BTW Exposure

[FlowerChild]

I still wish I knew exactly what you had planned for steam... :P

Considering I am trying to turn what I do into something I can survive on, and considering ideas are my primary commodity in that business...no :)

[Sarudak]

Aha! Steam power a confirmed feature for Returh to Home! *fistpump*

[FlowerChild]

Aha! Steam power a confirmed feature for Returh to Home! *fistpump*

Please don't prod me for info man. I've come to view it as a hostile action given it will likely take money directly out of my pocket.

[magikeh]

Just going to drop my penny into the bucket here, but when I first saw the Better Than Wolves mod it was when I was experimenting with all sorts of new texture packs and mods. I (proudly) had i think 17 mods installed at once (BTW being one of them) And I would make the most fantastic wonderful machines that would all sorts of piddly shit. But as time went on, things got boring. Mods were slowly dropped and long at last I was just stuck on one texture pack and the BTW mod. But that's the thing, everything else fell away mostly because I could not find the fun in them anymore, there were one block systems that would do everything in one side and everything out the other, with BTW I was able to redo, hone and advance my machinery until i felt that it was not just complete, but something that was mine, my creation and my baby for ever! So yeah.. this is a real heart felt thanks from me man, everything that you have put into this mod, all those hours trying different configurations to get it just right, it was and still is a good part of my life. :)

[FlowerChild]

Thanks man :)

Yeah, I think what you're saying above is reflective of what I consider to play the central mechanic of MC type games, and why MC represented something so truly new in game design: player creativity as a principle mechanic.

You'll notice that practically every design decision I make revolves around it in one fashion or another providing either:

-A new type of thing to create, such as an automated system or what have you.
-New challenges to the process of creation to keep the player engaged and stimulated. Even a lot of my survival changes fall into this category even if they don't seem directly related.
-Additional incentives towards creation like movement bonuses on roads or making the output of an automated system meaningful in terms of gameplay, rather than just being "nice to have".

I find that first one is pretty evident to everyone designing this kind of thing right now, whether they be modders or professionals, but the last two are all too often lost (I'd even go so far as to say they're lost in most of the new things I'm seeing people working on).

Now obviously, the more you do for the player, the less creativity you're allowing them to express, and the less actual problem solving is involved. While I may not have been able to put it in to words back then (I was largely operating on instinct and past experience with other game types, and figuring out the why of it as I went along), I think this is why I leaned very early towards what I would think of as "atomic" blocks. Basically blocks that allowed you to do one thing that you couldn't do otherwise, and then allow the player the pleasure of figuring out how to use those elements to do whatever it is they are aiming for. I think this was also a big part of the genius of Notch's old block designs, as they often did exactly what I'm describing here, whether he intended it that way or not (there's a good chance he was operating as much on instinct as I was back then).

I believe that kind of creative problem solving is largely the gameplay at the core of Minecraft and is largely responsible for what makes it so compelling. Just building a house is all well and good, and is certainly a cool thing to have in a game, but we're largely over that now, and I think exploring new forms of player creativity is really where the future of this genre resides.

The thing is: as is demonstrated by how few people really clue into all of the above, it's not easy to just whip that kind of stuff up, or even realize that it's important in the first place.

[TheAnarchitect]

I know I came to BTW entirely because of the mechanical power system. I asked a friend to recommend mods that added technical stuff, and windmills were mentioned...

The irony, to me, is that my friend who recommended it to me stopped using it after hardcore spawn was implimented, because he no longer found it relaxing. It's a shame, because we design games together and he could really learn a thing or two from BTW. But he's definitely one of the people that BTW isn't "For."

Honestly, if I had first encountered BTW in it's current incarnation, I probably wouldn't have stuck with it either. As BTW has changes, I've slowly changed along with it.