Mining underground is fairly monotonous with little variety.
Occasionally you run into an abandoned mineshaft or a creative cavern that has some beauty but it is mostly pretty bland and boring and all work underground. I'd love to see a few new features in vanilla that makes cave exploration a bit more beautiful. I for one get bored out of my mind doing cave exploration, but it is necessary so I keep going back to explore and mine even though the underground is pretty plain.
Imagine this:
Deep underground in naturally spawning caves there exists a cave plant that gives off a soft glow. It could be a wall algae that grows like vines or a flower or toadstool. It'd look very beautiful to enter one of those round caverns or ravines and see these plants giving off a soft glow in the dark...
(googled: Picture from a cave biome, credit minecraft user lupusX)
I'd love it if there were more subterranean lakes/rivers as well that sometimes spawned with catfish or some other peaceful mob that gives off a glow as well. The effect of the light deep underground would be slightly eerie but beautiful. In the over-world half of what makes things beautiful is the plants and animals--we need a few underground varieties for balance.
Bringing a few new blocks/plants to the depths might be all we'd need to make mining a bit more fun, and will definitely be needed if Minecraft ever extends the underground portion of the world like they did the sky. (think 128 blocks of mining to bedrock instead of 64). Such a system could spawn unique underground caverns and ravines filled with life instead of barrenness and mobs. These would occur rarely but would break the monotony and be a spot of life in the cold underground. Currently the only plant that will spawn without having direct overhead sunlight is little mushrooms and occasionally a few vines in jungle near the surface.
Something that already occurs that could be put in cave generation is giant mushrooms occasionally spawning in large enough caverns. I'd love to see that--especially if there was a variety that glowed like the above cave biome mod. This could be accomplished with just a few new glowing plant blocks I think and would really freshen the underground experience for me.
I want these new plants to be able to be cultivated as well. It'd be very cool to have an alternative and renewable source of soft lighting and growing them could yield several colors of phosphorescence: green, blue, white, purple. I had the idea of making certain colors only available through farming, but I don't know if that would be too complicated.
My ideas for different plant varieties:
A new small mushroom that glows in the dark. It could be called a Glowshroom or something else.
A new huge mushroom variety that can be grown from it using bonemeal. I was thinking a growth pattern like the red but with a different color scheme and of course the blocks give off a phosporescent light. That's the point! I really like the modded huge mushroom in the first picture.
A fungus variety that grows on the walls similar to how vines do as a wall-covering. If left to itself it would slowly spread and cover the walls of the cavern.
As for their uses, that is up to you guys! Let's come up with some suggestions!
Tell me what you think!
EDIT: changed title to Bioluminescent Cave Plants, Previously Phosphorescent Cave Organisms (was confusing a few people).
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Why is this not suggested more often? Why is this on page 4 when there are so many worse suggestions with many more replies in the first three pages? Variety in the underground is something Minecraft could really use. You really want to explore the surface because it has varied terrain, structures, etc. and is beautiful but the underground has all of the necessary progression items and is mostly unremarkable except in places. The only caveat I would add is that the underground plants and such should not be everywhere in caves, just in patches so you have more varied underground environments.
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To those of you suggesting new uses for Emeralds in the suggestions forum: Emeralds have enough uses. You can trade with villagers to get diamond armor/tools/weapons and enchants. Stop suggesting that Emeralds are useless, and learn to play Minecraft. Thanks.
So long as phosphorescent mobs don't act like a dynamic light source but only their textures glow. Unless of course Mojang decides to add dynamic lighting support to Minecraft which would be pretty sweet, potentially laggy though..
So long as phosphorescent mobs don't act like a dynamic light source but only their textures glow. Unless of course Mojang decides to add dynamic lighting support to Minecraft which would be pretty sweet, potentially laggy though..
Thanks everyone! I'm glad you like the idea too. And I totally agree, these shouldn't be everywhere but in pockets that you'd have to explore to find, kinda like underground mini-biomes I guess. As biomes cannot currently exist underground they could perhaps generate based on a chance in chunks and just be isolated caverns (unless of course cubic chunks gets adopted!)
I was not aware of the dynamic light source problem, but your suggestion sounds fine. They could perhaps give off light like spider-eyes do. I bright texture but not really an actual light source. Just enough so you could see them in the dark. I'd be fine if we just got a couple plants though. It'd be fun to cultivate the glowing plants as alternative light sources. You could make some really cool areas with great subtle lighting.
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I've always been a fan of pretty glowing mushrooms and cool plants growing underground. It's beautiful! I need a banner to spread this around or something lol
I totally agree. If anyone wants to make a banner out of one of the pictures feel free. I'm not the best at art but I may give it a shot too if no one else does.
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I really like this idea! I thought it'd be about micro bacteria.
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My Avatar is a Dalek, therefor your argument is... EXTERMINATED!!!
You know who can tell me something I already know? Me. All the time. I'm really good at telling me stuff I already know. I don't need help in that department. I don't know about others, but I can't imagine I'm alone here.
Love how you actually credit the image instead of just plopping it there. Anyway, this would really add some more depth to the game. The game already has it's spectacular mountain views and perilous ravines but imagine stepping into a cave illuminated by a soft blue light from a flower. Maybe to go farther the plant that glows can be used to brew night vision potions.
Love how you actually credit the image instead of just plopping it there. Anyway, this would really add some more depth to the game. The game already has it's spectacular mountain views and perilous ravines but imagine stepping into a cave illuminated by a soft blue light from a flower. Maybe to go farther the plant that glows can be used to brew night vision potions.
Oh I totally agree! Overworld generation is beautiful and there's been a lot of work to make it look very good with corresponding biomes and animal/plant varieties. On the other side, cavern generation has not changed since the introduction of ravines. They did add bats though which I like. My main reason for wanting this is it would really brighten things up underground and it would be a very cool find. These caverns shouldn't be that common but when you find them they give you some rare plant varieties to grow that give off light and it'd just look beautiful in the dark. I always find myself so happy to get out of the ground it is so dark. The effect of a glowing plant or color underground would be profoundly serene. It'd also add some very sweet lighting options if you cultivate these plants. Imagine how cool underground bases would look with these growing around?
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As for mobs, I would like to offer a few possibilities.
Fluorescent Snail: A single-block sized snail. It's a slow, passive mobs that can climb vertical surfaces (like spiders). Fluorescent Snail will leave behind a fluorescent slime trail as it moves (similar to snow golem leaving a trail as it moves). The slime trail evaporates naturally on a block tick (so it shouldn't impose significant processing overhead. If it gets picked to be ticked, it evaporates). Harvesting the slime trail with shovel (you're using it to scrape off the slime) has a 25% chance of giving you a slime ball. Snail drops Slime Ball when killed.
Glow Worm: Based on the real life glow worm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arachnocampa), also similar to barnacles from Half Life 2. It's an immobile hostile mob that inflict melee damage. The Glow Worm spawns under dark cave ceiling and emits a very faint glow. It dangles a barely visible strand toward the ground (with an equally small hit box). Any mob/entity/player that touches it will be attached to it (like being attached to a lead), at which point, the Glow Worm will "reel" the victim in (rate of about 0.5 meters / second) until the victim is in contact with the worm, at which point the victim will start to take damage over time. The strand can be severed by just attacking or by killing the glow worm. On kill, the glow worm will drop 1 silk.
Mining underground is fairly monotonous with little variety.
Occasionally you run into an abandoned mineshaft or a creative cavern that has some beauty but it is mostly pretty bland and boring and all work underground. I'd love to see a few new features in vanilla that makes cave exploration a bit more beautiful. I for one get bored out of my mind doing cave exploration, but it is necessary so I keep going back to explore and mine even though the underground is pretty plain.
Imagine this:
Deep underground in naturally spawning caves there exists a cave plant that gives off a soft glow. It could be a wall algae that grows like vines or a flower or toadstool. It'd look very beautiful to enter one of those round caverns or ravines and see these plants giving off a soft glow in the dark...
(googled: Picture from a cave biome, credit minecraft user lupusX)
I'd love it if there were more subterranean lakes/rivers as well that sometimes spawned with catfish or some other peaceful mob that gives off a glow as well. The effect of the light deep underground would be slightly eerie but beautiful. In the over-world half of what makes things beautiful is the plants and animals--we need a few underground varieties for balance.
(Glowing mushroom, wild caves mod: http://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/mapping-and-modding/minecraft-mods/wip-mods/1442430-1-6-x-forge-wildcaves-3-v0-4-3-3)
Bringing a few new blocks/plants to the depths might be all we'd need to make mining a bit more fun, and will definitely be needed if Minecraft ever extends the underground portion of the world like they did the sky. (think 128 blocks of mining to bedrock instead of 64). Such a system could spawn unique underground caverns and ravines filled with life instead of barrenness and mobs. These would occur rarely but would break the monotony and be a spot of life in the cold underground. Currently the only plant that will spawn without having direct overhead sunlight is little mushrooms and occasionally a few vines in jungle near the surface.
Something that already occurs that could be put in cave generation is giant mushrooms occasionally spawning in large enough caverns. I'd love to see that--especially if there was a variety that glowed like the above cave biome mod. This could be accomplished with just a few new glowing plant blocks I think and would really freshen the underground experience for me.
I want these new plants to be able to be cultivated as well. It'd be very cool to have an alternative and renewable source of soft lighting and growing them could yield several colors of phosphorescence: green, blue, white, purple. I had the idea of making certain colors only available through farming, but I don't know if that would be too complicated.
My ideas for different plant varieties:
As for their uses, that is up to you guys! Let's come up with some suggestions!
Tell me what you think!
EDIT: changed title to Bioluminescent Cave Plants, Previously Phosphorescent Cave Organisms (was confusing a few people).
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Space Expedition to EPIC 204: Go on a Space-Age Adventure to visit and explore EPIC 204, a wacky world of dense asteroids and full of alien life! Experience Custom Seasons, Weather, Over 50 new creatures, Beautiful Biomes, Alien Ruins, Dungeons, and new space age tech crafting recipes!
So long as phosphorescent mobs don't act like a dynamic light source but only their textures glow. Unless of course Mojang decides to add dynamic lighting support to Minecraft which would be pretty sweet, potentially laggy though..
It will make cave exploration more fun
This really is a great idea.
Some new interesting mobs could possibly come from this as well!
― Albert Einstein
Thanks everyone! I'm glad you like the idea too. And I totally agree, these shouldn't be everywhere but in pockets that you'd have to explore to find, kinda like underground mini-biomes I guess. As biomes cannot currently exist underground they could perhaps generate based on a chance in chunks and just be isolated caverns (unless of course cubic chunks gets adopted!)
I was not aware of the dynamic light source problem, but your suggestion sounds fine. They could perhaps give off light like spider-eyes do. I bright texture but not really an actual light source. Just enough so you could see them in the dark. I'd be fine if we just got a couple plants though. It'd be fun to cultivate the glowing plants as alternative light sources. You could make some really cool areas with great subtle lighting.
Download and play my new Survival Map!
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In our settled areas, we have at least 45 visible light sources in every facing without lag.
I like the idea.
I would like to be able to craft blue and green light sources from the materials.
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I've always been a fan of pretty glowing mushrooms and cool plants growing underground. It's beautiful! I need a banner to spread this around or something lol
Also, a way to collect them should be put in too.
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~yoshi9048
My best suggestion:
Mobs actually being varied???
I think that is a lighting glitch...
Any way I think this is a very nice idea . Minecraft could also use lighting updates
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Love how you actually credit the image instead of just plopping it there. Anyway, this would really add some more depth to the game. The game already has it's spectacular mountain views and perilous ravines but imagine stepping into a cave illuminated by a soft blue light from a flower. Maybe to go farther the plant that glows can be used to brew night vision potions.
Oh I totally agree! Overworld generation is beautiful and there's been a lot of work to make it look very good with corresponding biomes and animal/plant varieties. On the other side, cavern generation has not changed since the introduction of ravines. They did add bats though which I like. My main reason for wanting this is it would really brighten things up underground and it would be a very cool find. These caverns shouldn't be that common but when you find them they give you some rare plant varieties to grow that give off light and it'd just look beautiful in the dark. I always find myself so happy to get out of the ground it is so dark. The effect of a glowing plant or color underground would be profoundly serene. It'd also add some very sweet lighting options if you cultivate these plants. Imagine how cool underground bases would look with these growing around?
Download and play my new Survival Map!
Space Expedition to EPIC 204: Go on a Space-Age Adventure to visit and explore EPIC 204, a wacky world of dense asteroids and full of alien life! Experience Custom Seasons, Weather, Over 50 new creatures, Beautiful Biomes, Alien Ruins, Dungeons, and new space age tech crafting recipes!
100% Support
As for mobs, I would like to offer a few possibilities.
Fluorescent Snail: A single-block sized snail. It's a slow, passive mobs that can climb vertical surfaces (like spiders). Fluorescent Snail will leave behind a fluorescent slime trail as it moves (similar to snow golem leaving a trail as it moves). The slime trail evaporates naturally on a block tick (so it shouldn't impose significant processing overhead. If it gets picked to be ticked, it evaporates). Harvesting the slime trail with shovel (you're using it to scrape off the slime) has a 25% chance of giving you a slime ball. Snail drops Slime Ball when killed.
Glow Worm: Based on the real life glow worm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arachnocampa), also similar to barnacles from Half Life 2. It's an immobile hostile mob that inflict melee damage. The Glow Worm spawns under dark cave ceiling and emits a very faint glow. It dangles a barely visible strand toward the ground (with an equally small hit box). Any mob/entity/player that touches it will be attached to it (like being attached to a lead), at which point, the Glow Worm will "reel" the victim in (rate of about 0.5 meters / second) until the victim is in contact with the worm, at which point the victim will start to take damage over time. The strand can be severed by just attacking or by killing the glow worm. On kill, the glow worm will drop 1 silk.