Speaking of your environments, something I noticed about Desert Messiah is you seem to make these really beautiful areas topographically, then put the goal in a linear dungeon that really doesn't have much to do with the outside. I was always travelling through an area I really wanted to explore freeform, only to find a rigid numbered dungeon somewhere in it was what I was actually meant to explore.
I first started noticing this "numbered dungeon" style map with Vechs' Sunburn Islands, and I gotta say, I'm not the biggest fan. Why not incorporate the wool into these awesome terrains rather than making us find a pit where there is an unrelated dungeon?
It's mostly to keep wool separate from the islands. I don't really like how CTM maps stress the CTM goal so much it isn't worth playing after you've finished the map. In my maps, there is so much more to explore, and so many things to do and see that you can still go back after you've finished and build something like it was regular minecraft.
I also really don't like areas that are just dungeons (Digu Islands) because it's kind of a buzz kill. You can get excited for new areas when you know every path you can take is expansive and worth exploring. I hated how in Legendary he would add the castles as their own areas.
The final reason is that it honestly is way too easy if every island is its own dungeon. I could pull an Infernal Sky II and make a sub-beginner difficulty map. Imagine if I just had 17 islands of The Crossover or Skylit Island. It would match the difficulty of my maps, but it would be boring.
Looking at Vechs's maps, people also tend to like Sea of Flame II, Sunburn Islands, and Legendary more. The maps before these don't get as much credit because you never have any real indication to as what you should do. In Legendary, you may get a 300x300 area to explore, but at least you know you're going to find something. In my maps, all I really care you know is if you're in the right place to find the wool. I don't care if you know beforehand or not.
Now that the release candidates are out and pretty much no changes are going to be made to Minecraft until the Minecraft 1.1, are you working on Chunk Error?
Now that the release candidates are out and pretty much no changes are going to be made to Minecraft until the Minecraft 1.1, are you working on Chunk Error?
Yes, but I don't have as much time as I use to. Semester finals are approaching, and between school and my social life, I've been losing the time I use to spend wanting to sit down and build a map and end up doing more relaxing things... I've also been playing Skyrim, so that's also a distraction. :biggrin.gif:
ALRIGHT! I think I'm back. I'm trying to get use to the new enchantments, new mobs, and new potions in SSP and other CTMs so I know how they work and I can put them into my maps... But I don't think I'll be updating Desert Messiah anytime soon. I might scrap it and bring it back later, because it's just way too complicated for a first-ever map. Dreamland will be much more fitting... and Chunk Error will be a much better #2. I think Desert Messiah could go in a Legendary direction, with it spanning from easy to pure ROMhack hard difficulty... But that also would mean I need to put out maps from all those difficulties, so I don't see a spontaneous Desert Messiah 2.0 coming out in the near future.
I finally did it... Dreamland is finished. It should be out by tomorrow (even though I have a report due Wednesday which I have not started :tongue.gif: ), I just need to get some links working and sort out my files and the format for the first page. I'm really happy with how it turned out, rather than with Desert Messiah where some things just didn't work and such. I'm going to try and get back into the swing of things now that I have a clear scope on what updates look like on Minecraft and what the CTM player base is looking for now. Desert Messiah 2.0 is going to be much of a full rework of the entire map, I don't think I'll be keeping many combat elements already placed, so Chunk Error will come out before that... I'm looking forward to making some more maps, and I hope everyone is looking forward to playing them!
It's mostly to keep wool separate from the islands. I don't really like how CTM maps stress the CTM goal so much it isn't worth playing after you've finished the map. In my maps, there is so much more to explore, and so many things to do and see that you can still go back after you've finished and build something like it was regular minecraft.
I also really don't like areas that are just dungeons (Digu Islands) because it's kind of a buzz kill. You can get excited for new areas when you know every path you can take is expansive and worth exploring. I hated how in Legendary he would add the castles as their own areas.
The final reason is that it honestly is way too easy if every island is its own dungeon. I could pull an Infernal Sky II and make a sub-beginner difficulty map. Imagine if I just had 17 islands of The Crossover or Skylit Island. It would match the difficulty of my maps, but it would be boring.
Looking at Vechs's maps, people also tend to like Sea of Flame II, Sunburn Islands, and Legendary more. The maps before these don't get as much credit because you never have any real indication to as what you should do. In Legendary, you may get a 300x300 area to explore, but at least you know you're going to find something. In my maps, all I really care you know is if you're in the right place to find the wool. I don't care if you know beforehand or not.
Yes, but I don't have as much time as I use to. Semester finals are approaching, and between school and my social life, I've been losing the time I use to spend wanting to sit down and build a map and end up doing more relaxing things... I've also been playing Skyrim, so that's also a distraction. :biggrin.gif:
ALRIGHT! I think I'm back. I'm trying to get use to the new enchantments, new mobs, and new potions in SSP and other CTMs so I know how they work and I can put them into my maps... But I don't think I'll be updating Desert Messiah anytime soon. I might scrap it and bring it back later, because it's just way too complicated for a first-ever map. Dreamland will be much more fitting... and Chunk Error will be a much better #2. I think Desert Messiah could go in a Legendary direction, with it spanning from easy to pure ROMhack hard difficulty... But that also would mean I need to put out maps from all those difficulties, so I don't see a spontaneous Desert Messiah 2.0 coming out in the near future.
I still think Chunk Error is a great idea. Don't let yourself get carried away with the scope of things though!