Alright, almost all of us have played Skyrim right? Well the Khajit have little trade caravans that pop up outside of towns and you can trade with them. Well we already have villagers and a trade system... but thats it, not much more to it. Players dont find villages very often, unless they are on super-flat worlds. What if some villagers traveled around in a procedurally generated path (ie. avoiding rivers, ravines and finding their way around mountains etc.) They could spawn randomly such as any collection of cows but will move in a convoy, protected by Iron Golems or villagers with swords (add in a soldier villager?) The caravan would travel around, allowing players to run into one or two caravans, allowing them to trade without necessarily having to find a village. This would expand the trade system and give more purposes to villagers. you could even have different clothes depending on the biomes, a tundra biome might have fur coats for the skins of the traders and a desert trader might wear a turban. This would be a small but useful and practical addition to the trade system and villager uses. If you support this, like it up and get Notch to notice it.
We know you support it, it was your idea. Anyways, there have been threads on travelling merchant type Villagers before. This isn't a half bad idea but I've seen others I like better.
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I am just stating my support, nothing wrong with that, badprenup. and weterman, that is a good idea. and if the caravans are biome-dependent, meaning tundra traders stay in tundra, etc., you could add a tundra village, a jungle village, and so on, in addition to the plains and desert. i know the flat lands of plains and deserts make the random spawning easier, but a little tweaking of the system could make procedural generation easier with the villages. maybe even add little makeshift "camps" that are spawned in like villages but have a caravan theme to them in addition to the roaming traders. Following caravans back to the villages would be great, but would jungle traders go to tundra villages and so forth? that would be up to Notch and Mojang i reckon glad to have your support!
Yes, they can get attacked. This would maybe push players to protect them, give faction members a mission on online play or maybe entertain a lone wolf on a private world who doesn't know what to do next. Iron golems could maybe be programmed to follow the caravans or Mojang could introduce a soldier villager with a sword and leather armor who fights off mobs. It is up to Mojang and Notch really. As for them being rare, the level of rareness would vary depending on difficulty, easy making them common, normal less so, and so on. As for better stuff, I imagine the traders' goods would be random. and if the caravan does not have anything good, you can always follow the caravan back to its village. The goods would consist of swords, crop seeds, emeralds and diamonds, armor, stuff like that.
Frequency would depend on difficulty level and location. Since the traders would be only found in the biome they spawn in (spawning in villages), they would only travel around in their biome. Unless they add tundra and jungle villages, you will only run into caravans in desert and plains biomes. If a desert biome is connected to another desert biome (a seperate desert in a seperate chunk but still connected), the caravan would travel into that other desert ( or plains if they were a plains caravan in the same scenario). However, the caravan would avoid rivers and ravines, try to go around large mountains, and would not travel into other biomes. If a small stretch of desert seperates two plains areas, they will not cross the desert. they will go around as long as their path is still a plains biome. As for rivers and ravines, the player can build bridges for the caravan to cross, but only if the river/ravine is in the caravans biome. they travellers may still fall off of course XD. You could also put a tunnel through a mountain and cut their path in half. The path generated would be procedural, taking them on the shortest route around their biome from town to town. I dont know how easy this is to follow though. If it is not understood or questions develop, i will be happy to answer
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This might work more effectively if they did cross biomes, so that they aren't limited; I do like the idea of them traveling between villages and towards your spawn; perhaps when they leave one village, their inventory changes, due to a trade there. This is also a scenario where adding carts that can be pulled by animals would be fantastic. I'd imagine one or two pack pigs (perhaps a pig with a chest), and maybe a chariot type vehicle being pulled by a pig or two. And the addition of soldier villagers would be great.
Support.
There could be a important villager in the center in white robes or something and trades important objects or stuff. They could also be riding pigs with carrot on a stick. They could also set up camps for the night made of dirt or wood (or implement tents, just like beds) They would also set up torches for the night or a fire. The soldier idea is good, have 4 of them around the important villager in the center in the caravan with 2 iron golems on each side of the caravan.
Chariots/wagons and riding pigs would be excellent. The addition of a tent is an idea I had but I didnt want to make a wish-list for the whole suggestion. The caravan leader would be a good idea as well. I had them limited to their biomes so that Mojang could add skins to the vilagers that are biome-specific. A desert caravan would wear a turban for example. But a guy wearing a turban in the plains or tundra doesnt seem as aesthetically pleasing to me. But without the skins, the crossing of biomes would be even better of course.
How about once in a while these "Villager Caravans" is a Colonist Caravan, and once they travel a designated amount of space from the original village (say 3000 blocks), it would set up a new village.
How about once in a while these "Villager Caravans" is a Colonist Caravan, and once they travel a designated amount of space from the original village (say 3000 blocks), it would set up a new village.
That is an interesting idea. I dont know if Mojang could do it though. Thats a lot of code and a whole load more variables to impliment. It would be a pretty sweet addition but we need to walk before we can run. So lets just try and get the caravans put in the game
Someone who hadn't found a village wouldn't be able to make much use of a trading caravan regardless; unless they got lucky and the few villagers there were currently buying something the player had in their inventory or nearby. With the rarity of emeralds, aqcuiring them from mining is a ridiculously painful task. And it would be a dissapointment to find a caravan of villagers and not be able to trade with them.
Great Idea, if you didn't limit them, maybe every once in a while you could find a trading post style building with always two there at a time. When another one comes, then the one that has been there the longest will venture out.
Someone who hadn't found a village wouldn't be able to make much use of a trading caravan regardless; unless they got lucky and the few villagers there were currently buying something the player had in their inventory or nearby. With the rarity of emeralds, aqcuiring them from mining is a ridiculously painful task. And it would be a dissapointment to find a caravan of villagers and not be able to trade with them.
Then the caravans will be barter caravans. They wont be paid with emeralds. You can trade that extra wool for emeralds, then follow the caravan to a village and use the emeralds to buy the good stuff. The possibilities for improving the trading system are many. This would be a good reason to increase the type of items villagers trade for/with and increase the frequency of emerald ore. and trading posts would be a good idea to this too, little pit stops between villages. Caravans are not a sideways step to try and improve the trading system and give villagers more purpose, it is a leap forward. May take some effort, but it could maybe even evolve into Escort game modes in multiplayer, and entertain the bored miner on his lonely singleplayer map. It would be awesome to go to sleep and wake up to a camped caravan thirty blocks out and be able to trade with them. If the emeralds and trading system is tweaked the right way, caravans can be amazingly beneficial and maybe give Mojang a step toward improving player-villager interactions.
This sounds pretty good. It would be cool if Jeb or Notch would add wagons and harnesses to Minecraft, allowing pigs to pull carts and blocks to be placed on moving platforms. One thing I might add is that the villages would also have ports and docks and large mechant ships to trade with other villages, making them more and more prosperous. Then, other villages would get jealous, and attack the other village with their soldier villagers, and you would have to choose which side to be on...
This sounds pretty good. It would be cool if Jeb or Notch would add wagons and harnesses to Minecraft, allowing pigs to pull carts and blocks to be placed on moving platforms. One thing I might add is that the villages would also have ports and docks and large mechant ships to trade with other villages, making them more and more prosperous. Then, other villages would get jealous, and attack the other village with their soldier villagers, and you would have to choose which side to be on...
Those are all directions in which Mojang, Jeb, and Notch can go with the caravans! Trade caravans are the first step, a rather easy one at that. to expanding player-village interactions, maybe even creating inter-village interactions. Larger boats would be great to slip into the trading concept and expand the transportation systems that have been put into minecraft. Get everyone you know to support this idea and we can see it become a reality, probably bringing about the boats and wagons and the like.
This is an idea I have wanted to be implemented for quite some time. It would be reasonably hard to code though, but I can see how you could do it. The paths would spawn with a kind of pathfinding system, so they could move around large obsticles (think of millenaire, how villages will ignore chunks of land over a certain hight limit). These paths will also have to link up to villages. The paths will have to spawn with some sort of invisible entity that you cannot interact with at all above it. Trading caravans will follow this invisible entity. In the trading caravans, there would be a leader of sorts, who will follow the entity, and any other people and guards in the caravan will follow him. I can see how it could be implemented, and for a group of coders it shouldn't be too hard.
Maybe have a ocean biome version of these? They travel in group of boats, and can go up rivers into lakes, but they usually stick to the ocean. Maybe they occasionally make landfall on beaches, and would leave in say, a day or two to go elsewhere.
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I support villager trade caravans
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That is an interesting idea. I dont know if Mojang could do it though. Thats a lot of code and a whole load more variables to impliment. It would be a pretty sweet addition but we need to walk before we can run. So lets just try and get the caravans put in the game
Then the caravans will be barter caravans. They wont be paid with emeralds. You can trade that extra wool for emeralds, then follow the caravan to a village and use the emeralds to buy the good stuff. The possibilities for improving the trading system are many. This would be a good reason to increase the type of items villagers trade for/with and increase the frequency of emerald ore. and trading posts would be a good idea to this too, little pit stops between villages. Caravans are not a sideways step to try and improve the trading system and give villagers more purpose, it is a leap forward. May take some effort, but it could maybe even evolve into Escort game modes in multiplayer, and entertain the bored miner on his lonely singleplayer map. It would be awesome to go to sleep and wake up to a camped caravan thirty blocks out and be able to trade with them. If the emeralds and trading system is tweaked the right way, caravans can be amazingly beneficial and maybe give Mojang a step toward improving player-villager interactions.
Those are all directions in which Mojang, Jeb, and Notch can go with the caravans! Trade caravans are the first step, a rather easy one at that. to expanding player-village interactions, maybe even creating inter-village interactions. Larger boats would be great to slip into the trading concept and expand the transportation systems that have been put into minecraft. Get everyone you know to support this idea and we can see it become a reality, probably bringing about the boats and wagons and the like.
"Colder than the ice that cover the stones and freezes the rivers"
"Colder than the north wind blowing through a winter-bound forest"
"Colder than all these is the smile of a Shade of the Dark"