I have been playing minecraft single player now for over a year. I continue to be awestruck at the possibilities that this game provides for creativity and fun. The mods only multiply this factor. But I still feel like a nube because I can't just jump in and spend hours building until I have built everything I could desire. I have too many ideas, too many directions. I've watched Direwolf20's let's plays and Paul Soares Jr.s as well. The "experience designer" in me wants to create a way in which I can absorb all of these possibilities and come up with a simple list of tasks that I can accomplish one by one until one day I can stand tall amidst my supercharged magical kingdom with great works of architecture and automation and even landscaping arrayed all around me.
To this end I have been working out a system that combines flexibiility, practicality and completeness that would allow someone to make for themselves a step-by-step to do list that gets them started easy and gradually builds in such a way that they can play Minecraft and any arrangement of mods as a potentially organic whole. I have posted once or twice regarding this but with little or no feedback. Now I have something to show for my work although I am not sure of the best venue for posting what I have created (basically a MS Word document). So I will describe what it is here and ask for feedback about how I can share what it is I have done.
The biggest question I wanted to answer for myself is "given all that one can do in minecraft, is there any way I can figure out what order I should do things in that makes sense?" Understanding that this is a sandbox game, I knew that there was no one single, optimal answer, but there is one guiding principle, namely, that some items/goals must be crafted/completed before others. But even focusing on just vanilla Minecraft it was obvious that this method was too restrictive. However, I knew that it would still be helpful to arrange tasks in some kind of linear progressive way. So I came up with a very basic notion of accomplishing tasks in phases or levels. These levels roughly group tasks based on whether they are easy or difficult, require common or rare resources and are more meaningful in the early, middle or late stage of the game (assuming the game to have an "end"). The levels are as follows:
Wood - early game; wood/stone based crafting and building
Iron - requires iron or other more common ores for crafting or construction
Diamond - requires gold, redstone or diamond for crafting
Glowstone - requires access to the Nether
Ender Pearl - requires use of Ender Pearl (although obtaining Ender Pearl is more a Wood or Iron level activity) and is seen as end game material
Gunpowder - post-End game actions where you might choose to blow up some of what you have built up
With these six basic levels I can look at any game activity and objectively, or often times subjectively, order them into six distinct groups based on the groups distinct characteristics. This takes the whole range of possibility and brings it down to six. A good start, but not enough.
Looking at just vanilla Minecraft I decided that it would be useful to break up the game into aspects that focus on different dimensions of the game. I came up with the following:
Adventure - Combat, Dungeon and Dimension (Overworld, Nether, etc) exploration, Journalling, Hunting, Boss conquering
Villaging - Interacting with villagers, protecting, augmenting, improving village defenses and functionality and aesthetics
This creates a sort of horizontal division as opposed to the vertical division that the levels provide. Beyond the vanilla game I was able to start analyzing specific mods using the same level and aspect system.
Combining the levels with the aspects I was able to create a series of what I call road-maps. The roadmap is simply a text file outline of all the tasks for a specific aspect of Minecraft or one of its mods grouped by levels.
For instance, for the Vanilla Minecraft in its aspect as an Adventuring game I have the following:
V-ADV Adventuring
Wood
Combat
[alphalist=a]
Weapons
[romanlist=i]
Bow
Sword
[/romanlist]
[/alphalist]
Dungeon
[alphalist=a]
Cavern
[/alphalist]
Exploration
[alphalist=a]
Overworld
[romanlist=i]
Primary
Desert
Extreme Hills
Forest
Ice Plains
Jungle
Mushroom Island
Ocean
Plains
Swampland
Taiga
Technical
Beach
Extreme Hills Edge
Frozen Ocean
Frozen River
Hills
Mushroom Island Shore
River
[/romanlist]
[/alphalist]
Hunting
[alphalist=a]
Fish
Squid
[/alphalist]
Mining
[alphalist=a]
Mineshaft
[/alphalist] Iron
Book and Quill
Combat
[alphalist=a]
Armor
[romanlist=i]
Boots
Chestplate
Helmet
Leggings
[/romanlist]
[/alphalist]
Hunting
[alphalist=a]
Creepers
Cave Spider
Endermen
Skeletons
Slime
Spider
Spider Jockey
Zombie Villager
Zombies
[/alphalist]
Mapping
Mining
[alphalist=a]
Branch Mining
[/alphalist] Diamond
Dungeon
[alphalist=a]
Abandoned Mine Shaft
Deep Cavern Monster Nest
Ravine
Temple
[/alphalist] Glowstone
Dungeon
[alphalist=a]
Nether Fortress
[/alphalist]
Exploration
[alphalist=a]
Nether
[/alphalist]
Hunting
[alphalist=a]
Blazes
Ghasts
Magma Cube
Witches
Wither
Wither Skeletons
[/alphalist] Eye of Ender
Boss
[alphalist=a]
Ender Dragon
[/alphalist]
Dungeon
[alphalist=a]
Stronghold
[/alphalist]
Exploration
[alphalist=a]
The End
[/alphalist]
Hunting
[alphalist=a]
Silver Fish
[/alphalist]
So how would one use this when playing Minecraft? You use this roadmap and the other relevant roadmaps (again broken out by mod and aspect) to design your next "round" of play as follows:
1. Review each roadmap and select your goals (the tasks you want to achieve)
2. Play the game working through those goals you selected
3. Make notes regarding tasks you might want to complete during your next "round"
4. Add some tasks that you discovered you wanted to complete while playing through the "round"
5. Once you are finished check off the tasks/goals that you completed on the relevant roadmaps
To play the next round you simply repeat the above process with your own written feedback regarding what you would like to do. Your roadmaps become your checklist of accomplishments and your measure of progress.
Anyway this is the basic idea. Again I would like some recommendations as to where to post the roadmaps I have created. These roadmaps include the following mods:
To this end I have been working out a system that combines flexibiility, practicality and completeness that would allow someone to make for themselves a step-by-step to do list that gets them started easy and gradually builds in such a way that they can play Minecraft and any arrangement of mods as a potentially organic whole. I have posted once or twice regarding this but with little or no feedback. Now I have something to show for my work although I am not sure of the best venue for posting what I have created (basically a MS Word document). So I will describe what it is here and ask for feedback about how I can share what it is I have done.
The biggest question I wanted to answer for myself is "given all that one can do in minecraft, is there any way I can figure out what order I should do things in that makes sense?" Understanding that this is a sandbox game, I knew that there was no one single, optimal answer, but there is one guiding principle, namely, that some items/goals must be crafted/completed before others. But even focusing on just vanilla Minecraft it was obvious that this method was too restrictive. However, I knew that it would still be helpful to arrange tasks in some kind of linear progressive way. So I came up with a very basic notion of accomplishing tasks in phases or levels. These levels roughly group tasks based on whether they are easy or difficult, require common or rare resources and are more meaningful in the early, middle or late stage of the game (assuming the game to have an "end"). The levels are as follows:
Wood - early game; wood/stone based crafting and building
Iron - requires iron or other more common ores for crafting or construction
Diamond - requires gold, redstone or diamond for crafting
Glowstone - requires access to the Nether
Ender Pearl - requires use of Ender Pearl (although obtaining Ender Pearl is more a Wood or Iron level activity) and is seen as end game material
Gunpowder - post-End game actions where you might choose to blow up some of what you have built up
With these six basic levels I can look at any game activity and objectively, or often times subjectively, order them into six distinct groups based on the groups distinct characteristics. This takes the whole range of possibility and brings it down to six. A good start, but not enough.
Looking at just vanilla Minecraft I decided that it would be useful to break up the game into aspects that focus on different dimensions of the game. I came up with the following:
Adventure - Combat, Dungeon and Dimension (Overworld, Nether, etc) exploration, Journalling, Hunting, Boss conquering
Architecture - Acquiring materials for building, landscaping, interior decorating, coloring, lighting
Automation - Crafting tools, Ore processing, simple and complex mechanical devices, engines, circuitry, machines and other tools
Building Projects - Farms, Towers, Underground structures, Houses, Castles, Factories, etc
Farming - Animal and plant reproduction, mob farming, quarrying, pets
Magic - Potions, enchantment, working with materials of an abstract, supernatural nature
Transportation - Boating, storage, animal riding, minecarts
Villaging - Interacting with villagers, protecting, augmenting, improving village defenses and functionality and aesthetics
This creates a sort of horizontal division as opposed to the vertical division that the levels provide. Beyond the vanilla game I was able to start analyzing specific mods using the same level and aspect system.
Combining the levels with the aspects I was able to create a series of what I call road-maps. The roadmap is simply a text file outline of all the tasks for a specific aspect of Minecraft or one of its mods grouped by levels.
For instance, for the Vanilla Minecraft in its aspect as an Adventuring game I have the following:
V-ADV Adventuring
Wood
- Combat
[alphalist=a]
- Weapons
[romanlist=i]
- Bow
- Sword
[/romanlist]
- Dungeon
[alphalist=a]
- Cavern
[/alphalist]
- Exploration
[alphalist=a]
- Overworld
[romanlist=i]
- Primary
- Desert
- Extreme Hills
- Forest
- Ice Plains
- Jungle
- Mushroom Island
- Ocean
- Plains
- Swampland
- Taiga
- Technical
- Hunting
[alphalist=a]
- Fish
- Squid
[/alphalist]
- Mining
[alphalist=a]
- Mineshaft
[/alphalist]
Iron[/alphalist]
- Beach
- Extreme Hills Edge
- Frozen Ocean
- Frozen River
- Hills
- Mushroom Island Shore
- River
[/romanlist][/alphalist]
- Book and Quill
- Combat
[alphalist=a]
- Armor
[romanlist=i]
- Boots
- Chestplate
- Helmet
- Leggings
[/romanlist]
- Hunting
[alphalist=a]
- Creepers
- Cave Spider
- Endermen
- Skeletons
- Slime
- Spider
- Spider Jockey
- Zombie Villager
- Zombies
[/alphalist]
- Mapping
- Mining
[alphalist=a]
- Branch Mining
[/alphalist]
Diamond[/alphalist]
- Dungeon
[alphalist=a]
- Abandoned Mine Shaft
- Deep Cavern Monster Nest
- Ravine
- Temple
[/alphalist]
Glowstone- Dungeon
[alphalist=a]
- Nether Fortress
[/alphalist]
- Exploration
[alphalist=a]
- Nether
[/alphalist]
- Hunting
[alphalist=a]
- Blazes
- Ghasts
- Magma Cube
- Witches
- Wither
- Wither Skeletons
[/alphalist]
Eye of EnderSo how would one use this when playing Minecraft? You use this roadmap and the other relevant roadmaps (again broken out by mod and aspect) to design your next "round" of play as follows:
1. Review each roadmap and select your goals (the tasks you want to achieve)
2. Play the game working through those goals you selected
3. Make notes regarding tasks you might want to complete during your next "round"
4. Add some tasks that you discovered you wanted to complete while playing through the "round"
5. Once you are finished check off the tasks/goals that you completed on the relevant roadmaps
To play the next round you simply repeat the above process with your own written feedback regarding what you would like to do. Your roadmaps become your checklist of accomplishments and your measure of progress.
Anyway this is the basic idea. Again I would like some recommendations as to where to post the roadmaps I have created. These roadmaps include the following mods:
Also, let me know what you think.