Now that biomes are becoming more diversified and there are biome specific effects (snowmen melting in deserts), Minecraft now has the opportunity to implement global warming.
Powered minecarts, furnaces, and fires of all types would add to the CO2 level of the atmosphere. Chopping down trees would also have a minor effect on CO2 levels. If the CO2 level gets too high tilled dirt and grass blocks both have chances to turn to regular dirt and regular dirt has a chance to turn into sand. Rainfall would become much less likely in the biome and animals would spawn less likely (once mob spawning is fixed). If the heat gets too high, running water on the surface wouldn't travel as far (it would 'evaporate', making irrigation harder) and your food bar would decrease faster (maybe in increments of 5% as the globe warms). Ideally the effects can be mostly localized, with a 'bleedover' effect: clearcutting a forest has a drastic impact where the forest was and a smaller effect in nearby areas. Cumulative destruction around the world would have a much higher impact than one place that's just terrible (like Detroit).
To prevent people from simply burrowing everything to avoid the effects of their environmental destruction, as the CO2 level rises the effects start propagating downward to lower levels and lava starts to be pushed up (new lava source bricks on top of existing standing lava). If a person causes horrendous environmental devastation, theoretically all dirt could be changed to sand in the world (causing caveins underground) and lava would start erupting from the surface. While unrealistic, I think it would be an interesting punishment as the world violently reacts to the chaos atop it. The CO2 effect wouldn't just work one way, though. Planting trees and increasing water surface coverage would both reduce CO2, but if you didn't want to terraform you could also spend money at a carbon credit building in NPC villages (or gold bars, if money is not implemented with NPCs). As the CO2 level decreases, the more drastic effects can start happening in reverse: areas can start getting more rainfall and sand can start changing to dirt.
On top of the dynamic and interesting effect on gameplay, this mechanic would let people terraform areas: if they start in a desert, they can irrigate and plant trees and eventually the desert could turn into rolling plains. Intrepid map designers could create nightmare worlds for real 'survival challenge' maps (you start on a desert island with one tree surrounded by lava to the horizon and dirt decays to sand almost immediately).
I Think it will be ok but wont minecraft just look ugly that way?
It would start to look ugly over time, but that's kind of the point. If you have 20 smelters running while clearcutting forests and wiping out surface water, the world would start to get noticeably worse after around an in-game month. It wouldn't be a sudden thing, it'd take real dedication to cause any of the more severe problems (a hundred smelters continuously running while burning every forest down).
Don't like this idea. Minecraft is beautiful, and not meant to be ruined. We still havent ruined Earth after thousands of years, why play a game where you can ruin it in 30 hours.
Don't like this idea. Minecraft is beautiful, and not meant to be ruined.
You can ruin Minecraft right now by running around with a couple of lava buckets, or by taking a pickaxe/shovel to the terrain. Those are controllable, just like the amount of pollution you generate.
I find it stranger that we can't irrigate deserts and plant them to convert them into livable areas (instead of harvesting all the sand and replacing it with dirt) or that a lush forest remains lush and bright despite being clearcut by a forest fire and replaced with furnaces. There's just as many positive effects from such a system as negative...and the negatives would generally be localized and difficult to achieve.
We still havent ruined Earth after thousands of years
In places where entire forests were clearcut (slash and burn forestry) or massive amounts of pollution were released, the Earth pretty much is ruined. It's not globally bad, but I'm not suggesting a global result unless such a result was really pushed for.
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Powered minecarts, furnaces, and fires of all types would add to the CO2 level of the atmosphere. Chopping down trees would also have a minor effect on CO2 levels. If the CO2 level gets too high tilled dirt and grass blocks both have chances to turn to regular dirt and regular dirt has a chance to turn into sand. Rainfall would become much less likely in the biome and animals would spawn less likely (once mob spawning is fixed). If the heat gets too high, running water on the surface wouldn't travel as far (it would 'evaporate', making irrigation harder) and your food bar would decrease faster (maybe in increments of 5% as the globe warms). Ideally the effects can be mostly localized, with a 'bleedover' effect: clearcutting a forest has a drastic impact where the forest was and a smaller effect in nearby areas. Cumulative destruction around the world would have a much higher impact than one place that's just terrible (like Detroit).
To prevent people from simply burrowing everything to avoid the effects of their environmental destruction, as the CO2 level rises the effects start propagating downward to lower levels and lava starts to be pushed up (new lava source bricks on top of existing standing lava). If a person causes horrendous environmental devastation, theoretically all dirt could be changed to sand in the world (causing caveins underground) and lava would start erupting from the surface. While unrealistic, I think it would be an interesting punishment as the world violently reacts to the chaos atop it. The CO2 effect wouldn't just work one way, though. Planting trees and increasing water surface coverage would both reduce CO2, but if you didn't want to terraform you could also spend money at a carbon credit building in NPC villages (or gold bars, if money is not implemented with NPCs). As the CO2 level decreases, the more drastic effects can start happening in reverse: areas can start getting more rainfall and sand can start changing to dirt.
On top of the dynamic and interesting effect on gameplay, this mechanic would let people terraform areas: if they start in a desert, they can irrigate and plant trees and eventually the desert could turn into rolling plains. Intrepid map designers could create nightmare worlds for real 'survival challenge' maps (you start on a desert island with one tree surrounded by lava to the horizon and dirt decays to sand almost immediately).
It would start to look ugly over time, but that's kind of the point. If you have 20 smelters running while clearcutting forests and wiping out surface water, the world would start to get noticeably worse after around an in-game month. It wouldn't be a sudden thing, it'd take real dedication to cause any of the more severe problems (a hundred smelters continuously running while burning every forest down).
You can ruin Minecraft right now by running around with a couple of lava buckets, or by taking a pickaxe/shovel to the terrain. Those are controllable, just like the amount of pollution you generate.
I find it stranger that we can't irrigate deserts and plant them to convert them into livable areas (instead of harvesting all the sand and replacing it with dirt) or that a lush forest remains lush and bright despite being clearcut by a forest fire and replaced with furnaces. There's just as many positive effects from such a system as negative...and the negatives would generally be localized and difficult to achieve.
In places where entire forests were clearcut (slash and burn forestry) or massive amounts of pollution were released, the Earth pretty much is ruined. It's not globally bad, but I'm not suggesting a global result unless such a result was really pushed for.