Dinnerbone has long considered adding a Lectern to Minecraft, a stand to hold immobile books for reading. He hasn't added it though because, in his words "Something with them just doesn't feel right with me and I don't know what or why..."
I think I know a better way of adding lecterns that hopefully will appeal more to Dinnerbone.
Instead of treating them like stationary books, make it more like a sign you can flip through and alter with a click. Instead of having a whole podium, just make it a square flat slab similar to a pressure plate in size and shape, which can be placed on top of any solid block. The orientation of the lectern is determined when you place it.
It would have a single inventory slot, which you could access by right clicking. This slot would only accept a book & quill or signed book. When it contains a book that book would appear to be resting open and flat on the slab, displaying two pages at a time. Each page would be portrayed as half a block in size.
There would be no GUI. Instead you'd be able to read the text the same way you can read a sign, just by looking at it.
Left clicking a page would cause the book to advance in that direction. If you hit the left page you flip backwards. If you hit the right page you flip forward. This changes the visible text everybody sees.
Holding down left click and hitting the book several times in a row breaks the lectern and causes it and the book to drop as items. It would have the same durability as wood planks though, so you're unlikely to break it accidentally.
I think this would be a better way of adding lecterns to the game. Instead of making it some kind of elite mystical podium, just make a flat surface that displays an open book. And instead of being redundant with held books by just opening the same GUI, make it a sign you can change by clicking.
Eventually I want to make them a bit prettier, but to do that I'll have to implement adding stairs. Is this a good size, or should they be bigger?
That's pretty cool! The width of everything looks about right. How deep is the water in the canals?
For stairs, are you thinking about actually using stairs or just having diagonal paths of blocks? I could see both working, maybe side by side for variety. Do the towers have stairs in them too?
Another idea that might be cool is waterfalls. Would it be hard to have some canals end at a cliff, and have the water fall down and land in another canal below it at a randomized distance down?
I think you misunderstood me. What I meant was that people would and will always use swords when they are appropriate. They will never use the dagger instead. The dagger is a different item. It has a different texture, a different value, a different damage amount, a different feel. That is why the argument you gave, that it could be a replacement for swords in adventure maps, is fallible.
Don't get me wrong, I support the implementation of the dagger, even for that particular reason - there are some situations, story-wise, where a sword feels just silly. Having to default to the sword lowers the creative possibilities of the stories maps; Thank goodness for resource packs letting you retexture and the game itself letting you rename items, but it would be nice to have a larger pre existing set to choose from.
I was imagining that people would be forced to use daggers, if the map designer/server owner didn't want them to have swords. It usually wouldn't be something you choose to do.
For example, if the game had no crafting they might just have to use daggers because that was all they were given.
Or if it was an adventure server with crafting, you could have command blocks automatically replace all swords with daggers, to make sure players cannot use them to break leaves.
I have always wanted more types of weapons, so I always support threads that suggest them in a reasonable and balanced way.
However, your argument, to use the dagger for adventure mode, does not hold water. Adventure mode is often used to simulate a different environment from normal minecraft, survival or creative. It is there to prevent you from breaking blocks, but still keep the interaction with you and the world.
The full complexity of minecraft should be able to be used in adventure mode - if people want to play knights, they will use swords. If they want to play jedi, they will use retextured swords, if they want to play a sneaky assassin or rogue, they will use a dagger.
A better solution would be to add an NBT tag to weapons and tools if they can or cannot break blocks. This way, people can give an axe to the dwarf to fight with without having to worry about them ruining the furniture.
This wouldn't remove swords from adventure mode. You could still use those, if the map allowed you to.
If you could tag weapons to give them custom attributes like that it would be better admittedly.
Swords can be used to break certain blocks in adventure mode including leaves and cobwebs. There should be a new weapon that cannot be used to break any blocks at all.
I suggest adding Daggers to the game to fill this role. A dagger would function identically to a sword with two additional weaknesses:
1) It cannot break any block in adventure mode (your server's trees are safe!)
2) It deals one less heart of damage than a sword of the same material (good for tougher battles!)
Like swords, daggers would come in wood/stone/iron/diamond, and could be enchanted for additional damage and effects.
Daggers would be craftable in survival mode, and would be cheaper than swords, costing only a stick and one of their respective resource rather than two. There usually wouldn't be a good reason to make one though, despite the cheaper cost. For example, a diamond dagger would only deal 3 hearts of damage, the same as a stone sword, and it would cost a diamond instead of two cobblestone.
So people usually wouldn't make daggers, they'd be given them in adventure mode maps/servers. You do have the option of crafting them though, for an additional challenge.
I agree with the balance, but I think that signs are more versatile than carvings anyway, and after a while it is nearly irrelevant if you use one iron ingot or carry a stack of signs. Both are very cheap, even at a fairly early stage. Idea: You can place signs on floors (and should be able to place them on ceilings, I feel), so why not let carvings be carved into these as well? That way the difference would be even clearer.
I do like the idea of being able to make it seem as though you carved the top and bottom of the block. What's a mystic temple without a rune inscribed floor?
As for durability, I think 3 uses per chisel is a good number. 1/3rd an iron ingot per carving (plus 1/3rd of a stick) seems like a fair price.
You have a point with the transparent blocks, but I meant that from a technical standpoint; It might be strange to carve into the sides of stairs, for example. Including transparent blocks simply makes the implementation more complicated. If it can be done, however, great!
Yeah, it should avoid any situation where letters magically float in midair. So stairs wouldn't be valid. Neither would things like slabs, torches, etc. If it's a full block though like glass or even ice that should be fine.
This is a very good idea. I would suggest, however, that you cannot carve just everything; no transparent blocks obviously, but "soft" blocks like dirt, sand and gravel should also be excluded, I feel.
I do not like the fact you need one chisel for every block. Because all tools take up one item slot per tool, this would be very unhandy. Just give it a durability; A lower one, to keep it expensive, could still be bolstered by the unbreaking enchantment.
The other thing I disagree with is how you erase carvings. I feel they should not have hitboxes at all: You instead target he block on which it is on. Otherwise they don't feel like they are part of the block, but feel they are something attached to it. To erase a carving you could either break the block or put another block over it.
Something interesting could also be the ability to carve pictures; A possibility if painting is also added.
All in all, support, though it could use a little improvement.
I think carving transparent blocks makes sense (etched glass is a real thing), but you're probably right that it shouldn't work on soft blocks like sand, wool, gravel, dirt, etc.
The single use of the chisel is meant to balance them against signs. If you could use the chisel over and over again, then this could potentially be much cheaper and compact than using signs. I consider this a higher tier of sign, which deserves a greater expense.
If it's possible to create a block with no hitbox, then I'd support needing to break the block the carving is on, or placing another block in the carvings space to destroy it.
I like the idea but it seems unnecessarily expensive. 6 planks and a stick gives you 3 signs which stack. I would say an iron ingot is worth at least a few logs so it should have a few uses.
I suggest creating a new type of sign that is invisible except for its text. When placed on the side of a block it would appear as though text were carved into whatever block it is on.
The text color would vary depending on which block it is on, so it appears like a real carving. For example on stone, clay, or glass the text would be dark gray, on wood it would be dark brown.
To place a carving you would need a new tool, the chisel, which can be crafted out of one stick and one iron ingot. Right clicking on a block with a chisel opens up a GUI to leave a carving. However this wears away the chisel, only allowing one use. A carving can be broken just like signs, but drops nothing, as though you were smoothing out the block it was on. So carvings are rather expensive, an iron ingot each, but well worth it considering the versatility and decorative use.
Here's an idea for a new kind of rail that would allow passengers to control redstone devices while riding in a moving Minecart: tilt rail.
Tilt Rail is pretty simple. When a minecart carrying a passenger passes over tilt rail, the passenger can press the arrow keys in the direction of either side of the rail. The side they press towards receives a redstone signal, as if the player were tilting the cart to trigger a switch on that side of the rail.
For example let's say this is a track with a piece of tilt rail in the middle. A minecart is traveling north:
The player is facing forward and presses the left arrow key. The tilt rail would power the left block, like so:
If the player pressed right instead, or was facing backwards when they pressed left, the other side would receive power:
This would let you steer the Minecart, and do things like pick which of two directions to travel in. You could also use it to trigger other devices on the side of the road.
Regardless of which direction the player chooses to power, if any, the block below the rail is always powered when a cart with passenger goes over it. That would allow you to sense players and mobs in carts, without detecting things like chest minecarts.
I think you're missing the part where 140 different heads for a twitter feed equals 140 different accounts, or, roughly, 4000$ US. It is a nice idea, but not feasible until Mojang allows players to create 'dummy' accounts for skin uploading(Which they really, really, should do).
Well, that particular idea would be very expensive. Mojang could always choose to donate those particular accounts though, since this would be a beneficial service all Minecraft players could benefit from, or many players that want that service could chip in. Or players could volunteer their own heads to serve as letters, and be ok with a bot controlling what letter their head looks like.
But there are plenty of uses for just one head. A clock displaying the current real world hour. A bush that's budding in spring, green in summer, orange in fall, and dead in winter. Etc.
This isn't a suggestion for Mojang. It's a suggestion for a player who's a talented programmer.
Player heads are very useful in decoration. I've seen them used as tiny chests, tiny cactus heads, tiny lamps, all kinds of things. You can upload any texture you want to serve as a player's head skin.
What if we created some Minecraft accounts controlled by bots, that are capable of changing their skin in order to alter heads in game? That would be a way of taking data from the outside world and putting it into Minecraft
For example, imagine a head that looks like a day calendar and displays the real date. Every morning the bot would switch it to a new texture, so the numbers on the head are actually displaying the real date.
Or example a bot that automatically checks Jeb's twitter feed, and switches the textures of a bunch of heads so each one matches a different letter in his post. Then you could have a billboard in game made up of 140 heads that actually displays whatever Jeb's most recent tweet is.
Like I said, this isn't something for Mojang to do. It's something that a fan would have to make. It isn't even technically a mod, since it's just vanilla Minecraft being used.
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I think I know a better way of adding lecterns that hopefully will appeal more to Dinnerbone.
Instead of treating them like stationary books, make it more like a sign you can flip through and alter with a click. Instead of having a whole podium, just make it a square flat slab similar to a pressure plate in size and shape, which can be placed on top of any solid block. The orientation of the lectern is determined when you place it.
It would have a single inventory slot, which you could access by right clicking. This slot would only accept a book & quill or signed book. When it contains a book that book would appear to be resting open and flat on the slab, displaying two pages at a time. Each page would be portrayed as half a block in size.
There would be no GUI. Instead you'd be able to read the text the same way you can read a sign, just by looking at it.
Left clicking a page would cause the book to advance in that direction. If you hit the left page you flip backwards. If you hit the right page you flip forward. This changes the visible text everybody sees.
Holding down left click and hitting the book several times in a row breaks the lectern and causes it and the book to drop as items. It would have the same durability as wood planks though, so you're unlikely to break it accidentally.
I think this would be a better way of adding lecterns to the game. Instead of making it some kind of elite mystical podium, just make a flat surface that displays an open book. And instead of being redundant with held books by just opening the same GUI, make it a sign you can change by clicking.
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That's pretty cool! The width of everything looks about right. How deep is the water in the canals?
For stairs, are you thinking about actually using stairs or just having diagonal paths of blocks? I could see both working, maybe side by side for variety. Do the towers have stairs in them too?
Another idea that might be cool is waterfalls. Would it be hard to have some canals end at a cliff, and have the water fall down and land in another canal below it at a randomized distance down?
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I was imagining that people would be forced to use daggers, if the map designer/server owner didn't want them to have swords. It usually wouldn't be something you choose to do.
For example, if the game had no crafting they might just have to use daggers because that was all they were given.
Or if it was an adventure server with crafting, you could have command blocks automatically replace all swords with daggers, to make sure players cannot use them to break leaves.
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This wouldn't remove swords from adventure mode. You could still use those, if the map allowed you to.
If you could tag weapons to give them custom attributes like that it would be better admittedly.
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I suggest adding Daggers to the game to fill this role. A dagger would function identically to a sword with two additional weaknesses:
1) It cannot break any block in adventure mode (your server's trees are safe!)
2) It deals one less heart of damage than a sword of the same material (good for tougher battles!)
Like swords, daggers would come in wood/stone/iron/diamond, and could be enchanted for additional damage and effects.
Daggers would be craftable in survival mode, and would be cheaper than swords, costing only a stick and one of their respective resource rather than two. There usually wouldn't be a good reason to make one though, despite the cheaper cost. For example, a diamond dagger would only deal 3 hearts of damage, the same as a stone sword, and it would cost a diamond instead of two cobblestone.
So people usually wouldn't make daggers, they'd be given them in adventure mode maps/servers. You do have the option of crafting them though, for an additional challenge.
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I do like the idea of being able to make it seem as though you carved the top and bottom of the block. What's a mystic temple without a rune inscribed floor?
As for durability, I think 3 uses per chisel is a good number. 1/3rd an iron ingot per carving (plus 1/3rd of a stick) seems like a fair price.
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Yeah, it should avoid any situation where letters magically float in midair. So stairs wouldn't be valid. Neither would things like slabs, torches, etc. If it's a full block though like glass or even ice that should be fine.
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I think carving transparent blocks makes sense (etched glass is a real thing), but you're probably right that it shouldn't work on soft blocks like sand, wool, gravel, dirt, etc.
The single use of the chisel is meant to balance them against signs. If you could use the chisel over and over again, then this could potentially be much cheaper and compact than using signs. I consider this a higher tier of sign, which deserves a greater expense.
If it's possible to create a block with no hitbox, then I'd support needing to break the block the carving is on, or placing another block in the carvings space to destroy it.
Maybe it could have 3 uses?
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The text color would vary depending on which block it is on, so it appears like a real carving. For example on stone, clay, or glass the text would be dark gray, on wood it would be dark brown.
To place a carving you would need a new tool, the chisel, which can be crafted out of one stick and one iron ingot. Right clicking on a block with a chisel opens up a GUI to leave a carving. However this wears away the chisel, only allowing one use. A carving can be broken just like signs, but drops nothing, as though you were smoothing out the block it was on. So carvings are rather expensive, an iron ingot each, but well worth it considering the versatility and decorative use.
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Nothing super expensive, since it's just another form of switch. Perhaps crafting powered rail together with a a stone press plate?
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Tilt Rail is pretty simple. When a minecart carrying a passenger passes over tilt rail, the passenger can press the arrow keys in the direction of either side of the rail. The side they press towards receives a redstone signal, as if the player were tilting the cart to trigger a switch on that side of the rail.
For example let's say this is a track with a piece of tilt rail in the middle. A minecart is traveling north:
The player is facing forward and presses the left arrow key. The tilt rail would power the left block, like so:
If the player pressed right instead, or was facing backwards when they pressed left, the other side would receive power:
This would let you steer the Minecart, and do things like pick which of two directions to travel in. You could also use it to trigger other devices on the side of the road.
Regardless of which direction the player chooses to power, if any, the block below the rail is always powered when a cart with passenger goes over it. That would allow you to sense players and mobs in carts, without detecting things like chest minecarts.
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Well, that particular idea would be very expensive. Mojang could always choose to donate those particular accounts though, since this would be a beneficial service all Minecraft players could benefit from, or many players that want that service could chip in. Or players could volunteer their own heads to serve as letters, and be ok with a bot controlling what letter their head looks like.
But there are plenty of uses for just one head. A clock displaying the current real world hour. A bush that's budding in spring, green in summer, orange in fall, and dead in winter. Etc.
1
Player heads are very useful in decoration. I've seen them used as tiny chests, tiny cactus heads, tiny lamps, all kinds of things. You can upload any texture you want to serve as a player's head skin.
What if we created some Minecraft accounts controlled by bots, that are capable of changing their skin in order to alter heads in game? That would be a way of taking data from the outside world and putting it into Minecraft
For example, imagine a head that looks like a day calendar and displays the real date. Every morning the bot would switch it to a new texture, so the numbers on the head are actually displaying the real date.
Or example a bot that automatically checks Jeb's twitter feed, and switches the textures of a bunch of heads so each one matches a different letter in his post. Then you could have a billboard in game made up of 140 heads that actually displays whatever Jeb's most recent tweet is.
Like I said, this isn't something for Mojang to do. It's something that a fan would have to make. It isn't even technically a mod, since it's just vanilla Minecraft being used.
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