Meteors. Plain and simple, meteors. They're entities of varying size that create huge craters, and at the bottom of the crater will be the meteor, which will be between 10 and 40 blocks in size, and will only land in places that have not been heavily edited by players. (This way there is no needless frustration when someone's structure is destroyed) These will almost always contain some form of ore.
In infinite maps ore isn't going to be a large problem, though meteors pose several of there own.
1. How often does a meteor strike the earth?
2. How would you check to see if an area has been built up by players without causing lag?
3. Eventually the surface is going to become pockmarked with craters.
4. The meteors seem to destroy more blocks than they create.
5. Chances are any effect crated by a meteor would cause extreme lag.
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Quote from dorsidwarf »
whut would you actually se them for? other than other implausibkle suggestions?
I rather like this! It's exciting. the idea of meteors could have effects beyond just re-introducing minerals to a stripped area, too. first of all I shall respond to the points of alexandervo, because I can.
How built up an area is could be as simple as finding a 20/20/10 patch that has dirt on the surface and dirt/rock/ore underneath... no wood, cobblestone, torches.. therefore it's probably not a developed area.
Eventually a surface will become pockmarked with craters, in reality, too. Look at the moon! the difference is that on earth, we have an atmosphere to protect against many meteorites, but also things grow, so disrupted rocks and soil will get moss/grass growing on it, and eventually it'll just be more soil. In minecraft, perhaps a neat way of dealing with the fear of meteorites permanently transforming the landscape (this would take a very long time, seems to me, but lets roll with this) would be to have moss grow on rock (which has been mentioned as in development) and maybe over longer time, blocks that are in the sun could grow a layer of dirt on top of them. That way, a meteorite crator becomes just a dip in the land. (Or, if a Water Table were introduced, this could be a natural place for a lake to form)
This also solves the 'meteors destroy more than create' problem by giving land a way to grow back.
As for lag, well, I don't like to speculate on technical details. I don't know how the game's programming works, and so I don't know what's possible or what's hard or what's easy. But one thing you could do is simply have the meteorite land far away from any players, so the change can be off-camera. (although I don't see how it would be any different from TNT, which works fine)
this would be fun, though, if people could see it fall, and then everyone would race to be the first to claim the minerals.
If this was in the game, I would feel bad for that one, lone guy who, along with his fortress, is going to get completely owned by a meteor that chooses to land right on his face. Moving will not help him; fate will have already made her decision.
As for its practicality, the reasons I don't like this idea are perfectly summed up in the first reply.
If this was in the game, I would feel bad for that one, lone guy who, along with his fortress, is going to get completely owned by a meteor that chooses to land right on his face. Moving will not help him; fate will have already made her decision.
Did you even READ the OP? As I proposed the system, that would NEVER HAPPEN.
And the "Unlimited map" argument sucks. NOT ALL PEOPLE ARE GOING TO PLAY ON UNLIMITED MAPS.
If this was in the game, I would feel bad for that one, lone guy who, along with his fortress, is going to get completely owned by a meteor that chooses to land right on his face. Moving will not help him; fate will have already made her decision.
Did you even READ the OP? As I proposed the system, that would NEVER HAPPEN.
And the "Unlimited map" argument sucks. NOT ALL PEOPLE ARE GOING TO PLAY ON UNLIMITED MAPS.
thank you notch for pointing this out, people don't always read ops post before posting. I agree with the meteorite idea, things are just too simple without them and in "Survival multiplayer" as a part of trying to survive, meteorites would be awsome!
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Don't let them dies, please D'=
They wouldn't let you die if you were in need of hatching!
Rare but super deadly meteors could be fun. I'd be more interested in them just to spice things up rather than as a source of ore replenishment (not that they shouldn't carry ore). They should be uncommon enough that it's always a surprise to encounter one.
I personally think it's okay if someone's house gets blown up though. Just let the server owner turn it off if they don't like it. Once monsters get the ability to destroy tiles your house won't be invincible anymore anyways, so who cares?
Quote from Nazzer »
And the "Unlimited map" argument sucks. NOT ALL PEOPLE ARE GOING TO PLAY ON UNLIMITED MAPS.
To the problem of it destroying more blocks than it creates... Impacts don't simply dig down, they create a lip of displaced material. The dirt and gravel effected could simply just rim the outside of the crator.
If someone finds it to be an eyesore they can manually move this dirt back into the impact point.
I'm liking this idea save for one part. Rather then Iron or Gold or Diamonds falling from the sky inside the meteor, Meteors should be made from something like Meteorite or Moonstone, a new ore type that could potentially used for some other purpose, for example whatever eventual magic system is put in place could use it, etc.
I like the meteor idea. Combined with some sort of natural time lapse erosion/replenishing for the crater (and other areas perhaps mined out or just odd generation) both problem and problem form the solution could be solved. They will cause lag, but not anymore than spamming torches while setting off a couple of meters of gunpowder.
A meteor would fail to replenish ore. The amount of resources you could fit into a meteor, even if it was solid ore and fairly large, would not provide a significant increase in resources. A indev map has thousands of ore, and if that is truly depleted, another meteor worth is going to be insignificant. The rate of meteor impacts to sustain new resources would be unreasonably high.
Although this would be somewhat unrealistic, I think confining meteors should be confined to certain biome types. Therefore players could build without a chance of random destruction. Overall, this is an interesting idea though I really don't think limited ore is much of a problem. It looks likes any ore from the meteor would pale in comparison to the ore you'd get from simply repositioning your mines.
here's an idea of how a small one might look:
^^My blog^^
Aside from that, this is a really weird, but slightly awesome, idea.
Plus, suggested before, but not in it's own thread, I think.
-Stephen Fry
1. How often does a meteor strike the earth?
2. How would you check to see if an area has been built up by players without causing lag?
3. Eventually the surface is going to become pockmarked with craters.
4. The meteors seem to destroy more blocks than they create.
5. Chances are any effect crated by a meteor would cause extreme lag.
spell check died today...
How built up an area is could be as simple as finding a 20/20/10 patch that has dirt on the surface and dirt/rock/ore underneath... no wood, cobblestone, torches.. therefore it's probably not a developed area.
Eventually a surface will become pockmarked with craters, in reality, too. Look at the moon! the difference is that on earth, we have an atmosphere to protect against many meteorites, but also things grow, so disrupted rocks and soil will get moss/grass growing on it, and eventually it'll just be more soil. In minecraft, perhaps a neat way of dealing with the fear of meteorites permanently transforming the landscape (this would take a very long time, seems to me, but lets roll with this) would be to have moss grow on rock (which has been mentioned as in development) and maybe over longer time, blocks that are in the sun could grow a layer of dirt on top of them. That way, a meteorite crator becomes just a dip in the land. (Or, if a Water Table were introduced, this could be a natural place for a lake to form)
This also solves the 'meteors destroy more than create' problem by giving land a way to grow back.
As for lag, well, I don't like to speculate on technical details. I don't know how the game's programming works, and so I don't know what's possible or what's hard or what's easy. But one thing you could do is simply have the meteorite land far away from any players, so the change can be off-camera. (although I don't see how it would be any different from TNT, which works fine)
this would be fun, though, if people could see it fall, and then everyone would race to be the first to claim the minerals.
Also, the meteors should be able to turn sand into glass if it hits a beach. :biggrin.gif:
That's a question, not a problem.
Well, had Notch decided to only store changed blocks instead of all blocks then it would be completely trivial...
Possibly, unless dirt and stone regrow over neglected terrain.
Not often. Duh.
Haha. That won't cause lag, man.
Says who? It won't be that often.
They will be destroying grass and plain stone, man. That doesn't matter. Like, at ALL.
I got that crater with 6 TNT blocks set off at once. There was little lag.
^^My blog^^
hehe hopefully there wont be any problems with an infinite map running out of resources...and if it does....GAWD YA'LL PLAI 2 MUCH!!!
"hey bill whys the sun setting so fast?"
"Its getting bigger too!"
"wonder if its a..."
-last words of bill and earl dedicated mincrafters-
As for its practicality, the reasons I don't like this idea are perfectly summed up in the first reply.
Did you even READ the OP? As I proposed the system, that would NEVER HAPPEN.
And the "Unlimited map" argument sucks. NOT ALL PEOPLE ARE GOING TO PLAY ON UNLIMITED MAPS.
^^My blog^^
thank you notch for pointing this out, people don't always read ops post before posting. I agree with the meteorite idea, things are just too simple without them and in "Survival multiplayer" as a part of trying to survive, meteorites would be awsome!
Don't let them dies, please D'=
They wouldn't let you die if you were in need of hatching!
I personally think it's okay if someone's house gets blown up though. Just let the server owner turn it off if they don't like it. Once monsters get the ability to destroy tiles your house won't be invincible anymore anyways, so who cares?
Agreed.
If someone finds it to be an eyesore they can manually move this dirt back into the impact point.
Good?