I believe the true issues are that even these small changes would be a lot of work, and it's not certain that it would balance out and be worth the effort in the long run - especially since FC is working on finishing the mod, rather than adding content to it.
And then there would still remain the visual issues to address. When horses came out I had intended to integrate them into BTW, because you're right, with a lot of balancing work it could likely be done.
When I first tried them in game however, after playing around with them for a bit I realized that even if I fixed up the balance, they'd still be visually inconsistent with the rest of the game. I also began to ask myself why I was doing all this in the first place given horses were an unneeded feature and really didn't bring anything new to the game.
Horses were actually the final straw for me in determining whether I would continue to update to new versions of Minecraft. A short while after trying them I decided that I would not. Since then, the new features that have been added to vanilla have only confirmed for me that was the right choice.
The horses do look....
Out of place, to say the least.
On another, complealty random note, I now officially hate skeletons.
I had a hole leading out to a small gully/ditch with a overhang behind my house in case I couldn't go out my front door, with a water stream that prevented mobs from entering from the back. A skeleton got in front of that hole, and every time I showed by face, it would try to snipe me to death. Worst was the fact that I had to go past him to go out the door, but he wouldn't let me. And amazingly, Each night, a new skeleton came and took the place of the former, effectively locking me in my house for three days straight.
Just out of curiosity, are there any plans to remove (or edit the text to your liking) the 1.5 client's nag message about 1.6 being available? I don't know how labor-intensive that would be, so I may actually be better off meddling with my firewall settings to block the URL it checks.
EDIT: Poster on the next page made me realize that I have not not installed the mod correctly, which is why I still see it.
Just out of curiosity, are there any plans to remove (or edit the text to your liking) the 1.5 client's nag message about 1.6 being available? I don't know how labor-intensive that would be, so I may actually be better off meddling with my firewall settings to block the URL it checks.
From changelog for BTW version 4.86 (july 6/2013)
"-Removed Mojang's update pester from the title screen, given BTW is not yet available for 1.6, and given that it was frigging annoying "
Note: This is NOT the final release of BTW. That's still on the way. However, it does represent the finalization of both Hardcore Villagers, and the overall tech progression, so if you were waiting on proceeding beyond a certain point, feel free to proceed
-Added a new villager trading system which is left for the player to discover.
-Added visual feedback to the hunger meter whenever hunger is consumed by a player action. This will hopefully make players more aware of some of the subtler aspects of the hunger system like how spam-clicking mobs burns excessive hunger, or how jumping or sprinting frequently does the same.
-Added a little more progression to axes: now, iron axes and better will not consume hunger when you are chopping through zero toughness vegetation like grass and flowers, making them ideal for clearing paths for yourself as you move about above ground. In addition to this, diamond level axes and better will not consume durability when destroying leaf or vine blocks, which means you can use them to carve paths through jungles or other dense vegetation without them ever wearing out. This gives a significant boost to the usefulness of axes in general as they were still rather underpowered relative to other tools, as well as further encouraging path and road building. Note that gold axes are considered "worse" than iron for the purposes of this, and thus get no bonuses.
-Added a grunting sound to when players perform a zero-damage attack on a creature due to hunger or health depletion. This should make it a little clearer what's happening under these circumstances.
-Added the ability to render Mystery Meat into Tallow. My apologies for the glaring oversight there. I guess I'm not a beautiful and unique snowflake after all.
-Added restrictions to villager breeding so that they will only produce children of the same class as one of their parents (Hardcore Caste System?). Therefore, in order to gain access to a particular villager type you *must* find one in the world first. Note that with the other changes in this release, this greatly reduces the value of partially abandoned villages, as well as increases the significance of keeping particular villagers safe once found.
-Added the color of candles to their names to simplify their identification.
-Changed a little something something about Pigmen behavior that is absolutely nothing to worry about.
-Changed the Ocular of Ender to use ender pearls in its recipe instead of eyes of ender.
-Changed the bed recipe to require Padding instead of wool.
-Removed the player's ability to craft eyes of ender, as this is now a villager trade. I mention this aspect specifically since it changes the overall progression In other words, you *must* find a villager willing to trade for them in order to progress beyond a certain point, meaning that finding and trading with villagers is now part of BTW's tech progression.
-Fixed problem with Wicker returning only 4 reeds when disassembled instead of 9.
-Fixed problem where Ropes could be attached to upwards facing Anchors.
-Fixed problem where Saws weren't cutting Hemp, sugar cane, or wheat.
Enjoy!
-------------
If you'd like to say thanks for this release and help contribute to the further development of Better Than Wolves, please consider making a donation:
Powered rails require six gold ingots, could this be changed to six gold nuggets instead?
As I said, not sure if this is an oversight or intentional.
Well, it's intentional, but not something I've mulled over for a long while now.
I can see where you're coming from though with the disproportionate cost of iron vs gold powered rails given the regular rail recipe outputs multiples.
The gold costs are meant more to encourage nether mob farms, but I'll agree it doesn't feel entirely consistent at present relative to the iron one, and I've been feeling for awhile that rail networks have been getting the short end of the stick in terms of overall balance.
Let me mull it over. I'm not sure if what you're suggesting would be the route I'd take, but I think the underlying sentiment that may be behind it is valid.
We get suggestions for "MOAR REALSIM" and "STEAM POWER" and "DIAMOND SAWS" every month or so. BTW is in the closing chapter of its life, and everything is getting tied up neatly for the grand finale to come. When considering new features to be added, many things are considered such as how it will affect everything else in the game, how it impacts the tech tree, and why people would want to make it when they can make something else. You can't just start throwing stuff around going "look at the shiny I made", because that's where vanilla's already gone, balance thrown out the window to make everything just a choice of aesthetics.
So, I've always felt that balance in vanilla Minecraft is unnecessary. To me vanilla is about the building and creativity, while BTW is much more of a classic "game." Vanilla fills a different role than BTW. It's okay to me when Mojang add in new features just because they're fun to mess around with because Minecraft is the type of game where extra content is important. BTW is the type of game where it's not about the amount of content.
I play both vanilla and BTW, they fulfill different needs that I have.
Well, it's intentional, but not something I've mulled over for a long while now.
I can see where you're coming from though with the disproportionate cost of iron vs gold powered rails given the regular rail recipe outputs multiples.
The gold costs are meant more to encourage nether mob farms, but I'll agree it doesn't feel entirely consistent at present relative to the iron one, and I've been feeling for awhile that rail networks have been getting the short end of the stick in terms of overall balance.
Let me mull it over. I'm not sure if what you're suggesting would be the route I'd take, but I think the underlying sentiment that may be behind it is valid.
Well, technically speaking, gold is a lot softer and bendable metal then iron.
So if we want something made of gold that has the same sturdiness and iron, it's only logical that we use more gold, isn't it
Well, technically speaking, gold is a lot softer and bendable metal then iron.
So if we want something made of gold that has the same sturdiness and iron, it's only logical that we use more gold, isn't it
Yes, if you look at it from the realism angle, but I think DodgyBob's pledge was really about the gameplay angle.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Better Than Wolves Mod WARNING: May cause addiction and/or skull detonation. Handle with care.
By luck you are not finished with the hardcore part yet
That's not really true either. Only thing left right now on BTW is the "end game", which isn't new tech, hardcore modes, or anything else, but rather the final chapter in the "story" that's being told within it.
It's been public knowledge for a very long time now that I'm bringing BTW to a close to move onto other projects. All I'm doing right now is tying up loose ends.
So, I've always felt that balance in vanilla Minecraft is unnecessary. To me vanilla is about the building and creativity
Constraints breed creativity.
Balance is needed because it creates fun, interaction with the world. Obviously different people feel different about how far the balance needs to go but beds and Peaceful just straight out remove entire chunks of gameplay from the experience.
Besides, your desire for "i wanna build" is filled by Creative, whereas your need for meaningful interaction is filled by Survival. (although Mojang seems hellbent on merging the two)
Not at present, no. As is stated in the OP, registration is periodically closed, and this happens to be one of those periods
And then there would still remain the visual issues to address. When horses came out I had intended to integrate them into BTW, because you're right, with a lot of balancing work it could likely be done.
When I first tried them in game however, after playing around with them for a bit I realized that even if I fixed up the balance, they'd still be visually inconsistent with the rest of the game. I also began to ask myself why I was doing all this in the first place given horses were an unneeded feature and really didn't bring anything new to the game.
Horses were actually the final straw for me in determining whether I would continue to update to new versions of Minecraft. A short while after trying them I decided that I would not. Since then, the new features that have been added to vanilla have only confirmed for me that was the right choice.
Out of place, to say the least.
On another, complealty random note, I now officially hate skeletons.
I had a hole leading out to a small gully/ditch with a overhang behind my house in case I couldn't go out my front door, with a water stream that prevented mobs from entering from the back. A skeleton got in front of that hole, and every time I showed by face, it would try to snipe me to death. Worst was the fact that I had to go past him to go out the door, but he wouldn't let me. And amazingly, Each night, a new skeleton came and took the place of the former, effectively locking me in my house for three days straight.
You know you can dig tunnels in the latest versions of Minecraft right?
I forget what release that got added in though...
Just out of curiosity, are there any plans to remove (or edit the text to your liking) the 1.5 client's nag message about 1.6 being available? I don't know how labor-intensive that would be, so I may actually be better off meddling with my firewall settings to block the URL it checks.EDIT: Poster on the next page made me realize that I have not not installed the mod correctly, which is why I still see it.
From changelog for BTW version 4.86 (july 6/2013)
"-Removed Mojang's update pester from the title screen, given BTW is not yet available for 1.6, and given that it was frigging annoying "
Ah, I must not have installed the mod correctly then. Thank you for your help!
Version 4.9 Marsupial? of Better Than Wolves is ready for download!
Download Link
This release contains the following changes:
Note: This is NOT the final release of BTW. That's still on the way. However, it does represent the finalization of both Hardcore Villagers, and the overall tech progression, so if you were waiting on proceeding beyond a certain point, feel free to proceed
-Added a new villager trading system which is left for the player to discover.
-Added visual feedback to the hunger meter whenever hunger is consumed by a player action. This will hopefully make players more aware of some of the subtler aspects of the hunger system like how spam-clicking mobs burns excessive hunger, or how jumping or sprinting frequently does the same.
-Added a little more progression to axes: now, iron axes and better will not consume hunger when you are chopping through zero toughness vegetation like grass and flowers, making them ideal for clearing paths for yourself as you move about above ground. In addition to this, diamond level axes and better will not consume durability when destroying leaf or vine blocks, which means you can use them to carve paths through jungles or other dense vegetation without them ever wearing out. This gives a significant boost to the usefulness of axes in general as they were still rather underpowered relative to other tools, as well as further encouraging path and road building. Note that gold axes are considered "worse" than iron for the purposes of this, and thus get no bonuses.
-Added a grunting sound to when players perform a zero-damage attack on a creature due to hunger or health depletion. This should make it a little clearer what's happening under these circumstances.
-Added the ability to render Mystery Meat into Tallow. My apologies for the glaring oversight there. I guess I'm not a beautiful and unique snowflake after all.
-Added restrictions to villager breeding so that they will only produce children of the same class as one of their parents (Hardcore Caste System?). Therefore, in order to gain access to a particular villager type you *must* find one in the world first. Note that with the other changes in this release, this greatly reduces the value of partially abandoned villages, as well as increases the significance of keeping particular villagers safe once found.
-Added the color of candles to their names to simplify their identification.
-Changed a little something something about Pigmen behavior that is absolutely nothing to worry about.
-Changed the Ocular of Ender to use ender pearls in its recipe instead of eyes of ender.
-Changed the bed recipe to require Padding instead of wool.
-Removed the player's ability to craft eyes of ender, as this is now a villager trade. I mention this aspect specifically since it changes the overall progression In other words, you *must* find a villager willing to trade for them in order to progress beyond a certain point, meaning that finding and trading with villagers is now part of BTW's tech progression.
-Fixed problem with Wicker returning only 4 reeds when disassembled instead of 9.
-Fixed problem where Ropes could be attached to upwards facing Anchors.
-Fixed problem where Saws weren't cutting Hemp, sugar cane, or wheat.
Enjoy!
-------------
If you'd like to say thanks for this release and help contribute to the further development of Better Than Wolves, please consider making a donation:
Well, it's intentional, but not something I've mulled over for a long while now.
I can see where you're coming from though with the disproportionate cost of iron vs gold powered rails given the regular rail recipe outputs multiples.
The gold costs are meant more to encourage nether mob farms, but I'll agree it doesn't feel entirely consistent at present relative to the iron one, and I've been feeling for awhile that rail networks have been getting the short end of the stick in terms of overall balance.
Let me mull it over. I'm not sure if what you're suggesting would be the route I'd take, but I think the underlying sentiment that may be behind it is valid.
I play both vanilla and BTW, they fulfill different needs that I have.
Well, technically speaking, gold is a lot softer and bendable metal then iron.
So if we want something made of gold that has the same sturdiness and iron, it's only logical that we use more gold, isn't it
Better Than Wolves Mod WARNING: May cause addiction and/or skull detonation. Handle with care.
That's not really true either. Only thing left right now on BTW is the "end game", which isn't new tech, hardcore modes, or anything else, but rather the final chapter in the "story" that's being told within it.
It's been public knowledge for a very long time now that I'm bringing BTW to a close to move onto other projects. All I'm doing right now is tying up loose ends.
Yup, and that's the sole angle I'm looking at it from.
Just to elaborate on the above, that's Icy's way of saying:
Cool new release video! Check it out!
Hey man, major grats on getting the hardcore villager update out! I know that's been a bit of an albatross for you for a while. Also, thank you!
And thanks to Icy for his easygoing fun patch notes video
Constraints breed creativity.
Balance is needed because it creates fun, interaction with the world. Obviously different people feel different about how far the balance needs to go but beds and Peaceful just straight out remove entire chunks of gameplay from the experience.
Besides, your desire for "i wanna build" is filled by Creative, whereas your need for meaningful interaction is filled by Survival. (although Mojang seems hellbent on merging the two)