Hey, all. This is my little set of ideas (tried to make them as related as possible- no random-crap wishlists here) centered around making Villagers (and Illagers by extension) plus their abodes feel more lively, varied, and intelligent. All of this is intended to fit into current Minecraft without any major upheavals to the balance; just new content to make things overall better, as opposed to some of my since-deleted massive suggestions that kind of broke several important parts of the game. I'll probably expand this as time goes on, but I want to make sure that it remains true to its core objective: make villagers- and illagers- more lively and varied.
-New Villager AI Changes, Activities, and Other Changes-
Villagers now read books randomly. These look just the same as the ones on the Enchantment Table. Some villagers read more and less- Nitwits and Citizens don't read at all, while Librarians read extensively.
There are now significantly more Citizens (new Nitwits) in each village- one for each door, in fact. Villagers with actual trades are restricted to the old 0.35 villagers per door rule to limit the resources you would otherwise get.
Villagers now run to an empty house to breed if at all possible.
Villagers now spread out to various houses during the night and don't crowd as much. They're assigned to beds now; if a villager doesn't have a bed (due to crowding issues, a bed being destroyed, or hostile mobs in the room) they will stay with another villager. Each house has a door and a bed now; shops do not have beds.
Butchers and other animal husbandry villagers will now have animals of various kinds spawn behind houses with pens. They will feed the animals so that they breed until there are at least 6; after this they will slaughter 2 of them and take the meat.
Fishermen now cast their rod into various bodies of water, excluding farms and the well if they can. They will catch fish in this way.
Smitheries now have actual anvils. Blacksmiths can sometimes be seen hammering on them.
Villagers now restrict their grunts to when they are socializing or interacting with the player, representing them speaking to one another.
Villages now all have one to two beds per house, and no beds in shops. Villagers are still fine with current houses, but in any generated villages they will now have beds. All village buildings now have doors.
Villages now have larger mounds of dirt under various constructions to help smooth them out. Village buildings nearby to each other try to stay on the same level during generation to overall reduce the strangeness of villages.
-New Villager Types and Places-
Governor
Governors wear red robes with golden trim. There is only ever a single Governor in a village, who spawns in a stone Town Hall (which is present within every village). Governors are effectively the "leaders" of a village; they are prioritized by defensive mobs when attacked, and harming or killing them incurs double the standard penalties to popularity as a regular villager. Governors are unique in terms of trades- they offer quests instead of items, represented by "Quest Maps" which offer instructions on reaching a certain point, as well as information on what you need to do. Quests start simple and become more complex as you do more. Quests can range from finding horses for the village, finding lost villagers, conquering a camp of Illagers, defeating an oncoming zombie attack, or others. When you complete what is necessary, you will be informed as such in your HUD, and you can return to the Governor, who will throw you some valuables like Emeralds, Gold, and other such things as a reward, as well as increasing your village popularity. The presence of a Governor in a village ensures that Militia will spawn once per day until they are at a certain percentage of the total village population. If a village lacks a Governor, you can turn any villager into one by giving them a gold bar. They will refuse this if there is a current Governor in place.
Printer
Printers wear white robes (being librarian variants). They sell books of various kinds- blank ones, book-and-quills, enchantment books, and sometimes even written books that can range from short guides on defeating monsters to short stories- and are located in libraries. They can sometimes be found "reading", holding a book (identical to the one on an Enchantment Table) between their arms. Their written books are either informational pieces regarding enchantments, weapons, farming, mobs, and more, or short stories/"novels" centered around villagers and other mobs. Certain humorous books are randomly generated in Mad Libs style.
Militia
Militia wear blue robes (shortened at the waist, like Vindicators'), black hats, and a single brown shoulder belt with paper cartridges hanging off of it. They are unique for being the only armed villagers. Militia will normally walk around like any other villagers, but during the night will steadily march around the village, engaging any hostile mob within 24 blocks. Militia are armed with arquebus; because of their ranged role they will try and pull back when confronted at close quarters. They are usually good shots, but will aim depending on range; at point blank they'll just shoot immediately, but at long range they'll aim for a few seconds.
They will rush to aid villagers being attacked in the village, and will target players of low enough popularity just like Iron Golems. Militia spawn when a Governor is in place to a certain ratio, but can also be created by giving any Villager an arquebus, in which case they will be loyal to the player, like Iron Golems. They will trade gunpowder, paper, cartridges, and arquebuses depending on the trade tier.
Militia created by a player have a set of buttons in their trading GUI. These buttons allow the player to command them to follow or stand still, as well as target other players or leave players alone. This lets you employ them in much the same manner as wolves if you can build enough arquebuses and stand the loss of trading options, and also to guard your house in multiplayer from raiders. As a side note, Iron Golems created by the player now have the same order system.
Apothecary
Apothecaries are variants of Priests. They wear the regular purple robes and vend various potions and splash potions, mostly healing and other beneficial, though they may also trade harming potions. Outright deadly potions are only vended at higher tiers, but you can "soften the deal" by tossing them an Emerald outside of the trading menu- a reference to the apothecary in Romeo and Juliet.
Engineer
Engineers wear dark orange robes with black aprons. They appear in dedicated Redstone Huts; these small buildings contain some Minecarts and Redstone assemblies. Engineers may be traded with for Redstone and various small Redstone devices (such as pistons or redstone repeaters), as well as things like minecarts of varying kinds, tracks, and even TNT. Their Redstone Huts include a "panic room" with a piston door; Engineers will try to run inside this panic room during zombie attacks.
Miner
Miners wear dark gray robes. They tend to move to mineshafts during the day- obviously, to prevent griefing or getting themselves killed, they don't actually break blocks, but merely do so to increase immersion. Miners come back to houses during the night. They trade cobblestone, coal, torches, iron ore, and pickaxes of various kinds, letting you kit yourself up for a mining expedition.
Stonecutter
Part of the same profession as the Miner, the Stonecutter wears dark gray robes. He sells stone, stone bricks, and a variety of specialized stone types for players to use for building projects.
Lumberjack
Lumberjacks wear the same robes as Miners. They mill around like usual during the day. Lumberjacks vend wood of various kinds and axes; this lets builders who have enough Emeralds get exotic woods they might not find for several hundred chunks otherwise. They additionally seek out trees in the village limits and completely cut them down, then replant an appropriate sapling. If mob griefing is disabled, Lumberjacks won't try to cut down trees.
Builder
Builders are the most unique Villager type in terms of AI. They frequently check the population of the village; if it's near 1 to 1 with the door count, and there has not been building or villager breeding in at least one day, the builder will get to work. He will construct a single building, either a house (a building with a bed and population) or a shop (a building with no bed and a special role- e.g. a blacksmith forge or a church). He will construct smaller buildings more often but can build larger ones as well. Once the building is complete he will return to behaving like a normal villager. Builders can only be willing to build when thrown a sufficient quantity of wood; lumberjacks do this much like farmers do to other villagers. If mob griefing is disabled, Builders won't attempt to build.
Nitwit
Nitwits can now sell a wide variety of weird low-level items (representing things they picked up) for dirt-cheap prices. These oddities can include dirt, sticks, string, and flowers, and generally you only need a handful of emeralds for it, if even that. If they pick up an item in their inventory, it will become available on their trading menu; the sole exception is food. Their robes are still green, but now slightly tattered, and they are cross-eyed just like sheep.
Citizen
Citizens wear green robes and are identical to the "old" Nitwits. They are the most common type of Villager and only really exist to add more population to the village, as they lack any sort of trade. Citizens that mate overwhelmingly tend to produce new Citizens, though they can be other professions as well.
Leatherworker
Leatherworkers are tweaked to sell Villager Robes as a common trade. Otherwise they are identical.
Banker
Bankers wear gold-colored robes. They, unlike other villagers, never withdraw trades, but only have a set few trades. They generally function as exchanges, allowing you to trade gold, diamonds, and emeralds for various other types of valuables, at set rates. He takes a bit of the wealth for himself as a fee, balancing the power of his exchange trades. They usually spawn in a Bank- and even then only one- but can spawn naturally as well, just uncommonly.
Cook
Cooks wear white robes with large white hats, similar to the stereotypical "chef hat". Cooks stand near thermopolia during the day and will vend a variety of foods such as cakes, becoming increasingly better as trade tier increases. He mostly vends prepared foods like stew or cake, with meats being relegated to butchers, though for cheap he can trade cooked beef or pork, for far cheaper than his other prepared foods. He can also sell drinks like milk.
Wandering Trader
Wandering traders spawn in the Overworld. They have brown robes and small chests on their backs. They will offer a diverse selection of things to trade with the player, and will run from hostile mobs like normal Villagers. They will not follow the player to their base, but do not despawn either; if a wandering trader is encountered again, he will reduce his prices slightly to thank you for your repeated patronage. Killing a monster that recently injured a wandering trader will lead to him giving you one free random item as thanks.
Town Hall
The spawning point of a Governor, the Town Hall is a medium-sized cobblestone and wood building with large windows. It is dominated by one room with a large meeting table and chairs. There is also a small room at the back with chests of various weapons; usually, this is where new Militia spawn.
Village Mineshaft
Mineshafts generating in villages are nothing like the ones deep underground, being much more primitive. They are generally small cobblestone entrances aboveground, travelling diagonally downwards and lit by torches periodically, then spreading short branches to each side at the bottom. Miners like to enter these during the day, apparently "mining". Wooden pillars appear within it, holding up a stone "roof" which ensures that the shaft does not cave in if it spawns in sand.
Thermopolium
Thermopolia are small stone counters generating on village roadsides. They include cauldrons with water and furnaces. Cooks will try to stand behind these during the day. They include a small chest which is usually empty, but which can sometimes include things like wheat or milk.
Redstone Hut
A small wooden building with a hidden hollow space under the roof, containing the redstone wiring for a system of redstone lamps, all controlled by a single switch in the main room below. Features numerous small redstone mechanisms inside, such as a button-operated hidden dispenser in the wall that can fire out two or three splash potions of healing inside of it before it runs out. A panic room with a piston door is also situated within it. The redstone mechanisms inside work as small "examples" to players of how you can work with redstone.
Bank
Banks are cobblestone buildings that always spawn with a Banker inside. They possess a small obsidian vault with a chestful of various valuables; this is opened by a sticky piston, controlled by a hidden switch behind a painting in the entrance room. Successfully getting into the vault's chest can give you a nice amount of gold, emeralds, and possibly even diamonds, but also confers -10 popularity points with the village.
Fortress
Fortresses are small collections of cobblestone buildings with a large wooden wall with a fencepost on top. They are exclusively populated by a Governor and a complement of Militia. They start with -5 player popularity (owing to them being distrustful of you), but will not immediately attack and are receptive to trades and completing quests. It can be a great place to fortify in multiplayer, but lacks much of the trading power a normal village has, balancing things out.
-New Illager Types and Places-
Colossus
What can be effectively summed up as an Illager-made Iron Golem. Shiny clean due to proper maintenance, no vines, and its eyes are red with an angry, downturned brow. Colossi patrol the upper floors of Woodland Mansions and charge at the player on sight, moving faster than regular Iron Golems. Iron Golems and Colossi are mutually hostile to each other and will attack on sight above all else. Like other Illager types, Colossi attack Villagers on sight.
Mercenary
Mercenaries are the Illager equivalent to Militia. Looking much the same, but wearing black coats instead of blue (and possessing their pale Illager skin), they are a ranged Illager type able to pierce armor. Armed with an arquebus, just like Militia, they will try to keep their distance and shoot at you. They have the same 24-block detection range as a Militia. When killed, they will drop a few cartridges, emeralds, or even their arquebus rarely. Their health is superior to that of a Militia (being 24 instead of 20), but in return their accuracy is poorer, as they aim for less time and generally have a wider cone of fire.
Mage
Mages are effectively "Evoker-lites"; they spawn in Nether Garrisons and Woodland Mansions. They wear plainer black robes than Evokers (without the golden trim, and with an Illusioner-style hood), but are capable of deadly magic nonetheless, casting magic missiles toward you that cause explosive damage without affecting the terrain.
Illager Engineer
Illager Engineers are assumed to be the builders of Colossi and other advanced things the Illagers have (including their redstone-operated "prisons" in their Woodland Mansions). They look like Evokers with their black robes, but have spectacles and no trim on their robes. Nearby Colossi will speed to attack the player if they attack the Illager Engineer, and the Engineer himself can throw Bombs at the player to blow them away.
Encampment
Encampments are a new structure that can generate in the world, especially near Woodland Mansions. Encampments are made of wool tents and small wooden buildings, primarily, and are inhabited by Vindicators and Mercenaries. They are one of the targets that you might have to destroy in a Governor-given quest. The buildings usually contain chests with varying amounts of loot as a reward for clearing out the Encampment.
Nether Garrison
Reachable through Nether Portals in Woodland Mansions, Nether Garrisons are medium-sized cobblestone facilities built in the Nether. They usually contain Mercenaries and large farms for Nether Wart. Rarely, they can be destroyed, with chunks blown out, the farm destroyed, and the Mercenaries usually there missing.
Golem Factory
Representing the fact that the Illagers know how to build and maintain Iron Golems much better than the Villagers do, the Golem Factory is a large stone castle-like building generating in the Overworld. It is composed of a set of halls and rooms; the halls feature many "unfinished golems" in rows that lack pumpkins on them, and rooms feature redstone machinery such as pistons, usually repeatedly moving in a meaningless fashion. The Golem Factory is just as rare as a Woodland Mansion; Evokers will drop a "Supply Line Map" designating a path to it (representing how these factories send Colossi to the Woodland Mansions and other Illager locations). Golem Factories are the hardest nut to crack in the Overworld, featuring a large complement of Mercenaries, many Colossi, and Illager Engineers.
-New Items-
Arquebus
Recipes:
Arquebus: One flint and steel, three iron ingots, three wooden planks of any kind
Cartridge: One iron ingot, one gunpowder, three paper (for four cartridges)
The arquebus is a ranged weapon complementing the Bow, designed after the matchlock guns used by soldiers in the late Medieval Period and the Renaissance. The weapon starts unloaded; to load it, you must hold right-click. A bar will fill up in the arquebus's hotbar slot; this takes three seconds, in which the player is slowed to sneaking speed and the gun tilts upwards in their hands. Letting go of the right mouse button during this will cancel the reload. Once reloading is complete, the gun will emit a clicking sound and one cartridge will be consumed from your inventory. If you mouse over the arquebus in your inventory it will show whether it is loaded or not with a tag.
Holding right-click when the arquebus is loaded slows the player and causes the gun to aim forward, zooming slightly (just like with a Bow). The gun starts out with horrific inaccuracy if you simply right-click to shoot, but aiming for longer lets you get better accuracy, allowing you to snipe with the arquebus. Letting go of the right mouse button fires; a puff of smoke and a loud boom results, and the arquebus lets loose its shot. It cannot fire underwater, but is unaffected by rain for balance purposes.
The bullet of the arquebus travels quickly and is only barely affected by gravity. It travels roughly 100 blocks before it comes to a rest when fired horizontally, leaving a tiny trail of smoke behind it. Arquebus bullets deal 6.5-7 hearts of damage (13-14 damage) per hit, compared to 4.5-5 (9-10 damage) for a bow. The bullets of an arquebus are armor-piercing within 30 blocks. This means that they ignore 1/2 of the armor's damage resistance when they hit it. Arquebus bullets pass through shields, but are then subject to the full damage resistance of the armor behind it. Beyond 30 blocks the bullets do not penetrate shields or deal armor-piercing damage. If the shield is pierced, there will be the sound of splintering wood, while pierced armor shows a visual effect and a loud "clang". These sounds serve to tip off both the shooter and the target that their armor has been pierced.
Bullets fired by mobs (i.e. Militia and Mercenaries) deal only 5 hearts of damage per shot, but retain the armor-piercing power of player-fired bullets.
Bomb
Recipe: Four iron ingots in a diamond shape, one gunpowder in the center, one string in the top-right corner
Bombs are small spherical black bombs similar to a stereotypical bomb. Their explosion is roughly 1/2 the power of a TNT block and with a similar radius, with the exception of them dealing no damage to the terrain. Bombs are throwable like Ender Pearls and have fuses of similar length to TNT; they will sit on the ground after landing until they explode, and have a cooldown similar to the Ender Pearl.
Villager Robes
Villager robes are worn on the chest, and appear to cover the body and legs (just about covering leggings). They offer no armor but automatically grant +5 popularity as long as they are worn. They cause you to fold your arms after standing still for 2 seconds. Additionally, villager robes on armor stands will attract zombies just like real villagers. Robes start brown, but may be dyed like leather to any of the closest villager colors.
I Don't think the Arquebus should or would be added, Minecraft is an E rated game, and Mojang wants to keep it that way, adding a gun (Or Firearm or whatever it is)would not make it Fun for everyone anymore, and would most focus on the more mature audience. The other villagers sound cool but in reality, it's just another way of getting infinite of more resources, and the militia is not a good idea because the whole point of villagers is that they cant defend themselves and adding a villager that can, would defeat the purpose of the iron golem.
I Don't think the Arquebus should or would be added, Minecraft is an E rated game, and Mojang wants to keep it that way, adding a gun (Or Firearm or whatever it is) would not make it Fun for everyone anymore, and would most focus on the more mature audience. The other villagers sound cool but in reality, it's just another way of getting infinite of more resources, and the militia is not a good idea because the whole point of villagers is that they cant defend themselves and adding a villager that can, would defeat the purpose of the iron golem.
No Support
Hi- thanks for the feedback, but I do have to dispute some of your points.
Minecraft is an E10+ rated game. That means that while it's mostly good for everyone, it does include "fantasy violence". That can mean things like stabbing monsters with swords, lighting animals on fire with a flint and steel, or blowing up villages with TNT if the player wishes. An old-timey musket like the Arquebus is really nothing out of place for it- given that all there is to it is a puff of smoke, the target flashing red, and then falling over, it's not any more violent than a sword or bow. It's nothing that kids (especially ones today- who are accustomed to action games like Call of Duty, Counter-Strike, and other military-style titles involving quite more advanced weaponry than the Arquebus) would steer away from, or that would raise its rating.
The villager expansions- being the main part of this suggestion- are meant to breathe more life into villages. Currently there are many things missing- questions like "who runs the village", "what happens when there's no Iron Golem", etcetera. Additionally, villages do tend to be a source of resources currently, though given that villagers switch their trades constantly it's never a true perfect source of infinite resources. That's a tried and proven part of gameplay, but I think villages can be more than that. Players already like the maps to Woodland Mansions, so I figured that having a man-in-charge, so to speak, to hand out quests would be fun, and offer a further incentive to finding villages beyond getting a steady source of farming material.
Iron Golems are effective, yes, but they have numerous problems- namely, things like range, movement speed, and most pressingly their tendency to simply not spawn in small to mid-sized villages. This means that a player- especially on modes like Hard- can lose many villagers to zombie attacks or other hostile mobs. Even when they spawn, Golems can be defeated by a handful of skeletons firing from across a road at them; since hostile mobs will attack Golems first, including skeletons, you can lose that iron investment in a fraction of a second. The only option to save your villagers without building twenty Golems spread throughout the town is to simply wall them into their houses, which leaves the village empty if you keep the walls up and tedious if you tear them down every morning, as you have to make sure every door is blocked.
As a result, you can see why a fast-moving, ranged defender mob is required- one that is spawned in every village by the guaranteed present Governor. I originally considered making some sort of Stone Golem for this, but realized that Militia would work far better, since villagers already have a profession that trades armor and weapons. Because they need to at least be able to defeat a Skeleton one on one, I also decided to give them arquebuses; this lets them penetrate armor- especially some of the natural armor that zombies (the main enemy of villagers) have.
Hopefully that answers your complaints- feel free to respond in kind if you think I haven't addressed something.
Clearly a LOT of thought went into this proposal (Thermopolium! :>: !!)
and the result seems to meet the stated goals of providing more expansive, varied, and interesting interactions with villagers and their variants.
But (you saw that coming, I bet) I think the proposal is a victim of its own success….
Villages & villagers in vanilla MC are something of a sidebar to the mining and the crafting [building]. They provide an alternative source for some resources (eg glowstone & diamond tools), and enable a range of "VillagerTech™" builds (iron farms being the most), yet do not overshadow the basic game.
steam66's ideas would [IMO] shift villages/villagers to so much more a central position that the basic mine and craft game would tend to be the sidebar.
I think implementing this proposal as a mod would result in a very interesting (& probably quite playable) MC variant [& three cheers to steam66 for coming up with the ideas], but would strongly prefer to see this not become part of vanilla MC
.
NO SUPPORT although I would be interested to look at any mod that results…
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Why does everything have to be so stoopid?" Harvey Pekar (from American Splendor)
WARNING: I have an extemely "grindy" playstyle; YMMV — if this doesn't seem fun to you, mine what you can from it & bin the rest.
Clearly a LOT of thought went into this proposal (Thermopolium! :>: !!)
and the result seems to meet the stated goals of providing more expansive, varied, and interesting interactions with villagers and their variants.
But (you saw that coming, I bet) I think the proposal is a victim of its own success….
Villages & villagers in vanilla MC are something of a sidebar to the mining and the crafting [building]. They provide an alternative source for some resources (eg glowstone & diamond tools), and enable a range of "VillagerTech™" builds (iron farms being the most), yet do not overshadow the basic game.
steam66's ideas would [IMO] shift villages/villagers to so much more a central position that the basic mine and craft game would tend to be the sidebar.
I think implementing this proposal as a mod would result in a very interesting (& probably quite playable) MC variant [& three cheers to steam66 for coming up with the ideas], but would strongly prefer to see this not become part of vanilla MC
.
NO SUPPORT although I would be interested to look at any mod that results…
Well, one thing Minecraft has always been known for is choice. You can choose anything you want to do in Survival mode if you can manage it. Some people will settle down and build things themselves, while others will seek out a village and protect and fortify it. Since villages are hubs of civilization, yet are a little bare-bones as of now, this suggestion seeks to rectify it. Sure, many villagers can put out items here, but by and large they're measures of convenience, not replacements for mining and crafting things yourself.
For instance, Miners are good for getting nice quantities of stone, dirt, coal, and sometimes iron, but anything else is something you need to delve into the earth for yourself. Bankers are good for trading your gold for some emeralds or vice versa, but that's the extent of their role- they're effectively exchanges. And since many of these valuable villagers are tied to special buildings and might not respawn very commonly, it puts extra incentive on you to help expand and fortify the village- after all, even if the Militia are there, they probably won't stand against a zombie siege without many villagers dying.
The quests handed out by Governors are a bit big at first glance, but they're really just the same as Woodland Mansion exploration maps, just with differing objectives and rewards for coming back after completing it. If you want, you can completely ignore them- the Governor's only other role is to spawn Militia every morning if the garrison was wiped out by zombies, until you get to a certain ratio in the village population.
Governor: This works, I like the idea of a villager "leader". A quest system could be work, but I would suggest the quests start out simpler (the town needs horses, find and bring one to the village) before heading illager conquests which require higher reputation
Printer: This should be fine, but what will the randomly generated books look like? I'd prefer they be purely comical, part of the fun of minecraft is finding things out on your own (or looking at the free and accessible wiki). Maybe they could be like mad libs, for example "Bob the sheep was feeling tired" (underlined words randomly generated).
Militia: Hmmh... I see both the positives and negatives of this and I'm in between. I'll support it, but I think the militia should be smaller in number and only come out at night in an emergency (which is what a militia is, otherwise it's a guard).
Apothecary: This might actually be useful for me, because I have a very limited knowledge on potions. They could almost be like toad houses in Mario games, buying the ability that best suits your next adventure.
Engineer: These trades would be very useful, so much so I think they need to be rarer. I suggest redstone huts are one of the rarest houses you can find in a village. Also how big would the redstone hut be, most huts are very small but the contraptions this house would have seem to take up a lot of space.
Miner: I don't know about this, while it would be good for immersion I'm worried the mines will become OP. Abandoned mineshafts are one thing, but operational ones? The trades are not very useful, anyone could get dirt/stone/iron in 5 minutes max by mining randomly. If they had to be a trade, they could be scattered around to other villagers such as the blacksmith, nitwits, or wandering villagers. No support for this one.
Lumberjack: This seems balanced and useful.
Florist: I don't think this would be that useful, most players would rather spend their resources on rarer practical materials. I think this would be better as a variant to the lumberjack.
Cooks: Good, especially for cakes which have such a confusing recipe. However I think the food options should be more "involved" meals like stew or pie, which involve more than just putting meat in a furnace.
Banker: This is great. I've always wanted there to be a way to exchange emeralds for something of value. However at the same time, this could be very OP. I think the banker should "take some of the money for himself" as a fee for the exchange, to make it more balanced.
Wandering Trader: This is an interesting idea because it allows for interactions with NPC's beyond villages. For the most part this is great, but I think the trader should "move on" after staying with you for a while without gaining much reputation. It makes more sense that they have "become friends", otherwise it almost seems like you've kidnapped him!
Colossus: I feel like I've read this before.... still it is interesting to have a more "maintained" iron golem.
Mercenary: This would serve as a good "anti-militiamen". Support.
Mage: This sounds sort of like the illusoner (ranged illager). Maybe illusioners could live in the mansions while mages are only in nether garrisons or illager camps? Otherwise I think it would start to get overcrowded. If the illusioner is not to be added, then I suppose this a fine addition that would only make Woodland Mansions more fun.
Arquebus: I think you should change the name to muskets, the name is more recognizable and easier to read/write. As for guns in minecraft, I think the whole community is a mixed bag. A few vocal individuals want all the modern day guns to make it Call of Duty, but nearly everyone else understands that guns could be super OP and ruin the game's theme. The idea of a muskets/arquebus has been suggested before and it seems the community is spilt between it. One side believes that there should never be guns of any type, and the other side (including myself) believes an early renascence gun could work. The musket idea is controversial, so it will gain lots of support and hate.
I don't see the need of creating a second thread just for this gun, as your idea for the arguebus is not the first "musket" thread. Instead keep everything focused here. Most of this thread is about new village professions, not guns. Worst case scenario just give the militiamen bows.
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All in all I like this suggestion a lot, nearly everything I agree with! Villages definitely need spicing up, and this is a great example of how this could be done. I only have a few nitpicks and one profession (miners) whom I don't support.
To be honest, I don't like the idea of a villager leader. I think it'd be cool to have a wise old villager (that could send the player on quests), but not necessarily a king or governor. Villages seem like little communities or colonies rather than states or nations.
Also, I don't feel like the Engineer really fits in with the rest of the villagers. I think something that advanced should be left for the player to mess around with. Think of redstone like a "lost technology" that the player is able to use and configure, but not the villagers. The whole thing also just doesn't seem to fit in with villagers because they are slightly primitive.
I feel like the guards should have bows (maybe crossbows in the bigger villages) rather than muskets/arquebuses. Again, villagers seem a little to primitive for that type of thing.
If muskets/arquebuses were implemented though, they should definitely be called arquebuses. It would reinforce the whole medieval theme by specifying that they are arquebuses, and also maybe teach people the word "arquebus."
To be honest, I don't like the idea of a villager leader. I think it'd be cool to have a wise old villager (that could send the player on quests), but not necessarily a king or governor. Villages seem like little communities or colonies rather than states or nations. Same for me- I've always viewed villages as city-states at best, with any cross-village alliances being economical or temporarily military ones- but there had to be some kind of "head guy" for me to reinforce that medieval feel. He wears red to show that he's the leader, but I didn't want him to be a king or the modern-sounding mayor; hence, Governor- a simple descriptive title- fit best. It also lets him fit a big, BIG village if the player chooses to do what some people do and enact a campaign of expansion for their settlement of choice.
Also, I don't feel like the Engineer really fits in with the rest of the villagers. I've been thinking of axing it, but I'm not sure. I think something that advanced should be left for the player to mess around with. Think of redstone like a "lost technology" that the player is able to use and configure, but not the villagers. The whole thing also just doesn't seem to fit in with villagers because they are slightly primitive. Not really- they have farming, wood and cobblestone houses, libraries, enough magical knowledge to invent and build Iron Golems in their image, and their Illager counterparts can erect enormous mansions as well as use powerful magical spells. They really don't have anything that would stop them from using the magical do-it-all power conducting system that redstone is. But you're right about advanced stuff being player-only; the Engineer is just there to vend redstone or basic devices like levers, as well as have a few devices around his house as examples for new people. I'm thinking to maybe give his hut a piston door with a hidden "panic room" to show how you could build one.
I feel like the guards should have bows (maybe crossbows in the bigger villages) rather than muskets/arquebuses. Again, villagers seem a little to primitive for that type of thing. That was the original plan, but I realized that if it was true a skeleton could match a militiaman one on one, something I didn't want- and throwing armor onto the militia would obscure their robe color and make them look stupid, especially if they wore a helmet. It still takes four shots for a militiaman to terminate a zombie or skeleton, but the superior range of the militia arquebus helps counter that a little.
If muskets/arquebuses were implemented though, they should definitely be called arquebuses. It would reinforce the whole medieval theme by specifying that they are arquebuses, and also maybe teach people the word "arquebus." You read my mind exactly- a "musket" implies a Napoleonic style refined flintlock weapon with a bayonet to the average person. The arquebuses toted by testificates are more primitive weapons, befitting of guys whose technology is around the 16-17th centuries on average; if it wasn't for the fact that the Flint and Steel exists I would have made them outright matchlocks.
Responses in bold. As always, I appreciate the well thought out feedback.
Governor: This works, I like the idea of a villager "leader". A quest system could be work, but I would suggest the quests start out simpler (the town needs horses, find and bring one to the village) before heading illager conquests which require higher reputation. Done and done! That's a really good idea.
Printer: This should be fine, but what will the randomly generated books look like? I'd prefer they be purely comical, part of the fun of minecraft is finding things out on your own (or looking at the free and accessible wiki). Maybe they could be like mad libs, for example "Bob the sheep was feeling tired" (underlined words randomly generated). Added. Some books are not random- mostly just short stories of various genres- but the humorous ones can be Mad Libs indeed. Some books are entirely practical, with things like guides to farming, decrypted fragments of enchantment language from the priests, and soldier's handbooks on fighting things like zombies and Illagers.
Militia: Hmmh... I see both the positives and negatives of this and I'm in between. I'll support it, but I think the militia should be smaller in number and only come out at night in an emergency (which is what a militia is, otherwise it's a guard). They can only spawn to a certain ratio- I haven't worked that out yet but I imagine something like 30% of the population for starters. I'd have called them Guards, but "Militia" sounds cooler and lets me give them a little flair, what with their hats and blue coats. That, and you can command player-created ones to a certain extent.
Apothecary: This might actually be useful for me, because I have a very limited knowledge on potions. They could almost be like toad houses in Mario games, buying the ability that best suits your next adventure. Yeah. For those that just want a few healing potions before going off, without having to muck about with a brewing stand, these guys are your ticket- though for the real good potions you either pony up a lotta emeralds or make it yourself.
Engineer: These trades would be very useful, so much so I think they need to be rarer. I suggest redstone huts are one of the rarest houses you can find in a village. Also how big would the redstone hut be, most huts are very small but the contraptions this house would have seem to take up a lot of space. It's small to medium sized. Just a hut with a few basic redstone machines and a lighting system- I think Engineers would be the resident "mad scientists" of villages, who fill their houses with redstone devices and spend their time tinkering with that substance.
Miner: I don't know about this, while it would be good for immersion I'm worried the mines will become OP. Abandoned mineshafts are one thing, but operational ones? The trades are not very useful, anyone could get dirt/stone/iron in 5 minutes max by mining randomly. If they had to be a trade, they could be scattered around to other villagers such as the blacksmith, nitwits, or wandering villagers. No support for this one. Changed it so that they vend more mining-related usages. Their mineshafts are very different from abandoned ones- villagers just tunnel diagonally into the ground to a limited extent and erect a little stone cover over the hole. Nothing like the advanced ones underground. This gives you a start to mining if you so wish, but miners just go here for the sake of immersion. Their stone-related products were shifted to the new Stonecutter profession.
Lumberjack: This seems balanced and useful.
Florist: I don't think this would be that useful, most players would rather spend their resources on rarer practical materials. I think this would be better as a variant to the lumberjack. Replaced with Nitwits putting out various odd crap, mostly things you can pick up. Figured it would be a fitting trade for them.
Cooks: Good, especially for cakes which have such a confusing recipe. However I think the food options should be more "involved" meals like stew or pie, which involve more than just putting meat in a furnace. Done.
Banker: This is great. I've always wanted there to be a way to exchange emeralds for something of value. However at the same time, this could be very OP. I think the banker should "take some of the money for himself" as a fee for the exchange, to make it more balanced. Done.
Wandering Trader: This is an interesting idea because it allows for interactions with NPC's beyond villages. For the most part this is great, but I think the trader should "move on" after staying with you for a while without gaining much reputation. It makes more sense that they have "become friends", otherwise it almost seems like you've kidnapped him! Right- added these.
Colossus: I feel like I've read this before.... still it is interesting to have a more "maintained" iron golem. This was the same thing (name and all) from my previous Civilized Update suggestion- a long-winded one that included a crapton of features and generally felt more like a mod than part of vanilla Minecraft when I looked at it again. It was a good idea in there, though, so I rescued it for this.
Mercenary: This would serve as a good "anti-militiamen". Support.
Mage: This sounds sort of like the illusoner (ranged illager). Maybe illusioners could live in the mansions while mages are only in nether garrisons or illager camps? Otherwise I think it would start to get overcrowded. If the illusioner is not to be added, then I suppose this a fine addition that would only make Woodland Mansions more fun.
Arquebus: I think you should change the name to muskets, the name is more recognizable and easier to read/write. As for guns in minecraft, I think the whole community is a mixed bag. A few vocal individuals want all the modern day guns to make it Call of Duty, but nearly everyone else understands that guns could be super OP and ruin the game's theme. The idea of a muskets/arquebus has been suggested before and it seems the community is spilt between it. One side believes that there should never be guns of any type, and the other side (including myself) believes an early renascence gun could work. The musket idea is controversial, so it will gain lots of support and hate.
I don't see the need of creating a second thread just for this gun, as your idea for the arguebus is not the first "musket" thread. Instead keep everything focused here. Most of this thread is about new village professions, not guns. Worst case scenario just give the militiamen bows.
________________________
All in all I like this suggestion a lot, nearly everything I agree with! Villages definitely need spicing up, and this is a great example of how this could be done. I only have a few nitpicks and one profession (miners) whom I don't support.
Support.
Responses in bold. Thanks for the support!
... Now if I can only just figure out multi-quoting...
Sorry, I haven't read all of it yet. I realized you want to make the nitwit able to trade items. I would just like to say that it is useful having the nitwit be unable to trade items for command purposes.
Sorry, I haven't read all of it yet. I realized you want to make the nitwit able to trade items. I would just like to say that it is useful having the nitwit be unable to trade items for command purposes.
Hm. That's valid. I believe I might edit the current Nitwit into a new "village idiot" class with a ragged robe; the existing non-trading Nitwits might be renamed Townsmen or Citizens or something. I've thought about making a "factory" building where Nitwits/Townsmen would go into during the day to "work" just like how Miners spend their day in a village mineshaft.
EDIT: From now on I'll be doing multi-quoting in posts. Thanks to fishg for showing me the ropes.
Here's a few sketches I did of various Villager and Illager types for a few minutes. Please forgive the bad quality and lighting- not a lot of knowledge for picture-taking, and just wanted to share my visualizations of the various professions with everyone.
Minor update- ported some of Wolftopia's ideas from Improved Player-Villager Interactions (previously used with consent in the Civilized Update idea), as well as some of my own, into a new tab. Additionally added Citizens (old Nitwits), redesigned Nitwits to be better village idiots in aesthetic, and added Builders (attempting to tackle the oft-attempted "constructing villager" idea in my own way).
Hey, all. This is my little set of ideas (tried to make them as related as possible- no random-crap wishlists here) centered around making Villagers (and Illagers by extension) plus their abodes feel more lively, varied, and intelligent. All of this is intended to fit into current Minecraft without any major upheavals to the balance; just new content to make things overall better, as opposed to some of my since-deleted massive suggestions that kind of broke several important parts of the game. I'll probably expand this as time goes on, but I want to make sure that it remains true to its core objective: make villagers- and illagers- more lively and varied.
-New Villager AI Changes, Activities, and Other Changes-
Credit to Wolftopia for the AI change ideas from Improved Player-Villager Interactions.
Villagers now read books randomly. These look just the same as the ones on the Enchantment Table. Some villagers read more and less- Nitwits and Citizens don't read at all, while Librarians read extensively.
There are now significantly more Citizens (new Nitwits) in each village- one for each door, in fact. Villagers with actual trades are restricted to the old 0.35 villagers per door rule to limit the resources you would otherwise get.
Villagers now run to an empty house to breed if at all possible.
Villagers now spread out to various houses during the night and don't crowd as much. They're assigned to beds now; if a villager doesn't have a bed (due to crowding issues, a bed being destroyed, or hostile mobs in the room) they will stay with another villager. Each house has a door and a bed now; shops do not have beds.
Butchers and other animal husbandry villagers will now have animals of various kinds spawn behind houses with pens. They will feed the animals so that they breed until there are at least 6; after this they will slaughter 2 of them and take the meat.
Fishermen now cast their rod into various bodies of water, excluding farms and the well if they can. They will catch fish in this way.
Smitheries now have actual anvils. Blacksmiths can sometimes be seen hammering on them.
Villagers now restrict their grunts to when they are socializing or interacting with the player, representing them speaking to one another.
Villages now all have one to two beds per house, and no beds in shops. Villagers are still fine with current houses, but in any generated villages they will now have beds. All village buildings now have doors.
Villages now have larger mounds of dirt under various constructions to help smooth them out. Village buildings nearby to each other try to stay on the same level during generation to overall reduce the strangeness of villages.
-New Villager Types and Places-
Governor
Governors wear red robes with golden trim. There is only ever a single Governor in a village, who spawns in a stone Town Hall (which is present within every village). Governors are effectively the "leaders" of a village; they are prioritized by defensive mobs when attacked, and harming or killing them incurs double the standard penalties to popularity as a regular villager. Governors are unique in terms of trades- they offer quests instead of items, represented by "Quest Maps" which offer instructions on reaching a certain point, as well as information on what you need to do. Quests start simple and become more complex as you do more. Quests can range from finding horses for the village, finding lost villagers, conquering a camp of Illagers, defeating an oncoming zombie attack, or others. When you complete what is necessary, you will be informed as such in your HUD, and you can return to the Governor, who will throw you some valuables like Emeralds, Gold, and other such things as a reward, as well as increasing your village popularity. The presence of a Governor in a village ensures that Militia will spawn once per day until they are at a certain percentage of the total village population. If a village lacks a Governor, you can turn any villager into one by giving them a gold bar. They will refuse this if there is a current Governor in place.
Printer
Printers wear white robes (being librarian variants). They sell books of various kinds- blank ones, book-and-quills, enchantment books, and sometimes even written books that can range from short guides on defeating monsters to short stories- and are located in libraries. They can sometimes be found "reading", holding a book (identical to the one on an Enchantment Table) between their arms. Their written books are either informational pieces regarding enchantments, weapons, farming, mobs, and more, or short stories/"novels" centered around villagers and other mobs. Certain humorous books are randomly generated in Mad Libs style.
Militia
Militia wear blue robes (shortened at the waist, like Vindicators'), black hats, and a single brown shoulder belt with paper cartridges hanging off of it. They are unique for being the only armed villagers. Militia will normally walk around like any other villagers, but during the night will steadily march around the village, engaging any hostile mob within 24 blocks. Militia are armed with arquebus; because of their ranged role they will try and pull back when confronted at close quarters. They are usually good shots, but will aim depending on range; at point blank they'll just shoot immediately, but at long range they'll aim for a few seconds.
They will rush to aid villagers being attacked in the village, and will target players of low enough popularity just like Iron Golems. Militia spawn when a Governor is in place to a certain ratio, but can also be created by giving any Villager an arquebus, in which case they will be loyal to the player, like Iron Golems. They will trade gunpowder, paper, cartridges, and arquebuses depending on the trade tier.
Militia created by a player have a set of buttons in their trading GUI. These buttons allow the player to command them to follow or stand still, as well as target other players or leave players alone. This lets you employ them in much the same manner as wolves if you can build enough arquebuses and stand the loss of trading options, and also to guard your house in multiplayer from raiders. As a side note, Iron Golems created by the player now have the same order system.
Apothecary
Apothecaries are variants of Priests. They wear the regular purple robes and vend various potions and splash potions, mostly healing and other beneficial, though they may also trade harming potions. Outright deadly potions are only vended at higher tiers, but you can "soften the deal" by tossing them an Emerald outside of the trading menu- a reference to the apothecary in Romeo and Juliet.
Engineer
Engineers wear dark orange robes with black aprons. They appear in dedicated Redstone Huts; these small buildings contain some Minecarts and Redstone assemblies. Engineers may be traded with for Redstone and various small Redstone devices (such as pistons or redstone repeaters), as well as things like minecarts of varying kinds, tracks, and even TNT. Their Redstone Huts include a "panic room" with a piston door; Engineers will try to run inside this panic room during zombie attacks.
Miner
Miners wear dark gray robes. They tend to move to mineshafts during the day- obviously, to prevent griefing or getting themselves killed, they don't actually break blocks, but merely do so to increase immersion. Miners come back to houses during the night. They trade cobblestone, coal, torches, iron ore, and pickaxes of various kinds, letting you kit yourself up for a mining expedition.
Stonecutter
Part of the same profession as the Miner, the Stonecutter wears dark gray robes. He sells stone, stone bricks, and a variety of specialized stone types for players to use for building projects.
Lumberjack
Lumberjacks wear the same robes as Miners. They mill around like usual during the day. Lumberjacks vend wood of various kinds and axes; this lets builders who have enough Emeralds get exotic woods they might not find for several hundred chunks otherwise. They additionally seek out trees in the village limits and completely cut them down, then replant an appropriate sapling. If mob griefing is disabled, Lumberjacks won't try to cut down trees.
Builder
Builders are the most unique Villager type in terms of AI. They frequently check the population of the village; if it's near 1 to 1 with the door count, and there has not been building or villager breeding in at least one day, the builder will get to work. He will construct a single building, either a house (a building with a bed and population) or a shop (a building with no bed and a special role- e.g. a blacksmith forge or a church). He will construct smaller buildings more often but can build larger ones as well. Once the building is complete he will return to behaving like a normal villager. Builders can only be willing to build when thrown a sufficient quantity of wood; lumberjacks do this much like farmers do to other villagers. If mob griefing is disabled, Builders won't attempt to build.
Nitwit
Nitwits can now sell a wide variety of weird low-level items (representing things they picked up) for dirt-cheap prices. These oddities can include dirt, sticks, string, and flowers, and generally you only need a handful of emeralds for it, if even that. If they pick up an item in their inventory, it will become available on their trading menu; the sole exception is food. Their robes are still green, but now slightly tattered, and they are cross-eyed just like sheep.
Citizen
Citizens wear green robes and are identical to the "old" Nitwits. They are the most common type of Villager and only really exist to add more population to the village, as they lack any sort of trade. Citizens that mate overwhelmingly tend to produce new Citizens, though they can be other professions as well.
Leatherworker
Leatherworkers are tweaked to sell Villager Robes as a common trade. Otherwise they are identical.
Banker
Bankers wear gold-colored robes. They, unlike other villagers, never withdraw trades, but only have a set few trades. They generally function as exchanges, allowing you to trade gold, diamonds, and emeralds for various other types of valuables, at set rates. He takes a bit of the wealth for himself as a fee, balancing the power of his exchange trades. They usually spawn in a Bank- and even then only one- but can spawn naturally as well, just uncommonly.
Cook
Cooks wear white robes with large white hats, similar to the stereotypical "chef hat". Cooks stand near thermopolia during the day and will vend a variety of foods such as cakes, becoming increasingly better as trade tier increases. He mostly vends prepared foods like stew or cake, with meats being relegated to butchers, though for cheap he can trade cooked beef or pork, for far cheaper than his other prepared foods. He can also sell drinks like milk.
Wandering Trader
Wandering traders spawn in the Overworld. They have brown robes and small chests on their backs. They will offer a diverse selection of things to trade with the player, and will run from hostile mobs like normal Villagers. They will not follow the player to their base, but do not despawn either; if a wandering trader is encountered again, he will reduce his prices slightly to thank you for your repeated patronage. Killing a monster that recently injured a wandering trader will lead to him giving you one free random item as thanks.
Town Hall
The spawning point of a Governor, the Town Hall is a medium-sized cobblestone and wood building with large windows. It is dominated by one room with a large meeting table and chairs. There is also a small room at the back with chests of various weapons; usually, this is where new Militia spawn.
Village Mineshaft
Mineshafts generating in villages are nothing like the ones deep underground, being much more primitive. They are generally small cobblestone entrances aboveground, travelling diagonally downwards and lit by torches periodically, then spreading short branches to each side at the bottom. Miners like to enter these during the day, apparently "mining". Wooden pillars appear within it, holding up a stone "roof" which ensures that the shaft does not cave in if it spawns in sand.
Thermopolium
Thermopolia are small stone counters generating on village roadsides. They include cauldrons with water and furnaces. Cooks will try to stand behind these during the day. They include a small chest which is usually empty, but which can sometimes include things like wheat or milk.
Redstone Hut
A small wooden building with a hidden hollow space under the roof, containing the redstone wiring for a system of redstone lamps, all controlled by a single switch in the main room below. Features numerous small redstone mechanisms inside, such as a button-operated hidden dispenser in the wall that can fire out two or three splash potions of healing inside of it before it runs out. A panic room with a piston door is also situated within it. The redstone mechanisms inside work as small "examples" to players of how you can work with redstone.
Bank
Banks are cobblestone buildings that always spawn with a Banker inside. They possess a small obsidian vault with a chestful of various valuables; this is opened by a sticky piston, controlled by a hidden switch behind a painting in the entrance room. Successfully getting into the vault's chest can give you a nice amount of gold, emeralds, and possibly even diamonds, but also confers -10 popularity points with the village.
Fortress
Fortresses are small collections of cobblestone buildings with a large wooden wall with a fencepost on top. They are exclusively populated by a Governor and a complement of Militia. They start with -5 player popularity (owing to them being distrustful of you), but will not immediately attack and are receptive to trades and completing quests. It can be a great place to fortify in multiplayer, but lacks much of the trading power a normal village has, balancing things out.
-New Illager Types and Places-
Colossus
What can be effectively summed up as an Illager-made Iron Golem. Shiny clean due to proper maintenance, no vines, and its eyes are red with an angry, downturned brow. Colossi patrol the upper floors of Woodland Mansions and charge at the player on sight, moving faster than regular Iron Golems. Iron Golems and Colossi are mutually hostile to each other and will attack on sight above all else. Like other Illager types, Colossi attack Villagers on sight.
Mercenary
Mercenaries are the Illager equivalent to Militia. Looking much the same, but wearing black coats instead of blue (and possessing their pale Illager skin), they are a ranged Illager type able to pierce armor. Armed with an arquebus, just like Militia, they will try to keep their distance and shoot at you. They have the same 24-block detection range as a Militia. When killed, they will drop a few cartridges, emeralds, or even their arquebus rarely. Their health is superior to that of a Militia (being 24 instead of 20), but in return their accuracy is poorer, as they aim for less time and generally have a wider cone of fire.
Mage
Mages are effectively "Evoker-lites"; they spawn in Nether Garrisons and Woodland Mansions. They wear plainer black robes than Evokers (without the golden trim, and with an Illusioner-style hood), but are capable of deadly magic nonetheless, casting magic missiles toward you that cause explosive damage without affecting the terrain.
Illager Engineer
Illager Engineers are assumed to be the builders of Colossi and other advanced things the Illagers have (including their redstone-operated "prisons" in their Woodland Mansions). They look like Evokers with their black robes, but have spectacles and no trim on their robes. Nearby Colossi will speed to attack the player if they attack the Illager Engineer, and the Engineer himself can throw Bombs at the player to blow them away.
Encampment
Encampments are a new structure that can generate in the world, especially near Woodland Mansions. Encampments are made of wool tents and small wooden buildings, primarily, and are inhabited by Vindicators and Mercenaries. They are one of the targets that you might have to destroy in a Governor-given quest. The buildings usually contain chests with varying amounts of loot as a reward for clearing out the Encampment.
Nether Garrison
Reachable through Nether Portals in Woodland Mansions, Nether Garrisons are medium-sized cobblestone facilities built in the Nether. They usually contain Mercenaries and large farms for Nether Wart. Rarely, they can be destroyed, with chunks blown out, the farm destroyed, and the Mercenaries usually there missing.
Golem Factory
Representing the fact that the Illagers know how to build and maintain Iron Golems much better than the Villagers do, the Golem Factory is a large stone castle-like building generating in the Overworld. It is composed of a set of halls and rooms; the halls feature many "unfinished golems" in rows that lack pumpkins on them, and rooms feature redstone machinery such as pistons, usually repeatedly moving in a meaningless fashion. The Golem Factory is just as rare as a Woodland Mansion; Evokers will drop a "Supply Line Map" designating a path to it (representing how these factories send Colossi to the Woodland Mansions and other Illager locations). Golem Factories are the hardest nut to crack in the Overworld, featuring a large complement of Mercenaries, many Colossi, and Illager Engineers.
-New Items-
Arquebus
Recipes:
Arquebus: One flint and steel, three iron ingots, three wooden planks of any kind
Cartridge: One iron ingot, one gunpowder, three paper (for four cartridges)
The arquebus is a ranged weapon complementing the Bow, designed after the matchlock guns used by soldiers in the late Medieval Period and the Renaissance. The weapon starts unloaded; to load it, you must hold right-click. A bar will fill up in the arquebus's hotbar slot; this takes three seconds, in which the player is slowed to sneaking speed and the gun tilts upwards in their hands. Letting go of the right mouse button during this will cancel the reload. Once reloading is complete, the gun will emit a clicking sound and one cartridge will be consumed from your inventory. If you mouse over the arquebus in your inventory it will show whether it is loaded or not with a tag.
Holding right-click when the arquebus is loaded slows the player and causes the gun to aim forward, zooming slightly (just like with a Bow). The gun starts out with horrific inaccuracy if you simply right-click to shoot, but aiming for longer lets you get better accuracy, allowing you to snipe with the arquebus. Letting go of the right mouse button fires; a puff of smoke and a loud boom results, and the arquebus lets loose its shot. It cannot fire underwater, but is unaffected by rain for balance purposes.
The bullet of the arquebus travels quickly and is only barely affected by gravity. It travels roughly 100 blocks before it comes to a rest when fired horizontally, leaving a tiny trail of smoke behind it. Arquebus bullets deal 6.5-7 hearts of damage (13-14 damage) per hit, compared to 4.5-5 (9-10 damage) for a bow. The bullets of an arquebus are armor-piercing within 30 blocks. This means that they ignore 1/2 of the armor's damage resistance when they hit it. Arquebus bullets pass through shields, but are then subject to the full damage resistance of the armor behind it. Beyond 30 blocks the bullets do not penetrate shields or deal armor-piercing damage. If the shield is pierced, there will be the sound of splintering wood, while pierced armor shows a visual effect and a loud "clang". These sounds serve to tip off both the shooter and the target that their armor has been pierced.
Bullets fired by mobs (i.e. Militia and Mercenaries) deal only 5 hearts of damage per shot, but retain the armor-piercing power of player-fired bullets.
Bomb
Recipe: Four iron ingots in a diamond shape, one gunpowder in the center, one string in the top-right corner
Bombs are small spherical black bombs similar to a stereotypical bomb. Their explosion is roughly 1/2 the power of a TNT block and with a similar radius, with the exception of them dealing no damage to the terrain. Bombs are throwable like Ender Pearls and have fuses of similar length to TNT; they will sit on the ground after landing until they explode, and have a cooldown similar to the Ender Pearl.
Villager Robes
Villager robes are worn on the chest, and appear to cover the body and legs (just about covering leggings). They offer no armor but automatically grant +5 popularity as long as they are worn. They cause you to fold your arms after standing still for 2 seconds. Additionally, villager robes on armor stands will attract zombies just like real villagers. Robes start brown, but may be dyed like leather to any of the closest villager colors.
We're doing a mod project, check it out:
I Don't think the Arquebus should or would be added, Minecraft is an E rated game, and Mojang wants to keep it that way, adding a gun (Or Firearm or whatever it is) would not make it Fun for everyone anymore, and would most focus on the more mature audience. The other villagers sound cool but in reality, it's just another way of getting infinite of more resources, and the militia is not a good idea because the whole point of villagers is that they cant defend themselves and adding a villager that can, would defeat the purpose of the iron golem.
No Support
Hi- thanks for the feedback, but I do have to dispute some of your points.
Minecraft is an E10+ rated game. That means that while it's mostly good for everyone, it does include "fantasy violence". That can mean things like stabbing monsters with swords, lighting animals on fire with a flint and steel, or blowing up villages with TNT if the player wishes. An old-timey musket like the Arquebus is really nothing out of place for it- given that all there is to it is a puff of smoke, the target flashing red, and then falling over, it's not any more violent than a sword or bow. It's nothing that kids (especially ones today- who are accustomed to action games like Call of Duty, Counter-Strike, and other military-style titles involving quite more advanced weaponry than the Arquebus) would steer away from, or that would raise its rating.
The villager expansions- being the main part of this suggestion- are meant to breathe more life into villages. Currently there are many things missing- questions like "who runs the village", "what happens when there's no Iron Golem", etcetera. Additionally, villages do tend to be a source of resources currently, though given that villagers switch their trades constantly it's never a true perfect source of infinite resources. That's a tried and proven part of gameplay, but I think villages can be more than that. Players already like the maps to Woodland Mansions, so I figured that having a man-in-charge, so to speak, to hand out quests would be fun, and offer a further incentive to finding villages beyond getting a steady source of farming material.
Iron Golems are effective, yes, but they have numerous problems- namely, things like range, movement speed, and most pressingly their tendency to simply not spawn in small to mid-sized villages. This means that a player- especially on modes like Hard- can lose many villagers to zombie attacks or other hostile mobs. Even when they spawn, Golems can be defeated by a handful of skeletons firing from across a road at them; since hostile mobs will attack Golems first, including skeletons, you can lose that iron investment in a fraction of a second. The only option to save your villagers without building twenty Golems spread throughout the town is to simply wall them into their houses, which leaves the village empty if you keep the walls up and tedious if you tear them down every morning, as you have to make sure every door is blocked.
As a result, you can see why a fast-moving, ranged defender mob is required- one that is spawned in every village by the guaranteed present Governor. I originally considered making some sort of Stone Golem for this, but realized that Militia would work far better, since villagers already have a profession that trades armor and weapons. Because they need to at least be able to defeat a Skeleton one on one, I also decided to give them arquebuses; this lets them penetrate armor- especially some of the natural armor that zombies (the main enemy of villagers) have.
Hopefully that answers your complaints- feel free to respond in kind if you think I haven't addressed something.
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Clearly a LOT of thought went into this proposal (Thermopolium! :>: !!)
and the result seems to meet the stated goals of providing more expansive, varied, and interesting interactions with villagers and their variants.
But (you saw that coming, I bet) I think the proposal is a victim of its own success….
Villages & villagers in vanilla MC are something of a sidebar to the mining and the crafting [building]. They provide an alternative source for some resources (eg glowstone & diamond tools), and enable a range of "VillagerTech™" builds (iron farms being the most), yet do not overshadow the basic game.
steam66's ideas would [IMO] shift villages/villagers to so much more a central position that the basic mine and craft game would tend to be the sidebar.
I think implementing this proposal as a mod would result in a very interesting (& probably quite playable) MC variant [& three cheers to steam66 for coming up with the ideas], but would strongly prefer to see this not become part of vanilla MC
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NO SUPPORT although I would be interested to look at any mod that results…
Well, one thing Minecraft has always been known for is choice. You can choose anything you want to do in Survival mode if you can manage it. Some people will settle down and build things themselves, while others will seek out a village and protect and fortify it. Since villages are hubs of civilization, yet are a little bare-bones as of now, this suggestion seeks to rectify it. Sure, many villagers can put out items here, but by and large they're measures of convenience, not replacements for mining and crafting things yourself.
For instance, Miners are good for getting nice quantities of stone, dirt, coal, and sometimes iron, but anything else is something you need to delve into the earth for yourself. Bankers are good for trading your gold for some emeralds or vice versa, but that's the extent of their role- they're effectively exchanges. And since many of these valuable villagers are tied to special buildings and might not respawn very commonly, it puts extra incentive on you to help expand and fortify the village- after all, even if the Militia are there, they probably won't stand against a zombie siege without many villagers dying.
The quests handed out by Governors are a bit big at first glance, but they're really just the same as Woodland Mansion exploration maps, just with differing objectives and rewards for coming back after completing it. If you want, you can completely ignore them- the Governor's only other role is to spawn Militia every morning if the garrison was wiped out by zombies, until you get to a certain ratio in the village population.
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Governor: This works, I like the idea of a villager "leader". A quest system could be work, but I would suggest the quests start out simpler (the town needs horses, find and bring one to the village) before heading illager conquests which require higher reputation
Printer: This should be fine, but what will the randomly generated books look like? I'd prefer they be purely comical, part of the fun of minecraft is finding things out on your own (or looking at the free and accessible wiki). Maybe they could be like mad libs, for example "Bob the sheep was feeling tired" (underlined words randomly generated).
Militia: Hmmh... I see both the positives and negatives of this and I'm in between. I'll support it, but I think the militia should be smaller in number and only come out at night in an emergency (which is what a militia is, otherwise it's a guard).
Apothecary: This might actually be useful for me, because I have a very limited knowledge on potions. They could almost be like toad houses in Mario games, buying the ability that best suits your next adventure.
Engineer: These trades would be very useful, so much so I think they need to be rarer. I suggest redstone huts are one of the rarest houses you can find in a village. Also how big would the redstone hut be, most huts are very small but the contraptions this house would have seem to take up a lot of space.
Miner: I don't know about this, while it would be good for immersion I'm worried the mines will become OP. Abandoned mineshafts are one thing, but operational ones? The trades are not very useful, anyone could get dirt/stone/iron in 5 minutes max by mining randomly. If they had to be a trade, they could be scattered around to other villagers such as the blacksmith, nitwits, or wandering villagers. No support for this one.
Lumberjack: This seems balanced and useful.
Florist: I don't think this would be that useful, most players would rather spend their resources on rarer practical materials. I think this would be better as a variant to the lumberjack.
Cooks: Good, especially for cakes which have such a confusing recipe. However I think the food options should be more "involved" meals like stew or pie, which involve more than just putting meat in a furnace.
Banker: This is great. I've always wanted there to be a way to exchange emeralds for something of value. However at the same time, this could be very OP. I think the banker should "take some of the money for himself" as a fee for the exchange, to make it more balanced.
Wandering Trader: This is an interesting idea because it allows for interactions with NPC's beyond villages. For the most part this is great, but I think the trader should "move on" after staying with you for a while without gaining much reputation. It makes more sense that they have "become friends", otherwise it almost seems like you've kidnapped him!
Colossus: I feel like I've read this before.... still it is interesting to have a more "maintained" iron golem.
Mercenary: This would serve as a good "anti-militiamen". Support.
Mage: This sounds sort of like the illusoner (ranged illager). Maybe illusioners could live in the mansions while mages are only in nether garrisons or illager camps? Otherwise I think it would start to get overcrowded. If the illusioner is not to be added, then I suppose this a fine addition that would only make Woodland Mansions more fun.
Arquebus: I think you should change the name to muskets, the name is more recognizable and easier to read/write. As for guns in minecraft, I think the whole community is a mixed bag. A few vocal individuals want all the modern day guns to make it Call of Duty, but nearly everyone else understands that guns could be super OP and ruin the game's theme. The idea of a muskets/arquebus has been suggested before and it seems the community is spilt between it. One side believes that there should never be guns of any type, and the other side (including myself) believes an early renascence gun could work. The musket idea is controversial, so it will gain lots of support and hate.
I don't see the need of creating a second thread just for this gun, as your idea for the arguebus is not the first "musket" thread. Instead keep everything focused here. Most of this thread is about new village professions, not guns. Worst case scenario just give the militiamen bows.
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All in all I like this suggestion a lot, nearly everything I agree with! Villages definitely need spicing up, and this is a great example of how this could be done. I only have a few nitpicks and one profession (miners) whom I don't support.
Support.
To be honest, I don't like the idea of a villager leader. I think it'd be cool to have a wise old villager (that could send the player on quests), but not necessarily a king or governor. Villages seem like little communities or colonies rather than states or nations.
Also, I don't feel like the Engineer really fits in with the rest of the villagers. I think something that advanced should be left for the player to mess around with. Think of redstone like a "lost technology" that the player is able to use and configure, but not the villagers. The whole thing also just doesn't seem to fit in with villagers because they are slightly primitive.
I feel like the guards should have bows (maybe crossbows in the bigger villages) rather than muskets/arquebuses. Again, villagers seem a little to primitive for that type of thing.
If muskets/arquebuses were implemented though, they should definitely be called arquebuses. It would reinforce the whole medieval theme by specifying that they are arquebuses, and also maybe teach people the word "arquebus."
Check out my suggestions! Here is one of them:
Responses in bold. As always, I appreciate the well thought out feedback.
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Responses in bold. Thanks for the support!
... Now if I can only just figure out multi-quoting...
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Sorry, I haven't read all of it yet. I realized you want to make the nitwit able to trade items. I would just like to say that it is useful having the nitwit be unable to trade items for command purposes.
Hm. That's valid. I believe I might edit the current Nitwit into a new "village idiot" class with a ragged robe; the existing non-trading Nitwits might be renamed Townsmen or Citizens or something. I've thought about making a "factory" building where Nitwits/Townsmen would go into during the day to "work" just like how Miners spend their day in a village mineshaft.
EDIT: From now on I'll be doing multi-quoting in posts. Thanks to fishg for showing me the ropes.
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Here's a few sketches I did of various Villager and Illager types for a few minutes. Please forgive the bad quality and lighting- not a lot of knowledge for picture-taking, and just wanted to share my visualizations of the various professions with everyone.
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Minor update- ported some of Wolftopia's ideas from Improved Player-Villager Interactions (previously used with consent in the Civilized Update idea), as well as some of my own, into a new tab. Additionally added Citizens (old Nitwits), redesigned Nitwits to be better village idiots in aesthetic, and added Builders (attempting to tackle the oft-attempted "constructing villager" idea in my own way).
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Update: added Bombs, Illager Engineers, Golem Factories, and Redstone Hut panic rooms.
Also, a belated Happy New Year to everybody. Can't wait to see what Minecraft has to offer in 2018.
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