This should be stickied. Does it need refinement? Yes, but that's mostly the minor details. Is it a little complex? Yes but it's better than getting bored rather quickly (Just building things can only go so far). Alchemy is the forefather of chemistry, to me there is nothing truly "mystical" about it (since it never actually worked). It could be made to work within minecraft and manage to not be some over fantastical magic system. I love this tech tree.
haha grammar edit
since mithril and adamantite are rare metals, maybe turn them into enchanters instead?
adamantite is no longer refined from mithril, is mineable instead
mithril is a super strong material, though only as durable as iron
adamantite is a super durable material, though only as strong as iron
these could be used to enchant other metal and gem items, and also have an item set (pickaxe, shovel, etc) of their own. maybe you could even fusion these into a metal as strong as gems!
more notes:
here i think how i think this needs to work:
leather, wool, stone, dirt and other commonly found materials dont have an item set
lesser metals dont have an item set, but they have special uses
normal metals are used mainly for item sets, no special uses
greater metals could be made into item sets, but are better when used for something else (high-end enchanting, alchemy, etc)
gems could be also made into item sets, but it is very difficult but is very rewarding and each gem will maybe present a different element (sapphire- water, emerald- earth, ruby- fire, diamond-air) which will be used to enchant players.
YesNo, Obsidian may be volcanic glass but in-fact its really strong and blunts very slowly. That is why many tribes used it for spearheads.
yes but still would you really want a thin piece of it for a weapon or it as armor plates that may shatter?
It's the sharpest naturally occurring substance in the world, and the Aztecs studded clubs with it that were said to be capable of beheading a horse in a single blow. Also, who the hell said anything about obsidian armor?
I think this is way to realistic and complex for a game as simplistic as minecraft. It's not suppose to be a game where you spend 25 hours trying to get a full stack of bloody glass, which breaks in one or two whacks! honestly.
I think this is way to realistic and complex for a game as simplistic as minecraft. It's not suppose to be a game where you spend 25 hours trying to get a full stack of bloody glass, which breaks in one or two whacks! honestly.
But there should be more to getting top-tier items than "I dug deep enough to find diamond, so here it is". Start-to-top-tier time is ridiculously low, esp. compared to the time that can be put into a good minecraft settlement.
I know this thread is old, but I don't think anyone has given similar input to what I'm thinking so I'll go ahead. OP, if you'd like to respond and reassess, that'd be greatly appreciated :biggrin.gif: I like the idea in principle, but I think it could be either simplified or just explained more easily. I'm not sure if it's just me making it confusing or not. So if I have it right...
Tier 1 crafting is just the regular inventory crafting which lets you make lumber, sticks, torches and the like, right?
Tier 2 has the addition of campfires and masonary tables? As a suggestion, make it so workbenches can't craft metal tools. Just wood and stone.
Also, campfires should be just a simple 1x1 structure that you put on the ground, maybe made by placing 2 dirt blocks on the bottom in your inventory crafting. Then add wood to like a furnace to get instant fire that's significantly brighter than a torch. Then you can cook simple foods off of that like you do a furnace. Wood and sticks would last longer than they do in a furnace. I always find it annoying starting a game and not finding any coal for a bit, and my furnace being less than ideal for light generation during night/when mining. I think it's primary focus should be giving the player light initially, while also making it an option as a later game light generation.
For Masonry, I think it'd be best built with 4 stone in the inventory crafting like a workbench. I think it fits better, and it'd go with my suggestion of not being able to make iron tools from the workbench, keeping masonry a definite tier 2 thing.
Additionally, cobblestone should be gravel instead of sand.
Additionally-additionally, basic stone building materials should be built here and not at the workbench. Stone steps and stairs and other such things. If other "stone" things like marble or obsidian or whatever get added and able to be crafted, they'd be crafted here.
I'll admit that I'm not 100% understanding about the furnace changes, but I think that furnace should remain mostly the same. Smelt ores to get ingots, use ingots to craft.
Though, it could be cool to refine things. Add copper into the game (which I might support if intuitive tools were made,) and you have 2 things to refine; copper to bronze and iron to steel. However, I'd just suggest the refining mechanic to be putting an ingot back into the furnace like you would ore, but smelting takes twice as long as regular ores. Consequently, bronze and steel would be maybe 1.5 times as strong as copper and iron respectively.
I like the anvil a lot. It'd definitely add more depth to the game. I'd suggest to make it in the workbench with 7 iron blocks, 6 on the top 2 rows and one at the bottom in the middle (slightly resembling an anvil and keeping with the crafting idea.) Then, you'd just be able to craft as normal.
Apothecary's so-so for me, I think that Notch would need to add a lot to the current game to make potions interesting and/or viable rather than just a gimmicky offshoot, but it'd be interesting and a good addition if there were more items in the game and more monsters and situations that potions could be used.
I like the loom a lot too. May I suggest being able to craft wool into string using it?
Tier 4's iffy to me. I think it'd be better for simplicity's sake to keep food making to the fire. But, if it was a combination of crafting table + furnace system to cook food after making recipes, I'd support it, at least definitely when the game gets more complex with more baddies and better multiplayer. As in, you'd have a crafting table-like grid at the top to place your ingredients, then a furnace-like fuel at the bottom to start cooking your food.
I have to admit, I don't like advanced forge at all. It'd be much better to stick with regular forge/anvil which can craft all metals.
Where I might support it is if it was required to make metal armour. That'd certainly be a logical step forward for the game, and you could also use it to do things like make placable metal blocks and minecarts and minecart tracks.
I'd like to add here one idea; a carpentry table. You'd use this to make bigger structures, like bookcases, maybe boats and other such things that are wooden-based but have a big feel. However, I'd suggest it as something "easy" like placing 4 crafting tables together, or something of a similar idea to make them easy to get, but an investment so you don't place them everywhere like you do crafting tables. Additionally, you'd be able to use them as regular crafting tables. I think these would be good for unlocking a future of complex but logical machines, like more realistic boats (regular boat, sailing boat, etc.)
The alchemy, I love. I found this thread from your other alchemy thread, OP, and I 100% support the idea.
Also, may I add having different grid systems. With a logical increase in technology like this, I think a logical increase in complexity is needed as well, as well as keeping the system intuitive "hey, it DOES kind of look like a pickaxe!" So, may I propose:
Keep inventory and crafting table crafting with the same grid system, and give camp fires a similar system to furnaces, but maybe add in one or two extra slots at the bottom, so you can burn more than JUST lumber or JUST sticks.
For masonry table, just make it with the same grid as crafting, but you can't put wood on it. Masonry things shouldn't use wood, so it would confuse new players much, much less and I think that's important.
Keep furnace the same as it is.
Make an anvil so it has 2 rows 3 wide on the top, and one space sticking out of the bottom. Again, this make it kind of look like an anvil, and makes it so you can visually only craft tools and weapon, also giving the player a natural idea of what to do based off of what was done before to craft wooden and stone tools and weapons.
Have the loom's grid 4 high and 2 across, so doing something like making cloth would require you to string out your items like you would a loom in real life.
Can't think of anything for advanced forge. Perhaps make it like the masonry table so you can only place stone on it? Not sure.
My carpentry table would be a massive 5x5 area where there's room for much more complex designs than other areas would allow. That gives room for more intuitive and more resource-draining designs for complex mechanisms than a smaller grid.
So just my ideas there. How do you feel about this OP? I know that this thread was made a while ago, but I like the idea and I personally don't want to make a thread on a slight variation of this idea. Good ideas anyways! Cheers :smile.gif:
Eh, I too am guilty of reviving a rather old thread. But the I think it better to bump and old thread than make a new one that expresses essentially the exact same things. I agree competely with everything the OP had to say. Especially the added resources. It doesn't matter what it is. It adds a little more color to the game (both literally and figuratively) and something else for me to hunt for.
The only addition I'd make is thus: I'd like to see all of the ores in larger concentrations but spread out over greater distances. We have INFINITE maps, but there is no reason what-so-ever to leave a one square kilometer plot when all the resources you need are right beneath your feet. I like the idea of searching high and low for a particular resource to finish an particular recipe. As long as there is a viable means of finding them that is. Nothing would dry up the fun of this game faster than not being able to find, copper for example, because the only deposite for kilometers is two mountains over at the bottom of the map. A place that would take you a century to reach even if you searched methodically. Make the the deposits too big to haul back to your base in one load and now you have a reason to lay long stretches of tracks and have actual mines as opposed to a day long treck to the cave next door where you pick it clean of iron and coal and never come back.
I also completely agree with the more complicated tech-tree suggestion. It would give much needed paceing to the game. It's a shame that all you nee to do is slap a deep enough hole in the ground and spend a few hours spelunking and you've reached the top tier. Oh I'm sure Notch'll change it, I just wanted to get that out.
Quote from Blue_vision »
However, I'd just suggest the refining mechanic to be putting an ingot back into the furnace like you would ore, but smelting takes twice as long as regular ores. Consequently, bronze and steel would be maybe 1.5 times as strong as copper and iron respectively.
@Blue_vision, the only problem that I have with your post is ^that^. If getting bronze and steel is no harder to get than re-inserting your ingots back into the furnace, why would you ever use iron or copper. The only requirement is a little more time. Only the extremely impatient wouldn't be able to spare another 15 seconds per ingot to get some steel or bronze, especially when they've got twenty furnaces going, as most often do. And the trade-off you mention wouldn't do it either. The only way to balance it, as I see it, is give Iron, copper, and tin, uses that don't require smelting, and lots of them. The more the better. That way there is a trade off. That way you are always thinking, "hmmm, I could make x out of tin, or I could combine it with some of my copper and make bronze for some more tools"
And and a bronze tool should definitely be the minimum requirement for getting iron from iron ore blocks.
@Blue_vision, the only problem that I have with your post is ^that^. If getting bronze and steel is no harder to get than re-inserting your ingots back into the furnace, why would you ever use iron or copper. The only requirement is a little more time. Only the extremely impatient wouldn't be able to spare another 15 seconds per ingot to get some steel or bronze, especially when they've got twenty furnaces going, as most often do. And the trade-off you mention wouldn't do it either. The only way to balance it, as I see it, is give Iron, copper, and tin, uses that don't require smelting, and lots of them. The more the better. That way there is a trade off. That way you are always thinking, "hmmm, I could make x out of tin, or I could combine it with some of my copper and make bronze for some more tools"
And and a bronze tool should definitely be the minimum requirement for getting iron from iron ore blocks.
My only thought is this: what would you actually do with tin? I'd consider copper a completely reasonable metal to have, because it's acceptable to think of it as a very bottom tier metal. But what would you do with tin? I feel that the only purpose it would serve is to create bronze, which would be little of a purpose on it's own. Other than use in alloys, tin's really pretty useless in the real world and I doubt uses could be found in the world of minecraft.
Unless... bronze was required to be cast, or somehow be created or used higher up on the tech tree so that it was stronger than iron (as in real life.) Then, you can make tin sufficiently rare that it's not annoying, which makes bronze tools or weapons a treat compared to more readily available iron. That means that copper has it's uses on both sides of the tech tree around iron, and iron is not obsoleted due to minecarts and availability when compared to tin, the strategic resource in this situation! Copper is a big early on resource, but your stockpiles don't go bad when you hit iron, which don't go bad when you hit bronze, which uses all your copper! And as long as maps generate copper more than iron, players will be more inclined to start with copper due to a) dumb luck of the draw, or :cool.gif: iron's uses in other contraptions, which naturally pads out the tech tree. I think I may see your logic. Well then again, I've probably just found my own logic, but I like it! I think it'd be even better if diamonds were taken away as a tool material, which would make bronze the top-tier, essentially making tin today's diamond, while diamonds can have other uses such as in item enchantment. That's a nice tight tech tree, if I do say so myself.
If I were Notch and I were implementing this system, I'd put in tech tiers 1-3 first. Those ones are basically what we have in the game right now, and it'd be a good thing to leap off of into an even bigger tech tree. And I'd oh-so love Notch to implement this as quickly as possible. 1-3 would basically be ready to go without any other big game changes, making it good friday update material.
Oh, and if you were to actually do something with the advanced forge, I'd imagine it as some sort of casting station, so maybe require it to have a certain amount fuel to be able to craft items in it?
The only addition I'd make is thus: I'd like to see all of the ores in larger concentrations but spread out over greater distances. We have INFINITE maps, but there is no reason what-so-ever to leave a one square kilometer plot when all the resources you need are right beneath your feet. I like the idea of searching high and low for a particular resource to finish an particular recipe. As long as there is a viable means of finding them that is. Nothing would dry up the fun of this game faster than not being able to find, copper for example, because the only deposite for kilometers is two mountains over at the bottom of the map. A place that would take you a century to reach even if you searched methodically. Make the the deposits too big to haul back to your base in one load and now you have a reason to lay long stretches of tracks and have actual mines as opposed to a day long treck to the cave next door where you pick it clean of iron and coal and never come back.
I think a better way to accomplish this is to have biome specific resources. We already have the bare bones of this;snow is a resource that can only be found in the snow areas. More useful and interesting resources would encourage, though not strictly require, exploration, or at least trading resources with others. Currently there is little reason to trade, since resources tend to be equally obtainable. I would love to set out on a journey for the ocean so I could find some pearls and coral, or head to the desert for some easy sandstone.
@Blue_Vision: Brilliant. You took the words right out of my mouth. And even if tin's only purpose was to keep your from making bronze until you found it, I'd be find with it. It would still be something more to mine.
@Mystify: That is EXACTLY what I meant. Some clear indication that you are in the right place to find a certain resource or another.
I think a better way to accomplish this is to have biome specific resources. We already have the bare bones of this;snow is a resource that can only be found in the snow areas. More useful and interesting resources would encourage, though not strictly require, exploration, or at least trading resources with others. Currently there is little reason to trade, since resources tend to be equally obtainable. I would love to set out on a journey for the ocean so I could find some pearls and coral, or head to the desert for some easy sandstone.
Agree, but all of the basic materials should be findable anywhere, and in the same quantities (except wood, duh.) I personally dislike the idea of some biomes having more iron and others having more coal, mostly because it changes the way you'd start off playing the game, and could have frustrating effects on early game and tech tree development. Other than that, different items across different biomes would be cool. I especially like the idea of sandstone in deserts, and marble, granite and gems deep inside mountains. Though these wouldn't really be integral to gameplay, more of side items for added aesthetics (though gems might be necessary for enchanting or alchemy or something.)
@ Sneferu: Good to know I wasn't just going crazy there. In that case, I love it. Perhaps require the better 4th tier forge to craft and cast bronze?
And if bronze was added, I think that diamond would need to be taken out as a tool crafting item. It's just too good, and would kill what seems to me as a perfect copper-iron-tin relationship that could be. Save it for other uses like alchemy or enchanting.
@Blue_vision: Absolutely. I think the current furnace system is rather oversimplified as it is and would love (LOVE!) to see a more comprehensive smelting system, even if it is only at the top tier. And you're right about not wanting certain resources more popular in certain biomes (whatever those may be). Because if that's the case, every time you started a game players would always gravitate towards the hostipable biomes, which would defeat the purpose of having different starting points in different biomes.
And yeah, nix the diamond as a construction tool. As it is I don't use them. Not because I have some love of raw diamonds or I'm taking a moral stand against their use, it's just doesn't make sense economically. Even with over a thousand uses a piece, I'd rather make a thousand stone pickes, and an iron one or two, than waste three precious (precious as in scarce) diamonds on a pick that will mostly harvest stone. Wood for wood, stone for stone, iron for gold, diamond, and redstone, and diamond for obsidian.
Herobrine does not exist. He is not in the code anywhere, there is not a faintest mention of a mob like this. Herobrine does not exist. All encounters are hoaxed and are clearly hoaxed. Some are good hoaxes, but still fake.
haha grammar edit
adamantite is no longer refined from mithril, is mineable instead
mithril is a super strong material, though only as durable as iron
adamantite is a super durable material, though only as strong as iron
these could be used to enchant other metal and gem items, and also have an item set (pickaxe, shovel, etc) of their own. maybe you could even fusion these into a metal as strong as gems!
more notes:
here i think how i think this needs to work:
leather, wool, stone, dirt and other commonly found materials dont have an item set
lesser metals dont have an item set, but they have special uses
normal metals are used mainly for item sets, no special uses
greater metals could be made into item sets, but are better when used for something else (high-end enchanting, alchemy, etc)
gems could be also made into item sets, but it is very difficult but is very rewarding and each gem will maybe present a different element (sapphire- water, emerald- earth, ruby- fire, diamond-air) which will be used to enchant players.
thoughts?
http://www.minecraftforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=23440
My opinion on this is, it's awesome.
♣♦♠♥
Former King of Alesgan
this and:
and thanks viros.
http://www.minecraftforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=23440
It's the sharpest naturally occurring substance in the world, and the Aztecs studded clubs with it that were said to be capable of beheading a horse in a single blow. Also, who the hell said anything about obsidian armor?
But there should be more to getting top-tier items than "I dug deep enough to find diamond, so here it is". Start-to-top-tier time is ridiculously low, esp. compared to the time that can be put into a good minecraft settlement.
Tier 1 crafting is just the regular inventory crafting which lets you make lumber, sticks, torches and the like, right?
Tier 2 has the addition of campfires and masonary tables? As a suggestion, make it so workbenches can't craft metal tools. Just wood and stone.
Also, campfires should be just a simple 1x1 structure that you put on the ground, maybe made by placing 2 dirt blocks on the bottom in your inventory crafting. Then add wood to like a furnace to get instant fire that's significantly brighter than a torch. Then you can cook simple foods off of that like you do a furnace. Wood and sticks would last longer than they do in a furnace. I always find it annoying starting a game and not finding any coal for a bit, and my furnace being less than ideal for light generation during night/when mining. I think it's primary focus should be giving the player light initially, while also making it an option as a later game light generation.
For Masonry, I think it'd be best built with 4 stone in the inventory crafting like a workbench. I think it fits better, and it'd go with my suggestion of not being able to make iron tools from the workbench, keeping masonry a definite tier 2 thing.
Additionally, cobblestone should be gravel instead of sand.
Additionally-additionally, basic stone building materials should be built here and not at the workbench. Stone steps and stairs and other such things. If other "stone" things like marble or obsidian or whatever get added and able to be crafted, they'd be crafted here.
I'll admit that I'm not 100% understanding about the furnace changes, but I think that furnace should remain mostly the same. Smelt ores to get ingots, use ingots to craft.
Though, it could be cool to refine things. Add copper into the game (which I might support if intuitive tools were made,) and you have 2 things to refine; copper to bronze and iron to steel. However, I'd just suggest the refining mechanic to be putting an ingot back into the furnace like you would ore, but smelting takes twice as long as regular ores. Consequently, bronze and steel would be maybe 1.5 times as strong as copper and iron respectively.
I like the anvil a lot. It'd definitely add more depth to the game. I'd suggest to make it in the workbench with 7 iron blocks, 6 on the top 2 rows and one at the bottom in the middle (slightly resembling an anvil and keeping with the crafting idea.) Then, you'd just be able to craft as normal.
Apothecary's so-so for me, I think that Notch would need to add a lot to the current game to make potions interesting and/or viable rather than just a gimmicky offshoot, but it'd be interesting and a good addition if there were more items in the game and more monsters and situations that potions could be used.
I like the loom a lot too. May I suggest being able to craft wool into string using it?
Tier 4's iffy to me. I think it'd be better for simplicity's sake to keep food making to the fire. But, if it was a combination of crafting table + furnace system to cook food after making recipes, I'd support it, at least definitely when the game gets more complex with more baddies and better multiplayer. As in, you'd have a crafting table-like grid at the top to place your ingredients, then a furnace-like fuel at the bottom to start cooking your food.
I have to admit, I don't like advanced forge at all. It'd be much better to stick with regular forge/anvil which can craft all metals.
Where I might support it is if it was required to make metal armour. That'd certainly be a logical step forward for the game, and you could also use it to do things like make placable metal blocks and minecarts and minecart tracks.
I'd like to add here one idea; a carpentry table. You'd use this to make bigger structures, like bookcases, maybe boats and other such things that are wooden-based but have a big feel. However, I'd suggest it as something "easy" like placing 4 crafting tables together, or something of a similar idea to make them easy to get, but an investment so you don't place them everywhere like you do crafting tables. Additionally, you'd be able to use them as regular crafting tables. I think these would be good for unlocking a future of complex but logical machines, like more realistic boats (regular boat, sailing boat, etc.)
The alchemy, I love. I found this thread from your other alchemy thread, OP, and I 100% support the idea.
Also, may I add having different grid systems. With a logical increase in technology like this, I think a logical increase in complexity is needed as well, as well as keeping the system intuitive "hey, it DOES kind of look like a pickaxe!" So, may I propose:
Keep inventory and crafting table crafting with the same grid system, and give camp fires a similar system to furnaces, but maybe add in one or two extra slots at the bottom, so you can burn more than JUST lumber or JUST sticks.
For masonry table, just make it with the same grid as crafting, but you can't put wood on it. Masonry things shouldn't use wood, so it would confuse new players much, much less and I think that's important.
Keep furnace the same as it is.
Make an anvil so it has 2 rows 3 wide on the top, and one space sticking out of the bottom. Again, this make it kind of look like an anvil, and makes it so you can visually only craft tools and weapon, also giving the player a natural idea of what to do based off of what was done before to craft wooden and stone tools and weapons.
Have the loom's grid 4 high and 2 across, so doing something like making cloth would require you to string out your items like you would a loom in real life.
Can't think of anything for advanced forge. Perhaps make it like the masonry table so you can only place stone on it? Not sure.
My carpentry table would be a massive 5x5 area where there's room for much more complex designs than other areas would allow. That gives room for more intuitive and more resource-draining designs for complex mechanisms than a smaller grid.
So just my ideas there. How do you feel about this OP? I know that this thread was made a while ago, but I like the idea and I personally don't want to make a thread on a slight variation of this idea. Good ideas anyways! Cheers :smile.gif:
The only addition I'd make is thus: I'd like to see all of the ores in larger concentrations but spread out over greater distances. We have INFINITE maps, but there is no reason what-so-ever to leave a one square kilometer plot when all the resources you need are right beneath your feet. I like the idea of searching high and low for a particular resource to finish an particular recipe. As long as there is a viable means of finding them that is. Nothing would dry up the fun of this game faster than not being able to find, copper for example, because the only deposite for kilometers is two mountains over at the bottom of the map. A place that would take you a century to reach even if you searched methodically. Make the the deposits too big to haul back to your base in one load and now you have a reason to lay long stretches of tracks and have actual mines as opposed to a day long treck to the cave next door where you pick it clean of iron and coal and never come back.
I also completely agree with the more complicated tech-tree suggestion. It would give much needed paceing to the game. It's a shame that all you nee to do is slap a deep enough hole in the ground and spend a few hours spelunking and you've reached the top tier. Oh I'm sure Notch'll change it, I just wanted to get that out.
@Blue_vision, the only problem that I have with your post is ^that^. If getting bronze and steel is no harder to get than re-inserting your ingots back into the furnace, why would you ever use iron or copper. The only requirement is a little more time. Only the extremely impatient wouldn't be able to spare another 15 seconds per ingot to get some steel or bronze, especially when they've got twenty furnaces going, as most often do. And the trade-off you mention wouldn't do it either. The only way to balance it, as I see it, is give Iron, copper, and tin, uses that don't require smelting, and lots of them. The more the better. That way there is a trade off. That way you are always thinking, "hmmm, I could make x out of tin, or I could combine it with some of my copper and make bronze for some more tools"
And and a bronze tool should definitely be the minimum requirement for getting iron from iron ore blocks.
Much, I like this idea very much.
Unless... bronze was required to be cast, or somehow be created or used higher up on the tech tree so that it was stronger than iron (as in real life.) Then, you can make tin sufficiently rare that it's not annoying, which makes bronze tools or weapons a treat compared to more readily available iron. That means that copper has it's uses on both sides of the tech tree around iron, and iron is not obsoleted due to minecarts and availability when compared to tin, the strategic resource in this situation! Copper is a big early on resource, but your stockpiles don't go bad when you hit iron, which don't go bad when you hit bronze, which uses all your copper! And as long as maps generate copper more than iron, players will be more inclined to start with copper due to a) dumb luck of the draw, or :cool.gif: iron's uses in other contraptions, which naturally pads out the tech tree. I think I may see your logic. Well then again, I've probably just found my own logic, but I like it! I think it'd be even better if diamonds were taken away as a tool material, which would make bronze the top-tier, essentially making tin today's diamond, while diamonds can have other uses such as in item enchantment. That's a nice tight tech tree, if I do say so myself.
If I were Notch and I were implementing this system, I'd put in tech tiers 1-3 first. Those ones are basically what we have in the game right now, and it'd be a good thing to leap off of into an even bigger tech tree. And I'd oh-so love Notch to implement this as quickly as possible. 1-3 would basically be ready to go without any other big game changes, making it good friday update material.
Oh, and if you were to actually do something with the advanced forge, I'd imagine it as some sort of casting station, so maybe require it to have a certain amount fuel to be able to craft items in it?
I think a better way to accomplish this is to have biome specific resources. We already have the bare bones of this;snow is a resource that can only be found in the snow areas. More useful and interesting resources would encourage, though not strictly require, exploration, or at least trading resources with others. Currently there is little reason to trade, since resources tend to be equally obtainable. I would love to set out on a journey for the ocean so I could find some pearls and coral, or head to the desert for some easy sandstone.
@Mystify: That is EXACTLY what I meant. Some clear indication that you are in the right place to find a certain resource or another.
@ Sneferu: Good to know I wasn't just going crazy there. In that case, I love it. Perhaps require the better 4th tier forge to craft and cast bronze?
And if bronze was added, I think that diamond would need to be taken out as a tool crafting item. It's just too good, and would kill what seems to me as a perfect copper-iron-tin relationship that could be. Save it for other uses like alchemy or enchanting.
And yeah, nix the diamond as a construction tool. As it is I don't use them. Not because I have some love of raw diamonds or I'm taking a moral stand against their use, it's just doesn't make sense economically. Even with over a thousand uses a piece, I'd rather make a thousand stone pickes, and an iron one or two, than waste three precious (precious as in scarce) diamonds on a pick that will mostly harvest stone. Wood for wood, stone for stone, iron for gold, diamond, and redstone, and diamond for obsidian.