Who would benefit: Players who like games with moral choices, reputation, consequences for actions, vegetarian lifestyle, skeleton pals and killer rabbits.
What? All types of mobs would start out nuetral/passive toward the player. When the player interacts with or uses actions/items on the mobs this would affect player reputation with them. Some negative actions could be attacking with weapons, trapping in enclosed spaces so small they can't move, stealing their babies.... Some positive actions could be offering gifts, building them large safe shelters that meet their needs, or using helpful potions. How positive or negative a reputation the player has would determine mob behaviour. A mildly negative reputation might result in avoidance, but a significantly negative repuatation would make the mobs agressive enough to seek the player to attack. A mildly positive reputation might mean a mob offers a small gift or trade or finds player more approachable. A significantly positive repuattion might mean mobs are loyal to the player against the agressive ones.
How: I think there are *some* mechanics in the game that already allow aspects of this which could eventually be expanded and/or combined to develop this concept. Mobs have some alignment toward the player now, whether that's being passive, tame, hostile, temporarily agressive, or mere ambience. game mode and difficulty settings affect behavior, like in Creative they all just hang out. Also, I think Villagers have a system to track player reputation where things like killing their young give negative scores and engaging in forms of trade bring positive scores. As well, Zombie Pigmen and Endermen currently have passive and agressive modes of behavior that are determined by player actions. (Why don't Overworld Zombies, Skellies, Creepers...?)
When/Where: thoughout the game. (also see undetermined details below)
Why (emotional appeal): One time, my Alex was carving out a mountain base on a rainy day and an Enderman popped in to take shelter and they had a moment. It was really cute. It made me want to build the Enderman a consulate and a nightclub in the Stronghold, so they could hang out. Also, I love the Skeletons. They are fierce. I'd like to build them a Halloween Town and throw Day of the Dead parties, but they just want to shoot me. And, it's sad the cows and chickens stay passive when their parents are trapped in machines and cooked with lava. The pigs should help them plot a revolution!
Undetermined details and known issues: Do the player actions affect reputation only with indivdual mob, all mobs of that same type, or all mobs of that type in a particular region? A possible issue to be resolved is whether loyal and agressive mobs go as far as to fight each other. For example if someone slays chickens to get feathers to make a gift to the Skeletons who need these for their arrows, and the chickens become agressive, do friendly Skeletons then attack agressive chickens? Also, large numbers of tame/friendly mobs that travel with a play might cause some kind of lag (do they?) so there would need to be a mechanic to request a sapient, loyal mob to stop following, the way tamed animals can be made to sit. Whatever mode may be made, some players will find a way to make it an exploit, like leading agressive mobs into traps. So, maybe agressive mobs should give less drops....though that's not logical. Sometimes crime does pay. (But the Shadow knows.)
EDITS in response to feedback:
The suggestion is for additional, optional gamemode and/or difficulty level that does not remove or change existing gamemodes or difficulty levels.
The suggested additional mode still involves and encourages crafting, mining, surviving, exploring, and building. It does change (within this proposed mode) how some tasks are accomplished and what new or diffierent consequences result.
It may help to think of it as Dark Fantasy themed where morality is more grey vs gray than black & white.
Considered as its own game (or a mod), it could be interesting to see what a group of programers could come up with based on these ideas.
As a change to vanilla minecraft, No Support
IMO this draws the focus of the game too far from mining (acquire resources) and crafting (build stuff).
This seems more akin to games where the primary focus is the players' interactions with the AI entities of the game.
As a side note:
MC already does quite enough, IMO, to push "moral" choices (and appears hell-bent on doing more ).
Reputation has a minor implementation vis-a-vis villagers & iron golems (and is a serious part of SMP [to grief, or not to grief; that should never be the question]).
Finally, "consequences for actions" is the lifeblood of minecraft: kill that sheep now or wait and hope to breed it; risk a creeper attack or stay and punch leaves until one gets a sapling to replant…
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.
While I see your point, I fear this change would be too drastic. Tracking player reputation could work for a single mob such as villagers. But otherwise it feels like a different game. Hostile mobs are monsters, it makes sense they would attack the player. Passive mobs are friendly animals. If this system was introduced, you would be fighting angry cows for beef and working with the monsters (whom you never had a reason to attack). Implementing an entire service system is out of place and would make wolves redundant.
If you want to play with hostile mobs as "friends" play in Creative Mode. It makes the most sense that way.
I don't support this idea in particular, but maybe in peaceful mode, hostile mobs spawn except they're not hostile. I don't support THIS idea because it takes away the point of the survival aspect as a whole. A mod for that would do well but it wouldn't be universally accepted in vanilla.
Who would benefit: Players who like games with moral choices, reputation, consequences for actions, vegetarian lifestyle, skeleton pals and killer rabbits.
I'm already somewhat scared. This could go pretty well or very badly... (And I see you've smooshed everything into gigantic walls of text because you decided to use a bullet-point list for some reason I can't fathom.)
What? All types of mobs would start out nuetral/passive toward the player.
This would make your first night in survival mode a little bit anticlimactic though, wouldn't it? And as long as you didn't kill... anything... you'd be pretty much safe from everything but hunger and fall damage forever.
When the player interacts with or uses actions/items on the mobs this would affect player reputation with them. Some negative actions could be attacking with weapons, trapping in enclosed spaces so small they can't move, stealing their babies....
Attacking with weapons sounds easy enough to program, but I'm not sure how you'd detect which player trapped an animal in an enclosed space. (Sure it could be the nearest one, but what happens when another mob is pushing the mob into a hole?)
Some positive actions could be offering gifts, building them large safe shelters that meet their needs, or using helpful potions.
Alright... How on Earth are we going to detect a safe shel... Wait... Villagers can detect houses... So maybe this is possible? Although Villagers can't really tell if you built a shelter for them, and their shelter detection code is a little fishy...
How positive or negative a reputation the player has would determine mob behaviour. A mildly negative reputation might result in avoidance, but a significantly negative repuatation would make the mobs agressive enough to seek the player to attack.
I feel like... again... This would make your first few nights in Minecraft a little mundane... Maybe "evil" mobs should start out a little bit more aggressive towards you than passive mobs?
(Skeletons occasionally shoot warning shots when you come too close, etc. The first way to making peace with these mobs could be something like finding a Baby Zombie and giving it a gift... Or something like that... But this assumes that rather than trying to befriend one mob on the passive or aggressive side, you join a side, which might not be what you prefer.)
Actually, if this worked more as "joining a side" rather than "befriending individual mobs", it might make a bit more sense. After all, if you kill one individual skeleton, and the rest of his side isn't affected, then none of your nights are going to be very action-packed. I suppose you could do a hybrid system where some actions make you have a better reputation with one mob and some actions make you have a better reputation with all mobs on the "evil" or "good" sides...
A mildly positive reputation might mean a mob offers a small gift or trade or finds player more approachable. A significantly positive repuattion might mean mobs are loyal to the player against the agressive ones.
Makes sense, although I'd like some details. (What trades? What gifts? How do animals give you gifts, or does this only apply to Villagers?)
How: I think there are *some* mechanics in the game that already allow aspects of this which could eventually be expanded and/or combined to develop this concept. Mobs have some alignment toward the player now, whether that's being passive, tame, hostile, temporarily agressive, or mere ambience. game mode and difficulty settings affect behavior, like in Creative they all just hang out. Also, I think Villagers have a system to track player reputation where things like killing their young give negative scores and engaging in forms of trade bring positive scores. As well, Zombie Pigmen and Endermen currently have passive and agressive modes of behavior that are determined by player actions. (Why don't Overworld Zombies, Skellies, Creepers...?)
As I questioned earlier, does this reputation work on a single-mob basis, mob side basis, or hybrid? (Also, do mobs have to save their alignment with every player they come across? I guess this doesn't matter if it's a Skeleton that just burns away, but imagine how many player alignments have to be loaded when someone wants to use a public Villager trading center on a server with thousands of people...)
When/Where: thoughout the game. (also see undetermined details below)
Why (emotional appeal): One time, my Alex was carving out a mountain base on a rainy day and an Enderman popped in to take shelter and they had a moment. It was really cute. It made me want to build the Enderman a consulate and a nightclub in the Stronghold, so they could hang out. Also, I love the Skeletons. They are fierce. I'd like to build them a Halloween Town and throw Day of the Dead parties, but they just want to shoot me.
I guess I can understand this desire. Youtubers like StampyLongNose and more like to pretend that certain hostile mobs are friendly, and you can't really prevent this when the graphics of the game are meant to be cute and friendly.
And, it's sad the cows and chickens stay passive when their parents are trapped in machines and cooked with lava. The pigs should help them plot a revolution!
I'm not a fan of this, though. I still want to be able to farm animals, and I need to if I want good sources of food... (Maybe there should be more semi-intelligent, passive mobs before we consider this change... And animals should just always remain neutral?)
Undetermined details and known issues: Do the player actions affect reputation only with indivdual mob, all mobs of that same type, or all mobs of that type in a particular region?
Well, there you go. Even you thought of this issue.
A possible issue to be resolved is whether loyal and agressive mobs go as far as to fight each other. For example if someone slays chickens to get feathers to make a gift to the Skeletons who need these for their arrows, and the chickens become agressive, do friendly Skeletons then attack agressive chickens?
This is where having two sides (Undead/Evil v.s Alive/Good) would make this a bit easier. All Evil mobs fight all Good mobs without question, but the player can choose a path. (Also... I kinda still want to kill chickens for the sake of food... )
Also, large numbers of tame/friendly mobs that travel with a play might cause some kind of lag (do they?) so there would need to be a mechanic to request a sapient, loyal mob to stop following, the way tamed animals can be made to sit.
Definitely something that's worth looking into. (Maybe give friendly/neutral mobs a GUI for this purpose?)
Whatever mode may be made, some players will find a way to make it an exploit, like leading agressive mobs into traps. So, maybe agressive mobs should give less drops....though that's not logical. Sometimes crime does pay. (But the Shadow knows.)
I'm not sure this is really an issue...
Overall, this is a massive overhaul to the game and I think for the sake of playing through the game on the side of evil rather than good, it might be worth it. (This would definitely add some new replay value to the game, and maybe enough new interest in the game to defend this forum from posts like "Mincefart is ded?!?1?")
But... We need a lot more detail than this. Because as glorious as it sounds to play the game at least four different ways (With the passive mobs, with the evil mobs, fighting against both sides or attempting to make peace with both.) this is going to require massive changes to mob AI, new GUIs, new everything.
I would suggest using a text editor, and possibly a good photoshop program, design UI interfaces and completely and thourougly finalizing this suggestion. I'm very interested in seeing where this could go.
I still think that the idea of animals being on a side sounds a bit bad, though. Some stuff can only be gotten efficiently or at all by killing animals, and this shouldn't change. I also think that there should be some mobs too unintelligent to pick a side that will always attack you. (Maybe Dire Wolves that are always aggressive? Nah, then people will just think of the youtuber... How about Foxes which can't be ta... wait, too cute... I guess Zombies could work since nobody I know of thinks those are cute... Or maybe Creepers?) This fixes the problem that your first few nights in the game might end up being anticlimactic.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
This would make your first night in survival mode a little bit anticlimactic though, wouldn't it? And as long as you didn't kill... anything... you'd be pretty much safe from everything but hunger and fall damage forever.
Yes. But given it's intended as a suggestion for a gamemode or difficulty level type option and we have modes like creative and difficulties like peaceul, some options already allow this.
I'm not sure how you'd detect which player trapped an animal in an enclosed space. .... Villagers can detect houses... So maybe this is possible? Although Villagers can't really tell if you built a shelter for them, and their shelter detection code is a little fishy...
It would need some work to acheive, yes. My understanding is that villagers detect 'houses' by checking for sunlit blocks (outside) vs covered block (inside) over a set distance (5 blocks horizontally from sides faces of the door?)
I was thinking about this after my post, and I think similar code could allow other mobs to determine inside/outside on the surface, however there's an issue when building underground possibly. I may need to research it more, if no one else can confirm. I have seen players build underground 'villages' but I think they are sometimes not infact valid or make use of semi-concealed skylights.
So, I'm wondering if there is something that can be scanned like airblocks within certain distance either horizontal or vertical. I'm honestly not sure, but I'm thinking about it.
But on the surface it could work.
Zombie villages do exist, and they are much like villager villages except *without* light sources. So, that's what they might like. Skeletons are also a similar size.
Endermen need houses that are dry and have headroom for a being about three blocks tall, naturally.
Actually, if this worked more as "joining a side" rather than "befriending individual mobs", it might make a bit more sense. After all, if you kill one individual skeleton, and the rest of his side isn't affected, then none of your nights are going to be very action-packed. I suppose you could do a hybrid system where some actions make you have a better reputation with one mob and some actions make you have a better reputation with all mobs on the "evil" or "good" sides...
Fair point/alternate suggestion.
I've been thinking about this. Village reputation now...I *think* it only applies to aparticular village. Meaning if a player currently murders villagers and griefs their village there's no consequence for the player except that any survivors they missed from *that* village won't breed or trade as much. A player can still go to another village and do the same thing.
So, I'm still undecided about this part. It's not that I don't want to put my own work into forming a coherent suggestion. I've put thought into this. I just feel like it needs more input or insight from other players.
Would it be better that there are sides? Maybe. Should reputation gained in one village (or any mob's area) effect another area?
Makes sense, although I'd like some details. (What trades? What gifts? How do animals give you gifts, or does this only apply to Villagers?)
We basically know what foods animals like now. For mobs, I would take clues from what they already interact with. Like, Endermen like block-form gifts they can carry, as opposed to items. They don't like water. Skeletons enjoy archery. They may or may not have a pact with Spiders (to be jockeys) to get silk (or maybe they enslaved the spiders?) but I'm guessing they don't always have their own source of wood/sticks and feathers. Creepers? They like that thing you are building with doors and windows they can lurb near. No, IDEK what Creepers like. Maybe they eat Cacti and that's why they are green. Witches like glas and iron to make their potion bottlesand cauldrons, if not caldrons and potions themselves. Maybe they like sticks and bales of wheat to make brooms to tidy their huts?
Also, do mobs have to save their alignment with every player they come across? I guess this doesn't matter if it's a Skeleton that just burns away, but imagine how many player alignments have to be loaded when someone wants to use a public Villager trading center on a server with
thousands of people...)
That's a good question. I don't play on servers to understand the back end of it. Everyone on a server is playing one difficulty/level, right?? So a server would run this mode if everyone there wanted to use it. And then, in that case, yeah, there'd need to be a way to track the reputation for multiple players. I honestly don't know how that is done now. I'm guessing villagers do it on servers, too.
Overall, this is a massive overhaul to the game and I think for the sake of playing through the game on the side of evil rather than good, it might be worth it. (This would definitely add some new replay value to the game, and maybe enough new interest in the game to defend this forum from posts like "Mincefart is ded?!?1?")
But... We need a lot more detail than this. Because as glorious as it sounds to play the game at least four different ways (With the passive mobs, with the evil mobs, fighting against both sides or attempting to make peace with both.) this is going to require massive changes to mob AI, new GUIs, new everything.
Yeah, it may very well take a lot of work *if* the suggestion were ever implemented. But the amount of work required doesn't factor into whether a suggestion is a good concept or not. It factors into whether it's worthwhile to implement it and possibly in what way to implement it. Like, if something is a major update or a minor addition.
And decsions like that need also to factor in the amount of community interest. Which, so far is not well known.
EDITS in response to feedback:
The suggestion is for additional, optional gamemode and/or difficulty level that does not remove or change existing gamemodes or difficulty levels.
The suggested additional mode still involves and encourages crafting, mining, surviving, exploring, and building. It does change (within this proposed mode) how some tasks are accomplished and what new or diffierent consequences result.
It may help to think of it as Dark Fantasy themed where morality is more grey vs gray than black & white.
Stronghold Transformation
Dungeons to Monster Shelters
Discuss Woodland Mansion Transformations
Considered as its own game (or a mod), it could be interesting to see what a group of programers could come up with based on these ideas.
As a change to vanilla minecraft, No Support
IMO this draws the focus of the game too far from mining (acquire resources) and crafting (build stuff).
This seems more akin to games where the primary focus is the players' interactions with the AI entities of the game.
As a side note:
MC already does quite enough, IMO, to push "moral" choices (and appears hell-bent on doing more ).
Reputation has a minor implementation vis-a-vis villagers & iron golems (and is a serious part of SMP [to grief, or not to grief; that should never be the question]).
Finally, "consequences for actions" is the lifeblood of minecraft: kill that sheep now or wait and hope to breed it; risk a creeper attack or stay and punch leaves until one gets a sapling to replant…
While I see your point, I fear this change would be too drastic. Tracking player reputation could work for a single mob such as villagers. But otherwise it feels like a different game. Hostile mobs are monsters, it makes sense they would attack the player. Passive mobs are friendly animals. If this system was introduced, you would be fighting angry cows for beef and working with the monsters (whom you never had a reason to attack). Implementing an entire service system is out of place and would make wolves redundant.
If you want to play with hostile mobs as "friends" play in Creative Mode. It makes the most sense that way.
No Support
I don't support this idea in particular, but maybe in peaceful mode, hostile mobs spawn except they're not hostile. I don't support THIS idea because it takes away the point of the survival aspect as a whole. A mod for that would do well but it wouldn't be universally accepted in vanilla.
I'm already somewhat scared. This could go pretty well or very badly... (And I see you've smooshed everything into gigantic walls of text because you decided to use a bullet-point list for some reason I can't fathom.)
This would make your first night in survival mode a little bit anticlimactic though, wouldn't it? And as long as you didn't kill... anything... you'd be pretty much safe from everything but hunger and fall damage forever.
Attacking with weapons sounds easy enough to program, but I'm not sure how you'd detect which player trapped an animal in an enclosed space. (Sure it could be the nearest one, but what happens when another mob is pushing the mob into a hole?)
Alright... How on Earth are we going to detect a safe shel... Wait... Villagers can detect houses... So maybe this is possible? Although Villagers can't really tell if you built a shelter for them, and their shelter detection code is a little fishy...
I feel like... again... This would make your first few nights in Minecraft a little mundane... Maybe "evil" mobs should start out a little bit more aggressive towards you than passive mobs?
(Skeletons occasionally shoot warning shots when you come too close, etc. The first way to making peace with these mobs could be something like finding a Baby Zombie and giving it a gift... Or something like that... But this assumes that rather than trying to befriend one mob on the passive or aggressive side, you join a side, which might not be what you prefer.)
Actually, if this worked more as "joining a side" rather than "befriending individual mobs", it might make a bit more sense. After all, if you kill one individual skeleton, and the rest of his side isn't affected, then none of your nights are going to be very action-packed. I suppose you could do a hybrid system where some actions make you have a better reputation with one mob and some actions make you have a better reputation with all mobs on the "evil" or "good" sides...
Makes sense, although I'd like some details. (What trades? What gifts? How do animals give you gifts, or does this only apply to Villagers?)
As I questioned earlier, does this reputation work on a single-mob basis, mob side basis, or hybrid? (Also, do mobs have to save their alignment with every player they come across? I guess this doesn't matter if it's a Skeleton that just burns away, but imagine how many player alignments have to be loaded when someone wants to use a public Villager trading center on a server with thousands of people...)
I guess I can understand this desire. Youtubers like StampyLongNose and more like to pretend that certain hostile mobs are friendly, and you can't really prevent this when the graphics of the game are meant to be cute and friendly.
I'm not a fan of this, though. I still want to be able to farm animals, and I need to if I want good sources of food... (Maybe there should be more semi-intelligent, passive mobs before we consider this change... And animals should just always remain neutral?)
Well, there you go. Even you thought of this issue.
This is where having two sides (Undead/Evil v.s Alive/Good) would make this a bit easier. All Evil mobs fight all Good mobs without question, but the player can choose a path. (Also... I kinda still want to kill chickens for the sake of food... )
Definitely something that's worth looking into. (Maybe give friendly/neutral mobs a GUI for this purpose?)
I'm not sure this is really an issue...
Overall, this is a massive overhaul to the game and I think for the sake of playing through the game on the side of evil rather than good, it might be worth it. (This would definitely add some new replay value to the game, and maybe enough new interest in the game to defend this forum from posts like "Mincefart is ded?!?1?")
But... We need a lot more detail than this. Because as glorious as it sounds to play the game at least four different ways (With the passive mobs, with the evil mobs, fighting against both sides or attempting to make peace with both.) this is going to require massive changes to mob AI, new GUIs, new everything.
I would suggest using a text editor, and possibly a good photoshop program, design UI interfaces and completely and thourougly finalizing this suggestion. I'm very interested in seeing where this could go.
I still think that the idea of animals being on a side sounds a bit bad, though. Some stuff can only be gotten efficiently or at all by killing animals, and this shouldn't change. I also think that there should be some mobs too unintelligent to pick a side that will always attack you. (Maybe Dire Wolves that are always aggressive? Nah, then people will just think of the youtuber... How about Foxes which can't be ta... wait, too cute... I guess Zombies could work since nobody I know of thinks those are cute... Or maybe Creepers?) This fixes the problem that your first few nights in the game might end up being anticlimactic.
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. But given it's intended as a suggestion for a gamemode or difficulty level type option and we have modes like creative and difficulties like peaceul, some options already allow this.
It would need some work to acheive, yes. My understanding is that villagers detect 'houses' by checking for sunlit blocks (outside) vs covered block (inside) over a set distance (5 blocks horizontally from sides faces of the door?)
I was thinking about this after my post, and I think similar code could allow other mobs to determine inside/outside on the surface, however there's an issue when building underground possibly. I may need to research it more, if no one else can confirm. I have seen players build underground 'villages' but I think they are sometimes not infact valid or make use of semi-concealed skylights.
So, I'm wondering if there is something that can be scanned like airblocks within certain distance either horizontal or vertical. I'm honestly not sure, but I'm thinking about it.
But on the surface it could work.
Zombie villages do exist, and they are much like villager villages except *without* light sources. So, that's what they might like. Skeletons are also a similar size.
Endermen need houses that are dry and have headroom for a being about three blocks tall, naturally.
Fair point/alternate suggestion.
I've been thinking about this. Village reputation now...I *think* it only applies to aparticular village. Meaning if a player currently murders villagers and griefs their village there's no consequence for the player except that any survivors they missed from *that* village won't breed or trade as much. A player can still go to another village and do the same thing.
So, I'm still undecided about this part. It's not that I don't want to put my own work into forming a coherent suggestion. I've put thought into this. I just feel like it needs more input or insight from other players.
Would it be better that there are sides? Maybe. Should reputation gained in one village (or any mob's area) effect another area?
We basically know what foods animals like now. For mobs, I would take clues from what they already interact with. Like, Endermen like block-form gifts they can carry, as opposed to items. They don't like water. Skeletons enjoy archery. They may or may not have a pact with Spiders (to be jockeys) to get silk (or maybe they enslaved the spiders?) but I'm guessing they don't always have their own source of wood/sticks and feathers. Creepers? They like that thing you are building with doors and windows they can lurb near. No, IDEK what Creepers like. Maybe they eat Cacti and that's why they are green. Witches like glas and iron to make their potion bottlesand cauldrons, if not caldrons and potions themselves. Maybe they like sticks and bales of wheat to make brooms to tidy their huts?
That's a good question. I don't play on servers to understand the back end of it. Everyone on a server is playing one difficulty/level, right?? So a server would run this mode if everyone there wanted to use it. And then, in that case, yeah, there'd need to be a way to track the reputation for multiple players. I honestly don't know how that is done now. I'm guessing villagers do it on servers, too.
Yeah, it may very well take a lot of work *if* the suggestion were ever implemented. But the amount of work required doesn't factor into whether a suggestion is a good concept or not. It factors into whether it's worthwhile to implement it and possibly in what way to implement it. Like, if something is a major update or a minor addition.
And decsions like that need also to factor in the amount of community interest. Which, so far is not well known.
Stronghold Transformation
Dungeons to Monster Shelters
Discuss Woodland Mansion Transformations