Flower's Dev Diary (Week of November 27th)

[LiveInPain]

You can't please everyone, some people will stop playing but others will start. Do what pleases you most. You have my support. I'll probably stop playing BTW once i have done everything I have planned since there is going to be a sequel instead of a extension of BTW so the connection between the two is not as strong as a new "dimension" that you can travel to, and that kynda breaks the will to play BTW2. It happened the same to vMC, maybe not for the same reasons, I stopped playing it but some months after that I decided to search for a mod (I have played with other mods before but they only managed to keep me busy for some days). I'll keep an eye on the forums for info in the BTW2 but I'll probably won't play it once it came out (I'll need some months to get the feel again to "restart"). Anyways, good look for the development of this project and I'm sure you will succeed in creating an awesome mod.

[thygrrr]

I'm favoring a Total Conversion approach (BTW, with its incompatibilite-with-all approach and HC rules, already is pretty much a TC in my book).

Or, just as viable, a "Home" dimension that should be accessible to all relatively early from the start (if you put it at the end of the tech tree, especially anarchy players will probably not go home for quite some time depending on the number of setbacks / deaths they experience).

That's the issue, if you want to make Home an important thing (as in, THE key thing where all your design dreams are in harmony all of a sudden), you need to center the experience around it. It's where most of the action should happen, where the player wants to spend most of their time, where they meet their greatest challenges; both creatively and logistically.

That said, worlds will be trashed, either by you or by Mojang. You might want to time your crucial release to a point where Mojang just trashed everyone's world anyway. :)

[Mikko_blu]

Personally, i've reached the point where i've hit BTW endgame, as well as vMC endgame. Yes, it would be nice to have my saves, but i've .rar'd up every .minecraft folder i have when a new one comes out, so its really not the end of the world if i cant have the best of both worlds, since i still have all my old saves.

That being said - i was getting pretty bored with Minecraft, but reading this thread made me interested again, which i have found is something unique to BTW; i always get bored, and you add in something else to turn me back again. I suspect that the same will happen with whatever decision you chose, but if i had to vote, i would vote for compatibility of the "Home" and Overworld.

I have really good thoughts about you FlowerChild, being a teenager myself and seeing someone so mature and hardworking is (Cliche) but really good to see, and honestly inspiring. I hope for your sake that whatever decision you do make will go smoothly, and i cant wait to see the "home" =)

[FlowerChild]

Btw: I had hoped that some information surrounding Mojang's "infinite-extended-blockID-dream" would be given at Minecon, but it seems that was not the case?

Actually, they did give some info on it, and it was part of what motivated me to create this thread and finally decide I needed to take action independent of Mojang.

They said the mod API won't be in 1.5 :)

For something like six months now, they've been saying it's coming "next release" and then it's failed to show up. Now they seem to have given up almost entirely and are focusing on adding new (lame) content instead.

The worst case scenario has thus pretty much happened for me. I'm not getting the technical changes I required to move forward, and am instead getting a bunch of new content that I will feel compelled to "fix" if I continue with my present course of action. If anything, I can probably expect that new content to arrive at an increased rate given that they don't even seem to be making the pretense of working on the API anymore.

As I've said, I originally conceived of Home largely to avoid this situation when I saw it coming a mile off. I think most people's reaction to my initial "oh oh" when Notch turned MC over to Jeb was a "wtf?" given how little info we had on the future of MC at the time. With time though, I think most here have become keenly aware of what I was talking about.

But, despite seeing this coming, and planning accordingly, I've wound up becoming more and more entangled in the situation I was trying to stay away from in the first place, all because of those bloody blockIDs. Now I've realized that I really need to stop waiting and resolve this situation for myself, because it looks like it's just going to keep getting worse with time.

[Sarudak]

One question. If you're going to go Total Conversion is there any reason you couldn't give yourself the 8 bits of meta data that you were wishing for?

[FlowerChild]

One question. If you're going to go Total Conversion is there any reason you couldn't give yourself the 8 bits of meta data that you were wishing for?

Yeah: maintenance. That's so imbedded in the MC code base that I doubt supporting it for future versions of MC would be feasible, and if they change map-formats at some point, I'd expect the whole thing to blow up in my face.

I'll look into it and definitely consider it though man. Given 8 bits of data, there's a shit-load of amazing stuff I could pull off that I'd be reluctant to use tile-ents for, and I sincerely doubt it would be a significant performance drain.

[Sarudak]

I'll look into it and definitely consider it though man. Given 8 bits of data, there's a shit-load of amazing stuff I could pull off that I'd be reluctant to use tile-ents for, and I sincerely doubt it would be a significant performance drain.

I know! Think of the possibilities! Axles that stretch 63 blocks OMG DAT RULEZ!

Seriously though. It'd be awesome.

[FlowerChild]

You know, now that you mention it though: it might be very much worth it. I'm not used to thinking in terms of developing a true TC, and this feature alone might make making RTH a true sequel worth it in and of itself.

The depth of functionality I could achieve with blocks if I did that would be pretty over the top.

Yeah, I think I'll definitely set aside the time to experiment with it and see exactly what would be involved. If I'm making a fresh start of it anyways, I should very much be asking myself these kinds of questions.

Thanks for mentioning that Sar. I don't know if it will be practical, but it's certainly worth investigating.

[FlowerChild]

I know! Think of the possibilities! Axles that stretch 63 blocks OMG DAT RULEZ!

Hehe...well obviously I'm thinking more in terms of stuff like blocks with a full 6 orientations where I have more than a single bit left over to track state.

Honestly, with 8 bits of metadata, I sincerely doubt I'd ever need extended blockIDs either as it affords me the ability to cram a shit-load of aesthetic blocks into a single ID.

[Nexus Trimean]

I'm Not too code savvy and have no idea how feaseable this is, however now seems the time to ask. Would it be possible to have btw2 change the file locations for MC, thus eliminating the need for 2 jar's? Instead just have a BTW jar in the usual location, and a BTW2 Jar in a different folder?

Thank you for all your time and Effort FC. I look forward as always to your new features.

[Sarudak]

I just thought. If you're clearing away the old building now is the best chance you'll ever get to improve the foundation before you build another one on top of it. :)

There's also some other fundamental minecrafty things you could consider changing since you are going full TC.

Like the standard stack size. Or the player inventory size. To give more emphasis to material transportation infrastructure.

Reach distance for breaking blocks.

How deep the map goes. (Although this could have a definite impact on performance)

Even something like modifying the crafting benches to make you hungry/tired when you use them so it's not free.

Things like that.

[FlowerChild]

I just thought. If you're clearing away the old building now is the best chance you'll ever get to improve the foundation before you build another one on top of it. :)

Yup, you're absolutely right there.

As for your other suggestions...those are gameplay related, and I'm not really interested in those at present ;)

[Stormweaver]

Hehe...well obviously I'm thinking more in terms of stuff like blocks with a full 6 orientations where I have more than a single bit left over to track state.

Honestly, with 8 bits of metadata, I sincerely doubt I'd ever need extended blockIDs either as it affords me the ability to cram a shit-load of aesthetic blocks into a single ID.

Wow, the possibilities for this are kind of limitless, aren't they? Crops that grow insanely slowly, but in an even manner? Grass blocks that slowly lose their grassiness when trampled? wood/stone colour variations for all the things? Sarudak makes good points too.

I'm sold on the TC idea. Any lingering doubts? gone.

[Sarudak]

Yup, you're absolutely right there.

As for your other suggestions...those are gameplay related, and I'm not really interested in those at present ;)

Well I guess that answers the question in my PM. :P

[Detritus]

Permission to dance?

[MrLemon]

Am I correct that this would give you 256 different meta-data values for each block? (11111111 binary = 255 decimal + 1) It seems logical but mind blowing that 4 bits more metadata would provide so much more! If I'm correct hat would mean you have essentially 256*255 = 65280 blocks to work with vs. only 16*255 = 4080 blocks without the additional 4 bits.

Seriously I'm kind of amazed that such an apparently small change (I understand it's not so small coding wise) would have such a huge impact.

[FlowerChild]

I'm sold on the TC idea. Any lingering doubts? gone.

Yeah...I think that may have sold me on it too actually. It provides such a clear advantage that is isolated to me making a completely fresh start of it.

I'm still not 100% decided btw. I'm still weighing my options here and trying to decide on the best course of action.

I do know though that the sequel idea inspired a massive bout of creativity for me when it happened, to the point where I absolutely could not sit still and was pacing around last night from the excitement of it all.

In terms of my gut-level reaction to it, it is thus my preferred course of action, but I still want to take the time to weigh the options carefully and with a clear head as this will obviously determine the future course of the mod for a very long time indeed.

Just to say: no decisions have been made yet. Over the next little while, I will likely proceed towards "wrapping up" BTW in terms of polishing the remaining details, resolving dangling loose ends design-wise, fixing lingering bugs, and building up towards the point of the device's creation. During that time, I'll think the next step over very carefully, and perhaps run some tests with stuff like the metadata to give myself a clearer idea of the advantages of going full TC.

[Sarudak]

I think the meta data is so much more valuable to him because of the technical nature of the mod. As an example suppose he wanted to add steam into the mod. He probably would want to model the pressure of the steam. 4 bits would give him 16 different distinct pressure states assuming that he didn't need to model anything else. Where 8 bits would give him 256 different pressure states allowing for much more gradual changes and effects on surrounding materials/blocks.

Further it would allow for much more complex modeling of bits inside blocks. Living things like bloodwood trees could have much more complex behavior.

[Sarudak]

I do know though that the sequel idea inspired a massive bout of creativity for me when it happened, to the point where I absolutely could not sit still and was pacing around last night from the excitement of it all.

I'm happy to hear this. I knew you'd get back on your feet soon. ;)

Just to say: no decisions have been made yet. Over the next little while, I will likely proceed towards "wrapping up" BTW in terms of polishing the remaining details, resolving dangling loose ends design-wise, fixing lingering bugs, and building up towards the point of the device's creation.

Can I make a plea for still having the explosives update? Let's go out with a bang. ;)

[SterlingRed]

Can I make a plea for still having the explosives update? Let's go out with a bang. ;)

I'll second that. Since it came up I've made stock piling gunpowder a priority.
Edit. Typo

[Rich131]

I think it would be a good farewell to my world to blow it to smithereens on the last night. Would be very emotional to say goodbye, but the excitement of Home would be so so worth it.

[htothetml]

After taking the entire day just to read this one thread (school was somewhere in there too) I finally finished. I would like to put my meager two cents into the well of trust in FlowerChild. I would absolutely hate to lose my world I have had it since before the hopper and prepared to create my own device as soon as I heard about it. I know that having Home and my current world linked is unrealistic. That is why I am in favor of having a sequel to BTW. This one gets an endgame I can feel like it is finally complete before starting on RTH. I can always keep a backup or the mod waiting in MCPatcher if I ever feel like playing around in it. This is more than likely what I would do every time a new vMC update comes out as I could not see me playing regular vanilla anymore. I hope you do tie up the loose ends in BTW even if you go TC which I'm sure you would. This is your baby FC and you wouldn't be able to let it go before it was finished growing would you? Like everyone here I am extremely excited to get a chance to go Home. You are an excellent developer and an amazing modder (Once I fell in love with BTW I had to take a peak at some of the code :) ) you have my undying support and respect for what you do. I know I do not speak much here often because my thoughts are the same as many. But I would like you to know I love my world as well FC I have poured so many hours into it and I would hate to lose it... But I can always keep a backup to play whenever I want. So let's go Home :)

[nmarshall23]

One question. If you're going to go Total Conversion is there any reason you couldn't give yourself the 8 bits of meta data that you were wishing for?

Thanks for mentioning that Sar. I don't know if it will be practical, but it's certainly worth investigating.

I'm glade that my suggestion percolated up..

why not extend blocks to 8 bits of metadata..

Back on topic.

I'm sold on RTH being a TC and keeping BTW1 as a mod, around. Seems like the best option.

In relation to RTH what would your stance on addons?
Will modloader like functionality be there?

Also I know that BTW1 will be around for long time. I don't expect any big chances anytime soon..
Would you consider opening up continued maintenance of it?

Lastly I would like to thank you for the awesome game.
I do feel that sometimes, Mojang's new content has inspired you.
That the interplay between you and them has taken us in unexpected places.
There has been unexpected fruitfully gains on the way.

However I do share your pain, and frustration, I feel lied to.
I've been waiting far too long for that damn API.
And far too much of their content is useless fluff.

[Sarudak]

-snip-

Why are your posts always formatted to look like poetry? It constantly throws me for a loop. Lol

[nmarshall23]

-snip-

Why are your posts always formatted to look like poetry? It constantly throws me for a loop. Lol

Good question.
My answer?
42
That and also, I hate long run on sentence that never get to the point, or force me to scroll horizontally, I feel that each Idea should be expressed and given space to be, also there could qabalahistic code in bedded in each line, I channeling Buckminster Fuller or.. I don't know. That run on hurt me. I'm going to play minecraft.