BTW: The life of Minecraft.

[FlowerChild]

Also, in response to the above, it makes it much harder from a design standpoint, as you have to do much more testing for each mode of play, since you don't know how people will be playing the game, and also it makes features much harder to balance due to that.

Yup, exactly, and while server ops can set their own options to "enforce" certain gameplay settings, the truth of all things game design is that most players DO NOT play multiplayer. Yes, there's a small dedicated group of people that are extremely passionate about it, and I enjoy it enough myself that I am willing to put the work into it, but to the average gamer, multiplayer doesn't even really exist.

Look at it this way: BTW existed for over a year without multiplayer, and while people were certainly happy about it, did the inclusion of SMP support create a huge explosion of popularity for the mod? No, not at all. The download numbers were hardly affected by it at all, and on the end of the forums, I doubt you guys have noticed any real difference in the community either.

So no, I obviously still need to balance for SSP, and even if I didn't, that has zero impact on the reasons I've stated for why I'm doing things this way. As dawn mentioned above, and is the case for many of the decisions I make, this is all about "bang for the buck". Having a single way to play the mod is MUCH more effective in terms of my productivity and ability to effectively design for it.

[PatriotBob]

... did the inclusion of SMP support create a huge explosion of popularity for the mod? No, not at all. The download numbers were hardly affected by it at all...

WHAT IS THIS? This can not be! Come brothers, we must spread the knowledge of the good works done here.

LEAVE NO MAN AN EXCUSE! LET NO ONE SAY "I HAVE NOT HEARD"

Maybe all go torment the people back at that other mod pack...
/needs-evil-smiley

[FlowerChild]

It's not a matter of advertising man, it's a matter of relative numbers. There's just not enough people that play SMP to make a difference relative to the overall number that play the mod.

[PatriotBob]

But... more.

Not that good at advertising anyways...

Probably just get my self banned.

[BinoAl]

Honestly, there may come a time when I rip vanilla enchanting out entirely, and it will all become infernal.

Yes. Please. It would probably be the final push for me to seriously work on my IE library, rather than just keep using enchanted diamond gear. Enchanting is far too powerful to rely on the vMC tech progression rather than the BTW tech tree

[Stormweaver]

The real potential popularity boosts from the mod going SMP would likely come from a group of youtubers with a large fanbase picking it up; even then, with the numbers we already have it would have to be someone huge for there to be a real impact. So if we have anyone going to minecon and you run into, say, some of the mindcrack guys...*hint*

I agree that BTW is a largely SSP mod though. It's a great enabler for anarchy, but there's far more playtime in puzzling out various new automations and builds than there is in hunting other people tbh.

[FlowerChild]

The real potential popularity boosts from the mod going SMP would likely come from a group of youtubers with a large fanbase picking it up; even then, with the numbers we already have it would have to be someone huge for there to be a real impact. So if we have anyone going to minecon and you run into, say, some of the mindcrack guys...*hint*

Well, keep in mind that I am in no way saying I *want* a big popularity boost from it. My experience with mass popularity and the mod has been almost entirely negative, so you'll notice that these days I do next to nothing to promote it in any way, and routinely make decisions that I know will act counter to it.

I am quite content with the size of the fan-base the mod has, and if anything I probably would prefer making a specialized mod that appeals to a smaller group of loyal and more mature people than a throng of screaming teenagers.

I think this is also reflected in my recent attitudes towards the hardcore features and vanilla changes. I'm well aware that they are not for everyone and that there are probably a whack of kids dropping the mod over them. I just really have no inclination towards appealing to those people anyways, just like I have no inclination towards appealing to players that want to use BTW with 50 other mods largely just for its aesthetics.

@finite8: maybe factories should wear down. mojang just added functionality for blocks to have use durability.

That's not accurate. What they added was very special case code for the anvil that in no way is a general purpose system and which actually clashes badly with the design of the rest of the game.

We're still limited to 4 bits of metadata which means a block could only have 16 damage states (as opposed to the thousands on items), but that's always been the case. Also, if you have 16 damage states, then your block will have no room left for any other data like redstone or mechanical power state, or, will have to use a tile entity, which is a bad idea for performance reasons.

You'll notice that the damage states were one of the first things I ripped out of the Anvil in the 1.4 update. It felt inconsistent with the rest of MC's design, prevented stacking of the block with others in different damage states, and really was just an extraneous bit of fluff (especially given everything else I ripped out). Even with the vanilla functionality in, I really didn't see the reasoning behind it.

It was a Dinnerbone feature though, and as I've noted in the past, consistency with the rest of MC just doesn't seem to be a factor for him in the way he designs things. Same could be said of the skulls (arbitrary 16 directions of orientation for no real reason) and tripwires (with their wonky hit-boxes). He seems to have an inclination towards adding stuff like that "just because".

[Rianaru]

Just to add on to this thread, I think what a lot of people need to hear is that the hardcore changes are part of the plan. I've seen a lot of people saying that you're just making the game harder for no reason(I recognize that hardcore changes actually improve the game, so there is a reason, however subjective it might be). I definitely have to step back every now and again and remind myself that there is larger overreaching plan with some of these things, so it might help the problem to mention that there is a plan more often than is mentioned now. I'm sure I'm not the only one that forgets that some changes won't get full use or reward until other changes are made.

Anyways, just my two cents
<scurries off to harvest undead body parts and soul particles from the mobtrap>

[FlowerChild]

Just to add on to this thread, I think what a lot of people need to hear is that the hardcore changes are part of the plan. I've seen a lot of people saying that you're just making the game harder for no reason(I recognize that hardcore changes actually improve the game, so there is a reason, however subjective it might be). I definitely have to step back every now and again and remind myself that there is larger overreaching plan with some of these things, so it might help the problem to mention that there is a plan more often than is mentioned now. I'm sure I'm not the only one that forgets that some changes won't get full use or reward until other changes are made.

Well, I think that actually ties into what I say above about popularity man. I don't consider it my "job" to reassure people, especially not the general public. What I do is make a mod, and try to make it as best I can. Everything else is just gravy.

Yes, I have people here on these forums whose opinion I do care about, and whom I will listen to and take the time to talk things through with. However, I think for the most part those people know me well enough to trust that there's always a plan in place and that I've thought things through in depth.

For people in general, I just don't much care, or at least can't allow myself to care about them too much if I want to remain productive with the mod. I think I've actually already gone above and beyond in doing things like the dev diary thread to give some insight into my ongoing thought process, and in remaining in constant contact with the community.

Beyond that, sorry man, but I didn't sign on to be a personal therapist for tens of thousands :)

[Azdoine]

My time is a finite resource, and it's a resource that fans of the mod are currently benefiting from. In fact, the better I prioritize and manage my own time, the more you guys benefit from it.

That particular adadge of yours has changed the way I think about time and the way I use it. Now, I'm not spending my time developing a mod or a creative product for other people, but you've changed the way I use time for myself. Time is the resource that allows me to take action and aquire other resourses, and also the one resource I can never recover.

So thanks, FC, for accidentally changing my philosophy for the better :)

[Rianaru]

Beyond that, sorry man, but I didn't sign on to be a personal therapist for tens of thousands :)

I totally get what you're saying man, just suggesting that a few words in the right place might go a long way in regards to dealing with things like the HC changes threads that have been showing up here and there :) And I feel like the community could stand to remind our collective selves of that once in a while too, so that the whole thing isn't argued from the perspective of only whether or not that single change is a good thing, and not considering the future of that change being integrated into your plan. Especially for the newer members(when FC decides to be merciful) who don't know the mod or our eldritch overlord so well ;)

[FlowerChild]

I totally get what you're saying man, just suggesting that a few words in the right place might go a long way in regards to dealing with things like the HC changes threads that have been showing up here and there :) And I feel like the community could stand to remind our collective selves of that once in a while too, so that the whole thing isn't argued from the perspective of only whether or not that single change is a good thing, and not considering the future of that change being integrated into your plan. Especially for the newer members(when FC decides to be merciful) who don't know the mod or our eldritch overlord so well ;)

Well, I do hear you on that, and I think it's one of the motivations behind me starting the dev diaries. I think I realized back during the hellish 1.3 update that me talking about what I was working on was keeping people happy, and as a result, I was actually having fewer distractions from my work than I would of otherwise. I think it also served a therapeutic purpose for me to talk about the work I was doing a bit.

So, I decided to start doing that more often through the dev diaries, and I think the overall effect has been positive for everyone involved. I just always need to balance how much time I spend on that, and how much time I spend actually working on the mod in order to prevent it becoming a time-sync.

A little helps my productivity, but too much will inevitably hurt it, and honestly there are just times when having to go through my whole thought process and explain it all is a total drag.

[Anbaric]

Yeah, I don't know... I like watching people play smp on YouTube, but hate playing it. My game is laggy enough since the smp merge without being on an actual server that could potentially be a thousand miles away from me. (RIP 1.2.5)

The hardcore features were something I seriously celebrated when they first started arriving. Back when HCB was optional, I always felt a pang of guilt that I was "cheating", and it drove me crazy. The HC features took some of my cheaty guilt away, because I don't have the temptation there anymore. Although, I will admit that the first two-three weeks after you start a new world are a serious pain with HCBeds. Lots of tabbing to stumbleapon till I hear the burning of the undead.

Hardcore Enchanting would probably be just as well recieved. I know for me, 32 bookshelves, 5 diamonds, 4 obsidian, and a book are extremely easy to get. I got enough of the rare stuff just from raiding a couple jungle temples! ( I will admit that was luck... ) and the books are easily obtainable from one, maybe two villages. Even the xp is a joke to get right now. I haven't updated to the version where only mobs drop xp yet, but even so, killing a single big slime is enough to get you a level two enchant, probably efficiency 1. ( My most loved enchant. ) And since slimes are EVERYWHERE now, Vanilla enchanting's total cost is a joke. ( Obviously assuming you kill all the slime spawns from the big slime. :/ )

To Muggs, making every block in a factory have durability would be a massive strain on everyone... The Devs would have to use up a ton of ID's and metadata to do it right, texture artists would have to at least double the current amount of sprites, ( If the Devs even make the damage visible, which it would have to be in order to facilitate the occasional repair spree.) I don't think it would go so well on the player side either... It's fine if a single block, like the dead weight, breaks after a time, but most BTW factories I've seen or heard of have a lot more than one block that were pleased at roughly the same time. If lots of blocks are getting damaged constantly, changing sprites and data, that's lag inducing. ( or FPS intensive, I don't know how to differentiate. :/ ) and what happens when a whole section of your build, that you placed at the same time, suddenly breaks? You could be looking at total failure, and more than a hundred blocks gone. You could prevent the massive breaking of buildings by having some sort of structured code that gives blocks damage based on total use, but that would be a lot of work for a coder, more lag/FPS-drop due to long code, and still have the problem of factories gringing to a halt.

As to FC not being a therapist, I think he totally could be, if he ever decides to. He obviously has time management down pat, one thing a lot of the world could sorely use. Prioritizing, sticking to a plan dispite mass protest, long-term design goals, if you ever wanted to become a life coach, you would be in high demand. ^_^

[muggsbud]

I never meant every single block, just a few pin point things to make you revisit your old machines. specifically blocks that may only be used very rarely, but would be central to whatever machine they would be used in.

[RezDev]

I totally get what you're saying man, just suggesting that a few words in the right place might go a long way in regards to dealing with things like the HC changes threads that have been showing up here and there.

And I feel like the community could stand to remind our collective selves of that once in a while too, so that the whole thing isn't argued from the perspective of only whether or not that single change is a good thing, and not considering the future of that change being integrated into your plan. Especially for the newer members(when FC decides to be merciful) who don't know the mod or our eldritch overlord so well ;)

The thing is though, that a lot of that kind of information is already here, just not centralized in one place. I consider myself relatively new to this mod, as I've only been playing it since around May or so, and I don't post much, but I have spent a good bit of time reading through old posts and such trying to get a feel of the history of the development of the mod, and it's pretty clear that there is a definite vision for the mod that we the players only have the barest of ideas about.

And then there's the fact that FC puts out updates like it's his job, which is awesome in and of itself, but has the unfortunate side-effect of people only concentrating on the newest-added content and forgetting about the base on which it's building. I mean, it wasn't that long ago that canvasses and infernal enchanting was added; or the new properties to SFS; or the "Phases" development; and then there was the planned April update that is on hold due to Mojang not adding the block ID extensions.

So I guess the TL;DR for this is that people should read some of the development history before they post comments, especially if they're new to the mod, as then they might realize that BtW is not just some mod that adds a few interesting blocks on top of vMC but is an integration of Minecraft that completely changes the gameplay. (I suppose that is asking a bit much of the Internet, though, huh?)

But don't take this the wrong way: I enjoy the DevDiary threads as much as anyone, as learning about the design process is as fun as playing the mod. I'm just a fan of research the answers to your questions before asking. ;)

And on an unrelated note:

Honestly, there may come a time when I rip vanilla enchanting out entirely, and it will all become infernal.

I sincerely hope that, if you should decide to do this, that you open one of your community input threads on the topic. The vanilla enchanting system is another thing that I like about Minecraft but feel was implemented poorly, and I think about it quite extensively. I, for one, would love the opportunity to discuss it with the community, if for no other reason than to get the ideas out of my head.

Of course, I would never trouble you with them if not on a thread like that, knowing your stance on that kind of thing :)

[BigShinyToys]

A few thoughts on BTW's current playability

I have been a player of BTW science right before the forums were created so a while. In the time I have been playing there have been many changes to the hibachi recipe (their was a flint and steel in it.) and I have started many new worlds as I considered it cheating to have equipment made with cheaper items that it cost in the next release. So with the recent increase in cost so cane a new world as of yet I have very Little in the way of BTW equipment and no hibachi's effectively halting progress through the BTW tech tree. A few new world latter and still no hibachis manly due to blaze being hard to kill and me not having the skill to pull it off also the server client merge has caused a delay that makes returning ghasts fireballs almost impossible and In my opinion a "last stand" option. With each defeat I find my self less eager to start a new. I find my self putting more time into Computer Craft lua scripting and fewer hours to BTW.

with each new MC reassess first reaction is cool new item X followed by that is a goner for shore. and with the new "I will change MC as I see fit" policy in effect I am worried for other useful devices. I never would have picked maps as something that you were bothered by but I guess that is more because you play SMP while I don't. I was looking forward to naming as were most by the sound of it and yes in the sachem of BTW when it is included doesn't really matter but it was something that people thought was useful in MC and those are rare thing. A lot of people wanted it but are too polite to ask.

As you have said this is all ground work for awesome that will follow and I trust that the direction you take this mod will ultimately be the best. but for now I will be stepping back from BTW altogether and do other stuff for a while. see how this all play out next year some time.


CYA
Big Shiny Toys

[phamtrinli]

FC wrote:
It was a Dinnerbone feature though, and as I've noted in the past, consistency with the rest of MC just doesn't seem to be a factor for him in the way he designs things. Same could be said of the skulls (arbitrary 16 directions of orientation for no real reason) and tripwires (with their wonky hit-boxes). He seems to have an inclination towards adding stuff like that "just because".

This kind of junk is exactly what I was talking about when I made this thread. As much as some of the changes made worry me, at least BTW has sense of flow. Polish and planning really can make a diamond from the rough. I just wish Mojang would get their collective heads out of their rears and get a plan together. Unfortunately FC's general reputation (and opinions of him current employees have) makes it unlikely he'll ever be offered a position.

I frelling hate politics.

[muggsbud]

implying FC's own opinion would be to take the job.

[Sarudak]

He would if it meant he had design control. He's even said he would.

[tom_savage]

My friend informed me the other night (I will have to get his sources), that Notch is pretty much pulling the plug on Jens and Dinnerbone. Not sure whether it's more because he feels they are just doing what was mentioned earlier 'just cause' programming (I believed Notch used bats as an example), or because he needs them on a different project--But either case, he mentioned that Minecraft was coming to a close. With the introduction of the finalized API (which would include an entire client rewrite), they would be done updating it.

What all would this mean for modders and those using mods? I assume it would make life easier on all parties, but I know very little about the inner workings of modding.

[FlowerChild]

Unfortunately FC's general reputation (and opinions of him current employees have) makes it unlikely he'll ever be offered a position.

Just wondering what you're basing your statement of Mojang having a negative opinion of me on. Is this from my own statements (I don't disagree) or do you have some other source for that info?

He would if it meant he had design control. He's even said he would.

Yeah...that's the thing. As I mentioned above, I certainly wouldn't want to be in the position of working under Jeb or Dinnerbone design wise. It would not be a healthy situation for me, and I sincerely doubt "let's turn over complete control of the game to a modder" would ever be a serious option.

[Sarudak]

I'm sure Flower would probably dance a dance of joy if jeb and dinnerbone were actually going away. Nonetheless it doesn't make a whole lot of business sense. Why abandon such a star hit? There's no logic behind it. I find this improbable.

[FlowerChild]

I'm sure Flower would probably dance a dance of joy if jeb and dinnerbone were actually going away. Nonetheless it doesn't make a whole lot of business sense. Why abandon such a star hit? There's no logic behind it. I find this improbable.

I dunno...I can see it. IMO, Notch *is* a designer, and I wouldn't be surprised if he made the same observations about the new stuff in MC that I am making.

My primary worry was that he wanted to distance himself from MC and wasn't paying attention to what was going into it anymore. If he is though, the above wouldn't surprise me very much at all, because IMO, the game is actually getting worse with time right now, the new features are dragging down its overall level of quality, and considering how much of himself he poured into it, I can't see him being very happy with that.

Also, I believe Dinnerbone was hired *specifically* to work on the mod API yet him and Jeb have gone off on a tangent and seem to be making new features instead. Why would you hire the Bukkit guy to make new features in the first place? That's not the skill-set he's demonstrated. Perhaps Mojang has spotted this as well and is pulling a business "wtf?" on it.

Anyways, not saying this happened. Just that I'll be cautiously optimistic that it has, as yes, this would definitely make my life a lot easier both in terms of fewer version updates I'd have to perform, and in terms of not having to redesign for random features that they decide to throw in.

[Sarudak]

Oh I'm not talking about it being improbable that he might pull the plug on Jeb and dinnerbone given what has been being released. It's this part I find improbable.

(Notch) mentioned that Minecraft was coming to a close. With the introduction of the finalized API (which would include an entire client rewrite), they would be done updating it.

It makes little to no sense to close the doors on your star product. Minecraft is still selling strong last I checked and the market is ripe to cash in on something like an expansion or even DLC. Pulling the plug on minecraft itself would be the pinnacle of idiocy from a business perspective. Although I don't believe Notch is a businessman at heart at all it seems like he would realize that cashing in on minecraft can give him the resources to keep doing whatever he wants to do however he wants to do it for as long as he likes.

[Elevatator]

Well some months ago I have seen that Notch gave an "aks me anything" on Reddit. And he said that he doesn´t play anymore, because it would draw in back to minecraft coding with new ideas and everything. He doesn´t want to be distracted of his current project. (0x10c)