Problem: Difficult for player to know what type of region they are in (e.g. high/low iron, dense/sparse caves, etc). Also hard to know when the player has travelled far enough to see a significant change in these properties.
Solution: Use several different textures for the basic stone. Depending on the mineral concentration and density of caves, use a certain texture for the bedrock. Each area would use only one of these textures, so you wouldn't see ugly mixing.
Unintentional benefits: Multiple types of stone for construction, could encourage mining in very distant areas, and would give stone more variety and value. Adds another reason to actually explore the beautiful endless worlds.
Credit where it's due: This idea is basically stolen from Dwarf Fortress with layer stones. However, I think it solves a unique problem in Minecraft, and wouldn't just be added for the sake of having more block types.
Granted they would all basically be identical cobblestone. Although this raises a question: Will rock tools made from them reflect that particular stone type? Would a tan sandstone block used to make a pick make a slightly tan rock pick as opposed to the gray pick of current stone? It just seems like lots of things rely upon the current stone texture and color, so changes would mean changing all of them. Granted there are not too many things at this point, but one must know how to handle this.
Color changes can be handled dynamically for a fairly low, one-time cost. It works extremely well with low-res and low-color depth graphics like minecrafts. Tools reflecting this should theoretically be simple.
I would prefer something like this tied to biomes, and have qualities like those described be (loosely) tied to biomes.
This would be great, especially if different rocks were made when they were mined (other than cobblestone). This would add some much needed variety to large castles so they don't end up looking all the same.
Some rock type suggestions: Normal, Sandstone, Flint, I'm sure more can be thought of.
Also I think not only should they be different colours but have different textures aswell. For example while cobblestone is dark and quite rounded, flint would be grayer and have more staight lines like flint does. Sandstone should be more of a beige and have slightly rounded at the edges blocks.
Oh, I hadn't thought of using them as layer stones, to indicate depth rather than region type. I think that might be a better use of them, so the player gets more of a feeling for how incredibly deep they've delved. At the moment there's nothing really special about going deep, other than more resources.
Granted they would all basically be identical cobblestone. Although this raises a question: Will rock tools made from them reflect that particular stone type? Would a tan sandstone block used to make a pick make a slightly tan rock pick as opposed to the gray pick of current stone? It just seems like lots of things rely upon the current stone texture and color, so changes would mean changing all of them. Granted there are not too many things at this point, but one must know how to handle this.
its easy. add new blocks for each indicator type. cobblestone blocks will be aded, as will pick skins, picks will have a property indicating color to use.
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Equ1N0X-RedStone Engineer and Cybernetic architect.
This seems needless. Have you ever been in a real cave? Those things can get really disorienting really fast. Crawling around underground is dangerous in reality, and so it is in minecraft, for most of the same reasons.
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This may be a fad, but I love dragons, so why the heck not?
Kydo, your reply seems a bit out of place. There's nothing in this thread even tangentially related to difficulty or dangers of caves. My original post didn't even have anything to do with caves, persay. It would merely add some extra stone textures, but only one would occur in any given location.
Problem: Difficult for player to know what type of region they are in (e.g. high/low iron, dense/sparse caves, etc). Also hard to know when the player has travelled far enough to see a significant change in these properties.
Caves are crazy disorienting. You shouldn't be able to tell.
Other than that, it should be pretty clear whether you're standing in a lake, desert or mountain range.
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This may be a fad, but I love dragons, so why the heck not?
I didn't mean biomes. I don't see how iron density would be related to biomes. For example, oceans on the surface don't affect cave concentration underneath them.
Most people agree that different resources in different biomes would be good. This applies both to surface resources, which are directly tied to the biomes, and ore densities. Metals might be more common in mountains, gold in deserts, coal in hills, etc. Otherwise, mining in different biomes would have no differences.
Many games have done similar things. Look at Civilization, for instance. They had coal resources in hills, iron or gold in mountains, oil in deserts, etc.
Part of the argument for this is that it makes it beneficial to form different societies in different biomes, and encourages trade between them. It also makes it easier to make certain biomes inherently more difficult, but have better resources in them as an incentive.
In short, its a gameplay feature to vary resources by biome. Rock looking different because there are more caves or iron nearby does not make much sense itself, unless you are representing that different types of rock are more likely to have caves or material deposits, in which case it still makes sense to tie it to biomes.
Biomes being tied to resource density would be better in most every way than different layer stones. They would be more apparent to the player, wouldn't require as much special knowledge, etc. So yeah, I don't think different stone types would really be worth it. At least not for indicating regions.
Solution: Use several different textures for the basic stone. Depending on the mineral concentration and density of caves, use a certain texture for the bedrock. Each area would use only one of these textures, so you wouldn't see ugly mixing.
Unintentional benefits: Multiple types of stone for construction, could encourage mining in very distant areas, and would give stone more variety and value. Adds another reason to actually explore the beautiful endless worlds.
Credit where it's due: This idea is basically stolen from Dwarf Fortress with layer stones. However, I think it solves a unique problem in Minecraft, and wouldn't just be added for the sake of having more block types.
I would prefer something like this tied to biomes, and have qualities like those described be (loosely) tied to biomes.
Some rock type suggestions: Normal, Sandstone, Flint, I'm sure more can be thought of.
Also I think not only should they be different colours but have different textures aswell. For example while cobblestone is dark and quite rounded, flint would be grayer and have more staight lines like flint does. Sandstone should be more of a beige and have slightly rounded at the edges blocks.
its easy. add new blocks for each indicator type. cobblestone blocks will be aded, as will pick skins, picks will have a property indicating color to use.
Equ1N0X-RedStone Engineer and Cybernetic architect.
Caves are crazy disorienting. You shouldn't be able to tell.
Other than that, it should be pretty clear whether you're standing in a lake, desert or mountain range.
Many games have done similar things. Look at Civilization, for instance. They had coal resources in hills, iron or gold in mountains, oil in deserts, etc.
Part of the argument for this is that it makes it beneficial to form different societies in different biomes, and encourages trade between them. It also makes it easier to make certain biomes inherently more difficult, but have better resources in them as an incentive.
In short, its a gameplay feature to vary resources by biome. Rock looking different because there are more caves or iron nearby does not make much sense itself, unless you are representing that different types of rock are more likely to have caves or material deposits, in which case it still makes sense to tie it to biomes.