BTW: The life of Minecraft.

[Sarudak]

Plus I'm sure you'll want to put a release specific one up for the explosives themed release which I'm greatly looking forward to! :D

[FlowerChild]

Plus I'm sure you'll want to put a release specific one up for the explosives themed release which I'm greatly looking forward to! :D

True enough. The current one has *almost* run its course ;)

[FlowerChild]

I just want to highlight an edit I made to my previous post here:

The question I was largely raising in this thread was "ok, in order for me to be comfortable with maps, I need to make a bunch of changes that will be a pain in the ass to implement and then maintain in the future, so should I just rip them out instead?". The answer I got back was that people really wanted them in the game, so I then put in the extra work to implement the changes to bring them up to a level where they're no longer an issue for me. Not only was I nice enough to open it up the community feedback, I went the extra mile to put in about a days worth of work to accommodate other people's feelings on it, and will have to continue to put in work in the future to maintain that code strictly for their benefit. Yet, for some reason people are still freaking out about that thread and attacking me based on it. It's REALLY fucking annoying.

Because, seriously guys...I'm getting supremely fucking annoyed by people bitching about me ripping out the maps after me going the extra mile to not have that happen to a feature I *don't even use*.

[Sarudak]

Pardon my excitement but I love explosives. Although I understand you've got a lot of things competing for your attention at the moment though. Pending villager changes. Fixing up Mojang's mistakes with the last release. Making the beacon awesome. An explosives themed release. Hardcore pumpkin pie. And of course the much anticipated phases. Plus who knows what else on your todo list. :)

[FlowerChild]

Pardon my excitement but I love explosives. Although I understand you've got a lot of things competing for your attention at the moment though. Pending villager changes. Fixing up Mojang's mistakes with the last release. Making the beacon awesome. An explosives themed release. Hardcore pumpkin pie. And of course the much anticipated phases. Plus who knows what else on your todo list. :)

Yeah, I love explosives too, and from a game development perspective, there's very little more satisfying than coding shit that blows up :)

BUT, as you point out, my todo list is ever expanding and ever shifting around in its priorities, which is why one release rapidly gets trumped by another and features that I talked about as "next" months ago wind up being replaced by a whack of others.

I always have a plan as to what I want to work on next, but of course those plans can never include the ideas I've yet to have :)

[Sarudak]

Yeah, I love explosives too, and from a game development perspective, there's very little more satisfying than coding shit that blows up :)

Hm... Suddenly my desire to do some modding is stronger again... :P

[agentwiggles]

Pardon my excitement but I love explosives. Although I understand you've got a lot of things competing for your attention at the moment though. Pending villager changes. Fixing up Mojang's mistakes with the last release. Making the beacon awesome. An explosives themed release. Hardcore pumpkin pie. And of course the much anticipated phases. Plus who knows what else on your todo list. :)

Man, seeing everything pending laid out in one small post like that just got me stupidly excited... I'm still miles away from using all the current content, and there's so much more yet to come.

Just gonna take the time to say: FC, you're the shit, dude. I'm a huge admirer of the work you've done thus far, and can't wait to see where else you take us with this brilliant mod.

[walker_boh_65]

-SNIP- from FC post saying how he put a day of work into maps for people who wanted them even though he doesn't touch the things

People are NEVER going to be happy when you alter a feature they happened to use, but it seems with each change the hostilities toward you grow.

I just do not understand why because all you are doing for them is providing a FREE service to them which they chose to use to enhance their Minecraft experience. Where to they see they right to bitch to you about it? I believe it is understandable if someone made some legitimate points AFTER playing as to how it changed they gameplay style and how they did not like it, but this bitching comes shortly after or sometimes even BEFORE the change has been made. It all seems really backwards to me that you would risk the maker of any free contant to say "fuck it" and drop the project entirely because the stress could not be handled. We are lucky that we have a thick-skinned overload with a spiky exoskeleton who loves the mod as much as we do, or we would have lost this mod a long while ago.

For those thinking, well walker you are just a big supporter of everything FC does, of course you are going to say that:
Personally I have not read every release coming away happen that FC changed somethings to be harder. I HATED the removal of F3 at first. I get lost consistently, and co-ords were my "only" way back. Except that shorty after starting to play, I learned that F3 as NOT the ONLY way to get back home, I could make pillars and place torches and it made me stop and better look at my surroundings and see the wonderful landscape Minecraft has to offer. I wasn't a big fan of not having beds to sleep in and set spawn anymore either, but I wasn't going to complain before testing it out. Sure it made the first few deaths a pain in the ass, but now it is not so bad. The server I play on is in the process of making a rail station to get to each base, and sure is a bit harder without F3, but its a good community project. I still don't love the feature, but that doesn't mean I am going to complain to FC to make him change anything. If I wasn't being challenged as a player, I would quickly get bored and move on to something else, FC keeps things interesting.

/rant

Sorry about it. I have just in a bit of a ranty mood as of late and needed to let this out.

[Sarudak]

Some people just seem to think that they have the right to complain about whatever they want and that other people are obligated to listen to what they have to say. This disease seems to be particularly strong among gamers for some reason.

[The Phoenixian]

Eh, why they complain is easy enough to explain rationalize, So many games made these days are easy and we get used to that.

Although I do find myself wondering how much of those complaints could be averted by describing/advertising BTW as a Hardmode mod.

Probably wouldn't help much but I think one could at least milk some humor out of it:

"BTW is made in the spirit that Minecraft, like bondage, gets better as you become more restrained."

[FlowerChild]

Although I do find myself wondering how much of those complaints could be averted by describing/advertising BTW as a Hardmode mod.

I doubt it would help. I think the issue here is that the mod is in a state of transition. People are used to it being one way, and now it's expanding into territory that they're not habituated to.

Something similar happened when I introduced the tech-tree to the mod. Initially, BTW was basically a random collection of cool blocks that were made with vanilla ingredients. I had never planned for it to expand beyond that stage, so initially the concept of a tech-tree just wouldn't have made much sense.

However, as the mod evolved and got larger, it eventually became clear to me that I needed to tie it all together into some kind of cohesive whole, and I must of spent a good couple of months play testing and making small adjustments here and there until I was satisfied with the result.

During that time though, I got a lot of random complaints from people saying I was "forcing" them to play the mod a certain way, that the mod was becoming "self serving" because it was dependent on its own resources at various point to move forward, and other such nonsense. You still occasionally see such comments about BTW here and there in other mod threads, because there appears to be a certain segment of the MC community that thinks mods should *only* provide you with new stuff you can build out of existing vanilla resources, and that you should be able to do so at any time without having mod-specific requirements to move forward. I really don't understand that point of view and think it's rather childish/retarded, but I've seen enough of it to know that it's there.

Really though, that's the point at which BTW began to evolve beyond just being a mod and started moving towards being a "game" in its own right in terms of actually providing a gameplay experience rather than just a bunch of disconnected features.

Eventually, people either got used to BTW being "about" that kind of thing, or moved on, and I suspect that's what will eventually happen here with these hardcore changes as well. Again, I've expanded the scope of the mod beyond not only providing a balanced play experience within the bounds of its own features, and into the realm of providing a balanced gameplay experience in terms of the game as a whole.

As such, I'm providing a rather unique service to the MC community. I'm not aware of any other mod that really tries to tackle that, at least not while staying true to the vanilla feel. Terrafirma is the one I'm aware of that does something similar, but from what little I've seen of it seems to be a rather heavy departure from vanilla and goes in directions I'm not intending to explore myself.

Of course, some do not want for me to provide that service. That's fine. There's obviously a lot of others that really like what I'm doing, and for myself: this is the area I am most interested in exploring. I've sunk way too much work into this mod to allow existing vanilla systems to interfere with the overall quality of experience I am creating.

Anyways, I've always resisted labels being applied to the mod. The name "Better Than Wolves" is extremely ambiguous in itself, and at one point I sarcastically told someone (I think I even changed the MCF thread title to match) that it was "the mod that adds stuff to Minecraft". It's really never been "about" anything in particular other than providing a better gameplay experience based on my own particular vision. Unfortunately, people seem to want to categorize and quantify it, which inevitably leads to these kinds of problems when I inevitably break with their preconceptions.

[Adjudicator79]

Apologies for not following up on this but, given that I was "alarmist and inaccurate at every level" and had some real life issues to deal with over the weekend, I didn't have the time and/or inclination to sit down and compose some thoughts in response. The truth is that I rarely have time to do more than try to skim through the multiple numbers of posts made on this board non-stop. It's also fairly obvious I'm on the outside looking in at the BTW community at this point and I don't expect to change anyone's mind, so I'll simply try to clarify some of what seems to have sparked the most debate.

No man. You're misunderstanding this at a fundamental level. I don't like maps in SSP either.

And I don't view this as "removing exploration". I view it as returning some challenge and danger to exploration in terms of what it used to feel like back in the day.

Obviously each of the changes I make continues to have SSP in mind. You may not understand or agree with them in that context, but they are definitely made for the sake of the single player game experience as well. Heck, I'm still primarily a SSP player myself.

Obviously, some changes I make are SMP specific, but they generally don't impact SSP at all, like me removing the icons for other player locations from the maps.

Also, glad you didn't chime in on the map thread, as you seem to have entirely misunderstood it and didn't bother to read it through to the end. The changes I've made to maps already are the full extent of what I plan to do to them. That's it, so again: you're freaking out over nothing.

Ok. I accede to the obvious fundamental misunderstanding of the map changes you were advocating. The main discussion in the map thread as I was reading it on my smart phone on the way to work was this "discovery of bases through mapping" idea and that stuck in my mind as an obviously SMP-driven issue.

Clearly you and I have fundamentally different ideas about what makes exploration enjoyable and that's not going to change. I see breadcrumb exploration as tedious, time-consuming, and ultimately nothing but cluttering up the landscape. Given my limited play time, I have better things to do with it than remember to plop down torches every ten steps, or build pillars tall enough to be seen from a great distance. Which, of course, completely ignores the issue of crossing tracks as I often do in random exploration jaunts. But I won't belabor that point, as I'm in the minority in that view.

The question I was largely raising in this thread was "ok, in order for me to be comfortable with maps, I need to make a bunch of changes that will be a pain in the ass to implement and then maintain in the future, so should I just rip them out instead?". The answer I got back was that people really wanted them in the game, so I then put in the extra work to implement the changes to bring them up to a level where they're no longer an issue for me. Not only was I nice enough to open it up the community feedback, I went the extra mile to put in about a days worth of work to accommodate other people's feelings on it, and will have to continue to put in work in the future to maintain that code strictly for their benefit. Yet, for some reason people are still freaking out about that thread and attacking me based on it. It's REALLY fucking annoying.

After rereading my original post several times, I still don't see how it could be construed as an attack. Disagreement, yes. But I've never been shy about disagreeing with you in the past and I'll be damned if I'm going to stop. As much as I respect your "design becomes flawed when game designers listen too much to their audience" argument, there's a corollary that's true as well, which is "when no one tells an honest truth or expresses disagreement, there can be no honest evaluation." You obviously thought I was talking out of my ass, and that's your right. But I'm not going to fail to express disagreement when I have it.

I should probably not have written my contribution on a smart phone on the way home from work. I should have waited until I was home, could pull up multiple threads, quoted previous statements, etc. But the reality is that I wouldn't have bothered contributing then, b/c I would have been playing instead. I did recall reading that you had decided to keep them in on a trial basis, but I can see, reviewing my original post, that I didn't mention that. My bad. I should have done so.

Also, your "all I need is some paper and ink" argument is total bullshit. That in no way justifies the inclusion of a pinpoint accuracy GPS system in the mix, which is what my issue with maps has always revolved around.

I never said nor even implied that I want "pinpoint GPS accuracy." But I do think having something that I can sketch out on paper in-game that tracks my location is no less unrealistic gameplay than any other vMC or BTW feature. But that's obviously not your opinion and your opinion is the only one that counts. The removal of the player icon from the map seems to be a workable solution, but I still don't see how some form of ability to track location beyond breadcrumb navigation breaks the game's enjoyment the way you do. Again, ground already covered. Not going to be making a dent in opinions here.

Poor post overall man. Alarmist and inaccurate at pretty much every level. I also really don't appreciate the implication that the game design is being affected by donations, as I've stated on numerous occasions that I don't allow that to happen.

And I definitely don't see that implication in my OP. I squinted every way I could and all I saw was the acknowledgement that I was taking a comment about SMP players not being as numerous as SSP players and took that to question whether SMP play was driving design decisions, which you replied to. I would submit that everyone is very clear about your standards to not be swayed by contributions, and, given my support for you opening up contributions to the community and my repeated lack of trying to bully you into making changes and instead simply attempting to have discussions about why I disagree with some of the changes, I actually resent that you would presume I'm trying to lay a "follow the money" allegation against you. I've repeatedly spent serious time in composing and prompting actual intelligent discussion on these forums and I dislike being bitch slapped the first time there's ambiguity in one of my posts.

FC is the main audience of the mod... Take that how you will, but that's who he designs for.

Not *entirely* true. I obviously do make some concessions for the people I consider to be the "primary audience" of the mod. Heck, if the mod were just for me, I wouldn't have even bothered changing maps as I don't even use them myself.

However, that "primary audience" in my mind is basically compromised of people that have very similar views on how the game should be played as myself. We may differ on subtle points here and there, but it's certainly not the people that freak on these kinds of changes.

And that's the key element right there. As a longtime BTW player and someone who has at least contributed to rational discussion in these forums, I'm simply sad that I appear to have not just stepped out of the "primary audience" category without any chance to weigh in on who that category includes, but the viewpoint I represent has actively been kicked out.

I repeatedly get dismissed by boardmembers for whining about "loss of convenience" when all I'm asking for is the same kind of opportunity to work for a result as is rewarded in anarchy play, automation, or resource management. I fundamentally disagree that simply hacking out any way of encouraging something besides breadcrumb exploration improves gameplay.

My primary purpose of the post was to raise the question of if there was actually a design bifurcation being developed in BTW updates due to the SMP component. I thought I saw signs that there were. You responded to that. I didn't see a reason to weigh in beyond that.

In a related note, I got a board warning for "Ignoring the situation I created." If that was in reference to this, then I call bullshit. I would love to have all day every day to spend reading the BTW forums, but this isn't my retirement hobby or my only activity. Writing a post on Friday afternoon and getting a board warning for not replying by Sunday afternoon represents a fundamental lack of appreciation for what it's like for those of us that have to work weekends, long commutes, and actual attempts at a social life.

Now that I'm thoroughly pissed off, I'll take a hiatus for a while and simply refrain from being so callous as to express disagreement.

[FlowerChild]

Now that I'm thoroughly pissed off, I'll take a hiatus for a while and simply refrain from being so callous as to express disagreement.

Ummm...yeah. Disagreement is fine, but belabored highly inaccurate wall of text complaining about non-issues is something else entirely. And yes, I consider someone taking the time to write something like that while not taking the time to read or understand what they are commenting on, especially amongst the mass of uninformed criticism I've been taking over the hardcore changes, plus with the extra effort I invested to avoid the situation you were complaining about, to be a personal attack.

Also, with regards to the money thing, if you weren't implying anything, then why mention it all in that first post? How is it even relevant to the conversation?

Anyways man, another of the "old guard" bites the dust. Obviously, I was pissed off by your first post, and this reaction to it only serves to further aggravate that. I issued you that warning because I wanted to resolve whether you were in need of banning from the forums and not let this issue linger on. Obviously, you are.

I've had quite enough of former turtles bitching these days man. So long and thanks for the fish.

[walker_boh_65]

I've had quite enough of former turtles bitching these days man. So long and thanks for the fish.

Maybe it was for the best that you shut down the whole thing entirely. As I said before, the thing was turning to the centerpiece for "drama" so to speak, in the forums.

In the long run, it might be good for your mental health to avoid seeing that happen so close to home.

[FlowerChild]

In the long run, it might be good for your mental health to avoid seeing that happen so close to home.

Yeah, I agree with you there man, as I've obviously taken this whole thing to heart, and I think it's been festering for months now. There was a fracture in the Turtle portion of the community all the way back when BTB was cancelled, and I think we're still seeing the results now. I also suspect that my reluctance to talk about certain issues, largely out of respect to the privacy of others, had resulted in some kind of rumor mill spinning out of control on IRC or what have you. I guess it was my hope that people amongst the Turtles knew and trusted me enough to know that regardless of whether I was willing to discuss them, there was always solid reasoning behind the decisions I made.

This is also compounded I think by the hardcore changes as of late, as it's fucking with people's preconceptions of what BTW is as a mod. However, I'm not willing to continue developing this thing entirely at the mercy of Mojang's design decisions, and that's obviously been building up for me for months. If people can't deal with that, then all I can really say to it is "take it or leave it".

Anyways, at present, I'm just trying to deal with the situation at hand and bring it under control as quickly as possible so we can return to business as usual. All this drama is disruptive both to the community and to my own development work as its an unwanted distraction, and as I said, even if I do not show it very often, I do tend to take it all very much to heart. Like right now, I'm basically restricting myself to purely technical tasks with the mod, as the events of the past couple of days have pretty much drained me of creativity.

We'll see what happens with the Turtles down the road after all this dust settles.

[Gdnite]

"Painful as it may be, a significant emotional event can be the catalyst for choosing a direction that serves us--and those around us -- more effectively. Look for the learning." -Eric Allenbaugh

[FlowerChild]

"Painful as it may be, a significant emotional event can be the catalyst for choosing a direction that serves us--and those around us -- more effectively. Look for the learning." -Eric Allenbaugh

Just an FYI: I'm the kind of person that when I receive unsolicited emotional advice/commentary, I tend to want to punch a kitten :)

[Gdnite]

I like punting small chiwawas over fences myself ;) But I could not of stated what I saw as the situation in better words. Is it my place to have any input at all, most likely not. But I'm the type of person who generally doesn't with hold my input on something I believe. While some people may think what you are doing to the mod is harsh, or bitch about it becoming too hard. There are many people who think it is quite the opposite, and that it is going the right direction, because the evolution of most other tech mods is quite dull, and have started to encompass each other.

[Sarudak]

I thought punching kittens was your standard MO... ;)

In all seriousness though i hope this drama settles soon. It is rather wearing reading it and I'm not even the target of all this angst...

[FlowerChild]

In all seriousness though i hope this drama settles soon. It is rather wearing reading it and I'm not even the target of all this angst...

Well, on the bright side, I've theoretically got to run out of people to ban eventually :)

[Sarudak]

Well, on the bright side, I've theoretically got to run out of people to ban eventually :)

Patently false. Unless you keep registration closed the world produces people far faster than you could possibly ban them. ;)

[Ulfengaard]

The world would be a much less whiney place if FC had the banhammer of the gods. Quieter, too. Except perhaps for the moans of the ban-damned which were mashed into a wall around his infernal citadel.

[Wafflewaffle]

I would not bet against FC supernatural abilities with the hammer. He's like the norse god of thunder. Only his hammer is not Mjolnir, its the Dontfkingpissmeoff.

[DaveYanakov]

Between this issue and Yahtzee I have come to realize that putting maps in games really does take something away from the player's experience. When I was a kid, graphics could not easily support more than the mast basic of maps, so we got out "a pen and paper" and made our own. They were not always good, nor were they always acurate but it was something you physically made as a solution to a virtual problem and that was awesome.

Seriously, some of these player made maps stick with us so strongly that it is possible to recreate them from memory three godsdamned decades later

I am seriously disappointed that you're getting so much flack over this map issue, FC. Yes they're pretty to look at but this is a case where taking something away from the game causes a deeper investment in the world for a player.

[FlowerChild]

I am seriously disappointed that you're getting so much flack over this map issue, FC. Yes they're pretty to look at but this is a case where taking something away from the game causes a deeper investment in the world for a player.

Thanks man. Yeah, I realize that there are definitely those that support the hardcore changes I've been making, BUT given that BTW is a very popular mod with an established fan base, change will inevitably piss some off.

I knew that going into this, and given the views I've expressed on player perception of convenience, I've obviously thought this through in depth. I'm just a little weary at the moment given everything that's been going on over the past while, but am eager to move on from it and keep on churning out content :)

On that note, let's get back to more constructive topics shall we? I think this thread has run its course.