Minecraft Forums

So I've caught a view of a new mod featured on the front page called "Tale Of Kingdoms" and I'm actually very impressed with it. The modder TyberAlyx has very cleverly implemented a form of objective in the game, interesting and interactive NPCs, all while preserving the original sandbox nature of the game as you can easily ignore this mod and go somewhere to build in isolation far away.

Now I am not suggesting that Minecraft SHOULD be an RPG, I don't agree or disagree with whatever the game will evolve into as long as gameplay doesn't suffer. Minecraft can be whatever the player wants it to be, but I've heard that Notch wants the direction of Minecraft to lean more onto the RPG side of things. So if he wants it to lean onto an RPG side of thing, we might as well discuss ways on how this can be made into a success.
Currently, I'm aware that Notch has announced some sort of coding freeze on the game development in order to tighten the coding and to smooth out bug issues, which I am quite happy with because the game is so close to it's retail release date and I support having this game be in it's best polished state before then.

However, the current system Notch has added in with non-interactive NPCs that often wander out of towns and aren't intractable in any regards, seems like a waste of potential if he doesn't justify their presence with some form of trading or interactivity. In the mod itself the NPCs give out a few quests and challenges for you to complete, for players who are looking for a little more direction in their gameplay.

There is also a very interesting incentive to go outside to fight hostile mobs apart from gathering raw resources from them. The mobs drop coins, which can be used to upgrade weaponry and armor. Coins from mobs are very much like XP orbs, in that they give you an incentive to hunt them down.

While I'm not saying that Notch should outright copy this mod, I do think it would be a smart move that he take some of the core ideas from it, because it fleshes out Minecraft a bit more and adds more personality to the game for people that may want it. Yes, to the people that want it, because this modder has also very wisely added a feature where the player can enable or disable the mod on generating a new map, much like the default toggle for structure generation when you start a new game in the vanilla Minecraft. Which I feel is good as it gives players a choice if they should enable this feature. I don't support the idea that people should be forced to play a certain game mode in Minecraft if they don't want to, so having this choice is a win/win for all.


Anyway while this may be redundant I'll link the mod's thread in case some of you have not been visiting the front page lately to know of this: http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/656861-181tale-of-kingdoms-ver-103/

I would like to hear your thoughts on the direction Notch is taking the game in. If he's taking the RPG route, is it as fleshed out as you liked it to be? Would taking inspiration from this mod be a good idea to be implemented into the actual game?

The use of tale of kindoms would be great to officially add to the game, I'm an RPG fan myself and minecraft would make a GREAT RPG :biggrin.gif:

I can think of very few instances in which adding more content (barring things like bugs and balance issues, of course) has made a game worse. The only reason I would ever be against "RPG elements" is if adding them is pushing back some other content I'd like to be added first. Of course, the only thing I can think of is improving mob AI, which can certainly wait.

As for adding the mod, no. While the general concept is cool, and I'll probably use it sometime in the near future, the way it's implemented doesn't really "match up" with Mincraft. The kingdom being built on your behalf isn't really "Minecrafty." There being a bunch of NPCs isn't "Minecrafty." While there's elements of it that may work well, as a whole, I don't think it belongs in vanilla.

Quote from mrbaggins

The game is unfinished.

The RPG elements are unfinished.

They are called placeholder elements.

The game could go very similar to that mod, or entirely different. We will know in a month.

Yeah you might need to read the post before you parrot your 'it's a beta' replies. The post I made outlined a very viable solution to the unfinished RPG elements in the light of the closing release date.

Quote from GobbieMarauder

I can think of very few instances in which adding more content (barring things like bugs and balance issues, of course) has made a game worse. The only reason I would ever be against "RPG elements" is if adding them is pushing back some other content I'd like to be added first. Of course, the only thing I can think of is improving mob AI, which can certainly wait.

As for adding the mod, no. While the general concept is cool, and I'll probably use it sometime in the near future, the way it's implemented doesn't really "match up" with Mincraft. The kingdom being built on your behalf isn't really "Minecrafty." There being a bunch of NPCs isn't "Minecrafty." While there's elements of it that may work well, as a whole, I don't think it belongs in vanilla.

I agree the the RPG elements aren't particularly in the spirit of Minecraft which is why I stressed that one of the great things about this mod and the ideas that Notch could take from it is that you can toggle this entire RPG meta-game on or off before you start a new map. Though if Notch were to code this from scratch, it would introduce a lot of bugs and errors if one's not careful.

The best part is, if you don't like the features he adds, you don't HAVE TO USE THEM.

So , you watch a video of a mod.

And your first reaction is that the game should be like that , an RPG ?.

Why do people take this dumb conclusions.

So , if i watch a video of Mo creatures

I should inmediately ask notch if he could add all those mobs?

How your brain works , explain me your procces of thinking , how do you get conclusions.

Quote from Leosanims Studios

So , you watch a video of a mod.

And your first reaction is that the game should be like that , an RPG ?.

Why do people take this dumb conclusions.

So , if i watch a video of Mo creatures

I should inmediately ask notch if he could add all those mobs?

How your brain works , explain me your procces of thinking , how do you get conclusions.

Is it me or are all of you people lacking reading comprehension reading the first post?

Read the first post and it'll answer your questions on my process of thinking. I said that the video is impressive. Then I said that Notch mentioned not too long ago that he wanted his game to be more like an RPG. So if Notch wanted his game to be more like an RPG, then the way the mod did it would be a good direction to go in.

I went through great pains to explain that I don't support the game being one thing or another and I support people having a choice on what sort of gameplay they want it to be with the use of game mode toggles. Seems that part just flew over your head didn't it?

Now explain to me how your brain works whenever you read, or do you just gloss over whatever you read without any of it being processed by your brain cells?

Quote from mrbaggins

Hrm. I seem to have misplaced the word "Beta" and you found it for me.

Implementing a mod as a solution is not a solution.

What we were given was an indicator on where new features will be implemented, allowing those that are running the weekly builds to plan around them.

Everyone is fully aware that as they currently stand they are unfinished. to come up with a "solution" to a problem that technically isn't even a problem in the first place is largely a waste of time.

Actually the state of the game being unfinished *is* a problem because Notch had mentioned once before that he simply doesn't have enough time to develop the NPCs and such. He even implemented a coding freeze to work on the bugs that he hasn't solved since Alpha.

That's a problem because debugging will take a lot of Notch's time and with the game being very very close to it's retail release it's not realistic to have everything done by then. So really instead of leaving the NPCs and other rpg elements that are already in the game unfinished, it's still one solution to take some ques from this mod in light of the time constraints.

I'm not trying to force the game into being an RPG or otherwise, I'm only trying to come up with solutions to help Notch reach his deadline with a somewhat finished game with every feature having a proper purpose.

planned all along.

Cool story, bro.

Notch's view on minecraft is that he wants it to be an adventure game, not an RPG. RPG stands for "Role Playing Game". In minecraft, you aren't playing the role of anybody. there is no preset story. You can do whatever you want. It's called the "Adventure" update and not the "RPG" update for a reason. He is giving you incentives for adventuring away from spawn, for finding a stronghold, for getting to "The End", Kill a dragon, etc. It's an adventure. one of the biggest reasons people see minecraft as becoming an RPG is because it's one of the biggest selling game genres. currently in minecraft, there are no Quests/Quest givers, there is no storyline, there are no predefined characters(discluding Mobs and animals) and you don't play as a predefined character with a preset life, so what makes it a Role Playing Game.

PS: I'm not saying minecraft being an RPG is a bad thing, I think it would be awesome if there were NPC's you could get info from and trade with, and quest givers would give me incentive for going to an NPC village, so I could get experience points to make enchantments. What I'm trying to say, is that people are falsely labeling minecraft as an RPG.