The smaller, brighter stars in 1.3 were a huge step towards realism in the night sky. But, still, there is very little reason to be out at night unless you want to hunt mobs. Every night has the exact same brightness, the same number of stars, the moon in the same place. For someone like me, who has an interest in astronomy, this gets boring.
Instead, the night sky should be more interesting. The moon should move around the sky over a period of 8 days, with the moonlight's brightness and number/size/brightness of stars changing at the same speed. Minecraft, in addition to the normal stars, should generate more faint stars in the sky. Perhaps these could be done using a skybox like the End uses for its noisy sky, but with fewer repetitions of the texture so the individual dots can be seen without Optifine's "zoom way in by pressing CTRL" feature.
Bright stars have their own texture, which is shown at the scale of the old (1.2) stars. Each world has a varying amount of these and their placement depends on the seed.
A full moon looks exactly like the night does right now, with the moon opposite the sun in the sky. A new moon is more dangerous than a full moon; the landscape is no longer illuminated at all and mobs have a greater chance of spawning. There are also many more stars in the sky, so if you're seeing them, I hope you're in a well-lit and protected area. The moon, instead of being opposite the sun, is very near it and has a small chance of causing a solar eclipse at noon. This is like a moonless night, but there's a ring of fire at the zenith where the sun was a minute ago. At half-moon, the moon is at the zenith at dawn/dusk depending on which half is illuminated.
There should be colored stars as well. These move around the sky like the moon, but either slightly offset or in a line back and forth across the sun. Planets have their own textures like the sun and moon, and which worlds have which planets visible depends on the seed. Maybe some of the planets have smaller planet sprites traveling in circles around them, but these are invisible unless you use a telescope on them.
Telescopes can be found in strongholds (http://www.minecraft...he-eye-can-see/) and, unlike in the thread I just linked, are crafted from glass and skymetal and can be used by holding the right mouse button.
Meteorites have a chance to fall rarely every ~20 nights. They fall over loaded chunks, and when they land cause a small explosion and leave a block of meteorite in the crater. One can be seen falling from the sky as a streak of orange light. Meteorites can either be a stony meteorite or an iron meteorite, which can be smelted into an ingot of pale blue skymetal. It can be made into telescopes.
Planets, the moon, stars, and meteors aren't the only things you can see at night. Galaxies, dim, swirly blue smudges, can be seen with a telescope. Or, you'll see a glowing comet slowly swing past the sun and fade away. They come back regularly, usually every 10-20 real days. Meteors have a higher chance of falling when one's visible. You may see a dim purplish-red blob in the sky one night, and the next night there's a new star where that nebula used to be. Another one might suddenly brighten, then fade out to be replaced with a cloud of red smoke.
Craft multiple telescopes together and you get more magnification. You can see more now, but only during a new moon or a solar eclipse. Some of the bright stars have planets of their own orbiting them. Galaxies no longer appear as blue smears of light, but vast, spiraling collections of glittering stars. That big star over there? Turns out it's 3 smaller stars circling one another.
Delete a world and, if there are any blue or green planets in your sky, one of them disappears and the next night, there's a slightly higher chance of meteors falling.
A rare gold sword now has a 0.1% chance of appearing in a chest, itself having a 0.001% chance of spawning in a Nether fortress. It is enchanted with Sharpness V and a new enchant, Heat of the Sun, which is unobtainable using an enchantment table. It lights mobs on fire and can one-hit most mobs, especially undead. Once you've been in a world for more than 5 ingame days after breaking it, the sun starts to grow. Shortly afterward, an event very similar to the Solar Apocalypse mod occurs. After several days of that, the sun suddenly shrinks into a small white star, surrounded by orange and green clouds of gas, and the days turn to eternal night. Rain is globally replaced with snow, then stops forever as the clouds disappear. The oceans, having already frozen over, start to freeze solid. Comets stop appearing, passive mobs stop spawning, and hostile mobs are out forever. Crops freeze to death almost instantly, and even the moon will go dark. Hope you have plenty of torches.
EDIT: Changed the apocalypse a bit so it's optional instead of guaranteed. No skymetal tools, either.
EDIT2: Now you have 5 days after breaking the solar sword to prepare for when your world meets its fiery doom. You're still very, very, very unlikely to ever find it though.
Well the ideas for astronomy are cool, I think their complexity might be difficult to program. It would probably be easier to have a couple overlaying randomly generated star maps. It would add a unique and somewhat magnificent starscape to each world, if done correctly. The telescope item is also a good idea, and when it zooms in on a star, it should give you a more detailed sprite. I think the apocalypse ideas going a little too far, however. I don't like the idea that my time has a limit, even if that limit is very difficult to reach.
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Minecraft makes me feel like I'm three. Playing with blocks and afraid of the dark.
Meteorite ideas have been shot down (couldn't resist) before, in most cases because of the fact that random explosions, no matter how rare, are annoying to repair if they randomly choose to blow your roof off. They would also punish players who have less than amazing computers the way you describe them. Those players are forced to play with fewer chunks loaded, increasing the chances of something they built being damaged.
The uses for them you listed are also lacking. Another tier of tools is unlikely to see the light of day, and one only slightly different than an existing one is almost pointless. Not to mention that you already gave an alternate source for telescopes (though I have qualms about those too, see below).
A telescope just to make a tiny pixel not so tiny seems kind of pointless, there are plenty of games more suited to your interests if you're trying to look at stars in a game about building things out of blocks.
The apocalypse is a terrible idea, even if it's unlikely a world will see enough use to ever trigger it. What is the point of permanently f***ing over a world? Some realism? This isn't terraria buddy, the player can't just move on to the next world with all of their items intact.
I think the apocalypse ideas going a little too far, however. I don't like the idea that my time has a limit, even if that limit is very difficult to reach.
The apocalypse is a terrible idea, even if it's unlikely a world will see enough use to ever trigger it. What is the point of permanently f***ing over a world? Some realism? This isn't terraria buddy, the player can't just move on to the next world with all of their items intact.
Then maybe only trigger the 10000-day timer by using and then breaking a rare gold sword, enchanted with Heat of the Sun (new enchantment, unobtainable other than by finding this sword) and Sharpness V, found in a Nether fortress. Only one ever generates, and the apocalypse happens regardless of how much time you spend in the Nether. It can one-hit most mobs (except the Enderdragon, for obvious reasons) and light them on fire.
Meteorite ideas have been shot down (couldn't resist) before, in most cases because of the fact that random explosions, no matter how rare, are annoying to repair if they randomly choose to blow your roof off. They would also punish players who have less than amazing computers the way you describe them. Those players are forced to play with fewer chunks loaded, increasing the chances of something they built being damaged.
The uses for them you listed are also lacking. Another tier of tools is unlikely to see the light of day, and one only slightly different than an existing one is almost pointless. Not to mention that you already gave an alternate source for telescopes (though I have qualms about those too, see below).
So the meteorites don't explode, just land. And skymetal can't be used to make tools anymore. If anything, just a sword. If you really have too much of it you can make blocks.
A telescope just to make a tiny pixel not so tiny seems kind of pointless, there are plenty of games more suited to your interests if you're trying to look at stars in a game about building things out of blocks.
Don't like it? Don't use it. Find one in a stronghold? Throw it in lava.
Then maybe only trigger the 10000-day timer by using and then breaking a rare gold sword, enchanted with Heat of the Sun (new enchantment, unobtainable other than by finding this sword) and Sharpness V, found in a Nether fortress. Only one ever generates, and the apocalypse happens regardless of how much time you spend in the Nether. It can one-hit most mobs (except the Enderdragon, for obvious reasons) and light them on fire. No. The odds of those conditions being met are too astronomical (no pun intended) to give the idea any merit, and if it's any less than it's just stupid; why would you want to destroy a world in a single day? Let's say you just finish building a giant castle, and wake up one morning to find everything, including everything you've built, suddenly destroyed. Why would you want to play a game like that?
So the meteorites don't explode, just land. And skymetal can't be used to make tools anymore. If anything, just a sword. If you really have too much of it you can make blocks. Still, lag on older computers. Plus, adding new tiers is not going to happen unless they do something unique. That is one of the reasons there aren't emerald tools.
Don't like it? Don't use it. Find one in a stronghold? Throw it in lava. An excuse. Basically saying "don't like the suggestion? GTFO the thread". If you make a suggestion, assume everyone is going to use it. "Make it optional" or "don't use it" is not an argument. The telescope itself is useless. What point would it have beyond making a white pixel seem bigger? It's not like it serves any purpose whatsoever in servers, adventure maps, or anything else.
None of these are any good. The sky isn't meant to be some new realm for you to explore, it's just the sky. It's a light that turns on when you can build safely, and off when it's time to sleep (for all intents and purposes). The only good idea on this thread was the solar eclipse, which has been suggested many times before.
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[quote=Badgerz]You have to keep in mind that people are stupid.
[quote=Catelite]Just because you don't understand how something works, doesn't make it broken or pointless. >_<
This is stupid, very few uses and a lot of code changing for very rarely useful aesthetics. And you want to ask people if they wont their world to have an apocalypse or not, because everyone wants the world the spent hours of their time creating to become almost impossible to explore. If Jeb adds it, I swear I will stop playing Minecraft.
Don't like it? Don't use it. Find one in a stronghold? Throw it in lava.
Ah, the "don't use it" argument, we meet again. Let me tell you why I don't support useless ideas. First of all, don't get me wrong, I fully support some form of the telescope itself, but only as furniture that just sits there and looks pretty. However, the coding necessary to implement a system of stargazing in the detail you described would take a large amount of time from other more useful updates, like bug fixes. It would also no doubt add new bugs to the mix, and further bog down our framerates with useless details being rendered onto a decoration in the sky.
No. The odds of those conditions being met are too astronomical (no pun intended) to give the idea any merit, and if it's any less than it's just stupid; why would you want to destroy a world in a single day? Let's say you just finish building a giant castle, and wake up one morning to find everything, including everything you've built, suddenly destroyed. Why would you want to play a game like that?
It doesn't destroy a world in one day, it destroys all water, plants, and anything flammable on the surface over 8 days. And it's triggered by breaking an epic sword. If you don't want to trigger an apocalypse, don't use the sword. If you want to be super-OP against 33 mobs, then eventually the sun's going to blow up. It's like, "Hmm, I found this awesome sword, but I've heard it could end my world. I'm not doing this. *throws it in lava*"
Quote from »
Still, lag on older computers. Plus, adding new tiers is not going to happen unless they do something unique. That is one of the reasons there aren't emerald tools.
Players with older computers are more likely to have their render distance on Short or Tiny. You can't see the sky with those settings, so the game won't render the extra stuff. I already said there won't be skymetal tools.
An excuse. Basically saying "don't like the suggestion? GTFO the thread". If you make a suggestion, assume everyone is going to use it. "Make it optional" or "don't use it" is not an argument. The telescope itself is useless. What point would it have beyond making a white pixel seem bigger? It's not like it serves any purpose whatsoever in servers, adventure maps, or anything else.
I don't like brewing stands, so I don't use them. Oh no, some people don't like a feature! Let's prevent it from being implemented entirely!
The telescope works by decreasing your FOV to 10 on the lowest magnification. This could be awesome for some types of servers or adventure maps. For example, you want to find the entrance to someone's base so you can invade it, or find a nice place to build. Pillar up, and look around with the telescope. It's not just for the sky.
None of these are any good. The sky isn't meant to be some new realm for you to explore, it's just the sky. It's a light that turns on when you can build safely, and off when it's time to sleep (for all intents and purposes). The only good idea on this thread was the solar eclipse, which has been suggested many times before.
That doesn't mean it has to be boring. Since it's just a light that turns on and off, let's remove the sun, moon, clouds, and stars! Then make the sky either black or white, depending on whether it's on or off; after all it's just a light, so it can't look good at all. It just doesn't make sense at all to give the moon changing phases when the sun is fixed in the same place relative to it.
Ah, the "don't use it" argument, we meet again. Let me tell you why I don't support useless ideas. First of all, don't get me wrong, I fully support some form of the telescope itself, but only as furniture that just sits there and looks pretty. However, the coding necessary to implement a system of stargazing in the detail you described would take a large amount of time from other more useful updates, like bug fixes. It would also no doubt add new bugs to the mix, and further bog down our framerates with useless details being rendered onto a decoration in the sky.
The extra detail isn't rendered when you aren't using a telescope, and how much is shown depends on how powerful your telescope is.
That's still 138.8888 straight days of play time.
Ok, I'll cut it down even further. 5 days? That sounds about right. Break the sword and less than two hours later, the sun starts to blow up. Is that better?
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If anyone wants to port/remake this, feel free to do that! Or don't. It's up to you, really.
It doesn't destroy a world in one day, it destroys all water, plants, and anything flammable on the surface over 8 days. And it's triggered by breaking an epic sword. If you don't want to trigger an apocalypse, don't use the sword. If you want to be super-OP against 33 mobs, then eventually the sun's going to blow up. It's like, "Hmm, I found this awesome sword, but I've heard it could end my world. I'm not doing this. *throws it in lava*"
Sigh... the problem with apocalypse suggestions is people fail to realize that there are people out there who would go out of their way to trigger it on a multiplayer server, just because they can.
The apocalypse can be disabled on SMP and is off by default. You can't just trigger it by breaking any sword, it requires that a gold sword enchanted with Heat of the Sun (a new, otherwise unobtainable enchantment) break after hitting a mob.
Instead, the night sky should be more interesting. The moon should move around the sky over a period of 8 days, with the moonlight's brightness and number/size/brightness of stars changing at the same speed. Minecraft, in addition to the normal stars, should generate more faint stars in the sky. Perhaps these could be done using a skybox like the End uses for its noisy sky, but with fewer repetitions of the texture so the individual dots can be seen without Optifine's "zoom way in by pressing CTRL" feature.
Bright stars have their own texture, which is shown at the scale of the old (1.2) stars. Each world has a varying amount of these and their placement depends on the seed.
A full moon looks exactly like the night does right now, with the moon opposite the sun in the sky. A new moon is more dangerous than a full moon; the landscape is no longer illuminated at all and mobs have a greater chance of spawning. There are also many more stars in the sky, so if you're seeing them, I hope you're in a well-lit and protected area. The moon, instead of being opposite the sun, is very near it and has a small chance of causing a solar eclipse at noon. This is like a moonless night, but there's a ring of fire at the zenith where the sun was a minute ago. At half-moon, the moon is at the zenith at dawn/dusk depending on which half is illuminated.
There should be colored stars as well. These move around the sky like the moon, but either slightly offset or in a line back and forth across the sun. Planets have their own textures like the sun and moon, and which worlds have which planets visible depends on the seed. Maybe some of the planets have smaller planet sprites traveling in circles around them, but these are invisible unless you use a telescope on them.
Telescopes can be found in strongholds (http://www.minecraft...he-eye-can-see/) and, unlike in the thread I just linked, are crafted from glass and skymetal and can be used by holding the right mouse button.
Meteorites have a chance to fall rarely every ~20 nights. They fall over loaded chunks, and when they land cause a small explosion and leave a block of meteorite in the crater. One can be seen falling from the sky as a streak of orange light. Meteorites can either be a stony meteorite or an iron meteorite, which can be smelted into an ingot of pale blue skymetal. It can be made into telescopes.
Planets, the moon, stars, and meteors aren't the only things you can see at night. Galaxies, dim, swirly blue smudges, can be seen with a telescope. Or, you'll see a glowing comet slowly swing past the sun and fade away. They come back regularly, usually every 10-20 real days. Meteors have a higher chance of falling when one's visible. You may see a dim purplish-red blob in the sky one night, and the next night there's a new star where that nebula used to be. Another one might suddenly brighten, then fade out to be replaced with a cloud of red smoke.
Craft multiple telescopes together and you get more magnification. You can see more now, but only during a new moon or a solar eclipse. Some of the bright stars have planets of their own orbiting them. Galaxies no longer appear as blue smears of light, but vast, spiraling collections of glittering stars. That big star over there? Turns out it's 3 smaller stars circling one another.
Delete a world and, if there are any blue or green planets in your sky, one of them disappears and the next night, there's a slightly higher chance of meteors falling.
A rare gold sword now has a 0.1% chance of appearing in a chest, itself having a 0.001% chance of spawning in a Nether fortress. It is enchanted with Sharpness V and a new enchant, Heat of the Sun, which is unobtainable using an enchantment table. It lights mobs on fire and can one-hit most mobs, especially undead. Once you've been in a world for more than 5 ingame days after breaking it, the sun starts to grow. Shortly afterward, an event very similar to the Solar Apocalypse mod occurs. After several days of that, the sun suddenly shrinks into a small white star, surrounded by orange and green clouds of gas, and the days turn to eternal night. Rain is globally replaced with snow, then stops forever as the clouds disappear. The oceans, having already frozen over, start to freeze solid. Comets stop appearing, passive mobs stop spawning, and hostile mobs are out forever. Crops freeze to death almost instantly, and even the moon will go dark. Hope you have plenty of torches.
EDIT: Changed the apocalypse a bit so it's optional instead of guaranteed. No skymetal tools, either.
EDIT2: Now you have 5 days after breaking the solar sword to prepare for when your world meets its fiery doom. You're still very, very, very unlikely to ever find it though.
If anyone wants to port/remake this, feel free to do that! Or don't. It's up to you, really.
The uses for them you listed are also lacking. Another tier of tools is unlikely to see the light of day, and one only slightly different than an existing one is almost pointless. Not to mention that you already gave an alternate source for telescopes (though I have qualms about those too, see below).
A telescope just to make a tiny pixel not so tiny seems kind of pointless, there are plenty of games more suited to your interests if you're trying to look at stars in a game about building things out of blocks.
The apocalypse is a terrible idea, even if it's unlikely a world will see enough use to ever trigger it. What is the point of permanently f***ing over a world? Some realism? This isn't terraria buddy, the player can't just move on to the next world with all of their items intact.
To read the haiku that you
Just finished reading
The apocalypse would never happen, though, since you'd have to play for 190.13 real-life years straight (including leap-years) to reach it.
Then maybe only trigger the 10000-day timer by using and then breaking a rare gold sword, enchanted with Heat of the Sun (new enchantment, unobtainable other than by finding this sword) and Sharpness V, found in a Nether fortress. Only one ever generates, and the apocalypse happens regardless of how much time you spend in the Nether. It can one-hit most mobs (except the Enderdragon, for obvious reasons) and light them on fire.
So the meteorites don't explode, just land. And skymetal can't be used to make tools anymore. If anything, just a sword. If you really have too much of it you can make blocks.
Don't like it? Don't use it. Find one in a stronghold? Throw it in lava.
I'll reduce the time required to around 10000 ingame days; you can skip ahead to it with cheats if you want to see it sooner.
If anyone wants to port/remake this, feel free to do that! Or don't. It's up to you, really.
None of these are any good. The sky isn't meant to be some new realm for you to explore, it's just the sky. It's a light that turns on when you can build safely, and off when it's time to sleep (for all intents and purposes). The only good idea on this thread was the solar eclipse, which has been suggested many times before.
[quote=Badgerz]You have to keep in mind that people are stupid.
[quote=Catelite]Just because you don't understand how something works, doesn't make it broken or pointless. >_<
Ah, the "don't use it" argument, we meet again. Let me tell you why I don't support useless ideas. First of all, don't get me wrong, I fully support some form of the telescope itself, but only as furniture that just sits there and looks pretty. However, the coding necessary to implement a system of stargazing in the detail you described would take a large amount of time from other more useful updates, like bug fixes. It would also no doubt add new bugs to the mix, and further bog down our framerates with useless details being rendered onto a decoration in the sky.
That's still 138.8888 straight days of play time.
To read the haiku that you
Just finished reading
It doesn't destroy a world in one day, it destroys all water, plants, and anything flammable on the surface over 8 days. And it's triggered by breaking an epic sword. If you don't want to trigger an apocalypse, don't use the sword. If you want to be super-OP against 33 mobs, then eventually the sun's going to blow up. It's like, "Hmm, I found this awesome sword, but I've heard it could end my world. I'm not doing this. *throws it in lava*"
Players with older computers are more likely to have their render distance on Short or Tiny. You can't see the sky with those settings, so the game won't render the extra stuff. I already said there won't be skymetal tools.
I don't like brewing stands, so I don't use them. Oh no, some people don't like a feature! Let's prevent it from being implemented entirely!
The telescope works by decreasing your FOV to 10 on the lowest magnification. This could be awesome for some types of servers or adventure maps. For example, you want to find the entrance to someone's base so you can invade it, or find a nice place to build. Pillar up, and look around with the telescope. It's not just for the sky.
That doesn't mean it has to be boring. Since it's just a light that turns on and off, let's remove the sun, moon, clouds, and stars! Then make the sky either black or white, depending on whether it's on or off; after all it's just a light, so it can't look good at all. It just doesn't make sense at all to give the moon changing phases when the sun is fixed in the same place relative to it.
The extra detail isn't rendered when you aren't using a telescope, and how much is shown depends on how powerful your telescope is.
Ok, I'll cut it down even further. 5 days? That sounds about right. Break the sword and less than two hours later, the sun starts to blow up. Is that better?
If anyone wants to port/remake this, feel free to do that! Or don't. It's up to you, really.
Sigh... the problem with apocalypse suggestions is people fail to realize that there are people out there who would go out of their way to trigger it on a multiplayer server, just because they can.
And what about SMP?
If anyone wants to port/remake this, feel free to do that! Or don't. It's up to you, really.