Boats are indeed the secret concoction here. Clay exists and is good.
Keep it semi-rare!!
It's unrealistic and it's negatively affecting peoples' gameplay experiences.
What's unrealistic? Clay?
Zombies, Skeletons walking around with Bows, Green People Blowing Up randomly, Cows Mooing all the time and Floating Blocks are not unrealistic?!
*sigh*
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
AVATAR, PHOTO AND SKIN AT THE COURTESY OF WHISKERS
......No. Rare clay is unrealistic. That would not be a problem if a lot of people didn't want more of it.
I can't show of my diamond pickaxe, thats not a rare item, I cannot showoff my diamond armor set and sword, anyone who has played a fair ammount of time has that.
but I CAN showoff my brick house!
the basis for finding clay and making brick is the same for everyone, if everything is served on a silver plate with no real search or work behind it its no longer exquisite and dedicated players are no longer rewarded. (Even if I'm not the one posting pics or videos bragging about my house I'm real proud just viewing it ingame)
I sincerely wish to keep it that way.
-for all the other dedicated players out there ^^
I agree with the thesis: clay is useless as it is.
But, rather than get rid of the clay block and craft bricks out of dirt, I'd like to propose something else (with grounding in reality.) Clay and dirt are actually very different; clay is much finer than dirt and thusly generally stronger and able to be fired into ceramics, while dirt is not. What I propose is to have clay appear all around water and also in random areas, but in very large quantities. For instance, on the banks of a river, underneath a 1 or 2 block soil layer, you'd find maybe 4 or 5 blocks of clay for blocks upon blocks. Clay would be abundant at the bottom of rivers, lakes, and estuaries, sometimes not even being covered over by a dirt layer.
This does two things: it expands the use of clay hugely, while also not loading you over with mostly useless dirt. I like this way better, as it keeps clay being relatively strategic a resource, just not impossible to get. Just for visuals, clay might maybe be switched to be a smooth darker brown block so that a change to clay isn't abrupt.
Totally agree with this post, also, more clay things to craft like vases and sculptures.
Make Clay more common, make it possible to craft clay pots with them, which function like a bucket but deteriorate. Make bricks require more clay to forge, thus increasing the demand for clay in the event someone wants to use Brick.
This gives people access to water before Iron - and keeps Brick houses a more impressive feat.
Talking about rarities,reed is also rare
In my five worlds I have only found reeds 1 time and each of my world size is above 50 mb
I usually don't have any issue finding reeds, and after you find one, you can have as many as you want if you farm them.
~~~
Quote from monkeedude »
Make Clay more common, make it possible to craft clay pots with them, which function like a bucket but deteriorate. Make bricks require more clay to forge, thus increasing the demand for clay in the event someone wants to use Brick.
This gives people access to water before Iron - and keeps Brick houses a more impressive feat.
Clay pots would last longer than iron buckets assuming you fired them hot enough and with a good mixture of glaze. If it was just greenware, or low-fired, then yeah it'd end up saturating and falling apart after no time at all.
That aside, how long does it take you to find iron? For me, it's something I normally find and mine on my first night, or during my second day. I usually make a bucket first thing as buckets are very useful, so that's only two days in at the latest.
~~~
Again, if you want to get clay from soil, you need to refine that soil. Usually that means taking raw soil, saturating it, and then sifting out the lighter/smaller elements. Then you'd need to either let it dehydrate through evaporation or external heating. After that, you'll have to most likely sift it a few more cycles worth until it's pure enough to be usable for pottery.
Now, instead of making clay an insane issue, why not just make it so all dirt contains a little bit of clay which is "locked away" (which is true for most soil). To refine the clay out, you place eight dirt in a ring around a bucket of water. The end result should then be anywhere from four to two clay balls, depending on balance issues. This makes it rare enough that it won't be easy to abuse, but it also makes it easy enough to mine if you want to use it. Dirt and water are common enough.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Fire And Ice
Some say the world will end in fire
Some say in ice
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire
But if it had to perish twice
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice
Make Clay more common, make it possible to craft clay pots with them, which function like a bucket but deteriorate. Make bricks require more clay to forge, thus increasing the demand for clay in the event someone wants to use Brick.
This gives people access to water before Iron - and keeps Brick houses a more impressive feat.
Clay pots would last longer than iron buckets assuming you fired them hot enough and with a good mixture of glaze. If it was just greenware, or low-fired, then yeah it'd end up saturating and falling apart after no time at all.
That aside, how long does it take you to find iron? For me, it's something I normally find and mine on my first night, or during my second day. I usually make a bucket first thing as buckets are very useful, so that's only two days in at the latest.
I've been anywhere from my first day to 10 days spent looking for iron, depending on the map, and similarily I've spent the same amount of time looking for clay, anywhere from 1 day to never at all. If you made Clay more common, as clay is more common than iron deposits, than you could give clay an actual use like a bucket, and I only make it decay because every other tool in the game decays but for whatever reason the bucket does not.
I know its MINEcraft but a lot of people like the idea of Farmcraft and introducing other aspects of gameplay. Mining will obviously always be a core part of the game, but you could make the game a little less dependant on the tedious job of picking away at stone, by making non-mined resources a bit more viable for progressing through the "tech tree" as I call it. But because Mining is meant to be an important part of the gameplay - I suggest making the mined resources superior (forever lasting bucket) and the non-mined resources inferior (decaying bucket).
That's my idea for adding some balance and uses for clay.
and similarily I've spent the same amount of time looking for clay, anywhere from 1 day to never at all. If you made Clay more common, as clay is more common than iron deposits,
This is pretty much the opposite of most people's experience so far as I've read. I've never been looking for clay myself but in all my exploring I've done I've never found it by accident either. Plus cartographer doesn't lie, its ALOT rarer than iron. You must have gotten very lucky.
Well thats what I mean - it's entirely based on chance, so that just means Notch needs to either set a location where Clay would be common (like Iron is common within that 15 belt or whatever that level is) or he needs to make it so that it is more likely to be chosen amongst the dirt and sand overall.
I've been anywhere from my first day to 10 days spent looking for iron, depending on the map, and similarily I've spent the same amount of time looking for clay, anywhere from 1 day to never at all.
IF you are on an island in the middle of the ocean with no trees within the fog distance, nor coal, nor any other land you can see.... I could see it taking a few mincraft hours longer, specifically what you'd spend swimming to a larger landmass. After that, iron should be as easy to find as a decent cave or a good mine pit.
Clay, on the other hand, does take a bit more work (in some ways, less in other ways) to find, but this really boils down to a game mechanic: Clay is RARE. Stone is not. Dirt is not. Really, I have no problem with building a house from cobblestone, smooth stone, glass, dirt, etc... We need rare things in this game to horde and build awesome houses from, anyways.
Quote from monkeedude »
If you made Clay more common, as clay is more common than iron deposits,[...]
If clay was that common, that means sand would be less common unless we made clay appear in dirt (which then makes dirt less common, but that is less of an issue as opposed to sand).
Quote from monkeedude »
[...]than you could give clay an actual use like a bucket, and I only make it decay because every other tool in the game decays but for whatever reason the bucket does not.
The bucket has no destructive usage (discounting the illogical use of lava in the bucket as that'd destroy that near-instantly, and water rusting iron because there is no rust in MineCraft [yet]). Flint and steel slowly grinds the materials down, hoes, pickaxes, shovels, swords.... Heck, even bows SHOULD have durability as each pull slightly stresses the bow stave.
That said, we HAVE buckets. Three iron ore, refined in a furnace, made as such:
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[]
[] []
I don't really see a reason to use any wood tools after I make my first wooden pickaxe and mine at least three stone. I've never made golden tools as they are worse than stone tools. And I conserve my diamond tools, when I get diamond, for low-use things such as swords, axes, and whatnot.
A clay bucket would be like a wooden axe. What good is it after the first few minecraft days when you find iron? It's not even that hard to make a BUNCH of iron buckets after a few minecraft weeks of mining. Conversely, most people have no need for water until they either are going down near lava, or want to start making use of custom water placing. For the former, I have yet to get down to the majority of the dangerous lava before I have at least three iron ore. For the latter, there is a reason this is survival and not creative. You need to earn the resources to make what you want.
Quote from monkeedude »
I know its MINEcraft but a lot of people like the idea of Farmcraft and introducing other aspects of gameplay.
Yup, people do. I'd love the idea of more advanced farming, more resources, and even higher levels of technology. But I don't see any reason to turn a mostly-useless resource that is extremely rare and highly sought after because of as much into a common resource with a bunch of duplicated uses. What WOULD be awesome would be making it semi-rare and giving it some new uses. For example...
[]
[]
Each of those are a clay ball. That creates a clay vase. You can then combined it with a flower as such...
[] [] []
[] []
[] []
or
[] [] []
[] []
[] []
You would then have a one block vase and flower which could be used for decoration.
There, a brand new usage that wouldn't duplicate a perfectly-good usage which would only lead to it being even more useless.
Quote from monkeedude »
Mining will obviously always be a core part of the game, but you could make the game a little less dependant on the tedious job of picking away at stone, by making non-mined resources a bit more viable for progressing through the "tech tree" as I call it.
Wood is VITAL to the ability to do ANYTHING in the game. It isn't mined from stone.
You cannot heal yourself without finding food (bread, golden apple, etc) without using either pig (murdered by your wooden-handled weapon) or growing crops from the non-mined seeds from non-stone-dirt.
I can safely say that this change wouldn't harm the game, but it'd just be entirely useless to the vast majority of us out here.
Quote from monkeedude »
But because Mining is meant to be an important part of the gameplay - I suggest making the mined resources superior (forever lasting bucket) and the non-mined resources inferior (decaying bucket).
And, again, it's just making a wooden sword versus a stone sword. If you have the stone, why waste the wood? In this case, I'd rather use my clay to make bricks, and then make brick blocks to make fireplaces. And I like the idea that clay is a rare resource so I can't just go and have a fireplace in every place I build.
~~~
Quote from theicychameleon »
and similarily I've spent the same amount of time looking for clay, anywhere from 1 day to never at all. If you made Clay more common, as clay is more common than iron deposits,
This is pretty much the opposite of most people's experience so far as I've read. I've never been looking for clay myself but in all my exploring I've done I've never found it by accident either. Plus cartographer doesn't lie, its ALOT rarer than iron. You must have gotten very lucky.[/quote]
In over half of my maps I spawn within spitting distance of a clay deposit. In a tenth of those games I end up with many many stacks of clay blocks that I just store and use rarely (because it's a rare substance and I don't want to waste it, of course). In about a fourth of all of the worlds I've played, I don't find more than a single stack of clay (without really searching beaches for it too much, though. I never worry about that).
~~~
Quote from monkeedude »
Well thats what I mean - it's entirely based on chance, so that just means Notch needs to either set a location where Clay would be common (like Iron is common within that 15 belt or whatever that level is) or he needs to make it so that it is more likely to be chosen amongst the dirt and sand overall.
I still don't understand why people like the idea of making a rare resource uncommon, or even common. But it doesn't seem like I'm going to sway any of your side, so I'll just hope Notch has countless other far far more important things to take care of instead.
Good luck to you!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Fire And Ice
Some say the world will end in fire
Some say in ice
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire
But if it had to perish twice
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice
I dislike the whole clay=wet dirt thing. I have clay in my back yard and it's way different than wet dirt. I'd like to see more clay, but I'm not sure how it should be implemented. Most often I find it after about 2 or three feet of dirt.
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You are totally thinking about this signature right now. Read a book.
Because they want to use it and it appears to be rare for no discernable reason. Diamond has to be rare for balance, iron has to be hard to get to give you something to do. Why should a basic building material be so rare that many people just can't find it?
Because if it was so common that everyone had it coming out their noses, it would just be another building material. People would have clay houses just as much as they have wood, stone, and dirt. At that point, it's not an achievement to get as much of the stuff as you can. I don't understand why people seem to think that it NEEDS to be more common when, right now, it forces you to use it in a calculated manner.
Quote from theicychameleon »
As for the "Notch has better things to do" arguement (If I only had a euro every time I heard that), true, but that applies to just about every suggestion in the suggestions box. If people only suggested things that absolutely needed to be implemented immediately these forums would be very poor indeed.
First off, that wasn't an argument (no extra 'e' in argument), it was my hope. I really do hope that Notch has far more important things to do instead of making clay so utterly common that I'll need to make a double-chest for brick blocks.
Secondly, this IS a suggestion forum. We get suggestions regarding most everything, and the vast majority of suggestions are rather unimportant, with most of those also being useless.
There's nothing wrong with suggesting that Notch change the color of the sky to a slightly darker blue, or that he make it so clay spawns more often, or that clouds form block pictures of dinosaurs, but I really do hope (my opinion, which is not something you can attempt to argue with and win as it is, in fact, my opinion) that he takes care of the bugs, and then the major additional features to help bring this game into beta faster.
Anyways, I've detailed a few ways that we could have clay produced through player action, but I still think that you'd just go and end up ruining an extremely rare (and thusly commendable) building material. But hey, if Notch wants bricks to be more common, he'll make them more common. So, either way, good luck to you, and make sure to keep your eyes pealed for clay as you're sailing across the oceans, heh.
~~~
Quote from sumguy720 »
I dislike the whole clay=wet dirt thing. I have clay in my back yard and it's way different than wet dirt. I'd like to see more clay, but I'm not sure how it should be implemented. Most often I find it after about 2 or three feet of dirt.
Dirt contains clay, sometimes in trace amounts, other times in large enough quantities that it's mostly clay. The basic idea is that we assume all soil in minecraft has a decent amount of clay in it, so all that needs to happen is that it is leached from the soil, as we've had to do for thousands of years to make pottery.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Fire And Ice
Some say the world will end in fire
Some say in ice
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire
But if it had to perish twice
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice
I have no problem finding clay. It's ALWAYS hidden around/under sand for me. Always. It's not too rare for me.
It's usually located on little lonely sand islands with no trees, in big bunches.
..Sorry if I've completely missed something here. I have a tiny attention span and couldn't be bothered reading three pages of comments on the topic.
But I read the full first post, and I'm fine with clay. Clay = Bricks, and bricks are a very nice material for homes. It gives it that more modern look. :smile.gif:
..But I guess it is a LITTLE uncommon for me, still.
I don't see why Notch can't make it a little more common.
I'm gonna have to say, I think the best option would be to make clay more common, like something you find wherever the waterline meets the dirt ground without a sand beach, since that's how it works in real life. (Water grinds dirt down and dampens into a soft clay substance. (At least I think that's how it works.)) When I was in Costa Rica, by streams there was often soft dirt which obviously had a large amount of clay within it...
...anyways, clay and dirt are not always the same thing, though some dirts may contain clay, but make clay more common. (I have never EVER seen any clay in Minecraft life, it's the only thing I have not seen, and my main world happens to be on islands, which I have explored VERY well.)
I've been anywhere from my first day to 10 days spent looking for iron, depending on the map, and similarily I've spent the same amount of time looking for clay, anywhere from 1 day to never at all.
IF you are on an island in the middle of the ocean with no trees within the fog distance, nor coal, nor any other land you can see.... I could see it taking a few mincraft hours longer, specifically what you'd spend swimming to a larger landmass. After that, iron should be as easy to find as a decent cave or a good mine pit.
Well yes, exactly: Entirely dependant on the map that gets Generated. I've had 1 map where I spawned by a beach (no clay) and I wanted to set off to find a nice big hill or mountain to dig down into, instead of just digging down right by the sand and dirt. I spent the first Minecraft day roaming around to no avail, the biome I was in was more like a forest: Trees literally everywhere, but nothing higher than 4 blocks above the water.
Alternatively, I've spawned on top of 12 clay blocks with a coal filled mountainside within a few dozen blocks, which was a lot less frustrating.
Clay, on the other hand, does take a bit more work (in some ways, less in other ways) to find, but this really boils down to a game mechanic: Clay is RARE. Stone is not. Dirt is not. Really, I have no problem with building a house from cobblestone, smooth stone, glass, dirt, etc... We need rare things in this game to horde and build awesome houses from, anyways.
But the issue is that it isn't generated the same way as other materials. Clay doesn't seem to have a set location where you are actually bound to find it. You can go digging and find Iron pretty easily, no matter where you start, as long as you get low enough. (I believe my difficulty finding it one day was an anomaly). But Clay on the other hand: I've only ever seen it on beaches, but in some maps I've gone through HUNDREDS of beaches and never found it. So what gives? (As for rare resources to horde and show off; thats why Diamonds can be crafted into almost anything. Also, just build a house of Gold. Much more impressive than clay. Having something made of clay usually means you got lucky, whereas something made from Obsidian means you worked for it).
Quote from monkeedude »
If you made Clay more common, as clay is more common than iron deposits,[...]
If clay was that common, that means sand would be less common unless we made clay appear in dirt (which then makes dirt less common, but that is less of an issue as opposed to sand).
So, issue solved? That is kind of what we're suggesting. But either way, Sand is hardly rare, people talk about how they destroy beaches to create a glass house - but you can always find more sand by just heading off to the next Beach, there never seems to be a lack of sand, ever, you just end up using it so you have to go out and get it more, but its never difficult to find.
Quote from monkeedude »
[...]than you could give clay an actual use like a bucket, and I only make it decay because every other tool in the game decays but for whatever reason the bucket does not.
The bucket has no destructive usage (discounting the illogical use of lava in the bucket as that'd destroy that near-instantly, and water rusting iron because there is no rust in MineCraft [yet]). Flint and steel slowly grinds the materials down, hoes, pickaxes, shovels, swords.... Heck, even bows SHOULD have durability as each pull slightly stresses the bow stave.
That said, we HAVE buckets. Three iron ore, refined in a furnace, made as such:
[] [] []
[]
[] []
I don't really see a reason to use any wood tools after I make my first wooden pickaxe and mine at least three stone. I've never made golden tools as they are worse than stone tools. And I conserve my diamond tools, when I get diamond, for low-use things such as swords, axes, and whatnot.
A clay bucket would be like a wooden axe. What good is it after the first few minecraft days when you find iron? It's not even that hard to make a BUNCH of iron buckets after a few minecraft weeks of mining. Conversely, most people have no need for water until they either are going down near lava, or want to start making use of custom water placing. For the former, I have yet to get down to the majority of the dangerous lava before I have at least three iron ore. For the latter, there is a reason this is survival and not creative. You need to earn the resources to make what you want.
Well you just helped demonstrate my point; the wooden axe HAS a use. Like I said, it's not very far down the tech tree, but it gives clay SOMETHING to make it more useful than esthetics. In my case, I've always wanted to start my farm before I start mining - because I find in matters of time efficiency, its good to set up the farm and go mine, by the time you get back, wheat should be in full spring, a quick harvest, reseeding, back to mining, it'll be done when I get back, so on and so forth. Problem is, sometimes it takes you until the end of that first day to find Iron, and then once you've found it, you HAVE to invest it in the bucket if you want to move any water around at all. You can't spend your first iron on a sword/armour, or new tools, or any of the other uses for iron because you so incredibly need that bucket.
Quote from monkeedude »
I know its MINEcraft but a lot of people like the idea of Farmcraft and introducing other aspects of gameplay.
Yup, people do. I'd love the idea of more advanced farming, more resources, and even higher levels of technology. But I don't see any reason to turn a mostly-useless resource that is extremely rare and highly sought after because of as much into a common resource with a bunch of duplicated uses. What WOULD be awesome would be making it semi-rare and giving it some new uses. For example...
[/quote]
No yes: That's exactly what I meant, by "Make it more common", I mean, make it more likely to spawn at the rate it usually spawns in games where it does spawn enough where you can actually use it to make more than 3 bricks.
[]
[]
Each of those are a clay ball. That creates a clay vase. You can then combined it with a flower as such...
[] [] []
[] []
[] []
or
[] [] []
[] []
[] []
You would then have a one block vase and flower which could be used for decoration.
There, a brand new usage that wouldn't duplicate a perfectly-good usage which would only lead to it being even more useless.
That is a great use for it - so why not put that in there too? There is no real implication with putting BOTH in there; basically what you're saying is that because wooden tools duplicate a perfectly-good usage it leads to wood being useless. What I'm trying to say is that we need to make Clay a little bit more like wood: except not quite as common as wood.
Quote from monkeedude »
Mining will obviously always be a core part of the game, but you could make the game a little less dependant on the tedious job of picking away at stone, by making non-mined resources a bit more viable for progressing through the "tech tree" as I call it.
Wood is VITAL to the ability to do ANYTHING in the game. It isn't mined from stone.
You cannot heal yourself without finding food (bread, golden apple, etc) without using either pig (murdered by your wooden-handled weapon) or growing crops from the non-mined seeds from non-stone-dirt.
I can safely say that this change wouldn't harm the game, but it'd just be entirely useless to the vast majority of us out here.
But just as vital to the game are stone and Iron. You can't even get a bucket without a furnace, which requires stone, and then there is the iron cost. This means the idea of growing crops where you want with your non-mined seeds from non-stone dirt, requires you to mine at least that far. However, you can mine all the way down to the lava on nothing but stone tools. This gives you access to a wide variety useful resources - but when you're on the surface you have wood... dirt... sand... maybe clay if you're lucky... You have no option BUT to mine. I'd like to see more development on the areas outside of mining, if only to make 'not mining' something someone could do for the sake roleplaying.
Quote from monkeedude »
But because Mining is meant to be an important part of the gameplay - I suggest making the mined resources superior (forever lasting bucket) and the non-mined resources inferior (decaying bucket).
And, again, it's just making a wooden sword versus a stone sword. If you have the stone, why waste the wood? In this case, I'd rather use my clay to make bricks, and then make brick blocks to make fireplaces. And I like the idea that clay is a rare resource so I can't just go and have a fireplace in every place I build.
Yet - wooden swords are still in the game, and they serve their function. I also addressed the "illustrious brick" issue by increasing the cost of bricks.
~~~
Quote from theicychameleon »
Quote from Monkeedude »
and similarily I've spent the same amount of time looking for clay, anywhere from 1 day to never at all. If you made Clay more common, as clay is more common than iron deposits,
This is pretty much the opposite of most people's experience so far as I've read. I've never been looking for clay myself but in all my exploring I've done I've never found it by accident either. Plus cartographer doesn't lie, its ALOT rarer than iron. You must have gotten very lucky.
In over half of my maps I spawn within spitting distance of a clay deposit. In a tenth of those games I end up with many many stacks of clay blocks that I just store and use rarely (because it's a rare substance and I don't want to waste it, of course). In about a fourth of all of the worlds I've played, I don't find more than a single stack of clay (without really searching beaches for it too much, though. I never worry about that).
So you agree that Clay isn't always readily available (about 1/4 of your worlds) - and that when you do find it, it's still mostly rare (~90% of the games you DON'T end up with stacks of clay blocks). But that doesn't seem to bother you all that much. It bothers other people though.
~~~
Quote from monkeedude »
Well thats what I mean - it's entirely based on chance, so that just means Notch needs to either set a location where Clay would be common (like Iron is common within that 15 belt or whatever that level is) or he needs to make it so that it is more likely to be chosen amongst the dirt and sand overall.
I still don't understand why people like the idea of making a rare resource uncommon, or even common. But it doesn't seem like I'm going to sway any of your side, so I'll just hope Notch has countless other far far more important things to take care of instead.
Perhaps common was too strong a word; I mean find a type of location where you go "I am bound to find clay if I keep searching in this area indefinately". This is not currently the case.
My problem with clay being so rare: it is worse than cobblestone.
Sure, a clay block = a brick block, but there are intermediate steps. You get your 4 clay balls. You smelt them, taking up 1/2 a coal or equivalent amount of wood. You get the bricks. You craft the bricks into a brick block. Which does not seem to be appreciably harder than cobblestone.
Compare to cobblestone: You mine stop with a pickaxe, and put it down.
So clay is
a. hard to find
b. hard to turn into something useful
c. it worse than cobblestone
Why? Does this make any sense? People say they like to show it off. However, there is nothing about it brag-worthy. Your map happened to generate a lot of clay. As it should be apparent from this thread, chance has more to do with finding mass amounts of clay than anything else. This means a brick house is similar to saying "Hey look, I rolled 2 6's!". Sure, you have to roll the dice, but I don't see why the result of random chance is something to brag about. I can put forth exactly the same effort into finding clay and find nothing. A gold house means you put forth the effort to mine all that gold. That is a legitimate expenditure of effort and probability ensures you will accumulate it over time as you mine, making it a direct indication of the extent of your mines. Same with diamonds. They form real indicators of success. Clay is just random.
Ahahaha! Oh, god. This made me laugh so hard. Oh, my, god. :biggrin.gif:
I laughed my ass off when this happened. I went to record a new save file, because it's easy for me to find clay, and this is what happened:
Edit: LOL seriously! I was laughing so hard. If I had my mic turned on you'd be deaf.
Ahahaha! Oh, god. This made me laugh so hard. Oh, my, god. :biggrin.gif:
I laughed my ass off when this happened. I went to record a new save file, because it's easy for me to find clay, and this is what happened:
Edit: LOL seriously! I was laughing so hard. If I had my mic turned on you'd be deaf.
Thank you for proving my point. That is pure random chance. If you make a brick house out of that(not that it was enough to do so), why should we be impressed? Saying clay is rare, and therefore a status symbol is silly.
What's unrealistic? Clay?
Zombies, Skeletons walking around with Bows, Green People Blowing Up randomly, Cows Mooing all the time and Floating Blocks are not unrealistic?!
*sigh*
I can't show of my diamond pickaxe, thats not a rare item, I cannot showoff my diamond armor set and sword, anyone who has played a fair ammount of time has that.
but I CAN showoff my brick house!
the basis for finding clay and making brick is the same for everyone, if everything is served on a silver plate with no real search or work behind it its no longer exquisite and dedicated players are no longer rewarded. (Even if I'm not the one posting pics or videos bragging about my house I'm real proud just viewing it ingame)
I sincerely wish to keep it that way.
-for all the other dedicated players out there ^^
Looking for group
Supporting this thread.
Totally agree with this post, also, more clay things to craft like vases and sculptures.
My skin: http://minecraft.net/skin/skin.jsp?user=_L1pE_BR (Anarcho-Communist BLU Heavy Weapons Guy)
This gives people access to water before Iron - and keeps Brick houses a more impressive feat.
I usually don't have any issue finding reeds, and after you find one, you can have as many as you want if you farm them.
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Clay pots would last longer than iron buckets assuming you fired them hot enough and with a good mixture of glaze. If it was just greenware, or low-fired, then yeah it'd end up saturating and falling apart after no time at all.
That aside, how long does it take you to find iron? For me, it's something I normally find and mine on my first night, or during my second day. I usually make a bucket first thing as buckets are very useful, so that's only two days in at the latest.
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Again, if you want to get clay from soil, you need to refine that soil. Usually that means taking raw soil, saturating it, and then sifting out the lighter/smaller elements. Then you'd need to either let it dehydrate through evaporation or external heating. After that, you'll have to most likely sift it a few more cycles worth until it's pure enough to be usable for pottery.
Now, instead of making clay an insane issue, why not just make it so all dirt contains a little bit of clay which is "locked away" (which is true for most soil). To refine the clay out, you place eight dirt in a ring around a bucket of water. The end result should then be anywhere from four to two clay balls, depending on balance issues. This makes it rare enough that it won't be easy to abuse, but it also makes it easy enough to mine if you want to use it. Dirt and water are common enough.
Some say the world will end in fire
Some say in ice
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire
But if it had to perish twice
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice
I've been anywhere from my first day to 10 days spent looking for iron, depending on the map, and similarily I've spent the same amount of time looking for clay, anywhere from 1 day to never at all. If you made Clay more common, as clay is more common than iron deposits, than you could give clay an actual use like a bucket, and I only make it decay because every other tool in the game decays but for whatever reason the bucket does not.
I know its MINEcraft but a lot of people like the idea of Farmcraft and introducing other aspects of gameplay. Mining will obviously always be a core part of the game, but you could make the game a little less dependant on the tedious job of picking away at stone, by making non-mined resources a bit more viable for progressing through the "tech tree" as I call it. But because Mining is meant to be an important part of the gameplay - I suggest making the mined resources superior (forever lasting bucket) and the non-mined resources inferior (decaying bucket).
That's my idea for adding some balance and uses for clay.
Well thats what I mean - it's entirely based on chance, so that just means Notch needs to either set a location where Clay would be common (like Iron is common within that 15 belt or whatever that level is) or he needs to make it so that it is more likely to be chosen amongst the dirt and sand overall.
IF you are on an island in the middle of the ocean with no trees within the fog distance, nor coal, nor any other land you can see.... I could see it taking a few mincraft hours longer, specifically what you'd spend swimming to a larger landmass. After that, iron should be as easy to find as a decent cave or a good mine pit.
Clay, on the other hand, does take a bit more work (in some ways, less in other ways) to find, but this really boils down to a game mechanic: Clay is RARE. Stone is not. Dirt is not. Really, I have no problem with building a house from cobblestone, smooth stone, glass, dirt, etc... We need rare things in this game to horde and build awesome houses from, anyways.
If clay was that common, that means sand would be less common unless we made clay appear in dirt (which then makes dirt less common, but that is less of an issue as opposed to sand).
The bucket has no destructive usage (discounting the illogical use of lava in the bucket as that'd destroy that near-instantly, and water rusting iron because there is no rust in MineCraft [yet]). Flint and steel slowly grinds the materials down, hoes, pickaxes, shovels, swords.... Heck, even bows SHOULD have durability as each pull slightly stresses the bow stave.
That said, we HAVE buckets. Three iron ore, refined in a furnace, made as such:
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I don't really see a reason to use any wood tools after I make my first wooden pickaxe and mine at least three stone. I've never made golden tools as they are worse than stone tools. And I conserve my diamond tools, when I get diamond, for low-use things such as swords, axes, and whatnot.
A clay bucket would be like a wooden axe. What good is it after the first few minecraft days when you find iron? It's not even that hard to make a BUNCH of iron buckets after a few minecraft weeks of mining. Conversely, most people have no need for water until they either are going down near lava, or want to start making use of custom water placing. For the former, I have yet to get down to the majority of the dangerous lava before I have at least three iron ore. For the latter, there is a reason this is survival and not creative. You need to earn the resources to make what you want.
Yup, people do. I'd love the idea of more advanced farming, more resources, and even higher levels of technology. But I don't see any reason to turn a mostly-useless resource that is extremely rare and highly sought after because of as much into a common resource with a bunch of duplicated uses. What WOULD be awesome would be making it semi-rare and giving it some new uses. For example...
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Each of those are a clay ball. That creates a clay vase. You can then combined it with a flower as such...
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or
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You would then have a one block vase and flower which could be used for decoration.
There, a brand new usage that wouldn't duplicate a perfectly-good usage which would only lead to it being even more useless.
Wood is VITAL to the ability to do ANYTHING in the game. It isn't mined from stone.
You cannot heal yourself without finding food (bread, golden apple, etc) without using either pig (murdered by your wooden-handled weapon) or growing crops from the non-mined seeds from non-stone-dirt.
I can safely say that this change wouldn't harm the game, but it'd just be entirely useless to the vast majority of us out here.
And, again, it's just making a wooden sword versus a stone sword. If you have the stone, why waste the wood? In this case, I'd rather use my clay to make bricks, and then make brick blocks to make fireplaces. And I like the idea that clay is a rare resource so I can't just go and have a fireplace in every place I build.
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This is pretty much the opposite of most people's experience so far as I've read. I've never been looking for clay myself but in all my exploring I've done I've never found it by accident either. Plus cartographer doesn't lie, its ALOT rarer than iron. You must have gotten very lucky.[/quote]
In over half of my maps I spawn within spitting distance of a clay deposit. In a tenth of those games I end up with many many stacks of clay blocks that I just store and use rarely (because it's a rare substance and I don't want to waste it, of course). In about a fourth of all of the worlds I've played, I don't find more than a single stack of clay (without really searching beaches for it too much, though. I never worry about that).
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I still don't understand why people like the idea of making a rare resource uncommon, or even common. But it doesn't seem like I'm going to sway any of your side, so I'll just hope Notch has countless other far far more important things to take care of instead.
Good luck to you!
Some say the world will end in fire
Some say in ice
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire
But if it had to perish twice
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice
Because if it was so common that everyone had it coming out their noses, it would just be another building material. People would have clay houses just as much as they have wood, stone, and dirt. At that point, it's not an achievement to get as much of the stuff as you can. I don't understand why people seem to think that it NEEDS to be more common when, right now, it forces you to use it in a calculated manner.
First off, that wasn't an argument (no extra 'e' in argument), it was my hope. I really do hope that Notch has far more important things to do instead of making clay so utterly common that I'll need to make a double-chest for brick blocks.
Secondly, this IS a suggestion forum. We get suggestions regarding most everything, and the vast majority of suggestions are rather unimportant, with most of those also being useless.
There's nothing wrong with suggesting that Notch change the color of the sky to a slightly darker blue, or that he make it so clay spawns more often, or that clouds form block pictures of dinosaurs, but I really do hope (my opinion, which is not something you can attempt to argue with and win as it is, in fact, my opinion) that he takes care of the bugs, and then the major additional features to help bring this game into beta faster.
Anyways, I've detailed a few ways that we could have clay produced through player action, but I still think that you'd just go and end up ruining an extremely rare (and thusly commendable) building material. But hey, if Notch wants bricks to be more common, he'll make them more common. So, either way, good luck to you, and make sure to keep your eyes pealed for clay as you're sailing across the oceans, heh.
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Dirt contains clay, sometimes in trace amounts, other times in large enough quantities that it's mostly clay. The basic idea is that we assume all soil in minecraft has a decent amount of clay in it, so all that needs to happen is that it is leached from the soil, as we've had to do for thousands of years to make pottery.
Some say the world will end in fire
Some say in ice
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire
But if it had to perish twice
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice
It's usually located on little lonely sand islands with no trees, in big bunches.
..Sorry if I've completely missed something here. I have a tiny attention span and couldn't be bothered reading three pages of comments on the topic.
But I read the full first post, and I'm fine with clay. Clay = Bricks, and bricks are a very nice material for homes. It gives it that more modern look. :smile.gif:
..But I guess it is a LITTLE uncommon for me, still.
I don't see why Notch can't make it a little more common.
...anyways, clay and dirt are not always the same thing, though some dirts may contain clay, but make clay more common. (I have never EVER seen any clay in Minecraft life, it's the only thing I have not seen, and my main world happens to be on islands, which I have explored VERY well.)
Well yes, exactly: Entirely dependant on the map that gets Generated. I've had 1 map where I spawned by a beach (no clay) and I wanted to set off to find a nice big hill or mountain to dig down into, instead of just digging down right by the sand and dirt. I spent the first Minecraft day roaming around to no avail, the biome I was in was more like a forest: Trees literally everywhere, but nothing higher than 4 blocks above the water.
Alternatively, I've spawned on top of 12 clay blocks with a coal filled mountainside within a few dozen blocks, which was a lot less frustrating.
But the issue is that it isn't generated the same way as other materials. Clay doesn't seem to have a set location where you are actually bound to find it. You can go digging and find Iron pretty easily, no matter where you start, as long as you get low enough. (I believe my difficulty finding it one day was an anomaly). But Clay on the other hand: I've only ever seen it on beaches, but in some maps I've gone through HUNDREDS of beaches and never found it. So what gives? (As for rare resources to horde and show off; thats why Diamonds can be crafted into almost anything. Also, just build a house of Gold. Much more impressive than clay. Having something made of clay usually means you got lucky, whereas something made from Obsidian means you worked for it).
So, issue solved? That is kind of what we're suggesting. But either way, Sand is hardly rare, people talk about how they destroy beaches to create a glass house - but you can always find more sand by just heading off to the next Beach, there never seems to be a lack of sand, ever, you just end up using it so you have to go out and get it more, but its never difficult to find.
Well you just helped demonstrate my point; the wooden axe HAS a use. Like I said, it's not very far down the tech tree, but it gives clay SOMETHING to make it more useful than esthetics. In my case, I've always wanted to start my farm before I start mining - because I find in matters of time efficiency, its good to set up the farm and go mine, by the time you get back, wheat should be in full spring, a quick harvest, reseeding, back to mining, it'll be done when I get back, so on and so forth. Problem is, sometimes it takes you until the end of that first day to find Iron, and then once you've found it, you HAVE to invest it in the bucket if you want to move any water around at all. You can't spend your first iron on a sword/armour, or new tools, or any of the other uses for iron because you so incredibly need that bucket.
Yup, people do. I'd love the idea of more advanced farming, more resources, and even higher levels of technology. But I don't see any reason to turn a mostly-useless resource that is extremely rare and highly sought after because of as much into a common resource with a bunch of duplicated uses. What WOULD be awesome would be making it semi-rare and giving it some new uses. For example...
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No yes: That's exactly what I meant, by "Make it more common", I mean, make it more likely to spawn at the rate it usually spawns in games where it does spawn enough where you can actually use it to make more than 3 bricks.
That is a great use for it - so why not put that in there too? There is no real implication with putting BOTH in there; basically what you're saying is that because wooden tools duplicate a perfectly-good usage it leads to wood being useless. What I'm trying to say is that we need to make Clay a little bit more like wood: except not quite as common as wood.
But just as vital to the game are stone and Iron. You can't even get a bucket without a furnace, which requires stone, and then there is the iron cost. This means the idea of growing crops where you want with your non-mined seeds from non-stone dirt, requires you to mine at least that far. However, you can mine all the way down to the lava on nothing but stone tools. This gives you access to a wide variety useful resources - but when you're on the surface you have wood... dirt... sand... maybe clay if you're lucky... You have no option BUT to mine. I'd like to see more development on the areas outside of mining, if only to make 'not mining' something someone could do for the sake roleplaying.
Yet - wooden swords are still in the game, and they serve their function. I also addressed the "illustrious brick" issue by increasing the cost of bricks.
So you agree that Clay isn't always readily available (about 1/4 of your worlds) - and that when you do find it, it's still mostly rare (~90% of the games you DON'T end up with stacks of clay blocks). But that doesn't seem to bother you all that much. It bothers other people though.
Perhaps common was too strong a word; I mean find a type of location where you go "I am bound to find clay if I keep searching in this area indefinately". This is not currently the case.
To you as well!
Sure, a clay block = a brick block, but there are intermediate steps. You get your 4 clay balls. You smelt them, taking up 1/2 a coal or equivalent amount of wood. You get the bricks. You craft the bricks into a brick block. Which does not seem to be appreciably harder than cobblestone.
Compare to cobblestone: You mine stop with a pickaxe, and put it down.
So clay is
a. hard to find
b. hard to turn into something useful
c. it worse than cobblestone
Why? Does this make any sense? People say they like to show it off. However, there is nothing about it brag-worthy. Your map happened to generate a lot of clay. As it should be apparent from this thread, chance has more to do with finding mass amounts of clay than anything else. This means a brick house is similar to saying "Hey look, I rolled 2 6's!". Sure, you have to roll the dice, but I don't see why the result of random chance is something to brag about. I can put forth exactly the same effort into finding clay and find nothing. A gold house means you put forth the effort to mine all that gold. That is a legitimate expenditure of effort and probability ensures you will accumulate it over time as you mine, making it a direct indication of the extent of your mines. Same with diamonds. They form real indicators of success. Clay is just random.
I laughed my ass off when this happened. I went to record a new save file, because it's easy for me to find clay, and this is what happened:
Edit: LOL seriously! I was laughing so hard. If I had my mic turned on you'd be deaf.
Thank you for proving my point. That is pure random chance. If you make a brick house out of that(not that it was enough to do so), why should we be impressed? Saying clay is rare, and therefore a status symbol is silly.