I dunno, I see them as a different kind of challenge. I can see how they are annoying but I feel like it's the point of them-- In the beginning we have nothing. We scrounge desperately for coal to light a little dirt hole we made from wooden tools. Depending on the easiness of the spawn area, we might not have had enough wood for a weapon. It will still take time to get armor and better tools--so we are terrified of skeletons and zombies. They can kill us easily, which in the beginning is the most harmful to us. Endermen during this time are nothing. Don't look at them, they don't mess with you. We can live peacefully for now--they are not meant to destroy beginning players.
Start to build your castle, spend time making it defended and strong and start hoarding supplies to fend off attacks. By now, skeletons and zombies are nothing. Sure they are a pain in the butt in a cave, but now you have your fort with glass windows! This is when creepers and endermen start to kick in high gear problem wise. At this point dying isn't a big deal, you probably have enough supplies for armor at home and can get back to where you died very easily. Now, it is your buildings that are under 'survival' mode, since you no longer have to fight to survive anymore. You probably have well lit caves that are safer and give you many supplies. You are basically wealthy in the world of minecraft! You can afford to use materials to build giant castles, mob harvesters, cactus farms, you name it. It is no longer a PROBLEM to get materials like it was in the beginning. I think endermen make it so you will always always have a bit of trouble when it comes to getting those materials. It's not impossible, you CAN prevent endermen attacks. Just like it takes thought to prevent mobs from killing you, now it takes thought to keep mobs from killing your stuff!
And honestly that's what the early mobs really do. Killing you doesn't do anything except possibly make it so you lost all the stuff you harvested. Creepers can destroy your chests, making you lose your stuff. Endermen are just a little more obvious about what they are doing!
I've played survival games where there is no challenge anymore--not saying it isn't fun, but it's just not hard. You want to build a castle, you can already have it done within the day, you don't have to plan out hunting trips or brave the scary caves, you have already built your machines to do the work for you. Yeah it was hard work making those(I've made just about all of them myself) but now you've got it made!
I think endermen are just there to remind us no matter how much we 'conquer' the world, there will be things beyond our control that are just there to screw us up and make us have to rethink our plans a little bit!
But at least that's how I like to see it! On my newb maps where I have nothing, endermen aren't a pain in the butt at all, but the other mobs ARE a problem. By the time I have a ton of stuff and mobs are nothing to me, endermen start to become the main mob I have to watch out for. It makes it so I'm always on my toes, no matter how advanced my player becomes.
But if you don't like it, there is always the ability to mod them away! :biggrin.gif: Just like there is always the ability to add different mobs to the game. No game is perfect for everyone!
Thank you, great post! This articulates my beliefs about the state of the game challenges. They're varied depending on playstyle and time spent in-world. Some things will be more of a problem at different stages of player development. And really, a endless sandbox game based on block-arranging at its foundation SHOULD have more mobs that affect blocks. Conceptually this is pretty much obligatory; block-wreckers should be the mortal enemies of builders by their nature. If people want to get an I AM SUPERIOR I BEATED THIS GAME vibe, play something that actually has an ending.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Quote from will_holmes »
Quote from anon »
Every time I come to these forums, I think more and more that I'm the only person who plays Minecraft normally.
Every time I come to these forums, I think more and more that there is no such thing as playing Minecraft normally.
I think the Endermen are mysterious with their own agenda that we cannot understand; hence their moving random blocks around. If they come too near your buildings or you don't like what they're doing it gives a reason to engage and kill them, otherwise they can be left alone.
I like them. I think they're ****ing badass maaaaaaaaaan!
A lot of people are complaining about block moving making them hate the endermen...
...ever think that maybe that's the idea?
I mean, look at them. I don't think you're meant to wub them and want to give them cuddles.
Liez! All Minecraft mobs want hugzez!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
My signature is my friend. It is my thoughts. I must master it as I must master minecraft.
Thank you, great post! This articulates my beliefs about the state of the game challenges. They're varied depending on playstyle and time spent in-world. Some things will be more of a problem at different stages of player development. And really, a endless sandbox game based on block-arranging at its foundation SHOULD have more mobs that affect blocks. Conceptually this is pretty much obligatory; block-wreckers should be the mortal enemies of builders by their nature. If people want to get an I AM SUPERIOR I BEATED THIS GAME vibe, play something that actually has an ending.
The game style you're advocating is a complete regression of Minecraft, and non-sensical. If you're supposed to build with blocks, yet the game is always trying to tear them down, then it removes the point in building anything larger than a house, unless you enjoy spending a good portion of your time repairing more than a few holes in a wall. Of course, you can spam water/torches every where so monsters -cannot- possible spawn anywhere within range of your house, but you might as well should just play on peaceful at that point.
Just to reiterate the nonsense of your post, you speak of Endermen being a grand undo-er of builders in minecraft, yet 90% of the damage they actually inflict is upon the surrounding environments; the new biome code, the furthering of the attempt to make minecraft more pretty rendered near pointless when Endermen have their toll turning it into a checkerboard with floating trees. Endermen moving blocks wasn't even intended to annoy builders, it's just a stupid consequence. You don't even know what you're talking about.
It's funny, because for, what appears to be no reason at all, you've stereotyped players who resent the Endermen, to the ilk of some kind of bigoted douche bag who thinks everyone should play the game the way they want. The irony of course, that you've just projected the exact view onto us in blatant hypocrisy.
The game style you're advocating is a complete regression of Minecraft, and non-sensical. If you're supposed to build with blocks, yet the game is always trying to tear them down, then it removes the point in building anything larger than a house, unless you enjoy spending a good portion of your time repairing more than a few holes in a wall. Of course, you can spam water/torches every where so monsters -cannot- possible spawn anywhere within range of your house, but you might as well should just play on peaceful at that point.
Just to reiterate the nonsense of your post, you speak of Endermen being a grand undo-er of builders in minecraft, yet 90% of the damage they actually inflict is upon the surrounding environments; the new biome code, the furthering of the attempt to make minecraft more pretty rendered near pointless when Endermen have their toll turning it into a checkerboard with floating trees. Endermen moving blocks wasn't even intended to annoy builders, it's just a stupid consequence. You don't even know what you're talking about.
It's funny, because for, what appears to be no reason at all, you've stereotyped players who resent the Endermen, to the ilk of some kind of bigoted douche bag who thinks everyone should play the game the way they want. The irony of course, that you've just projected the exact view onto us in blatant hypocrisy.
Nonsensical regression? You got out your dictionary for this one; I'm proud of you.
I said the game at its core is based on the re-arrangement of blocks. I never said "building", nor did I say "just by the player". The point that YOU seem to be missing is that the game in Survival is played as a long-term consistent world, and in such a long-term existence things will from time to time happen to all that stuff you spent hours working on and spread over half a continent. Unless, as you say, you're playing peaceful, then the world SHOULD affect what you build, especially if you build lots of things. It helps keep the game dynamic. Survival mode isn't "build things that will stand until the end of time", unless you set that option intentionally. Otherwise, the game is going to explode your front doors and nick sections of your tracks once in a while.
I also said that the Endermen were block-wreckers, which they are, as annoying and random as creepers. That is their function, to be a foil for the player, who is all about the building. As far as being "grand", that's your own addition. They're far from being Mo's Ogres. Mortal enemies don't have to be uber; IDK where you got that idea from. Even creepers with their wider and potentially fatal damage potential aren't some game-destroying overbeast no matter how much they crank off sections of the playerbase.
Is the integrity of a random landscape seriously that critical to your game experience? "Look at this beautiful land- aaaaaa crap, Endermen moved those tree blocks. This world is ruined!" If you want nonsensical, maybe you should look at your attitude about 160 non-player-moved blocks in a 16-million-block map section.
And as far as your hyperbolic windup there (wow, you must have had the dictionary AND the thesaurus out!), this is not stereotyping anyone. If you're seriously upset by the behaviour of the Endermen then you're playing exactly to type, honestly. There's that section of the playerbase who becomes mortified if anything happens to their creations, but still want to play Survival mode. This also is nonsensical. To have the player's special little pile of rocks be impervious to the effects of the world for all time diminishes the point of having a dynamic world to a certain degree. There are game options available for the perma-builder, avail yourself of them. Survival mode with hostile mobs that break and move blocks is not one of these options. Also, very nice usage of passive/aggressive techniques at the very end there, with the oh-so-clever oblique name-calling. If you contorted that line any further you'd have recursively insulted yourself. You want to bring it, then stand up and bring it, son; otherwise sit down take your meds. And fix that hole in your wall. A poisonous spider could get in there.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Quote from will_holmes »
Quote from anon »
Every time I come to these forums, I think more and more that I'm the only person who plays Minecraft normally.
Every time I come to these forums, I think more and more that there is no such thing as playing Minecraft normally.
i think its important to look at a different and bigger issue,
over a very long period of time endermen can really make the terrain disgusting. if you spend most of your time in the same general area even if you "enderproof" your creations the surrounding landscape will be picked apart little by little. chances are you arent even going to notice a lot of areas until they are really disfigured.
playing on peaceful if you dont like endermen is a ridiculous suggestion. you shouldnt have to eliminate all monsters and drastically change the way the game is played just because you dont want your creations and your land destroyed in ways largely beyond your control.
the way endermen currently behaive is an example of bad game design. minecraft is clearly popular because of its unique sandbox experience. the majority if the players are people who enjoy building very detailed creations and have a serious interest in preserving those creations. often people spend a good deal of time surveying for the perfect landscape to build on as well, that basicly means that the landscape is just as important as what is built on it.
the occasional creeper explosion is fine. these are destructive but you know exactly when and where they happen and most of the time your skill can help you avoid the damage altogether. creepers inspire fear and keep you on your toes without detracting from the sandbox spirit that most minecrafters have a passion for. endermen do their damage gradually, randomly and in secret. it does not enrich the game experience to add something that keeps you constantly checking all of your blocks just to make sure theyre still there. endermen were added with this ability without providing the players with a reiable means of countering the ability, hence the bad design decision. we shouldve been given some sort of repelant. for example, the ender pearls couldve been crafting into something that would prevent endermen from entering a spherical radius around the item. i understand that their water alergy helps but its not enough. its also nice that they only disregard player placed blocks that were placed after 1.8 released because no one has really built anything in minecraft worth saving until 1.8.
sarcasm aside, endermen are a nice addition for a small sub-group of players who value challenge and hardships above anything else in the game. but most players just dont want their blocks to be touched by anyone but them at any time for any reason.
From a gameplay perspective, I'm not sure if I like Endermen moving player-placed blocks, especially with regards to how they could really screw up redstone contraptions.
That said, philosophically I'm starting to come around to the idea of them randomly moving blocks. They are essentially a physical embodiment of the principle of entropy, which until now didn't really exist in Minecraft, which is why it didn't really feel like a survival game. Before, things pretty much only improved. If, in the worst case, you just stood there for several Minecraft days, your environment or your health wouldn't get any worse. Now we have hunger and Endermen.
Hunger represents the entropy of your physical body. In real-life survival, rntropy is essentially hostile to life because life is order, and entropy in all its manifestations (such as the usage of energy in our bodies and the resulting hunger) is an obstacle to that.
Similarly, Endermen represent the entropy of the physical environment. If you do nothing, over time the environment will slowly degrade and become less ordered.
And although you might not aesthetically like the look of a static-noise landscape, that does at least give us an eerie look at how old a particular world is. Young worlds are pristine and beautiful. Old, dying worlds have decayed from the slow march of entropy into a static noise. I kind of like it.
Nonsensical regression? You got out your dictionary for this one; I'm proud of you.
I said the game at its core is based on the re-arrangement of blocks. I never said "building", nor did I say "just by the player". The point that YOU seem to be missing is that the game in Survival is played as a long-term consistent world, and in such a long-term existence things will from time to time happen to all that stuff you spent hours working on and spread over half a continent. Unless, as you say, you're playing peaceful, then the world SHOULD affect what you build, especially if you build lots of things. It helps keep the game dynamic. Survival mode isn't "build things that will stand until the end of time", unless you set that option intentionally. Otherwise, the game is going to explode your front doors and nick sections of your tracks once in a while.
I also said that the Endermen were block-wreckers, which they are, as annoying and random as creepers. That is their function, to be a foil for the player, who is all about the building. As far as being "grand", that's your own addition. They're far from being Mo's Ogres. Mortal enemies don't have to be uber; IDK where you got that idea from. Even creepers with their wider and potentially fatal damage potential aren't some game-destroying overbeast no matter how much they crank off sections of the playerbase.
Is the integrity of a random landscape seriously that critical to your game experience? "Look at this beautiful land- aaaaaa crap, Endermen moved those tree blocks. This world is ruined!" If you want nonsensical, maybe you should look at your attitude about 160 non-player-moved blocks in a 16-million-block map section.
And as far as your hyperbolic windup there (wow, you must have had the dictionary AND the thesaurus out!), this is not stereotyping anyone. If you're seriously upset by the behaviour of the Endermen then you're playing exactly to type, honestly. There's that section of the playerbase who becomes mortified if anything happens to their creations, but still want to play Survival mode. This also is nonsensical. To have the player's special little pile of rocks be impervious to the effects of the world for all time diminishes the point of having a dynamic world to a certain degree. There are game options available for the perma-builder, avail yourself of them. Survival mode with hostile mobs that break and move blocks is not one of these options. Also, very nice usage of passive/aggressive techniques at the very end there, with the oh-so-clever oblique name-calling. If you contorted that line any further you'd have recursively insulted yourself. You want to bring it, then stand up and bring it, son; otherwise sit down take your meds. And fix that hole in your wall. A poisonous spider could get in there.
Yeah, I had my mom grab the dictionary from the top shelf. I read it all by myself. Thanks for noticing, db.
Once again, you said it. "Survival mode isn't "build things that will stand until the end of time", unless you set that option intentionally." You're twisting the function of Endermen around this delusion that Minecraft was meant to be played the way YOU want it to be played. You can play minecraft however you want, whether it be to live in a hut exploring dungeons, or thriving in a hostile world, gathering resources to build giant wonders. Go ahead and find me the quote from Notch where he says he wants EVERYONE in survival mode to play the way Tarman dictates (i.e. you can only build a 3*3*4 shack and hunt monsters with your bare fists).
And once again, you interpret what began as an inconsequential design of Endermen around this ridiculous notion of yours in how the game is supposedly meant to be played. Since you know everything, I'm sure you've read Notch's post explaining the new concept of Endermen.
'blocks' is mentioned twice.
...It’s dark, it has long and narrow limbs, moves very slowly, and will pick up blocks and move them around. I wanted this to be a mob you only saw in the distance and a mob you’d be afraid of, but when I playtested it, it mostly felt like a regular zombie...
...suddenly you could walk up to these looking beasts (they’re three meters tall) and watch them as they moved their blocks around, but as soon as you happened to look straight at them, they’d attack...
The irony of course is that the entire blog post elaborates on Notch's idea of punishing a player for actively making a mistake, by then making a monster that destroys their world 24/7 regardless of the player. No where did it state Endermen were designed around wreaking havoc on a player's world. It's a stupid AI quirk to make them unique.
The bigotry goes on and on. TARMAN doesn't care about great looking scenery around his house, so why ON EARTH would anyone else? An update that, amazingly doesn't affect you but affects many others. BUT NOTCH DECREED IT THEREFORE I MUST GO INTO THE FORUMS AND MAKE AN IDIOT OUT OF MYSELF.
There are other games where you fight monsters and don't build things. Minecraft isn't for you. My first, and most worthy- excuse the pun, block. *sunglasses*
Here's something I'd be ok with: enable endermen to remove blocks solely in order to get to you. That way his moving blocks actually has meaning. This is more frightening, and less annoying all in one.
On top of that, it's what some endermen-defenders said they do, but they don't, but they should. I'd support that. That way it's similar to the creeper's explosion: it only happens with player interaction, as Notch said it should.
Is the integrity of a random landscape seriously that critical to your game experience? "Look at this beautiful land- aaaaaa crap, Endermen moved those tree blocks. This world is ruined!" If you want nonsensical, maybe you should look at your attitude about 160 non-player-moved blocks in a 16-million-block map section.
First: Some people are perfectly content to live in their own filth, not bathing for days, cleaning their homes, or picking the dead mice out of their piles of laundry. While objectively unhealthy, in subjective terms, they aren't "wrong" about it being bearable any more than others are "wrong" about it being unbearable.
Second: Raw numbers are a misleading factor to bring in. Even disregarding my first point, you are not at any given time apt to be looking at sixteen million blocks at once. Besides that, aesthetic damage is not strictly measured by number of blocks removed.
And third, relating to the post more broadly: Attempting to justify whether a design choice is "good" based on whether it is intentional or not seems to be dismayingly close to an "appeal to nature" fallacy. If there is a more precise term for this version of that line of thinking, it's not known to me.
The rest appears to be 20% discussion and 80% interpersonal spat, which I will respectfully not wade into.
Here's something I'd be ok with: enable endermen to remove blocks solely in order to get to you. That way his moving blocks actually has meaning. This is more frightening, and less annoying all in one.
On top of that, it's what some endermen-defenders said they do, but they don't, but they should. I'd support that. That way it's similar to the creeper's explosion: it only happens with player interaction, as Notch said it should.
The majority of people who are in favour of endermen moving blocks love the fact that endermen prevent players who play the game differently to enjoy the game. If I had to retain one thing from this thread, that would be it. This isn't a noble reason to like a new feature.
Anti-endermen: makes everything look nasty or force me to put torches and moat everywhere because endermen aren't acting with player interaction.
Pro-endermen: endermen don't really do much of anything in my world, except move natural blocks around which I don't care for because esthetics don't matter to me; I live in a hut and occasionally having to fill holes in it is mildly fun; but mostly it annoys those Minecrafter who build complex and huge things, and I love that.
Again, I wish enderman retained his ability but had it more focused and player-based. If enderman removed blocks to get to you once you looked at him, then I'd welcome it. Thus far, it's not that much of a new challenge or novelty, but it is a major annoyance for those who are annoyed. Our annoyance is 500 times your enjoyment of blocks being randomly moved about.
Thank you, great post! This articulates my beliefs about the state of the game challenges. They're varied depending on playstyle and time spent in-world. Some things will be more of a problem at different stages of player development. And really, a endless sandbox game based on block-arranging at its foundation SHOULD have more mobs that affect blocks. Conceptually this is pretty much obligatory; block-wreckers should be the mortal enemies of builders by their nature. If people want to get an I AM SUPERIOR I BEATED THIS GAME vibe, play something that actually has an ending.
I agree entirely with the point that blocks shouldn't be strictly sacrosanct. It's HOW they do it that raises issues. The chief issue here is the question of, "What is the player expected to do about it?" The answer appears to be "torches and moats everywhere" for player-made structures, and "sod-all" for the landscape. The latter is obviously a problem. As for the former: Is that a reasonable thing to ask? Are moats and torches now just an obligatory part of any construction? A mandatory step in building anything? If so, should they be? Does it really add anything to the game to just tell the player "Nice stuff. Now build a moat around it." Is this Moatcraft now?
The reason Creepers work (in my opinion - others disagree) is because while structural defenses can ward them off, they're optional. You can just make sure you have good vantage points to avoid them as well. You can also recover from the damage. A creeper explosion is an "event". It's a moment where you know you screwed up. Now it's time to rebuild. It's clear what you're expected to do about it. Be careful, watch out for Creepers, make sure you don't step out blindly into vulnerable areas, and fight them carefully if you engage them. Enderman damage is gradual attrition without any input from the player at all. They just keep doing it, whether you are around or not, without any specific failure on your part, unless you build your Obligatory Moat (TM).
So, the choice, from where a player stands, is randomized unpreventable damage, or moats plus total illumination of everything or cramped ceilings. Does being forced to make this choice improve the game?
The majority of people who are in favour of endermen moving blocks love the fact that endermen prevent players who play the game differently to enjoy the game. If I had to retain one thing from this thread, that would be it. This isn't a noble reason to like a new feature.
Anti-endermen: makes everything look nasty or force me to put torches and moat everywhere because endermen aren't acting with player interaction.
Pro-endermen: endermen don't really do much of anything in my world, except move natural blocks around which I don't care for because esthetics don't matter to me; I live in a hut and occasionally having to fill holes in it is mildly fun; but mostly it annoys those Minecrafter who build complex and huge things, and I love that.
Again, I wish enderman retained his ability but had it more focused and player-based. If enderman removed blocks to get to you once you looked at him, then I'd welcome it. Thus far, it's not that much of a new challenge or novelty, but it is a major annoyance for those who are annoyed. Our annoyance is 500 times your enjoyment of blocks being randomly moved about.
I like the enderman's block moving ability on principle, but yeah, the current implementation is quite poor and needs to be changed from random to player instigated.
Anyone who does anything significant with redstone(like me) are some of the most affected. Moving just ONE block in a redstone system can cause the entire thing to break.
Multiply that by a few large redstone systems and I suddenly have to devote large amounts of time to circuit repair. I would much rather be making new things than fixing old ones.
Oh cool, I came here to rage about the endermen sabotage.
I live on an island, so most of the mobs spawn on my island. First night I thought there were zombies outside of my house, but after leaving the cellar I found that my wall was missing. Another thing is that the trees near my house are missing blocks.
After that I decieded to start to hunt endermen when night came. I couldn't do anything. First there were two that I killed, then there spawned five... Soon my whole island was griefed.
Another annoying thing is that only chickens spawn in my island now... I haven't found a single sheep, cow or a pig.
- is it certain that endermen can't spawn in 2 blocks high rooms?
- if they can still spawn, will they choke? and will they be able to remove blocks?
I honestly doubt Notch or anyone really wants the landscape to be the victim of endermen. Nobody works a code to generate random landscapes of epic beauty (the update seems to have done amazing stuff) only to have it taken apart by autistic mobs.
I'm on peaceful until further notice. I utterly refuse to have the landscape vandalised continuously.
Start to build your castle, spend time making it defended and strong and start hoarding supplies to fend off attacks. By now, skeletons and zombies are nothing. Sure they are a pain in the butt in a cave, but now you have your fort with glass windows! This is when creepers and endermen start to kick in high gear problem wise. At this point dying isn't a big deal, you probably have enough supplies for armor at home and can get back to where you died very easily. Now, it is your buildings that are under 'survival' mode, since you no longer have to fight to survive anymore. You probably have well lit caves that are safer and give you many supplies. You are basically wealthy in the world of minecraft! You can afford to use materials to build giant castles, mob harvesters, cactus farms, you name it. It is no longer a PROBLEM to get materials like it was in the beginning. I think endermen make it so you will always always have a bit of trouble when it comes to getting those materials. It's not impossible, you CAN prevent endermen attacks. Just like it takes thought to prevent mobs from killing you, now it takes thought to keep mobs from killing your stuff!
And honestly that's what the early mobs really do. Killing you doesn't do anything except possibly make it so you lost all the stuff you harvested. Creepers can destroy your chests, making you lose your stuff. Endermen are just a little more obvious about what they are doing!
I've played survival games where there is no challenge anymore--not saying it isn't fun, but it's just not hard. You want to build a castle, you can already have it done within the day, you don't have to plan out hunting trips or brave the scary caves, you have already built your machines to do the work for you. Yeah it was hard work making those(I've made just about all of them myself) but now you've got it made!
I think endermen are just there to remind us no matter how much we 'conquer' the world, there will be things beyond our control that are just there to screw us up and make us have to rethink our plans a little bit!
But at least that's how I like to see it! On my newb maps where I have nothing, endermen aren't a pain in the butt at all, but the other mobs ARE a problem. By the time I have a ton of stuff and mobs are nothing to me, endermen start to become the main mob I have to watch out for. It makes it so I'm always on my toes, no matter how advanced my player becomes.
But if you don't like it, there is always the ability to mod them away! :biggrin.gif: Just like there is always the ability to add different mobs to the game. No game is perfect for everyone!
Thank you, great post! This articulates my beliefs about the state of the game challenges. They're varied depending on playstyle and time spent in-world. Some things will be more of a problem at different stages of player development. And really, a endless sandbox game based on block-arranging at its foundation SHOULD have more mobs that affect blocks. Conceptually this is pretty much obligatory; block-wreckers should be the mortal enemies of builders by their nature. If people want to get an I AM SUPERIOR I BEATED THIS GAME vibe, play something that actually has an ending.
I like them. I think they're ****ing badass maaaaaaaaaan!
...ever think that maybe that's the idea?
I mean, look at them. I don't think you're meant to wub them and want to give them cuddles.
Liez! All Minecraft mobs want hugzez!
My signature is my friend. It is my thoughts. I must master it as I must master minecraft.
The game style you're advocating is a complete regression of Minecraft, and non-sensical. If you're supposed to build with blocks, yet the game is always trying to tear them down, then it removes the point in building anything larger than a house, unless you enjoy spending a good portion of your time repairing more than a few holes in a wall. Of course, you can spam water/torches every where so monsters -cannot- possible spawn anywhere within range of your house, but you might as well should just play on peaceful at that point.
Just to reiterate the nonsense of your post, you speak of Endermen being a grand undo-er of builders in minecraft, yet 90% of the damage they actually inflict is upon the surrounding environments; the new biome code, the furthering of the attempt to make minecraft more pretty rendered near pointless when Endermen have their toll turning it into a checkerboard with floating trees. Endermen moving blocks wasn't even intended to annoy builders, it's just a stupid consequence. You don't even know what you're talking about.
It's funny, because for, what appears to be no reason at all, you've stereotyped players who resent the Endermen, to the ilk of some kind of bigoted douche bag who thinks everyone should play the game the way they want. The irony of course, that you've just projected the exact view onto us in blatant hypocrisy.
Nonsensical regression? You got out your dictionary for this one; I'm proud of you.
I said the game at its core is based on the re-arrangement of blocks. I never said "building", nor did I say "just by the player". The point that YOU seem to be missing is that the game in Survival is played as a long-term consistent world, and in such a long-term existence things will from time to time happen to all that stuff you spent hours working on and spread over half a continent. Unless, as you say, you're playing peaceful, then the world SHOULD affect what you build, especially if you build lots of things. It helps keep the game dynamic. Survival mode isn't "build things that will stand until the end of time", unless you set that option intentionally. Otherwise, the game is going to explode your front doors and nick sections of your tracks once in a while.
I also said that the Endermen were block-wreckers, which they are, as annoying and random as creepers. That is their function, to be a foil for the player, who is all about the building. As far as being "grand", that's your own addition. They're far from being Mo's Ogres. Mortal enemies don't have to be uber; IDK where you got that idea from. Even creepers with their wider and potentially fatal damage potential aren't some game-destroying overbeast no matter how much they crank off sections of the playerbase.
Is the integrity of a random landscape seriously that critical to your game experience? "Look at this beautiful land- aaaaaa crap, Endermen moved those tree blocks. This world is ruined!" If you want nonsensical, maybe you should look at your attitude about 160 non-player-moved blocks in a 16-million-block map section.
And as far as your hyperbolic windup there (wow, you must have had the dictionary AND the thesaurus out!), this is not stereotyping anyone. If you're seriously upset by the behaviour of the Endermen then you're playing exactly to type, honestly. There's that section of the playerbase who becomes mortified if anything happens to their creations, but still want to play Survival mode. This also is nonsensical. To have the player's special little pile of rocks be impervious to the effects of the world for all time diminishes the point of having a dynamic world to a certain degree. There are game options available for the perma-builder, avail yourself of them. Survival mode with hostile mobs that break and move blocks is not one of these options. Also, very nice usage of passive/aggressive techniques at the very end there, with the oh-so-clever oblique name-calling. If you contorted that line any further you'd have recursively insulted yourself. You want to bring it, then stand up and bring it, son; otherwise sit down take your meds. And fix that hole in your wall. A poisonous spider could get in there.
over a very long period of time endermen can really make the terrain disgusting. if you spend most of your time in the same general area even if you "enderproof" your creations the surrounding landscape will be picked apart little by little. chances are you arent even going to notice a lot of areas until they are really disfigured.
playing on peaceful if you dont like endermen is a ridiculous suggestion. you shouldnt have to eliminate all monsters and drastically change the way the game is played just because you dont want your creations and your land destroyed in ways largely beyond your control.
the way endermen currently behaive is an example of bad game design. minecraft is clearly popular because of its unique sandbox experience. the majority if the players are people who enjoy building very detailed creations and have a serious interest in preserving those creations. often people spend a good deal of time surveying for the perfect landscape to build on as well, that basicly means that the landscape is just as important as what is built on it.
the occasional creeper explosion is fine. these are destructive but you know exactly when and where they happen and most of the time your skill can help you avoid the damage altogether. creepers inspire fear and keep you on your toes without detracting from the sandbox spirit that most minecrafters have a passion for. endermen do their damage gradually, randomly and in secret. it does not enrich the game experience to add something that keeps you constantly checking all of your blocks just to make sure theyre still there. endermen were added with this ability without providing the players with a reiable means of countering the ability, hence the bad design decision. we shouldve been given some sort of repelant. for example, the ender pearls couldve been crafting into something that would prevent endermen from entering a spherical radius around the item. i understand that their water alergy helps but its not enough. its also nice that they only disregard player placed blocks that were placed after 1.8 released because no one has really built anything in minecraft worth saving until 1.8.
sarcasm aside, endermen are a nice addition for a small sub-group of players who value challenge and hardships above anything else in the game. but most players just dont want their blocks to be touched by anyone but them at any time for any reason.
That said, philosophically I'm starting to come around to the idea of them randomly moving blocks. They are essentially a physical embodiment of the principle of entropy, which until now didn't really exist in Minecraft, which is why it didn't really feel like a survival game. Before, things pretty much only improved. If, in the worst case, you just stood there for several Minecraft days, your environment or your health wouldn't get any worse. Now we have hunger and Endermen.
Hunger represents the entropy of your physical body. In real-life survival, rntropy is essentially hostile to life because life is order, and entropy in all its manifestations (such as the usage of energy in our bodies and the resulting hunger) is an obstacle to that.
Similarly, Endermen represent the entropy of the physical environment. If you do nothing, over time the environment will slowly degrade and become less ordered.
And although you might not aesthetically like the look of a static-noise landscape, that does at least give us an eerie look at how old a particular world is. Young worlds are pristine and beautiful. Old, dying worlds have decayed from the slow march of entropy into a static noise. I kind of like it.
Yeah, I had my mom grab the dictionary from the top shelf. I read it all by myself. Thanks for noticing, db.
Once again, you said it. "Survival mode isn't "build things that will stand until the end of time", unless you set that option intentionally." You're twisting the function of Endermen around this delusion that Minecraft was meant to be played the way YOU want it to be played. You can play minecraft however you want, whether it be to live in a hut exploring dungeons, or thriving in a hostile world, gathering resources to build giant wonders. Go ahead and find me the quote from Notch where he says he wants EVERYONE in survival mode to play the way Tarman dictates (i.e. you can only build a 3*3*4 shack and hunt monsters with your bare fists).
And once again, you interpret what began as an inconsequential design of Endermen around this ridiculous notion of yours in how the game is supposedly meant to be played. Since you know everything, I'm sure you've read Notch's post explaining the new concept of Endermen.
'blocks' is mentioned twice.
The irony of course is that the entire blog post elaborates on Notch's idea of punishing a player for actively making a mistake, by then making a monster that destroys their world 24/7 regardless of the player. No where did it state Endermen were designed around wreaking havoc on a player's world. It's a stupid AI quirk to make them unique.
The bigotry goes on and on. TARMAN doesn't care about great looking scenery around his house, so why ON EARTH would anyone else? An update that, amazingly doesn't affect you but affects many others. BUT NOTCH DECREED IT THEREFORE I MUST GO INTO THE FORUMS AND MAKE AN IDIOT OUT OF MYSELF.
There are other games where you fight monsters and don't build things. Minecraft isn't for you. My first, and most worthy- excuse the pun, block. *sunglasses*
On top of that, it's what some endermen-defenders said they do, but they don't, but they should. I'd support that. That way it's similar to the creeper's explosion: it only happens with player interaction, as Notch said it should.
First: Some people are perfectly content to live in their own filth, not bathing for days, cleaning their homes, or picking the dead mice out of their piles of laundry. While objectively unhealthy, in subjective terms, they aren't "wrong" about it being bearable any more than others are "wrong" about it being unbearable.
Second: Raw numbers are a misleading factor to bring in. Even disregarding my first point, you are not at any given time apt to be looking at sixteen million blocks at once. Besides that, aesthetic damage is not strictly measured by number of blocks removed.
And third, relating to the post more broadly: Attempting to justify whether a design choice is "good" based on whether it is intentional or not seems to be dismayingly close to an "appeal to nature" fallacy. If there is a more precise term for this version of that line of thinking, it's not known to me.
The rest appears to be 20% discussion and 80% interpersonal spat, which I will respectfully not wade into.
Exactly what I said! :smile.gif:
Anti-endermen: makes everything look nasty or force me to put torches and moat everywhere because endermen aren't acting with player interaction.
Pro-endermen: endermen don't really do much of anything in my world, except move natural blocks around which I don't care for because esthetics don't matter to me; I live in a hut and occasionally having to fill holes in it is mildly fun; but mostly it annoys those Minecrafter who build complex and huge things, and I love that.
Again, I wish enderman retained his ability but had it more focused and player-based. If enderman removed blocks to get to you once you looked at him, then I'd welcome it. Thus far, it's not that much of a new challenge or novelty, but it is a major annoyance for those who are annoyed. Our annoyance is 500 times your enjoyment of blocks being randomly moved about.
I agree entirely with the point that blocks shouldn't be strictly sacrosanct. It's HOW they do it that raises issues. The chief issue here is the question of, "What is the player expected to do about it?" The answer appears to be "torches and moats everywhere" for player-made structures, and "sod-all" for the landscape. The latter is obviously a problem. As for the former: Is that a reasonable thing to ask? Are moats and torches now just an obligatory part of any construction? A mandatory step in building anything? If so, should they be? Does it really add anything to the game to just tell the player "Nice stuff. Now build a moat around it." Is this Moatcraft now?
The reason Creepers work (in my opinion - others disagree) is because while structural defenses can ward them off, they're optional. You can just make sure you have good vantage points to avoid them as well. You can also recover from the damage. A creeper explosion is an "event". It's a moment where you know you screwed up. Now it's time to rebuild. It's clear what you're expected to do about it. Be careful, watch out for Creepers, make sure you don't step out blindly into vulnerable areas, and fight them carefully if you engage them. Enderman damage is gradual attrition without any input from the player at all. They just keep doing it, whether you are around or not, without any specific failure on your part, unless you build your Obligatory Moat (TM).
So, the choice, from where a player stands, is randomized unpreventable damage, or moats plus total illumination of everything or cramped ceilings. Does being forced to make this choice improve the game?
I like the enderman's block moving ability on principle, but yeah, the current implementation is quite poor and needs to be changed from random to player instigated.
Anyone who does anything significant with redstone(like me) are some of the most affected. Moving just ONE block in a redstone system can cause the entire thing to break.
Multiply that by a few large redstone systems and I suddenly have to devote large amounts of time to circuit repair. I would much rather be making new things than fixing old ones.
Please provide us with pictures!
Everyone else too, post pictures of the griefing.
Yes, I hadn't gotten to your post when I wrote that. *brofist*
- is it certain that endermen can't spawn in 2 blocks high rooms?
- if they can still spawn, will they choke? and will they be able to remove blocks?
I honestly doubt Notch or anyone really wants the landscape to be the victim of endermen. Nobody works a code to generate random landscapes of epic beauty (the update seems to have done amazing stuff) only to have it taken apart by autistic mobs.
I'm on peaceful until further notice. I utterly refuse to have the landscape vandalised continuously.