With the release of weather, I've been very excited. However, I feel that weather is currently missing some sense of... awe inspiring danger.
Firstly, with our weather now threatening to kill us, we need a way of telling when it's going to hit. For this, I suggest a barometer:
= Redstone dust
While really only a barometer by name, I can't think of anything better. Firstly, it would have two settings: Now and Tomorrow. On the bottom left would be a sunrise, representing Now. On the right, a "moon set" representing tomorrow. Now is the default setting. Right clicking would change it to Tomorrow, and visa versa. The top half would also be split in half: Clear and Stormy. The top stick would point to either clear or stormy depending on what the weather would be. On the Now setting, the barometer would tell you what the current weather outside is. This would be useful if your down in your mineshaft or exploring a cave and what to know what you'll see when you emerge. The Tomorrow setting would tell what the predicted weather for Tomorrow is. It may, occasionally, be wrong.
Now that it's possible to get an idea if we're going to be hit with a storm, we should have a larger element of danger. I suggest tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, and blizzards. I feel that if any of these are implemented, it would be necessary to have cumulonimbus clouds, but I'll explain that later.
Tornadoes
Tornadoes would be most common plains, but can occur anywhere. They would be somewhat rare. It would probably be best to have them as a rendered graphic instead of a moving structure of blocks due to lag. They would always appear to be attached to a cloud. Lighter blocks such as wool, leaves, occasionally dirt, etc would be torn away. These blocks will be deleted when they come in contact with the tornado. The tornado will move randomly and dissipate after a random amount of time, varying from 30 seconds to two minutes. If you stand near the tornado, you will be pulled towards it. Standing inside the tornado would cause your character to spin and take damage every few seconds. If a structure is in a tornado's path, it may be damaged. When inside the tornado, even heavier blocks such as wood, trunks, and glass can be destroyed. This doesn't mean your structure will be completely obliterated, but it will be damaged.
Hurricanes
These would often cause floods, which I will describe later. Hurricanes will either push you backwards or forwards, and would be accompanied by torrential rainfall which appears to be falling down at an angle. They would only occur 30-40 blocks from the sea. While standing unshielded from a hurricane, you will take damage, albeit less constant as standing in a tornado. They would also scatter source blocks throughout the area where they come into contact with land. These would dry up after the storm, which would probably be easiest by creating a new blocks that behaves exactly like regular source blocks, but decays after a few minutes. Hurricanes would last from 1-5 minutes.
Blizzards
No damage, but vision is obscured by fog as it is as tiny render distance. What's visible is further obscured by diagonally falling snow particles. Blizzards would last 1-5 minutes like hurricanes, and only occur in snow biomes. They would cover parts of the landscape in snow blocks which decay after the storm ends.
Floods
They occur either during hurricanes or, in rare occasions, simply heavy rainfall. They cover large amounts of the landscape with water source blocks that decay after the flood is finished. They do not occur in areas of high elevation.
In addition to this, during storms, clouds should completely cover the sky instead of the normal sparse clouds. Venturing above the cloud layer will have you inside a cumulonimbus cloud; which, unlike current clouds, will not pass through blocks. It will obscure the player's vision when inside and lightning can strike at any time within the cloud. These clouds can be seen in the horizon approaching the day before the storm hits.
Finally, all of these should be optional. I suggest a "Weather options" tab in the options menu. It would be a checklist where you may uncheck and therefore disable all of these events. This may be changed at any time.
So, what do you guys think? Should I tweet Notch a link to this thread?
This is a great idea. I would love to see something like this implemented. I personally chose floods since that is something that I have had personal experience with and they suck. This would help create another interesting aspect of "survival" in the game. Players would then build buildings that would be able to survive certain disasters and create warning systems to help defend their place of stay.
This is something I will follow and hope will get implemented.
This is a great idea. I would love to see something like this implemented. I personally chose floods since that is something that I have had personal experience with and they suck. This would help create another interesting aspect of "survival" in the game. Players would then build buildings that would be able to survive certain disasters and create warning systems to help defend their place of stay.
This is something I will follow and hope will get implemented.
I say, like there is a "Humans+" Mod, this could be interesting as a "Weather+" Mod. And have the disasters be toggle-able, just like the creatures in Mo' Creatures.
That way, you get to choose your poison, or try a mix of every one of them.
I personally have experience in blizzards. Way more than I would like, and I say that they DO suck as well.
Firstly, with our weather now threatening to kill us, we need a way of telling when it's going to hit. For this, I suggest a barometer:
While really only a barometer by name, I can't think of anything better. Firstly, it would have two settings: Now and Tomorrow. On the bottom left would be a sunrise, representing Now. On the right, a "moon set" representing tomorrow. Now is the default setting. Right clicking would change it to Tomorrow, and visa versa. The top half would also be split in half: Clear and Stormy. The top stick would point to either clear or stormy depending on what the weather would be. On the Now setting, the barometer would tell you what the current weather outside is. This would be useful if your down in your mineshaft or exploring a cave and what to know what you'll see when you emerge. The Tomorrow setting would tell what the predicted weather for Tomorrow is. It may, occasionally, be wrong.
Now that it's possible to get an idea if we're going to be hit with a storm, we should have a larger element of danger. I suggest tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, and blizzards. I feel that if any of these are implemented, it would be necessary to have cumulonimbus clouds, but I'll explain that later.
Tornadoes
Tornadoes would be most common plains, but can occur anywhere. They would be somewhat rare. It would probably be best to have them as a rendered graphic instead of a moving structure of blocks due to lag. They would always appear to be attached to a cloud. Lighter blocks such as wool, leaves, occasionally dirt, etc would be torn away. These blocks will be deleted when they come in contact with the tornado. The tornado will move randomly and dissipate after a random amount of time, varying from 30 seconds to two minutes. If you stand near the tornado, you will be pulled towards it. Standing inside the tornado would cause your character to spin and take damage every few seconds. If a structure is in a tornado's path, it may be damaged. When inside the tornado, even heavier blocks such as wood, trunks, and glass can be destroyed. This doesn't mean your structure will be completely obliterated, but it will be damaged.
Hurricanes
These would often cause floods, which I will describe later. Hurricanes will either push you backwards or forwards, and would be accompanied by torrential rainfall which appears to be falling down at an angle. They would only occur 30-40 blocks from the sea. While standing unshielded from a hurricane, you will take damage, albeit less constant as standing in a tornado. They would also scatter source blocks throughout the area where they come into contact with land. These would dry up after the storm, which would probably be easiest by creating a new blocks that behaves exactly like regular source blocks, but decays after a few minutes. Hurricanes would last from 1-5 minutes.
Blizzards
No damage, but vision is obscured by fog as it is as tiny render distance. What's visible is further obscured by diagonally falling snow particles. Blizzards would last 1-5 minutes like hurricanes, and only occur in snow biomes. They would cover parts of the landscape in snow blocks which decay after the storm ends.
Floods
They occur either during hurricanes or, in rare occasions, simply heavy rainfall. They cover large amounts of the landscape with water source blocks that decay after the flood is finished. They do not occur in areas of high elevation.
In addition to this, during storms, clouds should completely cover the sky instead of the normal sparse clouds. Venturing above the cloud layer will have you inside a cumulonimbus cloud; which, unlike current clouds, will not pass through blocks. It will obscure the player's vision when inside and lightning can strike at any time within the cloud. These clouds can be seen in the horizon approaching the day before the storm hits.
Finally, all of these should be optional. I suggest a "Weather options" tab in the options menu. It would be a checklist where you may uncheck and therefore disable all of these events. This may be changed at any time.
So, what do you guys think? Should I tweet Notch a link to this thread?
But hes already makeing rain.
Yeah, I know. I didn't know how to make a title that implied I knew this.
This is something I will follow and hope will get implemented.
I say, like there is a "Humans+" Mod, this could be interesting as a "Weather+" Mod. And have the disasters be toggle-able, just like the creatures in Mo' Creatures.
That way, you get to choose your poison, or try a mix of every one of them.
I personally have experience in blizzards. Way more than I would like, and I say that they DO suck as well.
maybe we could play bucket's onto the ground.
Me on Minecraft:
64
tweet this to notch.
I was thinking the same thing as I wrote this. Any suggestions on how to improve them?