Fixed slight visual vertical offset on cow heads. They were appearing a bit lower than they should have (and than they do in vanilla).

-Removed the option to disable Hardcore Spawn. With the addition of Soul Sand Piles, this feature is now finalized, and it's simply the way BTW plays.

Enjoy! :)

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If you'd like to say thanks for this release and help contribute to the further development of Better Than Wolves, please consider making a donation:

[CrafterOfMines57]

I suspect it would not, and I know it is kind of special case here, but what happens if I died on 4.87, never respawned and instead hit return to title, and then updated to 4.88, would I still be able to take advantage of the soul sand pile mechanic?

[FlowerChild]

I suspect it would not, and I know it is kind of special case here, but what happens if I died on 4.87, never respawned and instead hit return to title, and then updated to 4.88, would I still be able to take advantage of the soul sand pile mechanic?

You'd get a warning for asking a question in violation of Rule #1.

[Sarudak]

So not to sound ungrateful and the soul sand mechanic looks interesting certainly but what am I to do if I'm playing cooperatively with someone and one of us dies before we've reached the nether? I'm assuming that no other mechanics of hardcore spawn have changed and so the answer would be that you're done playing cooperatively or you use admin privileges to teleport the person back to you thus bypassing hardcore spawn (and now hardcore beds too).

[FlowerChild]

So not to sound ungrateful

Well, you do anyways :)

but what am I to do if I'm playing cooperatively with someone and one of us dies before we've reached the nether?

Then you're fucked...by design.

[myrkana]

ooo I'll have to drag the boyfriend on tonight and test this xD

luckily we've reached the stage where we used a portal to go find a village, but yeah I can see it being rather shitty if we start a new world(I tend to die a lot >..>) o.o whatever happened to the idea you were thinking of involving teams awhile ago? Don't think you ever implemented it, is it still a possibility?

[EpicAaron]

Blocking now takes durability? Looks like my golden sword isn't an infinite creeper shield anymore. :)

[FlowerChild]

Blocking now takes durability? Looks like my golden sword isn't an infinite creeper shield anymore. :)

Yup, that's the idea, as well as fixing a few other exploits like finding a damaged iron sword on a zombie then being able to use its few remaining hit points to block indefinitely.

[Ethinolicbob]

-Changed boats and minecarts so that they don't collide with items. This should prevent some rather odd behavior such as boats self-destructing when the player cuts logs while in one.

So you fixed that pain in the ass bug? Good show!
Whilst playing multiplayer I had a friend throw some junk at me when I was boating past and yeah...
Very happy to see the end of that one

[Stormweaver]

I never really got into the habit of blocking damage; though if it's powerful enough to be nerfed, I suppose I should at least try.

[FlowerChild]

So you fixed that pain in the ass bug? Good show!
Whilst playing multiplayer I had a friend throw some junk at me when I was boating past and yeah...
Very happy to see the end of that one

Yeah, while considering that one I decided that having items act as mines for boats and minecarts was never such a good idea to begin with :)

[PatriotBob]

Just shortly after collecting my third oyster too! More soul sand mechanics to toy with.

...
whatever happened to the idea you were thinking of involving teams awhile ago? Don't think you ever implemented it, is it still a possibility?

May be off here, but if your referring to the team mechanic mentioned in FC's LP with Icy, I believe that was in a discussion about a particular vMC feature coming down the pipe. So if all of my supposition is correct, I would assume the release of anything built on that would come after the vMC's feature is release. So... later. :)

Every release just reels you back in... curse you and your steady releases FC.

[CycloneSP]

I'll be honest here, I always thought weapons lost durability when you blocked to begin with.

[FlowerChild]

May be off here, but if your referring to the team mechanic mentioned in FC's LP with Icy, I believe that was in a discussion about a particular vMC feature coming down the pipe. So if all of my supposition is correct, I would assume the release of anything built on that would come after the vMC's feature is release. So... later. :)

Check the related thread in the suggestion subforum. You will notice I mentioned dropping the idea of the team-based mechanic in favor of something that was actually gameplay dependent.

The team mechanic is also already in vanilla.

You will also notice my release note stating that Hardcore Spawn is now finalized.

Do the math.

[Sarudak]

Then you're fucked...by design.

:(

Ok. Well the thing is that if I'm playing cooperatively with someone, like say my wife, the big reason I am doing so is because I want to play *with* that person. The period before you can make a compass is long. I would say 6 hours or more for me if I'm being reasonably careful and a lot longer for my wife. Given we can manage a few hours a week that means at least week of us not playing together at all. I like playing with my wife and she's not going to want to play if we're just out doing our own thing with no interaction for hours at a time. What exactly do you expect me to do?

The truth is my only real option here is to use the console to get the team back together. Therefore for us this is going to end up trivializing death even more so than it was before and is going to force me to cheat which I hate doing.

[Panda]

*Cowers in fear...*

Okay... ill HCSpawn ;__;

[FlowerChild]

Ok. Well the thing is that if I'm playing cooperatively with someone, like say my wife, the big reason I am doing so is because I want to play *with* that person. The period before you can make a compass is long. I would say 6 hours or more for me if I'm being reasonably careful and a lot longer for my wife. Given we can manage a few hours a week that means at least week of us not playing together at all. I like playing with my wife and she's not going to want to play if we're just out doing our own thing with no interaction for hours at a time. What exactly do you expect me to do?

Then cheat. What I have done is provide an actual gameplay mechanic that integrates the tracking of other players into the game (and it's not just for co-op), creates a much more interesting co-op mechanic where teamplay becomes important (for reasons that would be apparent if you actually tried the feature before bitching), makes the tracking of players something to strive towards as you work your way up the tech-tree, and which retains the harshness of death in BTW (which is rather integral to the experience) in a multiplayer environment.

Contrast that with the team based mechanic which is entirely meta-game and console based (you may as well be teleporting), which rewards players committing suicide, and which effectively serves as a "teleport to player" command anyways.

I opted to take the route which was MUCH more work in order to make this a real feature in BTW that adds to the overall gameplay experience instead of just a tagged on console command.

BTW is a hardcore mod. If you choose to play it with people that aren't hardcore about it, then that's fine, and do what you got to do, but don't expect me to just rubber-stamp my approval on something you can do anyways just to make you feel better about it.

[Pfilson]

The truth is my only real option here is to use the console to get the team back together. Therefore for us this is going to end up trivializing death even more so than it was before and is going to force me to cheat which I hate doing.

You can do this without making it any less trivial than the team function would have anyway... Just kill yourself before you tp to the person as you would have had to do to make use of the team spawn.. With the assumption that you have operator rights this is as easy as /kill. Respawn. then /tp <other person>. You still lose all of your gear/xp and you get to start over with them.

Once you do get up the tree and have access to soul sand you can make use of the new feature instead of taking the gear/xp penalty.

[Sarudak]

Ok I won't say anything more about it than this:

I'm not asking for an easy mode here. All I want is to not be forcibly separated from the people I'm playing with for hours at a time. Under the current mechanics if someone in a group dies pre-nether you have left no recourse whatsoever to keep playing together beyond cheating or re-genning the map and starting from scratch. This is and has always been the reason why hardcore spawn was not viable for co-op play; never because it was too dificult or hardcore.

You can do this without making it any less trivial than the team function would have anyway... Just kill yourself before you tp to the person as you would have had to do to make use of the team spawn.. With the assumption that you have operator rights this is as easy as /kill. Respawn. then /tp <other person>. You still lose all of your gear/xp and you get to start over with them.

Yeah. Again I hate using the console. I think I'd rather look into what it would take to add this functionality myself. Plus then I could apply it to my server without having to trust other people with op permissions. Some people just don't have to self control not to cheat when something bad happens to them. :P

[FlowerChild]

I'm not asking for an easy mode here. All I want is to not be forcibly separated from the people I'm playing with for hours at a time.

You just asked for easy mode.

[Fret]

-Changed Jack O'Lanterns so that they can be placed without having a solid block beneath them. Previously, they couldn't be placed this way, but would remain in place if the supporting block was removed, which was just silly.

Thank you so much. I use lanterns a lot in my builds. This will save so much time for me. Thank you

[Sinornithosaurus]

-Removed the option to disable Hardcore Spawn.

YES! This just made my day!

[WeedFather]

You know, just the other day I was thinking of how the hunger status effect's name doesn't make sense, and how the effect is more like food poisoning. I'm happy that it doesn't have to bug me now that I noticed. Thanks, FlowerChild! :D

Making hardcore spawn no longer optional sounds like a bold move, but I noticed how easy it was to get back onto your feet with it disabled as long as you stayed close to spawn, so while I'm a bit nervous and it may mess with some custom terrain maps...I'll brave the odds. Plus the thing about piles of soul sand sounds interesting. I'll have to try it out.

Since one of the boldest hardcore options are no longer optional, I assume it's only a matter of time before the option to use HCBucket will be nuked as well, right? Because I really love the idea of using pumps to transfer water. I keep thinking of fun and useful things to do with it, and it gives me more reason to setup base near lakes, rivers, waterfalls, and the ocean, so I never turn the mode off anyways.

[Seven6239]

With all the coolness and excitement of anarchy servers, I hope there's always the option Of "hey my girlfriend and best friend let's get together and play some Minecraft. Good. You find a cave for our first night, you find some food Ill harvest some materials to build our first house the next day."

Chill, relaxed, coop play is just as fun and I truly wish we get the option of experiencing that with friends as well.

The option will always be there man, it's not like I'm going to remove it.

Nothing will stop you from enjoying the mod in a more relaxed setting, just as long as you remember to be nice to your girlfriend so she doesn't have a ballista pointed at you when you return to your cave :)

[FlowerChild]

Yeah, I do so enjoy putting a ton of work into a release to have it immediately greeted by a wall of bitching.

Thanks guys...much obliged.