The only thing i dislike about the whole new mob entry into the game, is the fact that even though we live in 2013 we still have to generate new chunks to get them to spawn .....
One would think that by now there is someone clever enough to be able to make this a bit more map friendly, specially for those that have pre-generated maps (like me) to prevent generation lag (as well on single player as on multiplayer).
The horse are the second worse edition next to witches.They don't even have a nice texture on top of them ruining minecart's and nether travel.Also weren't we supposed to have an API for modding by now because then horses could have just been left in mo' creatures and added to you're own personal jar instead of being an official mob.
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE THE ORIGINAL ARGUMENT, MY STANCE ON THE MATTER HAS CHANGED SOMEWHAT AS OF RECENT UPDATES
As everybody is well aware, Horses have been included in the 13w16a snapshot, and to be honest, I was rather excited and promptly went to go and test it out (it did not disappoint, and their inclusion defiantly has some very exciting potential).
After the initial hype began to die down I suddenly became enlightened to many consequences associated with this addition...
Sadly the addition of horses and donkeys makes nearly every other means of transport obsolete (boats excepted)...
Why spend countless hours building a massive mine-cart track/ station, when you can simply ride a horse to the desired destination...?
Why bother with "mine-carts with chests" when you have a 'pack-mule' that can not only transport your items, but also you across the land in lightning time (even into cave systems, tested and tried)...?
Personally, I always found pig riding to be this amazing compromise between us getting 'mounts' and 'not really giving us mounts'. It let you travel vast distances quickly without the loss of hunger from sprinting, whilst also providing a fun an unique means a land transportation. On the flip side, with an awkward control means (that often didn't work) pigs enlightened the fact that players needed to work hard to achieve luxury transport. Pigs represented the fact that mine-craft was not going to conform to the typical game conventions (such as mounts).
Pigs were never meant to be a replacement for walking, the were simply there for fun and for those who could invest the time to make effective use of them. Horses however do replace walking...
...It really does saddens me to think pigs (and all they stood for) are now nothing...
The ethos of the game has begun its downward spiral... for a game about mining, crafting and building... there sure isn't a lot of it...
You may have different opinions about this (and you are most entitled to them), fair enough... For certain I don't want to see horses removed
...but the game-obsoleting integration...
*dons a fireproof suit to protect from the flames*
This is SO true, the only really good experience i see me having with horses is charging in to battle on kit pvp battles in a medieval landscape. Now that would be awesome.
Not proclaiming anything, I have no more status from which to speak than anybody else here. But I'd like to know ... where does this desire to min/max everything in this game come from? I.e., given what we're talking about, who really cares if a horse is faster/slower than a minecart or whatever ... does it have to always be about that? Isn't there something to be said for creativity and role playing within the game, etc?
Maxing out efficiency isn't evil. If you're playing, say, Starcraft, at a professional level (then you're South Korean, but that's beside the point), then yeah, you definitely want to know exactly how long certain things take, what order to do things in so that no time/resources are wasted, etc.
Or if you're bulding a Magic: The Gathering deck, and you're playing in a tournament against good players ... well, you'd better know what you're doing with the mana curve and number of lands and all of that. If not, you'll get your **** handed to you on a paper plate.
But ... if you're playing this game of Minecraft, and it's not competitive play (a UHC tournament, for example), then why would it matter if you decide to eat nothing but fish and wear dyed leather armor, use an axe for a melee weapon and ride around on a pig? Or a horse, to bring this back to the topic at hand? Must the developers ensure that there is only one way to do things ... like, for instance, code for only one food item, or one of anything really ... because some are more inefficient, and therefore nobody in their right mind would use them?
The atmosphere of the game, I believe, is important. Which is why I supported the addition of bats in the game. I'm a broken record for not adding things when there are awful bugs needing to be fixed, but if it's easy, why not? Add some birds, too! Yeah, it's not old Minecraft anymore ... but why does it have to be? Bats don't do anything? Sure they do. They provide, for some of us, something that's quite valuable: atmosphere.
Where I myself would draw the line is if they add/remove something that either:
1) Screws with any of the established "mine/build/survive" core of the game (when Endermen were picking up all sorts of blocks, for instance, that really tore into the "build" part of the game ... and you see how long that lasted, too).
2) Is so game-changing that it completely closes off parts of the game that depend upon skill. Something like, say ... if Endermen always died at sunup and left their pearls behind, laying all over the place for us to easily pick up. Or if one flint and feather made 40 arrows. Or if jumping gave you XP points (remember that, when they tested it? What if they'd left that in? Lol), or if Strongholds had those glass towers above them like when they tested that snapshot.
IMHO, some folks are getting confused by what Mojang is doing with all this, adding content to a game that's been out for over a year. I think some are just confused ... someone said something like, "I bet the developers put horses in just because people kept asking for them!"
Um, well ... do I even have to explain why that's silly? If so, nevermind - but the rest of you will know what I mean.
To those of you who've dreamed for them, I say enjoy the horses. They won't hurt the rest of us, not one bit.
Still waiting for powered minecarts to get a speed buff.
They're really really deserving of one. 7m/s would be more than adequate.
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I agree. Very well said.