Hey everyone! I used to play EA's Spore before they stoped making updates for it and I really enjoyed it. One aspect that they never expanded on was the ability to create adventures and give a list of commands to a character. This got me thinking that it could be fleshed out for Minecraft as a way to control the "NPC Guards" that I noticed some people had been asking for. Not only that but more importantly it opens possibilities to create miners, builders, farmers or a combination of any of those by editing the commands list. (See Get Satisfaction quote for more detailed description.)
I hope you like this idea and that it has potential. As with all ideas I openly accept your criticism and hope it can help make this even closer to a reality. Thanks!
The full post to explain this can be found on Get Satisfaction HERE. EDIT - I included a copy of the Get Satisfaction OP here to help people understand it better and for it to be more conveniant. (Please still go to Get Satisfaction and show support if you like the idea! - Link above)
Ability to command or control NPCs with a list of priority commands like in the old Spore Galactic Adventures adventure creator.
My idea is that you could ally with NPCs, which are being planned for 1.8 or later, and then be able to open a window (like the inventory window or ect.) where you can organize commands such as "build" "protect" "fight" "place item" and endless others that the mojang team could come up with. If you ever created an adventure in EA's Spore Galactic Adventures expansion pack then you understand this concept.
I think it would just give larger purpose to the singleplayer than just surviving, mining, or hunting. It would give us someone to occupy those large imaginary cities that no one ends up living in within our single player worlds. By using this idea menial tasks would be able to be taken care of by the NPS such as building a cobble stone wall. A possible instruction list might look like this.
BUILD - FROM POINT A - TO POINT B - COBBLESTONE
PICKUP - IF EMPTY - FROM CHEST - COBBLESTONE
FLEE - IF HOSTILE MOBS(ALL) SEEN - TO LOCATION A
This is a very crude example (the flee command would probably be on top in the real game but for logic's sake I left it down) but again if you understand the concept from Spore this makes much more sense. The variable commands such as POINT A, LOCATION A, or CHEST could all be set with an item like the wand from the World Edit mod and could be saved on a clipboard type of system where the last "POINT A" would be available to the current NPC when recieveing assignments. These commands could also work for soldiers, mineres, or other NPC rolers that a player would want.
Some possible flaws I forsee:
Possibility of this not working with Minecraft's signiture chunk creation which is what allows the game to store so much data in terms of blocks. If you were to wander so far that your city with NPCs would normally not be registered as generated than what would happen? Would they stop their jobs and freeze untill you return or finish their tasks?
Also the possibility that having alot of NPCs with command lists would be too much for the game and cause so much lag that they would be more of a problem than their worth. I have no idea if this is true or not since I am not a game designer who understands the cryptic language that is java or any other code for that matter, but I assume it to be a logical deduction.
Hope you read this whole long post and that someone also likes it as much as I do. I really hope something like this gets included. I truly believe it could be a great addition to Minecraft. Thanks for your time if you read this whole thing!
I do not think this should be in the game, at least in the way the OP states it should. Perhaps you'd be able to give an NPC items of various value in order to get them to follow your instructions of varied complexity and for varied durations, depending on the value of the object.
It's all a little sketchy.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Quote from Ygdrasel »
I don't know sled teams but I do know I put my dog on an electric treadmill once and dangled a chicken leg. Treadmill puppy ensued.
I see what you guys are saying. I should probably include more info in this OP but I didn't think copying the one from Get Satisfaction would really help.
Anyway, I understand the concern that this is based off of another game and it could possibly ruin the great uniqueness that makes Minecraft what it is, but in reality the component that I have based my idea off of isn't really copying another game and completely changing minecraft at all. My idea is based off of a very small part of an expansion pack so its affiliation to Spore isn't really significant. The list of commands is very similar to what a programer does when making a game or program. It's a list of if,then, or not statements that prioritize actoins. (Hope someone understands what I'm saying.) I just cited Spore becuase that was the most practical example that relates to minecraft as a game.
If anyone reading this understands the Spore reference I am making than I would be very greatful if you could help explain what I am talking about and that it wouldn't make Minecraft a copy of another game.
Thanks for your input everyone. I'd greatly appreciate more so I can improve it to a simplified working concept. (If you have time check out the "Get Satisfaction" page please. I think it may help!)
EDIT - I added the Get Satisfaction OP to this one to help.
I hope you like this idea and that it has potential. As with all ideas I openly accept your criticism and hope it can help make this even closer to a reality. Thanks!
The full post to explain this can be found on Get Satisfaction HERE. EDIT - I included a copy of the Get Satisfaction OP here to help people understand it better and for it to be more conveniant. (Please still go to Get Satisfaction and show support if you like the idea! - Link above)
This is not the most productive way to critique an idea, especially when OP was so polite about it.
It's all a little sketchy.
Anyway, I understand the concern that this is based off of another game and it could possibly ruin the great uniqueness that makes Minecraft what it is, but in reality the component that I have based my idea off of isn't really copying another game and completely changing minecraft at all. My idea is based off of a very small part of an expansion pack so its affiliation to Spore isn't really significant. The list of commands is very similar to what a programer does when making a game or program. It's a list of if,then, or not statements that prioritize actoins. (Hope someone understands what I'm saying.) I just cited Spore becuase that was the most practical example that relates to minecraft as a game.
If anyone reading this understands the Spore reference I am making than I would be very greatful if you could help explain what I am talking about and that it wouldn't make Minecraft a copy of another game.
Thanks for your input everyone. I'd greatly appreciate more so I can improve it to a simplified working concept. (If you have time check out the "Get Satisfaction" page please. I think it may help!)
EDIT - I added the Get Satisfaction OP to this one to help.