Recently, Mojang announced that they would be adding a feature called the "Super Duper Graphics Pack" (SDGP) to the non-Java versions of Minecraft. This brings many modern rendering techniques to the game, before only seen in PC shaders. Whether or not this looks good is subjective, but most likely anyone looking at it would still recognize the blockiness game.
Written in a better rendering engine, like Direct3D or Vulkan, Minecraft 2 would be able to take advantage of more efficient rendering techniques and have improvements to it to have modern graphical effects, such as seen in the SDGP. In addition, I've got an idea that could "fix" sunlight, allowing for Cubic Chunks.
Disclaimer: as I have never programmed a rendering engine, I do not know exactly how to implement most of this. Some mechanics may also require a restart if they are modified.
Dem Graphics
Light
Okay, I'm not really fixing the sunlight problem. I'm actually just going to ignore it. Lighting, instead of being a mechanic determined by a block's light level, will now be purely aesthetic. This will allow for many new effects in lighting, including colored lights, dynamic lights, and more realistic shadows. Sunlight will also be affected by this, and would only cast shadows from blocks that are currently rendered (this would mean floating islands or high ceilings that are above render distance will not cast a shadow, but I believe it's a small price to pay). Since light would no longer have a major effect on gameplay, the only remaining cons of such a system would likely be greatly outweighed by all the pros of cubic chunks. Systems such as mob spawning and crop growth would no longer be effected by lighting and would be handled differently (which I'll detail in future suggestions in this series).
Sunlight would have a slight yellowish tint to it during the day, and have a more pinkish tint during sunset or sunrise. These colors would be modified slightly depending on the biome the player is standing in (the sunlight might have a green tint in swamps, and sunsets might be more red in deserts). Moonlight would be blue, and its strength would be modified based on the phase of the moon, being strong when full and practically non-existant when new. Sunlight and moonlight will decay rapidly 32 blocks below the global surface value, getting weaker for every block of depth beyond that, and at 64 blocks below, will stop being rendered entirely (caves are going to be much deeper than in the current game). This will prevent abnormally large underground rooms from being lit by sunlight with a low render distance, as well as save on performance, though it could be an issue for players who decide to build at that depth. For performance reasons, the game will only render either the moonlight or the sunlight, but never both at the same time (during sunset or sunrise, the lighting will transition to a weak ambient light, and then to the opposing global light source).
As you've probably guessed by now, the new lighting system will include colored light. Beyond your standard torch, there will be many light sources, and several will have the ability to give out a color other than yellow. Light passing through translucent colored blocks would be tinted depending on the base color of the block (light passing through red stained glass will always be pure red, even if you've retextured it to be purple or several colors).
Dynamic lights will also be a thing. They aren't really laggy when implemented correctly, though with the addition of shadows, they will have more of an effect on performance than the current dynamic lights mod, but not by much.
For performance, players will be able to adjust the light quality in their video options. Low quality will have low-resolution shadows and colored lighting will be disabled. Medium quality (default) will have a medium shadow resolution (comparable to the shadows made by sunlight in the original Skyrim). High quality will have high-resolution shadows and light going through transparent/translucent blocks will take into account the opacity of the individual pixels on the block. Ultra will be like High, but will also take into account the colors of the individual pixels on the block the light is passing through for colored light.
(Based off Ouatcheur's idea) Chunks, when they come into or out of render distance, will fade into or out of view, and any shadows they cast will fade with them. This will make the shadows transitions not as jarring.
Volumetric God Rays will also be a thing. By default they are disabled, but can have their quality cycled between low, medium, and high. Higher qualities will increase the density and distance of God Rays.
Anti-Aliasing
This applies some feathering around the edges of objects to reduce the jaggedness of diagonal lines. It can be set to off, FXAA (cheap, "fake" anti-aliasing), 2x, 4x, 8x, and 16x.
Bloom
Bloom is an effect where a small amount of blur is composited into the rendered frame to add a more "film-like" effect. It causes bright pixels to "bleed" into dimmer pixels, and the effect is greater the higher the contrast. It is enabled by default.
Depth of Field
This causes blur on pixels which are a certain distance away from wherever the camera is focusing. It can be set from 0-100, where 0 is disabled and 100 causes only pixels the exact distance away from the focus to be in complete focus.
Bump Mapping
All textures can optionally have an additional texture (textureNameBM.png) which gives them a bump map. A bump map is an invisible texture put on top of an existing one that tells the game how to shade the texture. This simulates depth even when the surface the texture is on is completely flat, and is used in most modern games. It is enabled by default.
Reflective Surfaces
Some surfaces are reflective, such as glass and water. There are three settings available for this, one for liquids, one for blocks, and one for items. All three would have four quality settings, from disabled to high, and would affect the resolution of the reflection, as well as the quality of the distortion filter applied. Liquids and blocks are set to low by default, while items are set to medium by default.
Mipmaps
This applies a smaller resolution of a texture on far-away blocks. It is similar to the current mipmaps setting, going from disabled to four levels of mipmapping. Blocks far enough away to be using mipmapped textures would have their bump maps disabled.
Connected Textures and Random Textures
The game would come with connected textures support, accomplished by making a folder with the same name as the base texture, and including all the textures as well as a text file that says how they all connect. There would also be random textures available, whose usage are also specified in the text file. They are enabled by default.
Well, I think that's it. If you can think of anything else, I might add it. Keep in mind that these mechanics will require a more modern graphics card to play the game, though if your card is old, you may be able to get by if you set everything to the lowest possible quality. Now that we've got the background stuff out of the way, though, we can now move on to the meat of this series, actual game mechanics! Stay tuned for part 3!
My question is a simple one that sums up this entire idea and is what my support hinges on.
Will it be possible to disable all the "Ooh shiny" extra crap to the point that I can get the equivalent of current Minecraft aesthetics? I prefer a game that has a cohesive art style rather than trying to go "mishmash of retro art and complex rendering that are in many modern games because many AAA publishers think pretty and shiny matters more than gameplay".
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My question is a simple one that sums up this entire idea and is what my support hinges on.
Will it be possible to disable all the "Ooh shiny" extra crap to the point that I can get the equivalent of current Minecraft aesthetics? I prefer a game that has a cohesive art style rather than trying to go "mishmash of retro art and complex rendering that are in many modern games because many AAA publishers think pretty and shiny matters more than gameplay".
You can disable most of the features to get something that looks like the current Minecraft. The only thing you can't disable without a mod is the new lighting system, as the change from block-based lighting to ray-traced lighting would make having the old lighting system impossible without also having two separate lighting engines that the game could switch between (and going back to block-based lighting would add a lot of limitations as well as bring back the sunlight problem). However, if such a game were to be made, I'd ask that you try the game at the highest possible settings you can support to see if you actually end up liking it.
I've used shaders and HD texture packs before and I don't like them, and that is generally what this part of the idea is minus a few things here and there. Trying to shove HD onto something designed to be low-poly and low resolution just makes it look awful. It would be like adding the 3d models from Doom 2016 into the original version of Doom. Unfitting and jarring.
Also I'm sure it would be addressed in the part 3 thread but how do mob spawns work if there is no block light value? Is it just in areas withough light? That seems like it would be a pain to make sure things are lit properly.
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I've used shaders and HD texture packs before and I don't like them, and that is generally what this part of the idea is minus a few things here and there. Trying to shove HD onto something designed to be low-poly and low resolution just makes it look awful. It would be like adding the 3d models from Doom 2016 into the original version of Doom. Unfitting and jarring.
Also I'm sure it would be addressed in the part 3 thread but how do mob spawns work if there is no block light value? Is it just in areas withough light? That seems like it would be a pain to make sure things are lit properly.
Well, it's all your opinion, which is fine. I personally like them, and I tend to apply HD graphics mods to older games, but if you don't like them, that's fine.
Mob spawning probably won't be addressed in detail for a while, but it won't be determined by lighting anymore. Basically, mobs won't be able to spawn on blocks placed by a player, or in proximity to certain mob-repelling blocks.
I actually disagree with this even more than I did the game engine one. The "bad" graphics are what make Minecraft, "Minecraft". Though I do agree with some of these. I don't mean to keep repeating myself here, but why not just throw some of these in the first game?
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Yeah, that guy in the avatar is me. I'm *that* strange. It happens. Sometimes people act like that. Just go with it. I can offer help with suggestions even before you post them - NOT make your suggestions - but help you with them.
The fact that suggestions can get large enough to require fragmentation to cover makes me want to slam my head against a wall. Especially considering that this suggestion does not actually require any part of the original suggestion to function. This suggestion would've been better served as a standalone. Its nature as a piggy back actually hurts the credibility of the suggestion in my eyes.
With that aside, a lot of these ideas seem less like a Minecraft 2.0 and more into personal preference. Which is the point. You're not going to end up suggesting something you hate, after all... BUT... I fail to see how it would be significant enough to demand a marriage with the original concept of a separate mod-workshopped minceraft.
I don't mean to keep repeating myself here, but why not just throw some of these in the first game?
The biggest issue here is it's too ambitious and too disjointed. I personally support colored lights! It's an enormous suggestion with an amazing amount of detail, and I'm a bit disappointed that there wasn't a link to each individual suggestion included in your blanket. But that's the thing. It's tailored to you, it's your blanket. I can never completely enjoy every square of the quilt you weave. Even if I enjoy most, there will be some I dislike. Some irrevocable coincidence where I do not like what you like and throws the suggestion into the turbulent seas. There's so much here to ask people to hop aboard on...
There's too much to convince people to like. I like colored lights, I like connected and random textures. I do not like volumetric lag rays. I do not like the change to the lighting system in regards to difficulty. I do not like bloom or reflective surfaces. That's 2 passes out of 6 using only this limited rubric.
This is where the suggestion hits a fatal flaw and shoves my final nail into the coffin sealing a no support. Had these myriad suggestions been able to exist outside of your hastily constructed umbrella and given individual attention; they would've gotten a lot more support from me.
POSSIBILITY OF IMPROVEMENT?
Yes, it's possible to redeem this suggestion and get me to support it. But this requires OP to root out specifically what he's after. The original post was definite in purpose; creating a new Minecraft version with mod support natively. It was ambitious but only had a single goal.
Here? It's a shotgun blast at a board of wishful thinking. Find ONE topic that desperately needs improved, and work toward it. If the primary goal is colored lights, I'd rather just go and support the already existing thread. If the primary goal is focused toward some other untapped potential and you can put your capable hands toward that singular goal then you'll find much more purchase.
I actually disagree with this even more than I did the game engine one. The "bad" graphics are what make Minecraft, "Minecraft". Though I do agree with some of these. I don't mean to keep repeating myself here, but why not just throw some of these in the first game?
To be honest, out of all the suggestions in this series, this is probably the one that could be implemented into the current game the most (the exception is the new lighting system, which while it would permit cubic chunks, would break several of the current game systems). I just wanted to get it out of the way since a lot of people were asking about it in the previous part. I personally believe that it's the blockiness, not low-res graphics, that makes Minecraft, "Minecraft." I can still easily recognize the game when someone is using SEUS and Dokucraft, since that blockiness is still there. However, as it's a matter of opinion, I won't argue which is better.
The fact that suggestions can get large enough to require fragmentation to cover makes me want to slam my head against a wall. Especially considering that this suggestion does not actually require any part of the original suggestion to function. This suggestion would've been better served as a standalone. Its nature as a piggy back actually hurts the credibility of the suggestion in my eyes.
Well, it does kind of require a better rendering engine to function reasonably.
With that aside, a lot of these ideas seem less like a Minecraft 2.0 and more into personal preference. Which is the point. You're not going to end up suggesting something you hate, after all... BUT... I fail to see how it would be significant enough to demand a marriage with the original concept of a separate mod-workshopped minceraft.
Like I said, I simply made this thread to address some concerns people were having when I said "better graphics" in the last thread. Out of all the suggestions in this series, this is the one that requires a new game the least, but it's all aesthetic and low-priority anyway. I was just trying to get it out of the way so I can move on to actual game mechanics.
The biggest issue here is it's too ambitious and too disjointed. I personally support colored lights! It's an enormous suggestion with an amazing amount of detail, and I'm a bit disappointed that there wasn't a link to each individual suggestion included in your blanket. But that's the thing. It's tailored to you, it's your blanket. I can never completely enjoy every square of the quilt you weave. Even if I enjoy most, there will be some I dislike. Some irrevocable coincidence where I do not like what you like and throws the suggestion into the turbulent seas. There's so much here to ask people to hop aboard on...
There's too much to convince people to like. I like colored lights, I like connected and random textures. I do not like volumetric lag rays. I do not like the change to the lighting system in regards to difficulty. I do not like bloom or reflective surfaces. That's 2 passes out of 6 using only this limited rubric.
Fortunately, you don't have to use every single square in my quilt. Everything you don't like can be disabled if you don't like it or want a performance boost (with the exception of the new lighting system, which you can only decrease the quality. I don't see how it changes the difficulty?).
This is where the suggestion hits a fatal flaw and shoves my final nail into the coffin sealing a no support. Had these myriad suggestions been able to exist outside of your hastily constructed umbrella and given individual attention; they would've gotten a lot more support from me.
It's graphics. If I had completely ignored telling anyone about it until the very end of the series, the suggestion would still be the same, and if you had liked the previous portions, I doubt it would be a no support here. Frankly this is a low-priority suggestion that I plan on moving on from quickly.
POSSIBILITY OF IMPROVEMENT?
Yes, it's possible to redeem this suggestion and get me to support it. But this requires OP to root out specifically what he's after. The original post was definite in purpose; creating a new Minecraft version with mod support natively. It was ambitious but only had a single goal.
Here? It's a shotgun blast at a board of wishful thinking. Find ONE topic that desperately needs improved, and work toward it. If the primary goal is colored lights, I'd rather just go and support the already existing thread. If the primary goal is focused toward some other untapped potential and you can put your capable hands toward that singular goal then you'll find much more purchase.
The goal here is improved graphics that don't interfere with the blockiness of the game. Everything here supports that sentiment, albeit subjectively, but better graphics are already just a subjective concept. I'm not going to make an entire thread on adding bloom. My colored light is also different from the previous colored light suggestion, where light, now being a ray-trace, can actually change color as it passes through colored surfaces and doesn't require the light-giving block to have all its exposed faces surrounded.
If you don't like it, that's fine. I can survive one of my suggestions not being super successful. I just ask that you don't make one bad part of the series equal a full "no support."
I actually like the idea of the game lighting being separate from the visual lighting. I haven't really got time to read the whole thing, and I understand very little about graphical effects, but I support you on that specific choice, especially since it allows dynamic lighting, colored lighting, etc. by putting it on the rendering engine rather than the game engine.
I do agree that you should be able to opt-out if you want, though. Besides those of us that want to play a modpack on a potato computer, there are players (me sometimes, and a lot of people on this thread already) that find the graphics of the current game to be better in the way of charm and originality.
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My avatar is a texture from a small block game I made in Python. It's not very good and it probably won't work if you install it.
I'm very alone in my Minecraft worlds as I don't have a very good internet connection to run a server. If you're like me, you might be interested in my Posse mod suggestion.
> Everything you don't like can be disabled if you don't like it or want a performance boost
I don't think saying "there is an option to turn it (or parts of it) off!" counts as the kind of argument that supports an idea. If anything, to me, that kind of argument actually works against an idea. Options Flags should only be for really, really, major stuff, like say "Enable Cheats", not for every single feature, or feature parts, that some people might like or not like. If you need to rely on a "it can be turned off!" argument as a kind of "lifeboat flotation device" in order to justify (save) an idea, it just means that the idea is, simply put, not really totally able to float all by itself.
I agree that the Video settings need to be more "finer grained", for calibrating performance reason. Still, just how would you propose to "turn off" this lighting system? You'd have BOTH the current lighting system *and* this new lighting system coexisting one alongside the other in the game?!? That would be really weird, as they are clearly incompatible and fundamentally different and lead to a very different gameplay experience. The core functionality of this new light system just couldn't be turned off, at all. Video settings would be needed only for the most CPU/GPU hungry aspects, but almost by definition there would not be (and should not be) any Video setting for the central parts of a new lighting system.
Some parts of this idea are very interesting. But I feel that this suggestion tries to address too many things all at once, while skipping on the most central and vital part, which is my main beef with the idea here:
You say you'll talk about the impact on mob spawning and crops growth elsewhere. But mob spawning is a very central core gameplay feature, here. You go in great details on lots of things, but skip completely the one and only thing that makes this suggestion ruin a very important current gameplay aspect. So yeah, sorry, but I just can't support this.
I recommend you make the whole thing a bit more "focused", and not rely on multiple posts/suggestions to work. If another suggestion by somebody else covers well some aspect of it, just point to that and skip straight to the most vital parts. The more long and complicated something is, the more it is prone to fail. It's not a matter of "they'll like at least half of it". Think of a suggestion working a bit more like a high-rise building: if only one floor fails, the entire tower comes crumbling down. So yeah, building smaller is safer. So So focus on the most central and important parts. I should know, I too tend to write way too long posts lol. But not addressing clearly the core impact on the actual gameplay is your suggestion's real killer here.
- - -
As a sidenote, if only rendered blocks cast shadows, then "just out of reach" blocks will suddenly "jump-cast" shadows when moving a bit nearer.
(or the opposite, shadows will suddenly jump-disappear when moving a bit away - however that is much less of a problem as usually when a player is moving away that typically means that he is also looking in the opposite direction. Also, there is some "hysteresis" when moving away before the chunks really become unloaded, so that kind of event would typically happen only at bigger distances).
Maybe the shadows should be "progressive" i.e. at max render distance, the shadows thrown by loaded blocks are "barely visible", and become more and more strongly contrasting as the shadow-projecting blocks get nearer. That would avoid that kind of "shadow-jumping-straight-into-view, with sunny sky one moment, and big darkness the next moment, just because the player moved only a few blocks.
> Everything you don't like can be disabled if you don't like it or want a performance boost
I don't think saying "there is an option to turn it (or parts of it) off!" counts as the kind of argument that supports an idea. If anything, to me, that kind of argument actually works against an idea. Options Flags should only be for really, really, major stuff, like say "Enable Cheats", not for every single feature, or feature parts, that some people might like or not like. If you need to rely on a "it can be turned off!" argument as a kind of "lifeboat flotation device" in order to justify (save) an idea, it just means that the idea is, simply put, not really totally able to float all by itself.
Well, when it comes to graphics, the only real reason to support it is because you like how it looks. From the old suggestion guide: "See, options should be left to game settings, such as video quality, render distance, difficulty." This falls under video quality, and is thus perfectly acceptable as an optional feature. There's no real way to defend something so subjective, so I'm not really trying to.
I agree that the Video settings need to be more "finer grained", for calibrating performance reason. Still, just how would you propose to "turn off" this lighting system? You'd have BOTH the current lighting system *and* this new lighting system coexisting one alongside the other in the game?!? That would be really weird, as they are clearly incompatible and fundamentally different and lead to a very different gameplay experience. The core functionality of this new light system just couldn't be turned off, at all. Video settings would be needed only for the most CPU/GPU hungry aspects, but almost by definition there would not be (and should not be) any Video setting for the central parts of a new lighting system.
Well, I stated before that the only thing you wouldn't be able to disable is the lighting system. You can lessen it, but you can't revert it back to Minecraft's old system 1:1. A mod might be able to simulate it, or even fully recreate it, but the base game won't come with the old system. There would be settings to change the quality of the light, however.
Some parts of this idea are very interesting. But I feel that this suggestion tries to address too many things all at once, while skipping on the most central and vital part, which is my main beef with the idea here:
You say you'll talk about the impact on mob spawning and crops growth elsewhere. But mob spawning is a very central core gameplay feature, here. You go in great details on lots of things, but skip completely the one and only thing that makes this suggestion ruin a very important current gameplay aspect. So yeah, sorry, but I just can't support this.
If I were to address every change that every effected mechanic were to make, I'd consider this a wishlist. This suggestion pertains only to graphics. and mobs have nothing to do with graphics. As I said in the post where I talked about it, mob won't spawn on player-placed blocks or near certain mob-repelling blocks, such as lava, and some craftable blocks.
I recommend you make the whole thing a bit more "focused", and not rely on multiple posts/suggestions to work. If another suggestion by somebody else covers well some aspect of it, just point to that and skip straight to the most vital parts. The more long and complicated something is, the more it is prone to fail. It's not a matter of "they'll like at least half of it". Think of a suggestion working a bit more like a high-rise building: if only one floor fails, the entire tower comes crumbling down. So yeah, building smaller is safer. So So focus on the most central and important parts. I should know, I too tend to write way too long posts lol. But not addressing clearly the core impact on the actual gameplay is your suggestion's real killer here.
I know I'm taking a risk with this kind of format. However, I don't think I need to get 100% support for this suggestion to be successful. Like an actual video game, no one is going to like everything. In addition, this suggestion isn't complete, and very little of it is just going to be someone else's idea (in fact, the only suggestion I think I'm going to be using is cubic chunks).
- - -
As a sidenote, if only rendered blocks cast shadows, then "just out of reach" blocks will suddenly "jump-cast" shadows when moving a bit nearer.
(or the opposite, shadows will suddenly jump-disappear when moving a bit away - however that is much less of a problem as usually when a player is moving away that typically means that he is also looking in the opposite direction. Also, there is some "hysteresis" when moving away before the chunks really become unloaded, so that kind of event would typically happen only at bigger distances).
Maybe the shadows should be "progressive" i.e. at max render distance, the shadows thrown by loaded blocks are "barely visible", and become more and more strongly contrasting as the shadow-projecting blocks get nearer. That would avoid that kind of "shadow-jumping-straight-into-view, with sunny sky one moment, and big darkness the next moment, just because the player moved only a few blocks.
That's actually a pretty good idea, making the shadows fade in. Perhaps it can be accomplished by making chunks transparent and then transition to opaque as they get into render distance.
I'm just not understanding the energy being put into this. Having a better game engine was a decent idea in its own right, but this thread is basically about "sum cool stuff" where most of those don't even belong in Minecraft anyway. No matter what direction I mentally approach this from, I just can't see the reason for a Minecraft 2. Not only is it a dead concept, but it's been proven why it's never needed in many other threads.
I don't want to jump on the negative bandwagon, but if shaders and reflections are that important to me. I'll just go get me a mod. Why does this require an entirely new game? This is why you won't see a Garry's Mod 2 or Dwarf Fortress 2. These are the kind of games where one is more than enough. No need to reinvent the wheel just to make it look shiner or have a "2" slapped on it. How many 'parts' does this suggestion have?
I know I'm taking a risk with this kind of format. However, I don't think I need to get 100% support for this suggestion to be successful. Like an actual video game, no one is going to like everything. In addition, this suggestion isn't complete, and very little of it is just going to be someone else's idea (in fact, the only suggestion I think I'm going to be using is cubic chunks).
The problem isn't so much the support, it's just the necessity of the core idea. The best reasoning behind it is "well people are getting bored of the first game so this will bring people back!!" which is a shallow, cop-outish and mildly naive line of thinking.
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The Unofficial Suggestion Guide - Everything you need to know to not make goofy mistakes in a suggestion! Honestly though, you should really go there.
I've added anti-aliasing, and a version of Ouatcheur's suggestion into the main post.
I've also come across this promising-looking 3D voxel sandbox game called Vintage Story. If you want to see what I want from this suggestion, there's a good example. Something that looks nice, runs well, but isn't over-the-top like SEUS.
I'm just not understanding the energy being put into this. Having a better game engine was a decent idea in its own right, but this thread is basically about "sum cool stuff" where most of those don't even belong in Minecraft anyway. No matter what direction I mentally approach this from, I just can't see the reason for a Minecraft 2. Not only is it a dead concept, but it's been proven why it's never needed in many other threads.
To be honest, I don't care about this particular thread that much either. I don't buy a game because of its graphics. I just made this so people wouldn't think I meant smoothing out the blocky world when I talked about better graphics in the last thread, and I needed to mention the change to the lighting system.
Yes, there's no need for a Minecraft 2. I said that in my last thread. However, I believe that Mojang and the player base would benefit from a clean break. Eventually Minecraft is going to reach market saturation, and then people are going to stop being interested in it. News of a sequel would have a chance at bringing them back. In addition, some of Minecraft's mechanics could use an overhaul, but we saw with 1.9 what happens when you try to apply such an overhaul to the base game. Finally, I don't consider "just add it to the first game" to be proof we don't need a sequel. For one thing, Minecraft is finished, and it now is stuck with several unbreakable rules. For example, we can't progress past diamond because the armor system is broken and thus any significant post-End content can't really be added. Also, not everything can be added, especially when the old game needs a rewrite. The new engine and the new lighting system simply can't be added into the current game.
I don't want to jump on the negative bandwagon, but if shaders and reflections are that important to me. I'll just go get me a mod. Why does this require an entirely new game? This is why you won't see a Garry's Mod 2 or Dwarf Fortress 2. These are the kind of games where one is more
than enough. No need to reinvent the wheel just to make it look shiner or have a "2" slapped on it. How many 'parts' does this suggestion have?
Well, if any suggestion is important to you, you can just get a mod, which is why the reply "just use a mod" is banned on this forum, as you are just ignoring the suggestion. Garry's Mod is an informal game engine, so the comparison doesn't work here. Dwarf Fortress isn't even in 1.0 yet, is much smaller than Minecraft, and is only being developed by a couple of people, so it makes sense for them not to work on a sequel in the near future.
Minecraft 2 is not just going to be a shinier version of the original. It's a completely new game, with several overhauls and rebalanced features. I don't have a final count for the number of threads I'm going to make, but my goal is around 15-20.
The problem isn't so much the support, it's just the necessity of the core idea. The best reasoning behind it is "well people are getting bored of the first game so this will bring people back!!" which is a shallow, cop-outish and mildly naive line of thinking.
Frankly, I believe "just add it to the first game" to be just as shallow, cop-outish, and naïve, when it's clear some of my ideas are incompatible with the first game.
I've added anti-aliasing, and a version of Ouatcheur's suggestion into the main post.
Ooh, I know Minecraft Forge has an antialiasing setting by default. Although the game will briefly (5-20 seconds, okay, not so brief) pause for a moment whenever you change the setting.
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My avatar is a texture from a small block game I made in Python. It's not very good and it probably won't work if you install it.
I'm very alone in my Minecraft worlds as I don't have a very good internet connection to run a server. If you're like me, you might be interested in my Posse mod suggestion.
Yes, there's no need for a Minecraft 2. I said that in my last thread. However, I believe that Mojang and the player base would benefit from a clean break. Eventually Minecraft is going to reach market saturation, and then people are going to stop being interested in it. News of a sequel would have a chance at bringing them back.
Okay, there are some holes in this logic. And this does not work for every single type of game. Sure, you'll get people interested in the idea of Minecraft 2, but when said game comes out, what'll people say? "This is just the first game with shaders!", "The first game was better!" - If you're gonna make another game, you better deliver good enough to not get comments like that.
I can't imagine Mojang putting effort into a new game and updating the first one as well just to add a few new things. Biggest waste of time and resources.
especially when the old game needs a rewrite. The new engine and the new lighting system simply can't be added into the current game.
Alright, so we have a better engine. What then? What about the rest of the game? Is it just the first game with real-time reflections? Some of these new graphics don't even fit the style of the game that well. I don't know if I'd want shaders like that. It clashes.
Well, if any suggestion is important to you, you can just get a mod, which is why the reply "just use a mod" is banned on this forum, as you are just ignoring the suggestion. Garry's Mod is an informal game engine, so the comparison doesn't work here. Dwarf Fortress isn't even in 1.0 yet, is much smaller than Minecraft, and is only being developed by a couple of people, so it makes sense for them not to work on a sequel in the near future.
I don't think you understood the "mod" part of the post... Dwarf Fortress, in terms of 'content', is much larger and complex than Minecraft. It will be another 20 years until we get a 1.0 of that game. I made those comparisons because of the type of games they are. Games like that don't need a "2", because there's nothing to "continue" off of. Again, no need to reinvent the wheel and call it "Wheel 2" if it's the game circular thing...
Minecraft 2 is not just going to be a shinier version of the original. It's a completely new game, with several overhauls and rebalanced features. I don't have a final count for the number of threads I'm going to make, but my goal is around 15-20.
Do you believe this suggestion is worth that many threads?
Frankly, I believe "just add it to the first game" to be just as shallow, cop-outish, and naïve, when it's clear some of my ideas are incompatible with the first game.
So far we have a new engine, which is promising. But here we have graphics, some of which are not-so-matching of the game. I will say the image of this new game in your brain is probably something beautiful that none of us can match, but I still can't find a reason for such a game. "It will bring back the interest of players!" isn't enough for me.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Yeah, that guy in the avatar is me. I'm *that* strange. It happens. Sometimes people act like that. Just go with it. I can offer help with suggestions even before you post them - NOT make your suggestions - but help you with them.
Okay, there are some holes in this logic. And this does not work for every single type of game. Sure, you'll get people interested in the idea of Minecraft 2, but when said game comes out, what'll people say? "This is just the first game with shaders!", "The first game was better!" - If you're gonna make another game, you better deliver good enough to not get comments like that.
I can't stop people from saying bad things about the game if they don't like it. The idea that I have in mind is something a lot different from the current game, but that won't stop haters from just pointing out the obvious changes and saying everything else is the same, when it clearly isn't.
Look, as this game doesn't exist, we don't know how an endeavor will end up. It might bomb, or it might completely supersede the original. However, we don't have any solid evidence, so could we please move on from the theoretical and just focus on the content of the suggestions?
I can't imagine Mojang putting effort into a new game and updating the first one as well just to add a few new things. Biggest waste of time and resources.
Well, it's a good thing that I'm planning on suggesting more than just a few new things. Besides, like I said before, they'd hire a new team for this, so it's not like it would be doubling the workload. Yeah, there would be resources spent, but it's not that hard to make a game like Minecraft.
Alright, so we have a better engine. What then? What about the rest of the game? Is it just the first game with real-time reflections? Some of these new graphics don't even fit the style of the game that well. I don't know if I'd want shaders like that. It clashes.
Well, it's a matter of opinion. I like them, as well as thousands or millions of other players who will be playing with shaders and the "Super Duper Graphics Pack."
I don't think you understood the "mod" part of the post... Dwarf Fortress, in terms of 'content', is much larger and complex than Minecraft. It will be another 20 years until we get a 1.0 of that game. I made those comparisons because of the type of games they are. Games like that don't need a "2", because there's nothing to "continue" off of. Again, no need to reinvent the wheel and call it "Wheel 2" if it's the game circular thing...
You made those comparisons? Have you secretly been Theriasis this whole time? That would explain a few things...
Regardless, there have been many times where I compare two things where I'm comparing the same type of thing, and you dismissed them for being too different. However, not all sequels have to be made to continue something. Take Unreal 4, the only thing it's continuing is new features, but it is technically a sequel to Unreal 3. Minecraft 2 would be in the same boat.
Do you believe this suggestion is worth that many threads?
Considering I'm planning on overhauling nearly every single mechanic from the base game, yes. I wouldn't be suggesting a whole new game if it was worth any less.
So far we have a new engine, which is promising. But here we have graphics, some of which are not-so-matching of the game. I will say the image of this new game in your brain is probably something beautiful that none of us can match, but I still can't find a reason for such a game. "It will bring back the interest of players!" isn't enough for me.
Well, if you want an idea of what I imagine the graphics to look like, check out Vintage Story. However, if you want more reasons for such a game:
It will (hopefully) be fun to play
It will make Mojang money
It will prove that Mojang can actually make a good game if they put their mind to it
Look, as this game doesn't exist, we don't know how an endeavor will end up. It might bomb, or it might completely supersede the original. However, we don't have any solid evidence, so could we please move on from the theoretical and just focus on the content of the suggestions?
The content of the suggestion is still some new sequel, so there's not much to move on from.
Well, it's a good thing that I'm planning on suggesting more than just a few new things. Besides, like I said before, they'd hire a new team for this, so it's not like it would be doubling the workload. Yeah, there would be resources spent, but it's not that hard to make a game like Minecraft.
Do you happen to know the amount of work a game like this takes? Especially one that's meant to be better? New team or not, is it actually worth the time? I'm just really having trouble with how you would want me to support this. You think I'm just not liking this because I see "Minecraft 2" and decided to 'be a hater' but a new engine and graphics with a bit of steroid injections won't sell me on a sequel to a sandbox game with no lore or story.
You made those comparisons? Have you secretly been Theriasis this whole time? That would explain a few things...
Didn't I make both these comparisons in your first thread? Both accounts would be banned years ago if either of us pulled that sockpuppet crap. I do dress like a woman in front of my mirror and pretend to be her though. Don't tell her I said that.
Regardless, there have been many times where I compare two things where I'm comparing the same type of thing, and you dismissed them for being too different. However, not all sequels have to be made to continue something. Take Unreal 4, the only thing it's continuing is new features, but it is technically a sequel to Unreal 3. Minecraft 2 would be in the same boat.
Unreal 3 and 4 might look better, but UT2004 is still the greatest UT out there because they removed a lot of things that made UT2004 one of the funnest games out there. Examples of sequels that could have been equal or better, but weren't. I still think Minecraft is different enough from Unreal for one series to benefit from sequels more than the other...
Well, if you want an idea of what I imagine the graphics to look like, check out Vintage Story. However, if you want more reasons for such a game:
That game doesn't look that far off from Minecraft. In fact, I can't see much of a difference.
It will (hopefully) be fun to play
It will make Mojang money
It will prove that Mojang can actually make a good game if they put their mind to it
These are some rather generic reasons. Mojang would probably be better off making a game that had a different thing going for it - something original than sequeling what's already one of the most popular games of all time.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Yeah, that guy in the avatar is me. I'm *that* strange. It happens. Sometimes people act like that. Just go with it. I can offer help with suggestions even before you post them - NOT make your suggestions - but help you with them.
The content of the suggestion is still some new sequel, so there's not much to move on from.
Regardless of whether it's in a sequel or not, though, you can still provide feedback on it (which you have, but I don't want every suggestion in this series to be leapfrogging between the suggestion and whether or not we should have a Minecraft 2).
Do you happen to know the amount of work a game like this takes? Especially one that's meant to be better? New team or not, is it actually worth the time? I'm just really having trouble with how you would want me to support this. You think I'm just not liking this because I see "Minecraft 2" and decided to 'be a hater' but a new engine and graphics with a bit of steroid injections won't sell me on a sequel to a sandbox game with no lore or story.
It's not the easiest type of game out there, but it's certainly not that complex. 3D voxel sandbox games can be found all over, and you can easily find tutorials on how to make your own. Other than generation (which people like theMasterCaver have shown is actually incredibly simple), Minecraft's other mechanics are actually pretty rudimentary, consisting largely of timers and comparing static values.
Didn't I make both these comparisons in your first thread? Both accounts would be banned years ago if either of us pulled that sockpuppet crap. I do dress like a woman in front of my mirror and pretend to be her though. Don't tell her I said that.
I was joking, though I don't think you mentioned Dwarf Fortress.
Don't worry, Thericerroz, your secret is safe with me...for now.
Unreal 3 and 4 might look better, but UT2004 is still the greatest UT out there because they removed a lot of things that made UT2004 one of the funnest games out there. Examples of sequels that could have been equal or better, but weren't. I still think Minecraft is different enough from Unreal for one series to benefit from sequels more than the other...
Oops, I meant Unreal Engine 4. Either way, what they are continuing is simply increasing or changing the features, not necessarily storyline.
That game doesn't look that far off from Minecraft. In fact, I can't see much of a difference.
That game has pretty much everything this particular suggestion asks for in graphical fidelity. If you can't see much of a difference, then I think you would say that this suggestion fits Minecraft.
These are some rather generic reasons. Mojang would probably be better off making a game that had a different thing going for it - something original than sequeling what's already one of the most popular games of all time.
Yeah, I guess they are. I'll be frank, the reason I personally want Minecraft 2 is because I like Minecraft, but I've gotten bored of it, and I want to get back into it without having to depend on mods, and I personally think Mojang would only benefit from the release of such a game.
Introduction
Recently, Mojang announced that they would be adding a feature called the "Super Duper Graphics Pack" (SDGP) to the non-Java versions of Minecraft. This brings many modern rendering techniques to the game, before only seen in PC shaders. Whether or not this looks good is subjective, but most likely anyone looking at it would still recognize the blockiness game.
Written in a better rendering engine, like Direct3D or Vulkan, Minecraft 2 would be able to take advantage of more efficient rendering techniques and have improvements to it to have modern graphical effects, such as seen in the SDGP. In addition, I've got an idea that could "fix" sunlight, allowing for Cubic Chunks.
Disclaimer: as I have never programmed a rendering engine, I do not know exactly how to implement most of this. Some mechanics may also require a restart if they are modified.
Dem Graphics
Light
Okay, I'm not really fixing the sunlight problem. I'm actually just going to ignore it. Lighting, instead of being a mechanic determined by a block's light level, will now be purely aesthetic. This will allow for many new effects in lighting, including colored lights, dynamic lights, and more realistic shadows. Sunlight will also be affected by this, and would only cast shadows from blocks that are currently rendered (this would mean floating islands or high ceilings that are above render distance will not cast a shadow, but I believe it's a small price to pay). Since light would no longer have a major effect on gameplay, the only remaining cons of such a system would likely be greatly outweighed by all the pros of cubic chunks. Systems such as mob spawning and crop growth would no longer be effected by lighting and would be handled differently (which I'll detail in future suggestions in this series).
Sunlight would have a slight yellowish tint to it during the day, and have a more pinkish tint during sunset or sunrise. These colors would be modified slightly depending on the biome the player is standing in (the sunlight might have a green tint in swamps, and sunsets might be more red in deserts). Moonlight would be blue, and its strength would be modified based on the phase of the moon, being strong when full and practically non-existant when new. Sunlight and moonlight will decay rapidly 32 blocks below the global surface value, getting weaker for every block of depth beyond that, and at 64 blocks below, will stop being rendered entirely (caves are going to be much deeper than in the current game). This will prevent abnormally large underground rooms from being lit by sunlight with a low render distance, as well as save on performance, though it could be an issue for players who decide to build at that depth. For performance reasons, the game will only render either the moonlight or the sunlight, but never both at the same time (during sunset or sunrise, the lighting will transition to a weak ambient light, and then to the opposing global light source).
As you've probably guessed by now, the new lighting system will include colored light. Beyond your standard torch, there will be many light sources, and several will have the ability to give out a color other than yellow. Light passing through translucent colored blocks would be tinted depending on the base color of the block (light passing through red stained glass will always be pure red, even if you've retextured it to be purple or several colors).
Dynamic lights will also be a thing. They aren't really laggy when implemented correctly, though with the addition of shadows, they will have more of an effect on performance than the current dynamic lights mod, but not by much.
For performance, players will be able to adjust the light quality in their video options. Low quality will have low-resolution shadows and colored lighting will be disabled. Medium quality (default) will have a medium shadow resolution (comparable to the shadows made by sunlight in the original Skyrim). High quality will have high-resolution shadows and light going through transparent/translucent blocks will take into account the opacity of the individual pixels on the block. Ultra will be like High, but will also take into account the colors of the individual pixels on the block the light is passing through for colored light.
(Based off Ouatcheur's idea) Chunks, when they come into or out of render distance, will fade into or out of view, and any shadows they cast will fade with them. This will make the shadows transitions not as jarring.
Volumetric God Rays will also be a thing. By default they are disabled, but can have their quality cycled between low, medium, and high. Higher qualities will increase the density and distance of God Rays.
Anti-Aliasing
This applies some feathering around the edges of objects to reduce the jaggedness of diagonal lines. It can be set to off, FXAA (cheap, "fake" anti-aliasing), 2x, 4x, 8x, and 16x.
Bloom
Bloom is an effect where a small amount of blur is composited into the rendered frame to add a more "film-like" effect. It causes bright pixels to "bleed" into dimmer pixels, and the effect is greater the higher the contrast. It is enabled by default.
Depth of Field
This causes blur on pixels which are a certain distance away from wherever the camera is focusing. It can be set from 0-100, where 0 is disabled and 100 causes only pixels the exact distance away from the focus to be in complete focus.
Bump Mapping
All textures can optionally have an additional texture (textureNameBM.png) which gives them a bump map. A bump map is an invisible texture put on top of an existing one that tells the game how to shade the texture. This simulates depth even when the surface the texture is on is completely flat, and is used in most modern games. It is enabled by default.
Reflective Surfaces
Some surfaces are reflective, such as glass and water. There are three settings available for this, one for liquids, one for blocks, and one for items. All three would have four quality settings, from disabled to high, and would affect the resolution of the reflection, as well as the quality of the distortion filter applied. Liquids and blocks are set to low by default, while items are set to medium by default.
Mipmaps
This applies a smaller resolution of a texture on far-away blocks. It is similar to the current mipmaps setting, going from disabled to four levels of mipmapping. Blocks far enough away to be using mipmapped textures would have their bump maps disabled.
Connected Textures and Random Textures
The game would come with connected textures support, accomplished by making a folder with the same name as the base texture, and including all the textures as well as a text file that says how they all connect. There would also be random textures available, whose usage are also specified in the text file. They are enabled by default.
Well, I think that's it. If you can think of anything else, I might add it. Keep in mind that these mechanics will require a more modern graphics card to play the game, though if your card is old, you may be able to get by if you set everything to the lowest possible quality. Now that we've got the background stuff out of the way, though, we can now move on to the meat of this series, actual game mechanics! Stay tuned for part 3!
Want to see my suggestions? Here they are!
I am also known as GameWyrm or GameWyrm97. You can also find me at snapshotmc.com
My question is a simple one that sums up this entire idea and is what my support hinges on.
Will it be possible to disable all the "Ooh shiny" extra crap to the point that I can get the equivalent of current Minecraft aesthetics? I prefer a game that has a cohesive art style rather than trying to go "mishmash of retro art and complex rendering that are in many modern games because many AAA publishers think pretty and shiny matters more than gameplay".
Want some advice on how to thrive in the Suggestions section? Check this handy list of guidelines and tips for posting your ideas and responding to the ideas of others!
http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-discussion/suggestions/2775557-guidelines-for-the-suggestions-forum
I thoght we were done with all this Minecraft 2 crap already. Just put the 2 away...
You can disable most of the features to get something that looks like the current Minecraft. The only thing you can't disable without a mod is the new lighting system, as the change from block-based lighting to ray-traced lighting would make having the old lighting system impossible without also having two separate lighting engines that the game could switch between (and going back to block-based lighting would add a lot of limitations as well as bring back the sunlight problem). However, if such a game were to be made, I'd ask that you try the game at the highest possible settings you can support to see if you actually end up liking it.
I thought we were done with all the "this could just be in Minecraft" junk already. Just put the bias away...
Want to see my suggestions? Here they are!
I am also known as GameWyrm or GameWyrm97. You can also find me at snapshotmc.com
I've used shaders and HD texture packs before and I don't like them, and that is generally what this part of the idea is minus a few things here and there. Trying to shove HD onto something designed to be low-poly and low resolution just makes it look awful. It would be like adding the 3d models from Doom 2016 into the original version of Doom. Unfitting and jarring.
Also I'm sure it would be addressed in the part 3 thread but how do mob spawns work if there is no block light value? Is it just in areas withough light? That seems like it would be a pain to make sure things are lit properly.
Want some advice on how to thrive in the Suggestions section? Check this handy list of guidelines and tips for posting your ideas and responding to the ideas of others!
http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-discussion/suggestions/2775557-guidelines-for-the-suggestions-forum
Well, it's all your opinion, which is fine. I personally like them, and I tend to apply HD graphics mods to older games, but if you don't like them, that's fine.
Mob spawning probably won't be addressed in detail for a while, but it won't be determined by lighting anymore. Basically, mobs won't be able to spawn on blocks placed by a player, or in proximity to certain mob-repelling blocks.
Want to see my suggestions? Here they are!
I am also known as GameWyrm or GameWyrm97. You can also find me at snapshotmc.com
If Xbox one X can get a 4k minecraft, than minecraft 2 can get headers and advanced lighting. Support
Anyone know how to change my user name?
"And just when you thought you where the sexiest one here, i show up" -Fernando
check out my suggestion for Yggdrasil, the great world tree
FOR THE HOLY LOVE OF ARCEUS AND HELIX COMBINED PALADINS IS NOT AN OVERWATCH CLONE. tf2's the true king anyways
-Let's make some noise
I actually disagree with this even more than I did the game engine one. The "bad" graphics are what make Minecraft, "Minecraft". Though I do agree with some of these. I don't mean to keep repeating myself here, but why not just throw some of these in the first game?
Yeah, that guy in the avatar is me. I'm *that* strange. It happens. Sometimes people act like that. Just go with it. I can offer help with suggestions even before you post them - NOT make your suggestions - but help you with them.
Unofficial Suggestions Guide (2.0) - by Theriasis
Unofficial Critics Guide - by yoshi9048
The fact that suggestions can get large enough to require fragmentation to cover makes me want to slam my head against a wall. Especially considering that this suggestion does not actually require any part of the original suggestion to function. This suggestion would've been better served as a standalone. Its nature as a piggy back actually hurts the credibility of the suggestion in my eyes.
With that aside, a lot of these ideas seem less like a Minecraft 2.0 and more into personal preference. Which is the point. You're not going to end up suggesting something you hate, after all... BUT... I fail to see how it would be significant enough to demand a marriage with the original concept of a separate mod-workshopped minceraft.
Cerroz said it best,
The biggest issue here is it's too ambitious and too disjointed. I personally support colored lights! It's an enormous suggestion with an amazing amount of detail, and I'm a bit disappointed that there wasn't a link to each individual suggestion included in your blanket. But that's the thing. It's tailored to you, it's your blanket. I can never completely enjoy every square of the quilt you weave. Even if I enjoy most, there will be some I dislike. Some irrevocable coincidence where I do not like what you like and throws the suggestion into the turbulent seas. There's so much here to ask people to hop aboard on...
There's too much to convince people to like. I like colored lights, I like connected and random textures. I do not like volumetric lag rays. I do not like the change to the lighting system in regards to difficulty. I do not like bloom or reflective surfaces. That's 2 passes out of 6 using only this limited rubric.
This is where the suggestion hits a fatal flaw and shoves my final nail into the coffin sealing a no support. Had these myriad suggestions been able to exist outside of your hastily constructed umbrella and given individual attention; they would've gotten a lot more support from me.
POSSIBILITY OF IMPROVEMENT?
Yes, it's possible to redeem this suggestion and get me to support it. But this requires OP to root out specifically what he's after. The original post was definite in purpose; creating a new Minecraft version with mod support natively. It was ambitious but only had a single goal.
Here? It's a shotgun blast at a board of wishful thinking. Find ONE topic that desperately needs improved, and work toward it. If the primary goal is colored lights, I'd rather just go and support the already existing thread. If the primary goal is focused toward some other untapped potential and you can put your capable hands toward that singular goal then you'll find much more purchase.
OFFICIAL POSTING/REPLYING GUIDELINES
UNOFFICIAL POSTING GUIDE (PRT)
UNOFFICIAL REPLYING GUIDE (FTC)
To be honest, out of all the suggestions in this series, this is probably the one that could be implemented into the current game the most (the exception is the new lighting system, which while it would permit cubic chunks, would break several of the current game systems). I just wanted to get it out of the way since a lot of people were asking about it in the previous part. I personally believe that it's the blockiness, not low-res graphics, that makes Minecraft, "Minecraft." I can still easily recognize the game when someone is using SEUS and Dokucraft, since that blockiness is still there. However, as it's a matter of opinion, I won't argue which is better.
Well, it does kind of require a better rendering engine to function reasonably.
Like I said, I simply made this thread to address some concerns people were having when I said "better graphics" in the last thread. Out of all the suggestions in this series, this is the one that requires a new game the least, but it's all aesthetic and low-priority anyway. I was just trying to get it out of the way so I can move on to actual game mechanics.
Fortunately, you don't have to use every single square in my quilt. Everything you don't like can be disabled if you don't like it or want a performance boost (with the exception of the new lighting system, which you can only decrease the quality. I don't see how it changes the difficulty?).
It's graphics. If I had completely ignored telling anyone about it until the very end of the series, the suggestion would still be the same, and if you had liked the previous portions, I doubt it would be a no support here. Frankly this is a low-priority suggestion that I plan on moving on from quickly.
The goal here is improved graphics that don't interfere with the blockiness of the game. Everything here supports that sentiment, albeit subjectively, but better graphics are already just a subjective concept. I'm not going to make an entire thread on adding bloom. My colored light is also different from the previous colored light suggestion, where light, now being a ray-trace, can actually change color as it passes through colored surfaces and doesn't require the light-giving block to have all its exposed faces surrounded.
If you don't like it, that's fine. I can survive one of my suggestions not being super successful. I just ask that you don't make one bad part of the series equal a full "no support."
Want to see my suggestions? Here they are!
I am also known as GameWyrm or GameWyrm97. You can also find me at snapshotmc.com
I actually like the idea of the game lighting being separate from the visual lighting. I haven't really got time to read the whole thing, and I understand very little about graphical effects, but I support you on that specific choice, especially since it allows dynamic lighting, colored lighting, etc. by putting it on the rendering engine rather than the game engine.
I do agree that you should be able to opt-out if you want, though. Besides those of us that want to play a modpack on a potato computer, there are players (me sometimes, and a lot of people on this thread already) that find the graphics of the current game to be better in the way of charm and originality.
My avatar is a texture from a small block game I made in Python. It's not very good and it probably won't work if you install it.
I'm very alone in my Minecraft worlds as I don't have a very good internet connection to run a server. If you're like me, you might be interested in my Posse mod suggestion.
> Everything you don't like can be disabled if you don't like it or want a performance boost
I don't think saying "there is an option to turn it (or parts of it) off!" counts as the kind of argument that supports an idea. If anything, to me, that kind of argument actually works against an idea. Options Flags should only be for really, really, major stuff, like say "Enable Cheats", not for every single feature, or feature parts, that some people might like or not like. If you need to rely on a "it can be turned off!" argument as a kind of "lifeboat flotation device" in order to justify (save) an idea, it just means that the idea is, simply put, not really totally able to float all by itself.
I agree that the Video settings need to be more "finer grained", for calibrating performance reason. Still, just how would you propose to "turn off" this lighting system? You'd have BOTH the current lighting system *and* this new lighting system coexisting one alongside the other in the game?!? That would be really weird, as they are clearly incompatible and fundamentally different and lead to a very different gameplay experience. The core functionality of this new light system just couldn't be turned off, at all. Video settings would be needed only for the most CPU/GPU hungry aspects, but almost by definition there would not be (and should not be) any Video setting for the central parts of a new lighting system.
Some parts of this idea are very interesting. But I feel that this suggestion tries to address too many things all at once, while skipping on the most central and vital part, which is my main beef with the idea here:
You say you'll talk about the impact on mob spawning and crops growth elsewhere. But mob spawning is a very central core gameplay feature, here. You go in great details on lots of things, but skip completely the one and only thing that makes this suggestion ruin a very important current gameplay aspect. So yeah, sorry, but I just can't support this.
I recommend you make the whole thing a bit more "focused", and not rely on multiple posts/suggestions to work. If another suggestion by somebody else covers well some aspect of it, just point to that and skip straight to the most vital parts. The more long and complicated something is, the more it is prone to fail. It's not a matter of "they'll like at least half of it". Think of a suggestion working a bit more like a high-rise building: if only one floor fails, the entire tower comes crumbling down. So yeah, building smaller is safer. So So focus on the most central and important parts. I should know, I too tend to write way too long posts lol. But not addressing clearly the core impact on the actual gameplay is your suggestion's real killer here.
- - -
As a sidenote, if only rendered blocks cast shadows, then "just out of reach" blocks will suddenly "jump-cast" shadows when moving a bit nearer.
(or the opposite, shadows will suddenly jump-disappear when moving a bit away - however that is much less of a problem as usually when a player is moving away that typically means that he is also looking in the opposite direction. Also, there is some "hysteresis" when moving away before the chunks really become unloaded, so that kind of event would typically happen only at bigger distances).
Maybe the shadows should be "progressive" i.e. at max render distance, the shadows thrown by loaded blocks are "barely visible", and become more and more strongly contrasting as the shadow-projecting blocks get nearer. That would avoid that kind of "shadow-jumping-straight-into-view, with sunny sky one moment, and big darkness the next moment, just because the player moved only a few blocks.
Well, when it comes to graphics, the only real reason to support it is because you like how it looks. From the old suggestion guide: "See, options should be left to game settings, such as video quality, render distance, difficulty." This falls under video quality, and is thus perfectly acceptable as an optional feature. There's no real way to defend something so subjective, so I'm not really trying to.
Well, I stated before that the only thing you wouldn't be able to disable is the lighting system. You can lessen it, but you can't revert it back to Minecraft's old system 1:1. A mod might be able to simulate it, or even fully recreate it, but the base game won't come with the old system. There would be settings to change the quality of the light, however.
If I were to address every change that every effected mechanic were to make, I'd consider this a wishlist. This suggestion pertains only to graphics. and mobs have nothing to do with graphics. As I said in the post where I talked about it, mob won't spawn on player-placed blocks or near certain mob-repelling blocks, such as lava, and some craftable blocks.
I know I'm taking a risk with this kind of format. However, I don't think I need to get 100% support for this suggestion to be successful. Like an actual video game, no one is going to like everything. In addition, this suggestion isn't complete, and very little of it is just going to be someone else's idea (in fact, the only suggestion I think I'm going to be using is cubic chunks).
That's actually a pretty good idea, making the shadows fade in. Perhaps it can be accomplished by making chunks transparent and then transition to opaque as they get into render distance.
Want to see my suggestions? Here they are!
I am also known as GameWyrm or GameWyrm97. You can also find me at snapshotmc.com
I'm just not understanding the energy being put into this. Having a better game engine was a decent idea in its own right, but this thread is basically about "sum cool stuff" where most of those don't even belong in Minecraft anyway. No matter what direction I mentally approach this from, I just can't see the reason for a Minecraft 2. Not only is it a dead concept, but it's been proven why it's never needed in many other threads.
I don't want to jump on the negative bandwagon, but if shaders and reflections are that important to me. I'll just go get me a mod. Why does this require an entirely new game? This is why you won't see a Garry's Mod 2 or Dwarf Fortress 2. These are the kind of games where one is more than enough. No need to reinvent the wheel just to make it look shiner or have a "2" slapped on it. How many 'parts' does this suggestion have?
The problem isn't so much the support, it's just the necessity of the core idea. The best reasoning behind it is "well people are getting bored of the first game so this will bring people back!!" which is a shallow, cop-outish and mildly naive line of thinking.
The Unofficial Suggestion Guide - Everything you need to know to not make goofy mistakes in a suggestion! Honestly though, you should really go there.
I've added anti-aliasing, and a version of Ouatcheur's suggestion into the main post.
I've also come across this promising-looking 3D voxel sandbox game called Vintage Story. If you want to see what I want from this suggestion, there's a good example. Something that looks nice, runs well, but isn't over-the-top like SEUS.
To be honest, I don't care about this particular thread that much either. I don't buy a game because of its graphics. I just made this so people wouldn't think I meant smoothing out the blocky world when I talked about better graphics in the last thread, and I needed to mention the change to the lighting system.
Yes, there's no need for a Minecraft 2. I said that in my last thread. However, I believe that Mojang and the player base would benefit from a clean break. Eventually Minecraft is going to reach market saturation, and then people are going to stop being interested in it. News of a sequel would have a chance at bringing them back. In addition, some of Minecraft's mechanics could use an overhaul, but we saw with 1.9 what happens when you try to apply such an overhaul to the base game. Finally, I don't consider "just add it to the first game" to be proof we don't need a sequel. For one thing, Minecraft is finished, and it now is stuck with several unbreakable rules. For example, we can't progress past diamond because the armor system is broken and thus any significant post-End content can't really be added. Also, not everything can be added, especially when the old game needs a rewrite. The new engine and the new lighting system simply can't be added into the current game.
Well, if any suggestion is important to you, you can just get a mod, which is why the reply "just use a mod" is banned on this forum, as you are just ignoring the suggestion. Garry's Mod is an informal game engine, so the comparison doesn't work here. Dwarf Fortress isn't even in 1.0 yet, is much smaller than Minecraft, and is only being developed by a couple of people, so it makes sense for them not to work on a sequel in the near future.
Minecraft 2 is not just going to be a shinier version of the original. It's a completely new game, with several overhauls and rebalanced features. I don't have a final count for the number of threads I'm going to make, but my goal is around 15-20.
Frankly, I believe "just add it to the first game" to be just as shallow, cop-outish, and naïve, when it's clear some of my ideas are incompatible with the first game.
Want to see my suggestions? Here they are!
I am also known as GameWyrm or GameWyrm97. You can also find me at snapshotmc.com
Ooh, I know Minecraft Forge has an antialiasing setting by default. Although the game will briefly (5-20 seconds, okay, not so brief) pause for a moment whenever you change the setting.
My avatar is a texture from a small block game I made in Python. It's not very good and it probably won't work if you install it.
I'm very alone in my Minecraft worlds as I don't have a very good internet connection to run a server. If you're like me, you might be interested in my Posse mod suggestion.
Okay, there are some holes in this logic. And this does not work for every single type of game. Sure, you'll get people interested in the idea of Minecraft 2, but when said game comes out, what'll people say? "This is just the first game with shaders!", "The first game was better!" - If you're gonna make another game, you better deliver good enough to not get comments like that.
I can't imagine Mojang putting effort into a new game and updating the first one as well just to add a few new things. Biggest waste of time and resources.
Alright, so we have a better engine. What then? What about the rest of the game? Is it just the first game with real-time reflections? Some of these new graphics don't even fit the style of the game that well. I don't know if I'd want shaders like that. It clashes.
I don't think you understood the "mod" part of the post... Dwarf Fortress, in terms of 'content', is much larger and complex than Minecraft. It will be another 20 years until we get a 1.0 of that game. I made those comparisons because of the type of games they are. Games like that don't need a "2", because there's nothing to "continue" off of. Again, no need to reinvent the wheel and call it "Wheel 2" if it's the game circular thing...
Do you believe this suggestion is worth that many threads?
So far we have a new engine, which is promising. But here we have graphics, some of which are not-so-matching of the game. I will say the image of this new game in your brain is probably something beautiful that none of us can match, but I still can't find a reason for such a game. "It will bring back the interest of players!" isn't enough for me.
Yeah, that guy in the avatar is me. I'm *that* strange. It happens. Sometimes people act like that. Just go with it. I can offer help with suggestions even before you post them - NOT make your suggestions - but help you with them.
Unofficial Suggestions Guide (2.0) - by Theriasis
Unofficial Critics Guide - by yoshi9048
I can't stop people from saying bad things about the game if they don't like it. The idea that I have in mind is something a lot different from the current game, but that won't stop haters from just pointing out the obvious changes and saying everything else is the same, when it clearly isn't.
Look, as this game doesn't exist, we don't know how an endeavor will end up. It might bomb, or it might completely supersede the original. However, we don't have any solid evidence, so could we please move on from the theoretical and just focus on the content of the suggestions?
Well, it's a good thing that I'm planning on suggesting more than just a few new things. Besides, like I said before, they'd hire a new team for this, so it's not like it would be doubling the workload. Yeah, there would be resources spent, but it's not that hard to make a game like Minecraft.
Well, it's a matter of opinion. I like them, as well as thousands or millions of other players who will be playing with shaders and the "Super Duper Graphics Pack."
You made those comparisons? Have you secretly been Theriasis this whole time? That would explain a few things...
Regardless, there have been many times where I compare two things where I'm comparing the same type of thing, and you dismissed them for being too different. However, not all sequels have to be made to continue something. Take Unreal 4, the only thing it's continuing is new features, but it is technically a sequel to Unreal 3. Minecraft 2 would be in the same boat.
Considering I'm planning on overhauling nearly every single mechanic from the base game, yes. I wouldn't be suggesting a whole new game if it was worth any less.
Well, if you want an idea of what I imagine the graphics to look like, check out Vintage Story. However, if you want more reasons for such a game:
Want to see my suggestions? Here they are!
I am also known as GameWyrm or GameWyrm97. You can also find me at snapshotmc.com
The content of the suggestion is still some new sequel, so there's not much to move on from.
Do you happen to know the amount of work a game like this takes? Especially one that's meant to be better? New team or not, is it actually worth the time? I'm just really having trouble with how you would want me to support this. You think I'm just not liking this because I see "Minecraft 2" and decided to 'be a hater' but a new engine and graphics with a bit of steroid injections won't sell me on a sequel to a sandbox game with no lore or story.
Didn't I make both these comparisons in your first thread? Both accounts would be banned years ago if either of us pulled that sockpuppet crap. I do dress like a woman in front of my mirror and pretend to be her though. Don't tell her I said that.
Unreal 3 and 4 might look better, but UT2004 is still the greatest UT out there because they removed a lot of things that made UT2004 one of the funnest games out there. Examples of sequels that could have been equal or better, but weren't. I still think Minecraft is different enough from Unreal for one series to benefit from sequels more than the other...
That game doesn't look that far off from Minecraft. In fact, I can't see much of a difference.
These are some rather generic reasons. Mojang would probably be better off making a game that had a different thing going for it - something original than sequeling what's already one of the most popular games of all time.
Yeah, that guy in the avatar is me. I'm *that* strange. It happens. Sometimes people act like that. Just go with it. I can offer help with suggestions even before you post them - NOT make your suggestions - but help you with them.
Unofficial Suggestions Guide (2.0) - by Theriasis
Unofficial Critics Guide - by yoshi9048
Regardless of whether it's in a sequel or not, though, you can still provide feedback on it (which you have, but I don't want every suggestion in this series to be leapfrogging between the suggestion and whether or not we should have a Minecraft 2).
It's not the easiest type of game out there, but it's certainly not that complex. 3D voxel sandbox games can be found all over, and you can easily find tutorials on how to make your own. Other than generation (which people like theMasterCaver have shown is actually incredibly simple), Minecraft's other mechanics are actually pretty rudimentary, consisting largely of timers and comparing static values.
I was joking, though I don't think you mentioned Dwarf Fortress.
Don't worry, Thericerroz, your secret is safe with me...for now.
Oops, I meant Unreal Engine 4. Either way, what they are continuing is simply increasing or changing the features, not necessarily storyline.
That game has pretty much everything this particular suggestion asks for in graphical fidelity. If you can't see much of a difference, then I think you would say that this suggestion fits Minecraft.
Yeah, I guess they are. I'll be frank, the reason I personally want Minecraft 2 is because I like Minecraft, but I've gotten bored of it, and I want to get back into it without having to depend on mods, and I personally think Mojang would only benefit from the release of such a game.
Want to see my suggestions? Here they are!
I am also known as GameWyrm or GameWyrm97. You can also find me at snapshotmc.com