Minecraft Forums

Intro
So, for a while I've been thinking about a way to add goals, missions, events, or whatever you want to call them in Minecraft. Basically, I've been fleshing out a system that will give possible scenarios for players to play when they need a break from Sandboxing, or don't feel fulfilled completing self-made goals like "Build a mega-house." However, I've been trying to find a system that allows for two important things.
1. Is not required, either explicitly or implicitly, meaning you can choose to play minecraft as it is now with no disadvantages.
2. Events will never happen without your consent. Meaning volcanos will never erupt, new mobs won't appear, etc. without your input. Basically, for the same reason.
Some people love minecraft as it is, and don't want a quest system. And they deserve to be listened to and accommodated to just as much as those who wants quests. One thing that's great about Minecraft is how much the character is really "YOU" and not somebody you're playing as. Adding too much of the world interacting with the character takes that away. In addition, minecraft is great because nothing will happen to you that unfairly ruins what you've made. Which is why the missions need to be something that both comes to the player, but that the player initiates. So with those goals in mind, I think I've dreamt up a pretty agreeable solution.

Disclaimer
This proposal requires some things that Notch has yet to implement, however most of what I offer are based on things that Notch has at least shown an interest in including, so I'm sure not to go to into my own fantasy. The most important part of this proposal is the bed, and the sleep element, however even those can be worked around with a little imagination. So without further ado, here's the idea.

Prerequisites
The most important element for this idea is beds. In this proposal, clicking on the bed allows you to sleep. Sleep simply fast forwards time for your player until the monsters outside are burning. So it can allow you to skip the night.

Of Beds, Sleep, and Dreams
The main advantage of beds is that sleep would allow you to dream. And dreaming is the main ingredient of the quest system. However, its paramount that this is optional, so in the options menu, players can just turn dreaming off with a simple toggle. In addition, before and after the dream, the player would be offered the option to pursue the dream. This gives players control. If you accept your player begins to dream. The dream could be a number of things depending on peoples' preference. For example, it could be a scripted video, where you don't control your player, but watch a short video of something happening to show what the event is. Or you could be in a field, with some kind of cool visual effect to show it's a dream, in complete control of your character, while the event happened. Or anything in between. After the video shows, some small text explanation would describe the scenario in case the video wasn't clear, and then you would choose to accept the dream or not.
I believe this system gives the player control over events, without forcing them. A good compromise, that also sticks within the confines of the "world" of minecraft.

Structure of the Event
With the event, you get a video explaining, and a short bit of text. This should give you everything you need to do the event, such as general direction (8 cardinal, perhaps a special mission compass could be added to help navigate), what to look for, possible time limits, and maybe a hint at rewards. In addition, the player could pull up current quest info at any time for a refresher. Every quest would have a goal, although that could be extremely varied. It could be "collect x something" (I hope not. :tongue.gif:), "go east to find ___" or "survive this for x days." It could be almost anything. Then, when the mission is over, the player would be presented with the reward. It could be a chest full of cool items, cool quest only objects, or perhaps a temporary buff to abilities, or even a permanent one, if people like that idea. The basic idea is every quest has a goal and a reward, and the player doesn't have to guess to hard what to do. The quest should always be easy to understand, but not necessarily easy to accomplish. For example, I think it would be cool to have to trek for days across new terrain in search of something cool. Or perhaps survive a night in the wild without being able to use anything but your hands. But the idea is easy to understand and accessible. That is paramount.

Conclusion
So that's about it. In addition to, in my opinion, being a reasonable way to add structure to the game, I also think it would be a great way to introduce other elements in the game, as well as giving the player control. For example, some people want natural disasters, or meteors, but others think it's stupid and would ruin what minecraft is about. Through this system, the player would dream the event, and in return, get to accept or refuse it. It would also allow players to give control over possible NPC villages, which some people really desire, but others despise. (That's another topic I'd love to write a long post about ;D). I personally think that this is a fair system that everyone could agree to, but of course I would say that. I agree with me! It would really help to get feedback from both players who want more structure, and from players who don't so PLEASE respond! Thanks for reading.

Events, events, events, etc.
Now for the fun part. Examples of events, missions, goals, dreams, whatever you want to call them! Feel free to add your own in addition to feedback!

Meteorite Strike
Dream: Player dreams of a meteorite striking Earth(?), and is given nothing but a cardinal direction and told a meteor hit with great reward for the explorer who finds it.
Scenario: The player would then choose to trek anything from a couple hundred blocks, to maybe halfway across the world to reach it. Perhaps when nearing the crater, there would be more creatures, or the land could look scorched from heat, with glassified sand and the grass dead. Then, in the center of a crater would be a large rock made mostly of regular stone, possibly iron, and a rare meteorite exclusive ore to be mined.
Reward: The player would get to keep the spoils from the meteorite. They would simply build a house to display it, or mine it and harvest its rare ore. Perhaps the ore could be crafter into tools with special properties(nothing overpowered or gamebreaking.)

Eclipse/Monster Siege
Dream: Player sees a bunch of monsters rushing out from all sides at a small fortress(If possible, the players bed location.
Scenario: For a variable amount of days, told in the dream the sun is eclipsed by the moon. During the period, it is always dark(night) so creatures can keep spawning. In addition, the creatures are stronger, smarter, more numerous, more aggressive, armored, and/or can destroy/place blocks. If the player can survive the period of the eclipse, they win.
Reward: Some decorative award, like a monster head or something for your wall. Or a readable plaque saying you've done it. Maybe a special sword or armor that, like all items, would go away after too much use. Things like that.

Villages
Dream: Player sees covered wagons going across the land which eventually changes to have a few houses in view of player's spawn with people running around.
Scenario: This will be more fleshed out if I ever make a thread for how I think Villages could be applied, but it's basically just here as a mechanism that allows players to control whether or not they want to allow villages. You can choose to not let them settle by refusing the dream. Or you can accept it to have a village pop up.
Reward: Any rewards garnered from however the village system would work, such as from robbing them or getting paid. Like I said, maybe fleshed out later.

Anyway, that's about it. General summary, few suggestions. Other ideas could be earthquakes, volcanoes, new mobs, weather, even some useless fun ones! So go ahead! Feedback, suggestions, ideas? Have at it.

Sooo... these are done only in the dream state, or the dreams set the flags of "This event has started"?

Cause even though I'm for events, I'm not for doing them while in a dream.

basically, yes, you'd be told about the event via the dream, but then have the option of accepting or not through that dream. Once you woke up, if you had chosen to accept that event, you'd be able to then pursue it in the real world. i rather like the concept, even if it is a little heavy handed.

First off, dreams would be single player only, which some would like, but many wouldn't, second, it gives the player a little more control over the world, but if the player keeps seeing the same three events every night, it's not going to be fun...

Ok, to fix the first problem, you have a game master that controls events, this could be a mod, or the person running the server, although this makes it only one person's choice what events happen, players would get to choose which server they play on, and it's subsequent rules.

As for the problem of the same things happening every night, this could be fixed three ways,
One, add more events,
Two, You don't have a dream every night,
Three, all of the above

I think that solves it...

I know this is clear in your head but I'm not in your head so I need a little bit of an explanation. Does what you do in the "dream" effect the "real" world in any way other then the quest loot at the end?

This sound quite agreeable. Another way to make it less repetitive is to make bigger, longer quests and to limit the player to one quest at a time.

I really like the idea of quests, but this sleeping thing, I don't know, notch wants multilayer and single player be the same in as many ways as he can...

@sabata: Yeah, GreyAcumen got it right. The dream is just a way of telling the player what the event is. After the dream is over, your character wakes up, and then you can trek across the real world or whatever to complete it.

@Jearl: The multiplayer problem was definitely something I thought about, but didn't put in. I'm sure something could be done to accommodate it, and your solution sounds fine. In regards to the events, I guess I wasn't clear enough. The three things I listed were only suggestions to sort of give an idea of how it works. The events could be in the tens or hundreds provided enough things could be thought up and programmed, and I've love to get feedback in this thread of new ideas. The dreams could be a mechanism to allow for things like earthquakes and volcanoes, which some have expressed interest in, without forcing them on other players. Or many hundreds of other fun scenarios.

@ianmac: Yeah, I may not have been clear. I write like that a lot, haha. Basically, the dream is a scripted event that would last at most about a minute. You would see the meteor, or the volcano, or the people, or whatever, and then the dream would end. You would choose to accept it, then your character wakes up and the world changes accordingly to match the dream you accepted. The dream is just a way to tell the player what's going on and to allow them to refuse it.

@Fhyve: Yeah, I definitely think it should be one at a time. And for variety, many players could easily come up with very simple scenarios without trying, let alone making complex ones which would be possible. For example, the three scenarios I've outlined are all very simple, one-step things. Perhaps someone would like a quest that is the length, difficulty, and scale of some fantasy novel, where they have to trek around the world in a multipart adventure. This system would allow for that, too. Quests could take days if they're designed that way.

@marsgreekgod: Yeah, as mentioned earlier, the multiplayer would be more of a problem. Perhaps there would be a system like Jearl said about the mod or server runner initiating quests. Or perhaps it could be designed so that, in multiplayer, there are quests given the normal way (without the skipping forward in time from sleeping) and multiplayer quests given if all players sleep at the same time, in the same general area. It's certainly something to be fleshed out.

A suggestion for multiplayer problem.
Don't accelerate time during sleep, simply have sleep "teleport" player to a dream world (which is actually just a small chunk of where the event will occur) where they can "witness" imminent events before waking up. The dream can indicate the time of the event (by the sun/moon location) and the location (well, it "teleports" you there, or it can do a sort of high-altitude flyby to the location).
In addition, don't "ask" player whether they accept or not, simply have player "show" up to trigger the event (or avoid it so it doesn't trigger).

Alternate suggestion for multiplayer implementation: Again, no timeskip to daylight. Instead, sleeping/dreaming is just a way to find/accept quests in multiplayer. In addition to the three ideas you had, how about using the schematic system and having some dreams meant to inspire players with things to build? Another idea that might be fun (though harder requiring some significant work on special map generation) would be dreams hinting at the location of dungeons or ruins (neither of which are generated currently, beyond the occasional treasure room). Combined with some enhanced combat and more boss-like characters that could offer a lot to players looking for more directed gameplay on occasion.

Fleshing out the quest rewards is also important. I think decorative items is a great idea, especially if they're not otherwise obtainable, or are customized for the quest. For example, maybe the game takes a screenshot of you delivering the finishing blow to a monster and turns it into a painting. Depending on what notch's vision for the game is, maybe some sort of randomly-generated unique item could be (part of) the reward. These would have to match the overall tone of the game, but for example... a "spell scroll" that when used levels an area around the player to ease building? Or perhaps some kind of pet. I think these ideas are all possible within minecraft, though with varying degrees of added code.

@UberFubarius: Now that is another elegant solution to the multiplayer problem, and the existence of Hell at least proves that teleporting a player to another realm temporarily is possible, so that might work.

@ninjameh: I like your dream suggestions. I didn't really think about applying dreams to things you can already do, which in retrospect, should've been obvious. I'd love to dream about some cool building as inspiration to build it. That's a good idea. Plus dungeon/mega-mob finding would be awesome, since I haven't found a single dungeon in my world, despite a massive cave system. Decorative objects would also, I think, be most of the rewards, because giving too many powerful rewards for quests might make those who avoid quests feel cheated. Plus everyone likes decorating their house! Trophies, display cases, plaques, paintings, statues, pelts! So many possibilities.

@MagicM: Actually, before I thought about dreaming, I imagined some mystic in a dream hut or something to give you quests, but then simplified it to beds. The dream hut/crystal ball would work well in multi, though.

@theicychameleon: Yeah, this could potentially be something added for another mode, however, I personally think it fits in their. To each his own, I suppose. The reason I thought a meteorite would make a good dream event is that, in my mind, any event that can change the game world should be completely optional. Although, that meteor thread is very good, I especially like the picture he made. Fits what I had in mind. Reading it, I think I may have seen it before and just not realized it, and it got stuck in my mind. Accidental plagiarism. My bad. As for Zombie Siege, I do remember reading that that might come in the future. Just like the meteor, though, I think cool events with potential to change the game world should be optional, but the way it was described with a red moon sounds cool. As for villages, I can see what you mean. Even games with the cutting edge of technology and scores of writers can't pull of satisfying human interaction. But I can imagine a simplified system that might still be interesting. Once again, I guess it's a taste thing. Maybe someday I'll write up how I think it could work if there's any interest.

Here's another possible scenario or two I've got. Once again, feel free to add your own.
Earthquake
Dream: Character is underground, in a mine, but the screen starts to shake. You run out of the mine and then return, but everything is rearranged.
Scenario: Basically this would just be a mechanism for the map to change over time. Supposed you have one base that you want to build on, but it's getting harder and harder to find nearby materials for it. The earthquake event would randomly regenerate all the blocks below a certain depth, bringing you a huge amount of new materials to mine.
Reward: You want a reward? Be happy you survived! In all seriousness, this wouldn't have an explicit reward, but instead just allow you to mine new ores and refresh the map.

Mob Migration
Dream: Character is surrounded by some mob, maybe friendly, maybe not. moving around as normal. All of the sudden, they all stop, look the same direction, then turn and run the other way.
Scenario: The mob in the dream either migrates away from you for a period of time, or a new mob is featured which appears for a period of time. Perhaps it could be permanent and one mob would just switch with another. This is similar to the earthquake in that it lets you get new resources. Let's say, far in the future, many animals are created in Minecraft, but you only ever have a couple types in one large area at a time. And maybe your spawn is devoid of pigs, so you've been living off of fish. Well now, all of the chickens fly away, but in return, you get a new source of food. Replace with any mob to understand what I mean. Maybe even hostile mobs could be affected, provide it's always an exchange of hostile-for-hostile or friendly-for-friendly.
Reward: Like I've said, the reward is simply the spoils of the new mob being more frequent and easy to obtain.

The whole time thing is cheap just make it so it stays the same time