I haven't really read all of the ideas, but i got this in mind, Spawn Crystals, these are very limited crystals that can set your spawn. What are the limitations? Here ya go!
-You must travel atleast 1-2 chunks of the map before setting a new one.
-These are NOT stackable and only one can be kept in inventory at a time.
-Once used, you must wait a specific time before choosing another spawn point. (1 or 2 ingame days or more?)
-Once used, the Spawn Crystal WILL break, this helps prevent quicksaving.
-Also, if used to deep underground, the Spawn Crystal wont work, this prevents quicksaving in caves.
-In Peaceful, this is a Permanent spawn point until you change it, in Easy, this will work 2 times before breaking, and in Normal it will work once before breaking. In Easy, set a spawn point in the same place 2 times to craft a Permanent spawn point, and in Normal, set a spawn point in the same place 4 times to craft a Permanent spawn point, Permanent spawn points like this can't be crafted in Hard.
Finally, you need some rare materials to craft them.
Here's the recipe!
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This creates 4 or lower/higher ammounts of Spawn Crystals, or change the Diamonds to something easier to get, but atleast this prevents quicksaving. This might be a AWFUL idea to someone, a ok to someone, and a good idea to someone, people have different opinoins, as all of you know, :biggrin.gif:
LOL, so basically it works the exact same way as what I just suggested in the post right before yours, except it lacks one slot of redstone dust, doesn't point north, and has a time restriction on top of the distance restriction?
I don't really understand the contraversy over a new spawn point or Set-A-Point?
It could be optional....If you don't want to use this feature/item = then don't use it.
For someone that wants to explore a way to "get home" would be awesome (to me). I LOVE the Rubber Leash above = that is exactly how I feel - I really really want to explore - I really really would like to Build my Main Base away from my spawn point BUT the way the game is now I don't venture too far away.
I would love to see some kind of MAP where you could save a location then travel to that location when you want. Just click on the map marker and "portal" to where you want to go. Something like Fallout (3 or New Vegas).
How is using something like this Exploiting the game? What is the point of only having one spawn point?
When you first start a new world - it would be awesome to explore BEFORE you decide where to put your main base - to be able to change it without creating roads, signposts, towers etc....
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I live in my own little world - I like it there - everyone knows me.
It has to do with the perception of value. If you can constantly move your spawn point, then dying has no real consequence. If dying has no consequence, then there is no risk to exploration. If exploration has no risk, it is no longer really exploration. It's the risk that makes exploration actually fun, and saying "if you don't like it, don't use it" doesn't work, because taking risks that are necessary to accomplish a goal are fun, taking UNnecessary risks is just stupidity.
It has to do with the perception of value. If you can constantly move your spawn point, then dying has no real consequence.
I disagree completely. Being able to arbitrarily reset your spawnpoint at will doesn't mean that dying has no consequence- because you've still lost all your stuff! And, when you get right down to it, this game is entirely about Stuff- there are no experience points, there are no skills- our character is entirely composed of the stuff he carries. When you die, you lose all that stuff. If you're lucky, you can get your stuff back before it degrades- but it is by no means a sure bet, because to get that stuff, you're going to be naked (or wearing whatever new equipment you picked up in your house).
Look, if it's going to be a problem, just make it so that when you die and respawn in your bed, you're down to one heart. You'll have to eat to replenish your health, otherwise you're just going to die again. If that's not enough of a deterrent, include some sort of "rez sickness"- for five minutes or so, you can't heal at all. But really, you only need to do this if you seriously think that players will be zerging willy-nilly... and I don't think that's going to be the case at all.
Personally, I think the best way to fix the spawnpoint problem is also the easiest- introduce an easy-to-make item called a bed. Heck, introduce sleeping bags, too. Once they're placed, all you have to do is right-click on them to "sleep" in them... and from that point on, that bed is your new spawnpoint. If you die, you reappear, naked, in that bed, and with rez sickness for a bit. If you want to change to a new bed, just right-click on that one. This way, you can explore all you want... but death still matters.
I don't understand why so many people in this thread are so worried that someone else will play the game in a "different" way. If you don't want to reset your spawnpoint, don't do it. Continue to play the game the way you do now! Players are already resetting their spawn points- the only difference is, right now they have to do it with a third-party program. Don't let others tell you how to play your game, and don't tell others how to play theirs.
I disagree completely. Being able to arbitrarily reset your spawnpoint at will doesn't mean that dying has no consequence- because you've still lost all your stuff! And, when you get right down to it, this game is entirely about Stuff- there are no experience points, there are no skills- our character is entirely composed of the stuff he carries. When you die, you lose all that stuff. If you're lucky, you can get your stuff back before it degrades- but it is by no means a sure bet, because to get that stuff, you're going to be naked (or wearing whatever new equipment you picked up in your house).
Yes, it does. Just look at the example you gave. The only loss you suffer from dying is the possibility of losing your stuff. But if you can set down your spawn point arbitrarily, then you can explore a cave, set yoru spawn point as a skeleton starts to attack, and then have no worries, even if you die, bam, no time lost, not stuff lost, because you died right beside your spawn point, you'll practically pick everything up automatically.
Look, if it's going to be a problem, just make it so that when you die and respawn in your bed, you're down to one heart. You'll have to eat to replenish your health, otherwise you're just going to die again. If that's not enough of a deterrent, include some sort of "rez sickness"- for five minutes or so, you can't heal at all. But really, you only need to do this if you seriously think that players will be zerging willy-nilly... and I don't think that's going to be the case at all.
Personally, I think the best way to fix the spawnpoint problem is also the easiest- introduce an easy-to-make item called a bed. Heck, introduce sleeping bags, too. Once they're placed, all you have to do is right-click on them to "sleep" in them... and from that point on, that bed is your new spawnpoint. If you die, you reappear, naked, in that bed, and with rez sickness for a bit. If you want to change to a new bed, just right-click on that one. This way, you can explore all you want... but death still matters.
But this doesn't prevent thw abuse, if anything, it hurts the people who don't abuse it more, because the people who set their spawn points at reasonable locations will have to stock up on health and possibly deal with that rez sickness that will make it all but impossible to get their stuff back, but the people who abuse it and create new spawn points every 10 steps, or as soon as things start to look rough, will get rezzed back where they want to be, and sure they migh thave rez sickness, but so what? It doesn't matter if they die more often when they're only losing 2 seconds of travel time.
With my methodthe people who only want to move their spawn points to new locations for travel purposes have pretty much no restrictions or consequences whatsoever, but the people who want to create quicksave spawn points have a lot more trouble in store, since the restrictions are based on distance. In order to create a spawn point, they have to have already traveled far enough away from their original spawn point to be at risk, and if they do set a spawn point while they're exploring, there's still no gurantee they'll get back safely so that can put the spwn point back where it was.
If someone really wants to die over and over, dealing with rez sickness, because they managed to set up a bed right next to where they died- so what? How does this affect you, or any other player, in any way whatsoever?
Frankly, if someone really wants to cheat, they can already do it. They can already set their spawnpoint, using a third-party program- and when they respawn, they're at full health. Designing a spawn system around how someone might abuse it is a non-starter... because the people who are going to abuse it already have a better system!
And besides, if someone manages to set up a spawn point right next to where they died, they're just going to keep dying over and over- especially if they respawn with only one heart. By the time they manage to kill the monster, all of their stuff will decay.
Look, we're not reinventing the wheel, here. Games have had user-definable spawn points for years now. When you design a game around how someone might abuse it, all you do is inconvenience the legitimate players. The players who are going to cheat will simply cheat around any system you put in.
If I could choose to spawn in a bed in my house I would never be forced to leave. I could have a closed off, well-lit cave system and literally never deal with any mobs. Ever. That's not exactly survival.
Wait, if you're capable of building an enclosed, self-sufficient, monster-less cave system, why is it the BED which makes the difference? Why does having your spawn point inside of that system matter? Inside that system, you never die, it's sort of the point. So where your spawn point is makes no difference.
If you really feel you must change your spawn point (like I usually do), just use MineEdit to change where you spawn.
Walk around till you find a suitable establishment, log out, set spawn to player pos via MineEdit, voila.
Just... no. I shouldn't even NEED to explain why this type of thing should NOT need a freaking 3rd party external application to deal with.
Quote from NilsRungholm »
An even more flexible idea could be to craft several signs (only one placeable per week), and then you would spawn at the closest one. This way you can have several bases spread out across a huge area, but only expand your world beyond your "rubber-leash" (I also loved that one) once you had been playing for a while.
Now, who wouldn't that please? ... ?
Anyone who doesn't like their current location and doesn't want to wait an arbitrary time limit before moving, when they might only need 2 or 3 days to find a new spot they like better that they want to move their spawn point to. Distance is the best limiter, since how fast they can set up a new spawn point is entirely dependant on how long they take to move outside the range of the spawn point. If they move faster then they can set up a new point faster.
It's the same logic behind why people don't want character stats in that improve over time, because it ends up being an arbitrary number that the player is limited by, rather than being something the player gets access to simply by finding what they need to do it.
I agree that making it too easy to move your spawn is the wrong direction.
I think a key to the middle ground is, I think, the compass. Having the compass point to your spawn just makes your spawn all the more important.
My personal idea goes like this:
Remove the idea of a single spawn point. Instead, spawn randomly within the chunks your game has already rendered. As for the compass, I think you should be able to create a literal magnetic pole for your compass to always point at, and otherwise it just points to your last spawn. With the magnetic pole the compass would as useful as you want it to be.
If we really want to stick with the bed idea, we could make it so you are MORE LIKELY to spawn NEAR the last bed you slept in.
I'm gonna completely disregard the most recent discussion (I haven't even read about "spawnflowers") and post my idea.
First, you have placeable spawn points. You can have multiple ones placed, and they're all active at once and can be used as many times as you need. They all share the property of allowing you to sleep until sunrise or until you take damage for whatever reason.
But, there are three kinds of spawn points!
1. Tent: You start with one of these- it's just a tent. If it is lost from existence for whatever reason (or you just want a spare), it's not too hard to craft another one.Just do this!
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Okay, so when you place it on an area, it makes a little 4(length)x4(width)x3(height) tent. The tent is more than just a spawn point, however- it's a tiny all-in-one shelter. You respawn and sleep inside the tent, and can enter and exit via a closable door. The inside of the tent is safe from attack (stuff can't spawn in there,stuff can't hurt you through the walls, stuff won't see you and crowd around, trying to kill you when you leave, skeletons can't shoot in and Creepers won't go boom when sitting next to the thing with you sleeping in it). The walls allow light through, so you can judge how dark or bright it is outside (but you can't really see anything). Also built in is a 'mini-chest' with one-sixth your inventory space, allowing you to store stuff right at hand if you get killed. You'll need it, because you respawn in a tent with only one heart!
Tents are easy to retrieve and can be placed as many times as you want. However, unlike other beds, you can only have one tent in your inventory or placed on the ground at a time. This does not include ones in chests, in case you want a replacement, but if you have a tent in your inventory, you can't pick up another one, and you can't pick up another tent if you have one placed. The idea is to benefit a nomadic player, or simply anyone caught by the darkness without shelter. The tent allows you to make a camp for a night with absolutely no resource cost. When sunrise comes, just pack up the tent and get on the move again. Of course, a potential abusage is using the tent as instant shelter from random enemies ambushing you. If you really want, you could have some sort of timed building sequence to prevent this. Or just not do it. >_> In multiplayer, a tent wouldn't protect you against fellow players, so you shouldn't count on that.
2. Basic bed
It's a bed, made like any other bed. OH WAIT!
Cloth, feathers, planks.
Beds are little 1x2x1 thingies. Be sure to leave enough headroom to stand on top of them, otherwise they would probably cause bugs of death. A bed respawns you with 3-5 hearts, but regenerates health if you lay on it, albeit it quite slowly. Beds do take some time to remove, but not that much (about equivalent to a log), and can be retrieved. They're also the beds you're likely to use for decoration. Basic beds are useful for creating your early dwelling and getting out of the cramped tent. They're also good for any temporary bases of exploration, or for waypoints between larger bases.
3. Level 2 bed
Bed with IRON SPRINGS! :biggrin.gif:
Cloth, feathers, iron bars.
Level 2 beds are shaped like basic beds, but shinier. They respawn you with full health, and give you a somewhat faster health regen when laying on them. They take a while to remove, and you can't retrieve them. Level 2 beds will generally mark your permanent bases.
Obviously, I haven't covered how to pick where to respawn. When you die and hit respawn, you pick your spawn point from your tent, the closest basic bed, the closest level 2 bed, or your original spawn point. And closest means in walking distance, to prevent confusion in intricate caverns.
See? It's not incredibly complicated, and I think it makes a bit of sense.
I think incentive to explore is great, but I doubt I'll feel that until we have Boss Mobs or something. I mean, let's say there's a small complex instead of a small room. And inside one of the rooms is a boss mob. A dragon? Giant zombie? Iron creeper? I dunno.
But the only reason I have to leave is to expand from the outside. And I don't have to do that often at all. I mean sure, I could go look for dungeons, but they're not as thrilling as they could be. I'm not asking for a labyrinth of death and destruction, just a few rooms with treasure and a big monster to kill at the very end for some REAL loot. And by real, I mean maybe an uber-mob that drops some diamonds or something nice and rare.
But beds would be nice for people who play on peaceful who don't want to go through the trouble of wandering for a half hour to find their base.
I agree that making it too easy to move your spawn is the wrong direction.
I think a key to the middle ground is, I think, the compass. Having the compass point to your spawn just makes your spawn all the more important.
My personal idea goes like this:
Remove the idea of a single spawn point. Instead, spawn randomly within the chunks your game has already rendered. As for the compass, I think you should be able to create a literal magnetic pole for your compass to always point at, and otherwise it just points to your last spawn. With the magnetic pole the compass would as useful as you want it to be.
If we really want to stick with the bed idea, we could make it so you are MORE LIKELY to spawn NEAR the last bed you slept in.
"Randomly" is a lot of space on a 192Mb map. That doesn't sound too fun for anyone. That would be bad for an explorer, but worse for a guy with lots of explored territory but a single base. Their game would be like having blackouts and wandering away from home all the time. Random kills the mobile AND the homestyle games.
The whole point of having control of the spawn is that it gives more players their own way to play, which is kind of what Minecraft is, making it your own game. If folks want to move it, it's their game, good for them. It doesn't affect other players. It doesn't take away the importance of original spawn in the least; it actually makes it more important by making it a choice, the Singlespawn gameplay. Nobody is forced to move it if they don't want to; then it's a real challenge that you voluntarily accepted, and not just an arbitrary built-in one.
People already make voluntary choices to have their game be tougher; like the hardcore players take upon themselves such as No Torches and Only Stone Tools, or the people already posting challenge maps for others with the honour system the only thing making it Adventure mode. A mobile spawn would mean the people who never move it chose that on purpose, and that's a lot more badass than "oh, just because". It's not hard to avoid doing things when you just can't. If I had a totally movable spawn, I would still play one world where I was tied to a single place forever as some kind of sci-fantastic curse, simply to explain away the compass. Dying while playing like this would be exactly the same game as right now, except I picked it. It'd be me making the game, not the game making me. If I moved the spawn in that world even once, I'm ruining my own fun. But not anyone else's.
Make it some kind of toggle display, showing #total times moved spawn, if it's really that important for it to be known to others. There can be all that kind of info if you really wanted; #avg times spawn moved per day, #times died, #times changed difficulty, #longest time between spawns - all that. You can even add a button for floating items in Options, if you need another thing to use both as a hardcore gameplay feature and as tracked info on this display. This seems to be peoples biggest issue with a mobile spawn; what other folks are doing with it. I will gladly divulge all this information if I can control the spawn. As a thing that would end up becoming a pride in achievement, and even bragging rights to those so inclined, instead of the current arbitrary limit of a lot of extra gameplay, I can't see how this is a bad idea.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Quote from will_holmes »
Quote from anon »
Every time I come to these forums, I think more and more that I'm the only person who plays Minecraft normally.
Every time I come to these forums, I think more and more that there is no such thing as playing Minecraft normally.
Regarding the bed idea no, there should be NO restrictions on it. Anyone who says otherwise is a moron on par with those kids who scream "stop liking what I don't like!!!1!1!1"
The materials should be easy to find. There should be no limit to where, when and how often you can build them.
"But people might use beds to respawn right next to their cave!!" My response to that: So ****ing what? If someone wants to make the game easier for themselves it isn't any of your business. If you think it's not fair, then don't do it yourself. It's as simple as that. Theres no reason to restrict players simply because of what you personally want in the game. It's unreasonable.
I read this thread as best I could, but didn't read every post. So, apologies if this has been discussed.
What if moving a spawn point only cost *time*?
i.e. once you place it, you have to leave it in a certain space for, oh, (throwing this out there) one full day before it 'locks' on the current location.
If you want to move somewhere else, then just go. The spawn point stays where it was last it until you 'place' it in the new place and wait 24 hours. Then it fixates on the new location.
I'm not presuming any items or other mechanics. For all I care, it could be a right-click at your feet. The important part is that there's a delay between initiating the new placement, and it actually taking hold.
My thinking:
[*:13utv8hq]It's democratic. It isn't necessarily dependent on certain material types, wealth, game play style, or actions. [*:13utv8hq]It takes an investment, but not a huge one. It's just time. And, if someone really wants to stay in a new location, then the investment of a day is trivial.
[*:13utv8hq]It independent of any other game play mechanics. Notch can change the penalties for death all he wants, because it doesn't rely on any possessions, so it doesn't have to scale.
[*:13utv8hq]It's hard to abuse. You can't just throw it down any old time. It has to be in place for 24 hours before it means anything.
Think of cooking. You start it, and it takes a while until you get the result. This is like that, but doesn't necessarily need any 'things' to instigate it.
I think if the mobs dropped better rewards when killed it would help raise the incentive to go outside of the stronghold.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Holy crap I can post things. Players should be able to create on a scale they they don't have the tools to right now. See what I mean :viewtopic.php?f=1&t=77448&p=1185259#p1185259
Not really. You'd just access the mobs that are already near your base and not make any extended trips.
But on that line of reasoning, if mobs gave better drops in correlation with the distance you were away from your respawn point, that would DEFINITELY give people reason to explore further from safety.
Think about it: Pigs drop up to 3 pieces of meat, Zombies and Chickens drop up to half a dozen, maybe even a full dozen of feathers. Creepers drop up to 3 Gunpowder, Spiders drop 3 silk, and Skeletons drop 5 and maybe even 6 arrows for every one you kill. There's danger being that far away from your spawn point, but with being able to use portals through the Nether to go back and forth, the extra haul for less work could be well worth the potential risk.
-You must travel atleast 1-2 chunks of the map before setting a new one.
-These are NOT stackable and only one can be kept in inventory at a time.
-Once used, you must wait a specific time before choosing another spawn point. (1 or 2 ingame days or more?)
-Once used, the Spawn Crystal WILL break, this helps prevent quicksaving.
-Also, if used to deep underground, the Spawn Crystal wont work, this prevents quicksaving in caves.
-In Peaceful, this is a Permanent spawn point until you change it, in Easy, this will work 2 times before breaking, and in Normal it will work once before breaking. In Easy, set a spawn point in the same place 2 times to craft a Permanent spawn point, and in Normal, set a spawn point in the same place 4 times to craft a Permanent spawn point, Permanent spawn points like this can't be crafted in Hard.
Finally, you need some rare materials to craft them.
Here's the recipe!
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This creates 4 or lower/higher ammounts of Spawn Crystals, or change the Diamonds to something easier to get, but atleast this prevents quicksaving. This might be a AWFUL idea to someone, a ok to someone, and a good idea to someone, people have different opinoins, as all of you know, :biggrin.gif:
PLEASE ALSO SUPPORT:
Sabata & Grey Acumen's "New Nether"
Grey Acumen's Minecraft 2.0 Suggestion Series
It could be optional....If you don't want to use this feature/item = then don't use it.
For someone that wants to explore a way to "get home" would be awesome (to me). I LOVE the Rubber Leash above = that is exactly how I feel - I really really want to explore - I really really would like to Build my Main Base away from my spawn point BUT the way the game is now I don't venture too far away.
I would love to see some kind of MAP where you could save a location then travel to that location when you want. Just click on the map marker and "portal" to where you want to go. Something like Fallout (3 or New Vegas).
How is using something like this Exploiting the game? What is the point of only having one spawn point?
When you first start a new world - it would be awesome to explore BEFORE you decide where to put your main base - to be able to change it without creating roads, signposts, towers etc....
PLEASE ALSO SUPPORT:
Sabata & Grey Acumen's "New Nether"
Grey Acumen's Minecraft 2.0 Suggestion Series
I disagree completely. Being able to arbitrarily reset your spawnpoint at will doesn't mean that dying has no consequence- because you've still lost all your stuff! And, when you get right down to it, this game is entirely about Stuff- there are no experience points, there are no skills- our character is entirely composed of the stuff he carries. When you die, you lose all that stuff. If you're lucky, you can get your stuff back before it degrades- but it is by no means a sure bet, because to get that stuff, you're going to be naked (or wearing whatever new equipment you picked up in your house).
Look, if it's going to be a problem, just make it so that when you die and respawn in your bed, you're down to one heart. You'll have to eat to replenish your health, otherwise you're just going to die again. If that's not enough of a deterrent, include some sort of "rez sickness"- for five minutes or so, you can't heal at all. But really, you only need to do this if you seriously think that players will be zerging willy-nilly... and I don't think that's going to be the case at all.
Personally, I think the best way to fix the spawnpoint problem is also the easiest- introduce an easy-to-make item called a bed. Heck, introduce sleeping bags, too. Once they're placed, all you have to do is right-click on them to "sleep" in them... and from that point on, that bed is your new spawnpoint. If you die, you reappear, naked, in that bed, and with rez sickness for a bit. If you want to change to a new bed, just right-click on that one. This way, you can explore all you want... but death still matters.
I don't understand why so many people in this thread are so worried that someone else will play the game in a "different" way. If you don't want to reset your spawnpoint, don't do it. Continue to play the game the way you do now! Players are already resetting their spawn points- the only difference is, right now they have to do it with a third-party program. Don't let others tell you how to play your game, and don't tell others how to play theirs.
And what is the current incentive then? You could wall of your spawn point and never leave that place.
Venit, quessit, induravit.
But this doesn't prevent thw abuse, if anything, it hurts the people who don't abuse it more, because the people who set their spawn points at reasonable locations will have to stock up on health and possibly deal with that rez sickness that will make it all but impossible to get their stuff back, but the people who abuse it and create new spawn points every 10 steps, or as soon as things start to look rough, will get rezzed back where they want to be, and sure they migh thave rez sickness, but so what? It doesn't matter if they die more often when they're only losing 2 seconds of travel time.
With my methodthe people who only want to move their spawn points to new locations for travel purposes have pretty much no restrictions or consequences whatsoever, but the people who want to create quicksave spawn points have a lot more trouble in store, since the restrictions are based on distance. In order to create a spawn point, they have to have already traveled far enough away from their original spawn point to be at risk, and if they do set a spawn point while they're exploring, there's still no gurantee they'll get back safely so that can put the spwn point back where it was.
PLEASE ALSO SUPPORT:
Sabata & Grey Acumen's "New Nether"
Grey Acumen's Minecraft 2.0 Suggestion Series
Frankly, if someone really wants to cheat, they can already do it. They can already set their spawnpoint, using a third-party program- and when they respawn, they're at full health. Designing a spawn system around how someone might abuse it is a non-starter... because the people who are going to abuse it already have a better system!
And besides, if someone manages to set up a spawn point right next to where they died, they're just going to keep dying over and over- especially if they respawn with only one heart. By the time they manage to kill the monster, all of their stuff will decay.
Look, we're not reinventing the wheel, here. Games have had user-definable spawn points for years now. When you design a game around how someone might abuse it, all you do is inconvenience the legitimate players. The players who are going to cheat will simply cheat around any system you put in.
Wait, if you're capable of building an enclosed, self-sufficient, monster-less cave system, why is it the BED which makes the difference? Why does having your spawn point inside of that system matter? Inside that system, you never die, it's sort of the point. So where your spawn point is makes no difference.
Walk around till you find a suitable establishment, log out, set spawn to player pos via MineEdit, voila.
Just... no. I shouldn't even NEED to explain why this type of thing should NOT need a freaking 3rd party external application to deal with.
Anyone who doesn't like their current location and doesn't want to wait an arbitrary time limit before moving, when they might only need 2 or 3 days to find a new spot they like better that they want to move their spawn point to. Distance is the best limiter, since how fast they can set up a new spawn point is entirely dependant on how long they take to move outside the range of the spawn point. If they move faster then they can set up a new point faster.
It's the same logic behind why people don't want character stats in that improve over time, because it ends up being an arbitrary number that the player is limited by, rather than being something the player gets access to simply by finding what they need to do it.
PLEASE ALSO SUPPORT:
Sabata & Grey Acumen's "New Nether"
Grey Acumen's Minecraft 2.0 Suggestion Series
I think a key to the middle ground is, I think, the compass. Having the compass point to your spawn just makes your spawn all the more important.
My personal idea goes like this:
Remove the idea of a single spawn point. Instead, spawn randomly within the chunks your game has already rendered. As for the compass, I think you should be able to create a literal magnetic pole for your compass to always point at, and otherwise it just points to your last spawn. With the magnetic pole the compass would as useful as you want it to be.
If we really want to stick with the bed idea, we could make it so you are MORE LIKELY to spawn NEAR the last bed you slept in.
First, you have placeable spawn points. You can have multiple ones placed, and they're all active at once and can be used as many times as you need. They all share the property of allowing you to sleep until sunrise or until you take damage for whatever reason.
But, there are three kinds of spawn points!
1. Tent: You start with one of these- it's just a tent. If it is lost from existence for whatever reason (or you just want a spare), it's not too hard to craft another one.Just do this!
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= cloth block
Okay, so when you place it on an area, it makes a little 4(length)x4(width)x3(height) tent. The tent is more than just a spawn point, however- it's a tiny all-in-one shelter. You respawn and sleep inside the tent, and can enter and exit via a closable door. The inside of the tent is safe from attack (stuff can't spawn in there,stuff can't hurt you through the walls, stuff won't see you and crowd around, trying to kill you when you leave, skeletons can't shoot in and Creepers won't go boom when sitting next to the thing with you sleeping in it). The walls allow light through, so you can judge how dark or bright it is outside (but you can't really see anything). Also built in is a 'mini-chest' with one-sixth your inventory space, allowing you to store stuff right at hand if you get killed. You'll need it, because you respawn in a tent with only one heart!
Tents are easy to retrieve and can be placed as many times as you want. However, unlike other beds, you can only have one tent in your inventory or placed on the ground at a time. This does not include ones in chests, in case you want a replacement, but if you have a tent in your inventory, you can't pick up another one, and you can't pick up another tent if you have one placed. The idea is to benefit a nomadic player, or simply anyone caught by the darkness without shelter. The tent allows you to make a camp for a night with absolutely no resource cost. When sunrise comes, just pack up the tent and get on the move again. Of course, a potential abusage is using the tent as instant shelter from random enemies ambushing you. If you really want, you could have some sort of timed building sequence to prevent this. Or just not do it. >_> In multiplayer, a tent wouldn't protect you against fellow players, so you shouldn't count on that.
2. Basic bed
It's a bed, made like any other bed. OH WAIT!
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Cloth, feathers, planks.
Beds are little 1x2x1 thingies. Be sure to leave enough headroom to stand on top of them, otherwise they would probably cause bugs of death. A bed respawns you with 3-5 hearts, but regenerates health if you lay on it, albeit it quite slowly. Beds do take some time to remove, but not that much (about equivalent to a log), and can be retrieved. They're also the beds you're likely to use for decoration. Basic beds are useful for creating your early dwelling and getting out of the cramped tent. They're also good for any temporary bases of exploration, or for waypoints between larger bases.
3. Level 2 bed
Bed with IRON SPRINGS! :biggrin.gif:
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Cloth, feathers, iron bars.
Level 2 beds are shaped like basic beds, but shinier. They respawn you with full health, and give you a somewhat faster health regen when laying on them. They take a while to remove, and you can't retrieve them. Level 2 beds will generally mark your permanent bases.
Obviously, I haven't covered how to pick where to respawn. When you die and hit respawn, you pick your spawn point from your tent, the closest basic bed, the closest level 2 bed, or your original spawn point. And closest means in walking distance, to prevent confusion in intricate caverns.
See? It's not incredibly complicated, and I think it makes a bit of sense.
But the only reason I have to leave is to expand from the outside. And I don't have to do that often at all. I mean sure, I could go look for dungeons, but they're not as thrilling as they could be. I'm not asking for a labyrinth of death and destruction, just a few rooms with treasure and a big monster to kill at the very end for some REAL loot. And by real, I mean maybe an uber-mob that drops some diamonds or something nice and rare.
But beds would be nice for people who play on peaceful who don't want to go through the trouble of wandering for a half hour to find their base.
"Randomly" is a lot of space on a 192Mb map. That doesn't sound too fun for anyone. That would be bad for an explorer, but worse for a guy with lots of explored territory but a single base. Their game would be like having blackouts and wandering away from home all the time. Random kills the mobile AND the homestyle games.
The whole point of having control of the spawn is that it gives more players their own way to play, which is kind of what Minecraft is, making it your own game. If folks want to move it, it's their game, good for them. It doesn't affect other players. It doesn't take away the importance of original spawn in the least; it actually makes it more important by making it a choice, the Singlespawn gameplay. Nobody is forced to move it if they don't want to; then it's a real challenge that you voluntarily accepted, and not just an arbitrary built-in one.
People already make voluntary choices to have their game be tougher; like the hardcore players take upon themselves such as No Torches and Only Stone Tools, or the people already posting challenge maps for others with the honour system the only thing making it Adventure mode. A mobile spawn would mean the people who never move it chose that on purpose, and that's a lot more badass than "oh, just because". It's not hard to avoid doing things when you just can't. If I had a totally movable spawn, I would still play one world where I was tied to a single place forever as some kind of sci-fantastic curse, simply to explain away the compass. Dying while playing like this would be exactly the same game as right now, except I picked it. It'd be me making the game, not the game making me. If I moved the spawn in that world even once, I'm ruining my own fun. But not anyone else's.
Make it some kind of toggle display, showing #total times moved spawn, if it's really that important for it to be known to others. There can be all that kind of info if you really wanted; #avg times spawn moved per day, #times died, #times changed difficulty, #longest time between spawns - all that. You can even add a button for floating items in Options, if you need another thing to use both as a hardcore gameplay feature and as tracked info on this display. This seems to be peoples biggest issue with a mobile spawn; what other folks are doing with it. I will gladly divulge all this information if I can control the spawn. As a thing that would end up becoming a pride in achievement, and even bragging rights to those so inclined, instead of the current arbitrary limit of a lot of extra gameplay, I can't see how this is a bad idea.
The materials should be easy to find. There should be no limit to where, when and how often you can build them.
"But people might use beds to respawn right next to their cave!!" My response to that: So ****ing what? If someone wants to make the game easier for themselves it isn't any of your business. If you think it's not fair, then don't do it yourself. It's as simple as that. Theres no reason to restrict players simply because of what you personally want in the game. It's unreasonable.
EDIT: Oh and before I forget... =wool
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Would be a good way to craft it or even
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What if moving a spawn point only cost *time*?
i.e. once you place it, you have to leave it in a certain space for, oh, (throwing this out there) one full day before it 'locks' on the current location.
If you want to move somewhere else, then just go. The spawn point stays where it was last it until you 'place' it in the new place and wait 24 hours. Then it fixates on the new location.
I'm not presuming any items or other mechanics. For all I care, it could be a right-click at your feet. The important part is that there's a delay between initiating the new placement, and it actually taking hold.
My thinking:
[*:13utv8hq]It's democratic. It isn't necessarily dependent on certain material types, wealth, game play style, or actions. [*:13utv8hq]It takes an investment, but not a huge one. It's just time. And, if someone really wants to stay in a new location, then the investment of a day is trivial.
[*:13utv8hq]It independent of any other game play mechanics. Notch can change the penalties for death all he wants, because it doesn't rely on any possessions, so it doesn't have to scale.
[*:13utv8hq]It's hard to abuse. You can't just throw it down any old time. It has to be in place for 24 hours before it means anything.
Think of cooking. You start it, and it takes a while until you get the result. This is like that, but doesn't necessarily need any 'things' to instigate it.
Thoughts? Critiques?
Players should be able to create on a scale they they don't have the tools to right now. See what I mean : viewtopic.php?f=1&t=77448&p=1185259#p1185259
Yeah...
Also: this topic needs bump.
But on that line of reasoning, if mobs gave better drops in correlation with the distance you were away from your respawn point, that would DEFINITELY give people reason to explore further from safety.
Think about it: Pigs drop up to 3 pieces of meat, Zombies and Chickens drop up to half a dozen, maybe even a full dozen of feathers. Creepers drop up to 3 Gunpowder, Spiders drop 3 silk, and Skeletons drop 5 and maybe even 6 arrows for every one you kill. There's danger being that far away from your spawn point, but with being able to use portals through the Nether to go back and forth, the extra haul for less work could be well worth the potential risk.
PLEASE ALSO SUPPORT:
Sabata & Grey Acumen's "New Nether"
Grey Acumen's Minecraft 2.0 Suggestion Series