Creating an account just so I can make this suggestion? For shame!
If it means anything, I've already glossed over for similar threads. Apologies if this has been done a thousand times before.
So after quite some time I've been getting back into Minecraft, and I've noticed it's become a very flexible platform for making adventure/puzzle maps, especially with the upcoming Adventure mode. However, there are still a few issues that limit mapmaking to certain rules which, in my opinion, really shouldn't be necessary. I'm no programmer, but I don't see most of these changes as something that would require a lot of time to implement. (But please correct me if I'm wrong.)
There are a million and one suggestions that I have for adventure mode (Like being able to disable hunger, mob despawning, and the fact that many blocks like glass and ladders are still breakable), but I think this is one that I just can't work around in most cases.
My suggestion can be summed up into two things:
1. Autosaving(This includes saving after quitting the game) can be disabled via console commands, command blocks, or when creating a world. Or perhaps when using NBTExplorer or a similar program.
2. Command blocks can autosave, and can force autosaves even if autosaves were turned off.
Basically, this would let you control checkpoints in a certain map, as they work in most video games with checkpoints. After dying, the map would reload to the last autosave - at the last 'checkpoint' the player passed.
So what use would this have, exactly? Well, there are multiple reasons - almost all of them related to creating single player Adventure maps.
One reason is that if there is a puzzle that changes the layout of the map somehow (For example, when using TNT or destructable items like boats and minecarts), the map is stuck that way forever, because the game autosaves that world every few seconds.
Other reasons include challenge. I'm currently working on a map which would end up taking a considerable amount of time for the player to complete. I wouldn't dare force anyone to re-do the entire thing if they fail just once, but disabling inventory dropping after death isn't a viable solution either. What challenge is there if you respawn again with full health after dying? Considering mobs stay dead after you respawn, of course. What value would health potions or food have, if I plan to give them out for rewards? At this point I might as well just hand the player an infinite supply of food and potions if dying only sets them back a few rooms away.
Now, I know that there are a few workarounds, but keep in mind they are either veeery limited in use (Like emulating respawning enemies with dispensers), or require some external program, if that exists.
See, the problem with that is you can't make adventure maps for others to play if you need them to also install mods along side it. I mean, you sort of can but it just isn't practical or necessary at all.
In a nutshell, Adventure mode has a lot of potential, but still could use a few tweaks, and probably one of the most important is being able to properly pace your maps with controlled autosaves.
I hope you all can understand where I'm coming from. Any support would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Sound like a great idea, that would bring a lot of new long and very hard adventure maps, or even adventure maps with platform or beat em up style where you progress through levels, you have my support.
I'm not sure if that's actually possible without heavily reworking the way save files function.
Is up to Mojang to decide that, that's no reason to not support what could be a really good feature for adventure map makers. Also there's mods already that have the ability to create multiple save points, I don't see why Mojang shouldn't be able to create something like that, and make it so those save points are loaded instead of the autosave when the player dies.
I'm not sure if that's actually possible without heavily reworking the way save files function.
To my knowledge, Minecraft just writes over the level data every few seconds. If you open up the level data with NBTExplorer, you can see it change gradually. I don't think there is much to it than that, so in order to subvert that, hypothetically all you'd have to do is disable the constant autosaving, or 're-writing'... Which you can already do with programs like OptiFine.
Like I said before, I'm no programmer, so I could be horribly wrong.
But anywho, thanks for the support, guys.
EDIT: Here's another use I thought of for checkpoints:
Want to disable the hunger bar and auto-health regen for your map? Get the player's hunger meter down to at least 17 (3 halves missing), but no less than 7, save and quit, then you can use NBTExplorer to edit your player's data.
In NBTExplorer, go to .minecraft -> saves -> (World) -> level.dat -> Data -> Player -> FoodSaturationLevel
Some of these values include health, XP, hunger, and saturation. If you set saturation to an obscenely high number, like 999999, the player will pretty much never lose any points on their hunger meter, keeping it high enough to freely sprint jump as much as you like without your health always being maxed out.
I think this will stay on your character even if you play that world on a different account (I don't have another account to test it), HOWEVER, the saturation will reset to 5 should you die! So unfortunately, this, too, wouldn't work right in most cases without checkpoints.
If it means anything, I've already glossed over for similar threads. Apologies if this has been done a thousand times before.
So after quite some time I've been getting back into Minecraft, and I've noticed it's become a very flexible platform for making adventure/puzzle maps, especially with the upcoming Adventure mode. However, there are still a few issues that limit mapmaking to certain rules which, in my opinion, really shouldn't be necessary. I'm no programmer, but I don't see most of these changes as something that would require a lot of time to implement. (But please correct me if I'm wrong.)
There are a million and one suggestions that I have for adventure mode (Like being able to disable hunger, mob despawning, and the fact that many blocks like glass and ladders are still breakable), but I think this is one that I just can't work around in most cases.
My suggestion can be summed up into two things:
1. Autosaving(This includes saving after quitting the game) can be disabled via console commands, command blocks, or when creating a world. Or perhaps when using NBTExplorer or a similar program.
2. Command blocks can autosave, and can force autosaves even if autosaves were turned off.
Basically, this would let you control checkpoints in a certain map, as they work in most video games with checkpoints. After dying, the map would reload to the last autosave - at the last 'checkpoint' the player passed.
So what use would this have, exactly? Well, there are multiple reasons - almost all of them related to creating single player Adventure maps.
One reason is that if there is a puzzle that changes the layout of the map somehow (For example, when using TNT or destructable items like boats and minecarts), the map is stuck that way forever, because the game autosaves that world every few seconds.
Other reasons include challenge. I'm currently working on a map which would end up taking a considerable amount of time for the player to complete. I wouldn't dare force anyone to re-do the entire thing if they fail just once, but disabling inventory dropping after death isn't a viable solution either. What challenge is there if you respawn again with full health after dying? Considering mobs stay dead after you respawn, of course. What value would health potions or food have, if I plan to give them out for rewards? At this point I might as well just hand the player an infinite supply of food and potions if dying only sets them back a few rooms away.
Now, I know that there are a few workarounds, but keep in mind they are either veeery limited in use (Like emulating respawning enemies with dispensers), or require some external program, if that exists.
See, the problem with that is you can't make adventure maps for others to play if you need them to also install mods along side it. I mean, you sort of can but it just isn't practical or necessary at all.
In a nutshell, Adventure mode has a lot of potential, but still could use a few tweaks, and probably one of the most important is being able to properly pace your maps with controlled autosaves.
I hope you all can understand where I'm coming from. Any support would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
That just puts you back there after dying. This suggestion is for a complete map reset to the point in time where the 'checkpoint' was made.
I play Slave Hack, give it a try!
Did you read the original post? That don't repair the map if the player dies since it don't load a save, that just position you in the spawnpoint.
I'm not sure if that's actually possible without heavily reworking the way save files function.
Is up to Mojang to decide that, that's no reason to not support what could be a really good feature for adventure map makers. Also there's mods already that have the ability to create multiple save points, I don't see why Mojang shouldn't be able to create something like that, and make it so those save points are loaded instead of the autosave when the player dies.
To my knowledge, Minecraft just writes over the level data every few seconds. If you open up the level data with NBTExplorer, you can see it change gradually. I don't think there is much to it than that, so in order to subvert that, hypothetically all you'd have to do is disable the constant autosaving, or 're-writing'... Which you can already do with programs like OptiFine.
Like I said before, I'm no programmer, so I could be horribly wrong.
But anywho, thanks for the support, guys.
EDIT: Here's another use I thought of for checkpoints:
Want to disable the hunger bar and auto-health regen for your map? Get the player's hunger meter down to at least 17 (3 halves missing), but no less than 7, save and quit, then you can use NBTExplorer to edit your player's data.
I think this will stay on your character even if you play that world on a different account (I don't have another account to test it), HOWEVER, the saturation will reset to 5 should you die! So unfortunately, this, too, wouldn't work right in most cases without checkpoints.