Vanilla Minecraft News Discussion

[DaveYanakov]

woo. more colours...it's almost like he's asking for the next batch of suggestions be 'coloured wood stairs!' and 'coloured wood slabs!' or even 'coloured wood fences!'.

So...horses, nametags, carpets and coloured wood. I give you 1.6; the fluff update!

You would prefer maybe the 'hey guys, we though of an even better way to do redstone!' update?

I thought ninjas were supposed to wear pajama pants, FC

[BinoAl]

It's like someone answered my prayers and got Mojang to stay away from any actual gameplay content :)

Heh, I was just about to point that out. It's like the old cliche of letting the kid lick the brownie batter spoon, thinking he's helping, and leaving the real cooking to mom :)

[Graphite]

I'm failing to see why we need coloured wood if we already have wool.

Well, to be honest it will be nice to have a multi-coloured material that I feel comfortable about putting into buildings. Using wool for construction purposes just feels weird unless you're making a carpet.

[FlowerChild]

Well, to be honest it will be nice to have a multi-coloured material that I feel comfortable about putting into buildings. Using wool for construction purposes just feels weird unless you're making a carpet.

Yup, I'm totally on board with the above. Personally, I'd prefer to see them go the route of providing unique methods of obtaining each of the colors to tie in some gameplay into it, but I certainly don't object to the underlying concept of having stained wood.

Anyways, I could always go the route of requiring some kind of stain recipe instead of just the plain dyes if they add this. From Dinnerbone's tweets though, it sounds like he was just playing around with the idea, and there's no reason why we should expect to see this in an upcoming release.

[Sarudak]

One of the things I often wish is that minecraft had gone the way of dwarf fortress with respect to geology. Including many different types of stone. This would have given many options for aesthetic construction. And that would have had the added benefit of being able to cluster resources in certain types of stone and allow a person to prospect for the ores they want by finding certain stone types. That's one thing I think many of the mods that change ore distribution miss is that it's not really much more fun if you're still relying on dumb luck to find the area where the ores are. But I digress. Colors are cool.

[FlowerChild]

One of the things I often wish is that minecraft had gone the way of dwarf fortress with respect to geology. Including many different types of stone. This would have given many options for aesthetic construction. And that would have had the added benefit of being able to cluster resources in certain types of stone and allow a person to prospect for the ores they want by finding certain stone types. That's one thing I think many of the mods that change ore distribution miss is that it's not really much more fun if you're still relying on dumb luck to find the area where the ores are. But I digress. Colors are cool.

Yup, I agree there. Would also give people reason to mine at anything other than bedrock level to acquire particular kinds of stone and decrease the ultimate power of the cobble-gen to provide construction material.

[Sarudak]

Yup, I agree there. Would also give people reason to mine at anything other than bedrock level to acquire particular kinds of stone and decrease the ultimate power of the cobble-gen to provide construction material.

Plus if the stone types were regional and not just layer based it would be huge motivation for building multiple bases as well as transportation networks to your various mines and quarries. Sometimes the potential of minecraft blows my mind a little bit...

[Stormweaver]

Oh I agree that colours are great; I'm just a touch behind the times and am still figuring out how to get my initial reaction to seemingly randomly added new content to be the positive one -.-

[maxsi]

https://twitter.com/Dinnerbone/status/3 ... 0165186560

Just pushed 1.5.1 in the new launcher. Experimental, may not work for everybody and doesn't auto-select. But it's there! Woo!

so he did put the 1.5.1 to be used in the new launcher and i did some test's
the actual version of the launcher will download a clean copy of the game jar if the one you have was modified
'-' i wonder what they plan whit this

[Sarudak]

the actual version of the launcher will download a clean copy of the game jar if the one you have was modified

*Rummages around for torch and pitchfork*

[Padfoote]

the actual version of the launcher will download a clean copy of the game jar if the one you have was modified

I'm not liking the sound of that at all. Hopefully they cut that little "feature", or someone finds a way around it.

[jonny_AB]

Dinnerbone says nay to coloured wood

Spoiler

Show

https://twitter.com/Dinnerbone/status/3 ... 3047891969

I was actually kinda hoping he would add them...
(also I believe the new block is adobe?)

[Nazara]

the actual version of the launcher will download a clean copy of the game jar if the one you have was modified

I'm not liking the sound of that at all. Hopefully they cut that little "feature", or someone finds a way around it.

If their intent is to tie mod browsing/downloading into the launcher, with an Internal API that won't require you to install anything into the jar files directly, than this move makes some sense. You'd want that framework in place, in the same way you'd want to get all your engine rewriting out of the way.

[Sarudak]

Does anyone else feel like he's just groping around for something to add that'll pass the court of public opinion? And by pass the court of public opinion I mean the thing that will cause the least complaining.

[FlowerChild]

If their intent is to tie mod browsing/downloading into the launcher, with an Internal API that won't require you to install anything into the jar files directly, than this move makes some sense. You'd want that framework in place, in the same way you'd want to get all your engine rewriting out of the way.

Except...the API doesn't exist yet, and thus there is no official alternative method of modding, so we wind up with a major case of the horse following the carriage.

Let's just hope that this was an oversight/bug.

[Padfoote]

If their intent is to tie mod browsing/downloading into the launcher, with an Internal API that won't require you to install anything into the jar files directly, than this move makes some sense. You'd want that framework in place, in the same way you'd want to get all your engine rewriting out of the way.

I completely agree, but the problem comes down to the fact that I highly doubt they will include that ability with the launcher when it gets released.

Does anyone else feel like he's just groping around for something to add that'll pass the court of public opinion? And by pass the court of public opinion I mean the thing that will cause the least complaining.

Mojang seems to be doing a lot of that, so I wouldn't be surprised.

EDIT: Ninja'd by FC on the API comment.

[ReaperT]

Dinnerbone says nay to coloured wood

Spoiler

Show

https://twitter.com/Dinnerbone/status/3 ... 3047891969

I was actually kinda hoping he would add them...
(also I believe the new block is adobe?)

What? Just cause of a few naysayers? C'mon Dinnerbone, show some backbone and shove your wood down their throats.

[savagelung]

Does anyone else feel like he's just groping around for something to add that'll pass the court of public opinion? And by pass the court of public opinion I mean the thing that will cause the least complaining.

I think some time ago Mojang started focusing on the desires of the community more so than the direction of the survival gamemode. I think Dinnerbone's back and forth on colored wood has a lot to do with the fickleness of the community. If you read the Reddit thread about Dinnerbone's colored wood tweet, there are people complaining about the lack of stained glass. Every feature addition is like this: "but what about...". It's a community that can't be satisfied, and so the Mojang developers end up tiptoeing around it.

This is partly why I was disappointed with horses. People have been asking for horses for years, and they finally got them. However, one of the great things about MC is that it's a weird world: there are cows with mushrooms growing on them, bizarre villagers, abandoned mineshafts, endermen. I wish, instead of horses, they had implemented something less typical, like a giant lizard of some kind, or better yet, improved pigs. If Notch's vision were still in place, I think I would have been much more interested in the last several updates.

[Simurgh]

Does anyone else feel like he's just groping around for something to add that'll pass the court of public opinion?

Yep, it definitely feels that way judging from his tweets. Also to your earlier post the regional stone thing has tons of potential - it would really help each biome feel unique.

[FlowerChild]

It's a community that can't be satisfied, and so the Mojang developers end up tiptoeing around it.

This is true, but that's ultimately true of the community for any successful game. You either need the devs to be isolated from that by a PR department (which is how most major studios handle it), or if the devs insist on interacting directly, you need to make damn sure the designers are strong-willed enough to not let it adversely affect their design decisions.

Basically, if you take the ballsy decision that Mojang has to interact constantly with the community, you need devs that are capable of (politely...which is where I differ as a non-corporate entity), tell the community to fuck off for their own good, and who have the confidence to be able to do that without a second thought.

We see this same story play out time and time again within the modding community where modders constantly trying to accommodate everyone ultimately leads to the destruction of mods, and that's with a very similar scenario playing out on a much smaller scale (even the largest mods have a tiny fraction of the total audience Mojang does).

But throwing some kids you hired to maintain what is an insanely popular game after the creator has left town into such a scenario with no experience in how to deal with it? Total madness. Seriously...no major game dev company would allow that to happen. I think the story of BTW illustrates just how rare it is that someone can deal with that kind of pressure, and that's based on me having a shit-ton of industry experience, me being an old fart that really doesn't give a shit how I'm perceived, me possessing what is largely an iron will when it comes to these things, and with a much smaller community to deal with...and still, I've struggled to keep my wits about me at several points in this mod's development.

I definitely don't envy the position of the current Mojang devs at multiple levels. How the current situation came about is really a circus-act when looked at in professional terms.

[Sarudak]

I gotta think not being able to handle the community was a large part of the reason why Notch left...

[FlowerChild]

I gotta think not being able to handle the community was a large part of the reason why Notch left...

Yup, and you know I agree with that from previous statements. I think it was a combination of suddenly having the money of a rock star with no need to work ever again if he didn't choose to, and no longer wanting to deal with his own community.

I'm sure that both of those combined would result in a massive "fuck this" impulse, even if it wasn't at a conscious level.

Throw in that this happened to what I suspect is a socially awkward guy that probably never received much attention from the ladies and such who can suddenly live non-stop "hookers & blow" until the wheels fall off, and who is now probably everybody's best friend due to his wealth and renown, and I think the result is fairly predictable.

[Foxy Boxes]

I think another part of the problem is that Minecraft is one of the rare few games that releases constant free content after its official launch. Mojang wouldn't have the community whining after them for moar stuff if after 1.0 is was only optimization updates.

[Xeo]

https://twitter.com/Dinnerbone/status/3 ... 0165186560

Just pushed 1.5.1 in the new launcher. Experimental, may not work for everybody and doesn't auto-select. But it's there! Woo!

so he did put the 1.5.1 to be used in the new launcher and i did some test's
the actual version of the launcher will download a clean copy of the game jar if the one you have was modified
'-' i wonder what they plan whit this

I wonder if modifying Meta-Inf would work around that. I'm not completely sure how it works but it seems to be a list of all the files included in the jar.

[DaveYanakov]

As someone who has seen a lot of different communities rise up around various games, the rule of thumb seems to be that if everyone is complaining about opposing features at about the same volume, you can be assured that the feature is properly balanced.