Ok, I've played the new Mass effect Mash up pack for a bit and figured I'd share my impressions in hope it could influence future packs and perhaps give people a short idea what it is..
My first idea was to load up a couple survival worlds I played. Ones which I've built a lot of stuff.. Automated farms, redstone doors, mob farms xp farms and so on. I wanted a familiar starting point.
Of course the pack doesn't change the core game itself, everything still works BUT it feels very different. Paintings look great. Crafting tables, glowstone, glass, and even cobblestone look just awesome. It was very in theme, and had the overall sci-fi vibe. Somethings were just plain better.. crafting tables and paintings in particular. The menu was sleek, but a bit confusing. Perhaps as I get familiar with the items I'll like it more.. but now. I'm slightly out of whack. Which seems to be a running theme with the pack for me. I'll get more into that as I explain later.
The music was great. Really added something to the game, and I really wish I could pick and choose elements to use in vanilla minecraft.
Now the items were hit and miss... Some looked great. Armor. To me gold armor was awesome, the colors seemed to mesh well. The others didn't have as much to distinguish between the types.
The sword is ok, and the tools are cool, but compared to vanilla the models seemed stylish but bland.
Wheat was great, it was a nice change up.. sunflowers.
Some things were downright strange.. Pumpkins. But jack o lanterns looked really good.
Wool... forget about any color matching in your base. This pack really changed them to the point you are going to have no idea that it's wool.. But they do expand the textures you get to use.
Now.. I really had a problem with some of the ores. Not mining them, but the textures used. Diamond hands down is worst thing about the pack.. A portion of your Minecraft experience is searching for and using valuable ores. So using the mash up, I'm hunting for a butt ugly dark grey/black ore?? I was really disappointed. It's a solid dark grey block. Nothing special about it. While being a mash up pack, it's still Minecraft, and some things should stand out. Perhaps someone who is more familiar with the Mass effect series could explain the parallel.
Next in line in value, in my opinion, is Redstone. It's something that makes a lot possible but the ore block wasn't great. It seems to be a container of some sort? Who knows. It's not terrible, but I like the vanilla ore better.
Now speaking of redstone, the actual items made with it.. Wire, repeaters and so on, looked really nice. They really fell in theme and I think will be fun to play with.
Speaking of overall textures, some were good, and some downright ugly.. While some felt right, some were textured even more blocky than before.. The overall look and theme of the textures seemed to be stark contrasts, clean lines and darker tones. The natural textures, and colors are a sore spot. While the sci-fi look of everything you can craft/build felt right. (Signs an particular.. Make one, they look great.)
If I were going to rate the pack. I'd do it like this. On a scale of one to five.
Menu and GUI - 4
It's really good, but it could be easier to read and identify items at a glance.
Music - 5
It's good. Really felt nice and added something to the game.
Skins - 4.2
There are some really nice skins. My only gripe is that a couple blend in with each other, but I don't know it that can be helped.
Ores, naturally occurring blocks - 2.5
While some are not bad.. The ball was dropped in a couple places I felt. Some were interesting enough for me to not give a '1' score, but some were bad enough for me to ask... What were you thinking? I mean really?
Crafted blocks and pretty much everything you can make - 4.8
This where the Mash up shines. Some of the items really give the right feel to the theme. While the small icons have room for improvement, most are kinda blah, the actual items really looked good. My only problem here is that some could be a little more identifiable as a glance. If I see a placed block I should know right away what it is, this is more about crafting tables and couple others.
Color palette(Natural tones) - 3.5
Overall it made the world feel dark, which can be good.. but I felt it was slight jarring in some places. Jungles should be greener.. not swampy looking.
Color palette(artificial) - 5
Given the theme, it's fitting that these are pretty good. Some of the colors were nice and dark but there are some neon-like contrasts.. It just felt cool in places.
Closing I'll say some of the pack looks and feels good. It's not for everyone. I do feel that porting a previous survival world over might not be as fun as starting a new one. The textures are different and you're likely going to want to build from scratch with the Mash up pack's theme in mind. They just don't seem to blend. I'll be keeping my vanilla world vanilla. I'll likely start up a new world on the side and give it a shot.. Perhaps I crashed on a planet or starting a new colony..Who knows.
To the devs at 4J, and those behind the scenes, for this pack and future additions, I recommend cleaning up some of the icons, and perhaps improving the readability of the tools when held and GUI. It's good, but could be a little better. Please keep this in mind when releasing the next one.(I'm voting for Skyrim, or anything medieval please:)) Plus keeping the specialness of certain items is important.
Lastly, Texture packs 4J!! We want them, and we'll pay good money for them.:) Please make us happy and throw small amounts of money towards you.:)
If you build a world with this mashup/texture pack, can another player join you if he did not purchase the pack?
Will he see his default texture or yours?
from what i understood it wouldnt load without the pack, but you can just download the trial, its only the person who needs to save it that has to have the full pack
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
My first idea was to load up a couple survival worlds I played. Ones which I've built a lot of stuff.. Automated farms, redstone doors, mob farms xp farms and so on. I wanted a familiar starting point.
Of course the pack doesn't change the core game itself, everything still works BUT it feels very different. Paintings look great. Crafting tables, glowstone, glass, and even cobblestone look just awesome. It was very in theme, and had the overall sci-fi vibe. Somethings were just plain better.. crafting tables and paintings in particular. The menu was sleek, but a bit confusing. Perhaps as I get familiar with the items I'll like it more.. but now. I'm slightly out of whack. Which seems to be a running theme with the pack for me. I'll get more into that as I explain later.
The music was great. Really added something to the game, and I really wish I could pick and choose elements to use in vanilla minecraft.
Now the items were hit and miss... Some looked great. Armor. To me gold armor was awesome, the colors seemed to mesh well. The others didn't have as much to distinguish between the types.
The sword is ok, and the tools are cool, but compared to vanilla the models seemed stylish but bland.
Wheat was great, it was a nice change up.. sunflowers.
Some things were downright strange.. Pumpkins. But jack o lanterns looked really good.
Wool... forget about any color matching in your base. This pack really changed them to the point you are going to have no idea that it's wool.. But they do expand the textures you get to use.
Now.. I really had a problem with some of the ores. Not mining them, but the textures used. Diamond hands down is worst thing about the pack.. A portion of your Minecraft experience is searching for and using valuable ores. So using the mash up, I'm hunting for a butt ugly dark grey/black ore?? I was really disappointed. It's a solid dark grey block. Nothing special about it. While being a mash up pack, it's still Minecraft, and some things should stand out. Perhaps someone who is more familiar with the Mass effect series could explain the parallel.
Next in line in value, in my opinion, is Redstone. It's something that makes a lot possible but the ore block wasn't great. It seems to be a container of some sort? Who knows. It's not terrible, but I like the vanilla ore better.
Now speaking of redstone, the actual items made with it.. Wire, repeaters and so on, looked really nice. They really fell in theme and I think will be fun to play with.
Speaking of overall textures, some were good, and some downright ugly.. While some felt right, some were textured even more blocky than before.. The overall look and theme of the textures seemed to be stark contrasts, clean lines and darker tones. The natural textures, and colors are a sore spot. While the sci-fi look of everything you can craft/build felt right. (Signs an particular.. Make one, they look great.)
If I were going to rate the pack. I'd do it like this. On a scale of one to five.
Menu and GUI - 4
It's really good, but it could be easier to read and identify items at a glance.
Music - 5
It's good. Really felt nice and added something to the game.
Skins - 4.2
There are some really nice skins. My only gripe is that a couple blend in with each other, but I don't know it that can be helped.
Ores, naturally occurring blocks - 2.5
While some are not bad.. The ball was dropped in a couple places I felt. Some were interesting enough for me to not give a '1' score, but some were bad enough for me to ask... What were you thinking? I mean really?
Crafted blocks and pretty much everything you can make - 4.8
This where the Mash up shines. Some of the items really give the right feel to the theme. While the small icons have room for improvement, most are kinda blah, the actual items really looked good. My only problem here is that some could be a little more identifiable as a glance. If I see a placed block I should know right away what it is, this is more about crafting tables and couple others.
Color palette(Natural tones) - 3.5
Overall it made the world feel dark, which can be good.. but I felt it was slight jarring in some places. Jungles should be greener.. not swampy looking.
Color palette(artificial) - 5
Given the theme, it's fitting that these are pretty good. Some of the colors were nice and dark but there are some neon-like contrasts.. It just felt cool in places.
Closing I'll say some of the pack looks and feels good. It's not for everyone. I do feel that porting a previous survival world over might not be as fun as starting a new one. The textures are different and you're likely going to want to build from scratch with the Mash up pack's theme in mind. They just don't seem to blend. I'll be keeping my vanilla world vanilla. I'll likely start up a new world on the side and give it a shot.. Perhaps I crashed on a planet or starting a new colony..Who knows.
To the devs at 4J, and those behind the scenes, for this pack and future additions, I recommend cleaning up some of the icons, and perhaps improving the readability of the tools when held and GUI. It's good, but could be a little better. Please keep this in mind when releasing the next one.(I'm voting for Skyrim, or anything medieval please:)) Plus keeping the specialness of certain items is important.
Lastly, Texture packs 4J!! We want them, and we'll pay good money for them.:) Please make us happy and throw small amounts of money towards you.:)
If you build a world with this mashup/texture pack, can another player join you if he did not purchase the pack?
Will he see his default texture or yours?