The chunks could be unloaded for you, so your compass won't know, but someone else could come along and break your bed, and your compass would still be pointing to where it used to be.
Actually, the compass is handled server-sided I believe, so the server would notice the chunks are loaded and when your bed is broken it would update the compass.
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The problem with the truth, is that it never lies.
Well that's an interesting way to try emphasizing your point...
Tbh, I would like if the compass could post to your most recent spawn point and reset whenever you sleep or set your spawn again. The compass isn't useless since you can craft them into maps, but since i tend to build away from spawn, I never use a compass for directions.
So, you don't necessarily want it to point to the place where you'll actually respawn if you die, you just want it to point at your house? Then I ask you this: why on Earth should a compass point towards your house? I've seen lots of compasses before, and not one of them has pointed at my house, unless I just happened to be standing in such a spot that my house lay in between myself and the north pole. What you want isn't a compass, it's a GPS receiver. I think there are mods for that.
If you want to find (0,0), open up your F3 screen and go to (0,0). It's that simple. But if you want to find the spawn point, how the heck do you know where that is without a compass?
Further, different players can have different respawn points. So say I look at my compass, and it points to my house, and you look at your compass and it points to yours. That's fine so far, I guess, but what, then, if we trade compasses? Will they still point to our own respective houses, based on who's holding them? That seems reasonable enough; I mean it's still a little far-fetched, but assuming we're dealing with a magical compass that already knows where I live and knows when I move, then I suppose it's not too far off to assume it knows who's holding it, too. But then what happens when we put one in an item frame on the wall and we both look at it at the same time. Does it point to my house, or to yours? Or is it in some quantum superposition of states, such that it points in both directions at the same time, and by the simple act of observation we collapse the wave-function, each of us seeing it pointing only to our own house?
He's not saying that the coordinates aren't stored somewhere, he's saying they don't matter if the bed isn't still there. You don't spawn "at" the coordinates, you spawn "at" the bed, and if the bed isn't there, then the coordinates are ignored and you revert back to the initial world-spawn location.
The bottom line is that your original spawn point is just as arbitrary as your re-spawn point, the compass would be more useful if it pointed there. (re-spawn, theoretical, regardless if the bed is obstructed)
It doesn't matter where I want to go, it would be easier to estimate travel direction if I knew the compass was pointing to 0,0 than some arbitrary spawn point. Your "follow the sun and moon" theory is far more useful than the compass to get somewhere because they follow fixed directions.
The ender chest knows who's opening it just as the compass knows who's holding it. (the swapping compasses would be an interesting experiment to see if the compass is tied to the maker but I suspect it isn't)
We're not trying to re-spawn.
I guess what this comes down to is despite having played one world where I spawned at 0,0 and built there and the compass was quite useful in that case, in every other world I've played, I've never had a use for my original spawn point and don't see why the compass should be tied to that spot.
The bottom line is that your original spawn point is just as arbitrary as your re-spawn point, the compass would be more useful if it pointed there. (re-spawn, theoretical, regardless if the bed is obstructed)
And a bulldozer would be "more useful" for moving dirt than a shovel. What's your point? Likewise, a gun would be "more useful" for killing enemies than a bow, and a GPS receiver would be "more useful" for finding waypoints than a compass. But none of these things are in Minecraft. Does that mean we need them? Hardly.
[...] I've never had a use for my original spawn point and don't see why the compass should be tied to that spot.
Because unlike your respawn point, which changes every time you sleep in a different bed, the initial spawn is a fixed location that doesn't change, ever.
Say you're out exploring. Thousands of blocks from home, and for whatever reason you don't know what direction. You've been sleeping in beds to pass the night and now, since you're so bad at navigating, you've managed to become lost. What good, now, is your "improved" compass that only points to the last place you slept? Not only can it not find your home, you don't even know what general direction it's in. Even if you could find your way home from spawn, you can't find spawn to begin with, so you're still up the creek without a paddle.
Obviously you've never been in a jungle biome when it was getting late and trying to find your way out with mobs already chasing you since they tend to survive the day and you just don't quite have the time to stop and take your bearings.
You press a button and you read it. You can move while doing this!
Actually, the compass is handled server-sided I believe, so the server would notice the chunks are loaded and when your bed is broken it would update the compass.
Tbh, I would like if the compass could post to your most recent spawn point and reset whenever you sleep or set your spawn again. The compass isn't useless since you can craft them into maps, but since i tend to build away from spawn, I never use a compass for directions.
It doesn't matter where I want to go, it would be easier to estimate travel direction if I knew the compass was pointing to 0,0 than some arbitrary spawn point. Your "follow the sun and moon" theory is far more useful than the compass to get somewhere because they follow fixed directions.
The ender chest knows who's opening it just as the compass knows who's holding it. (the swapping compasses would be an interesting experiment to see if the compass is tied to the maker but I suspect it isn't)
We're not trying to re-spawn.
I guess what this comes down to is despite having played one world where I spawned at 0,0 and built there and the compass was quite useful in that case, in every other world I've played, I've never had a use for my original spawn point and don't see why the compass should be tied to that spot.
You could just turn your excess iron into iron blocks.
My house is made of steel, with paper for doors.
And a bulldozer would be "more useful" for moving dirt than a shovel. What's your point? Likewise, a gun would be "more useful" for killing enemies than a bow, and a GPS receiver would be "more useful" for finding waypoints than a compass. But none of these things are in Minecraft. Does that mean we need them? Hardly.
Because unlike your respawn point, which changes every time you sleep in a different bed, the initial spawn is a fixed location that doesn't change, ever.
Say you're out exploring. Thousands of blocks from home, and for whatever reason you don't know what direction. You've been sleeping in beds to pass the night and now, since you're so bad at navigating, you've managed to become lost. What good, now, is your "improved" compass that only points to the last place you slept? Not only can it not find your home, you don't even know what general direction it's in. Even if you could find your way home from spawn, you can't find spawn to begin with, so you're still up the creek without a paddle.
Village Mechanics: A not-so-brief guide - Update 2017! Now with 1.8 breeding mechanics! Long-overdue trading info, coming soon!
You think magic isn't real? Consider this: for every person, there is a sentence -- a series of words -- which has the power to destroy them.
You press a button and you read it. You can move while doing this!
one points to ur spawn and one to the last bed u slept in