Minecraft Forums

It's been pointed out by many forum readers that this is a hoax. They are not completely wrong. I will clear up what happened and what didn't.

• Most importantly, the screenshots are fake and are from a recreation
• The experiment took place during Beta 1.3.X, the screenshots are from Minecraft 1.2.5
• The merchants guild wasn't as successful as the story says, they were however the only structure left standing.
• Most of the fortresses actually took 4 or 5 weeks to completely decay even though the world was scarred horribly
• The nether was encased in a 42x42 bedrock wall to disable travel via portals so it wasn't as profitable to the players as originally suggested.
• The griefers base had been broken into a few times but they held off successfully, near the end they spent all their time defending though.
• Cobblestone generators weren't considered because people were still surrounded by stone.
• The bottom of the map was an endless maze of 2x1 tunnels which were amazing to explore
• I had hosted the server for 2 months because as an university student that's all I could afford. I can't access the map any more and due to modding I've lost my screenshots of the real thing a long time ago

I never thought to share this experiment until months ago and by then the story needing embellishing to seem relevant and interesting. I don't regret what I did because it's inspired many people to take the experiment into their own hands with new implications that reflect the real world.

If you were to catch a glimpse of this world you would figure that someone got out of control with TNT and made a giant scar of the whole world. The results look very similar. It’s something even scarier though. Something worse. What you’re looking at is the result of human interaction with limited resources. In a very coordinated experiment 30 players spent 2-5 hours playing in a 350x350 world trapped in bedrock. To keep everything fair the server was only running when everyone was available to play. These screenshots come from 2 months after the experiment started. I would personally like to thank everyone that participated (who wished to stay anonymous). To make things more organized world chat use was discouraged unless you had a global message. Communication was to be minimal and done through third party programs. The limited/restricted communication made groups/clans/guilds possible.


The players were unaware of what I was testing; they went into the server with the following rule: “Never leave the bedrock walls”. Some players realized the challenge at hand immediately, but most were unaware of how devastating the consequences of their actions would be. First resource to go was clay, clay became completely depleted in three days. Brick houses did not last long and in most cases were impossible to complete. The loss of a resource such as clay was a small warning most players missed. In the first week trees became rare. Trees never left the map completely but wood being an essential part of game progression in Minecraft made saplings worth more. This is the point in the game where players banded together into smaller groups with the goal of working together to build stuff. Four large clans emerged. “The Brotherhood”, “The Axe”, “The Dwarves” and the most successful “Merchant’s Guild”. During this time they co-existed peacefully with minor fights over trees and saplings, most did well with their own tree farms. Strip mining began. Resources like iron were abundant and most got wasted into weapons and armor. During this time iron was running out and the only practical use of it was buckets/pickaxes for diamond and doors were plausible due to the need for protection. It should be obvious that Diamonds only use was obsidian which would be a great for protection. Diamonds being extremely rare made them already valuable, but the players being aware that the supply was limited made it a rush to find them as fast as possible. Within 2 weeks production was flying. There was a local Nether Portal which was useful because it supplied an endless resource to build with that had no repercussions upon the map. The portal didn’t make it a week, soon the obsidian was stolen by The Brotherhood and used in there castle. The Merchant’s Guild made a quick profit off of this by having the only optional Nether Portal while resources like diamonds became rarer. The Merchants Guild was efficient and used trade to strive in this harsh world. They would trade netherack/cobblestone/rare ores for usable materials such as saplings/wood/dirt/string/wool/sand/etc.


3 weeks into the expirment flowers were gone forever, sand was deplete making glass rare and hard to replace, and obsidian was un-minable for most players due to a lack of diamond. The players resorted to war to find diamonds. The four clans raided each other bases and griefed each other. This war went on for a few days and The Axe had lost their castle completely. The Brotherhood had to rebuild a very broken town. The Dwarves took minimal damage due to their underground sub-systems and the difficult nature to destroy caves. The Merchant’s Guild took no damage because they won over their fights with complex trade agreements and treaties. At this point The Axe had disbanded. Their members took to their own trying to make it on their own. This left a lot of griefing for trees and trade with the Merchant’s Guild abundant. Only two people were clearly ahead at this point, (aside from the merchant’s guild doing well too). They earned the name (pardon the language), the ****-ass griefers. These two players had immediately realized what would happen to the map on day one and began to construct an easily defendable a base that was self-sufficient and renewable. They built there base on a giant dirt platform in the sky. They made it come off of a mountain so the grass would grow onto it. When the grass had grown onto their base (A few days in), they had already acquired the needed materials for sticky pistons and buckets. They created a water elevator that could be toggled with the pistons and began destroying the mountain. They dug all the earth out from around them and made their base impossible to reach without the use of the water elevator or towering up. From the first week in they began systematically depleting resources in a way that would set the other players behind. Glass windows were broken, trees and saplings were stolen, massive amounts of dirt were farmed (the importance of this will be revealed later) and they used their power to persuade the other players. The Merchant’s Guild paid an anti-griefing tax by supplying the ****-ass griefers with materials that were rare or hard to find. It started with trees/iron/diamond and by the end of the experiment it was things like arrows/flint/string. Four weeks in strip mines had torn open a lot of the land, water was running all over the place (most people lacked buckets) and the most game-breaking element occurred; dirt was being lost. Well not dirt itself in entirety, but the good surface dirt. The dirt with GRASS on it. At this point players forgot about trees and mining but wars over surfaces with grass broke out. The Dwarves even showed interest and tried to create establishments on the surface but had trouble handling holding ground. The Merchant’s Guild had not thought ahead but began gathering as many drops from animals spawned on grass to be traded as rarities in the future. The brotherhood held a small section of grass off from griefers the most successfully. The ****-ass griefers had no trouble with this because there base was situated upon a giant floating chuck of grass, so they made it their mission to destroy all grass on the map and reserve the power of food to themselves only. The Brotherhood held their small piece of grass but were defending constantly and as a result their base became very broken and they rebuilt in a way to defend the dirt only.


Five weeks into the experiment a lot of players had lost the will to play. Most players resorted to staying underground and endless 2x1 tunnels were formed, giant chasms were found by players overmining and ultimately a large majority of cobblestone was lost through lava and the players fighting each other. Due to massive mining to and strip mines the corner of the map supporting the ****-ass griefers base sunk farther and farther down to the bedrock, leaving a noticeable drop in elevation between the two corners of the map. Buildings made out of dirt started showing up on the torn earth because most players lacked the resources to make pickaxes and couldn’t meet the prices of the Merchant’s Guild. These buildings were built with the only purpose of protection from monsters at night since the map became un-survivable during the night. At this point the large loss of land in the bottom half the map did one purpose. Eliminate the dwarves who were housed there. (I still can’t believe the amount of stone removed and lost in that area, It’s a devastating amount and continued until the 2 months were up). At this point a cycle was emerged, the players were fighting for the last bit of grass on the map (disregarding the griefers base that was inaccessible). But most of them were either trying to mine cobblestone for more trade with the Merchant’s Guild for sticks for more pickaxes or trying to survive the night in dirt houses. It was a vicious cycle that was barely profitable. But a pattern did emerge. The players were effectively working together to survive the night. While there was still rampant war and grief the players that had little had banded together to try to survive the harsh environment.


The experiment was up before more testing could be done, but I ask you. If the walls were torn down one day and the players were free to the unlimited resources of Minecraft how would they react? Do you think they would work together and try to keep all the resources balanced or would they play the same way without regard for their environment or each other? Though in Minecrafts infinite world it would be impossible to destroy everything, do you think the disaster would slowly re-occur? I think this experiment has been a successful statement on the human condition and human interaction with the environment.

The picture above is the Merchant's Guild with it's iron doors open.

The above view with the only glass on the map.

The only bit of grass open to the whole map at the remains of The Brotherhood

The remains of "The Axe"

****-ass Griefers base

The broken nether portal

One of the few strip mines that didn't disappear in the loss of the world.

A picture depicting the large scale of difference in elevation.

This experiment had unbelievable results.

[represent]

The reason there is surface minerals is because at a certain point most people didn't have the ability to mine anything, the torches are missing from most locations because they were stolen and eventually lost underground or in various places. The griefers were systematic, often leaving one to defend and one to harass. People did break in but since the griefers had superior weapons/armor they never lost a fight and often harvested the tower used to get in their base. Netherack had disappeared because the griefers would farm it from peoples houses and then give it back to the merchant's guild to keep the other players in an endless struggle. The Merchant's Guild has torches, in fact you can see them in the above view. I understand if you doubt the experiment as the results are very hard to comprehend. If I didn't witness it first hand I would hope that this was a hoax too.

I was thinking about making the map available for download. Any interest?

If your curious it would be about a 50x50 area for each player to build in. While the competition element drives the destruction I think it could be worth trying to restraint yourself to a 50x50 area and see how it works.

Quote from gompasta

It would be interesting to see how it works with twice the players and twice the map size. Would it turn out the same?

I think it would repeat at a slower pace.

wow that is insane. After looking at that i really don't think SMP would be all that successful if it weren't for infinite maps.

I think it could provide an experience that is more fun than regular SMP though. It forces conflict in a game that has none.

1a: The reliance on the wiki/community.









1b: How to fix it.







2a: The difficulty.







2b: How to fix it.

-Make health and mob damage the same across all difficulty levels.

-Remove the ability to change difficulty modes mid-game.

-Do more things like the "zombies can break down doors in hard". THIS actually makes for difficulty- mob intelligence. Preferably, make zombies able to break down doors in normal.

-Add more mechanics that are changed via difficulty.

-Make normal harder than the current game, and hard truly difficult. Easy should be about as easy as it currently is (which is actually very easy).

-Give mobs a lot more abilities. Zombies that can turn villagers into zombies, make zombies not de-spawn in hard, allow spiders to hang upside down, etc. Then adjust whether these abilities work or not depending on game-mode.






3a: The mobs.










3b: How to fix it.

-Give mobs a longer sight range. WAY longer. If I can see them, they should be able to see me. Like, 128 blocks long. Automatically, they become more of a threat with this- besides, it's just a stupid generic MMORPG thing where mobs only see you within X distance. KILLS the idea of them being threatening.

-Make zombies- at the very least- faster. They're such a joke right now. And I don't mean on "hard" difficulty, I mean for ALL difficulty modes. They should be as fast as the player.

-Make creepers only spawn underground. Having them spawn aboveground is just... it kills tension, and ruins the image they have of "scary" even more. They're only remotely threatening underground- keep them this way.

-Make it so mobs only spawn in a light level of 4 or less, rather than 8 or less. This makes it so they only spawn in dense areas of forests, jungles, or underground. I've personally played around with this myself, and holy crap it feels great.

-Make spiders able to crawl upside down, and also make them actually change their image when they're doing this (as well as crawling upside down). Seriously, they look upright when crawling up walls... that's just silly, and lazy.

-Put in those planned mob prefixes- as in, mobs that randomly spawn with special effects/abilities. Things like being faster, able to light the player on fire, able to jump higher, able to be 3x as big, able to bounce projectiles back at the player, etc... there's tons of ideas for this. They shouldn't spawn ALL the time, but maybe a 1-in-10 chance to have a prefix (where the prefix itself is random). In of itself, this makes the world more dynamic.

-Make more biome-specific mobs. As in, enemy mobs- not more pets. They should have a use, but then it's not like zombies have any real use. I'd suggest that new mobs be able to drop items used for new potions, or something. This'd make biomes waaay nicer to go to, and is in line with the next section.

-Make slimes spawn above-ground, holy crap. They're important mobs, but tediously searching for them underground is INSANELY ANNOYING. I'd suggest making them spawn in swamps- the "only spawns in certain chunks" thing is alright, but still. They should spawn aboveground.

-Make new mobs drop items useful for the general game- again, ingredients for unique potions is a fantastic idea. Or just... other things that are truly unique (instead of more variations of the same crap).






4a: The biomes and terrain in general.








4b: How to fix it.

-Have more unique, biome-only rewards. Things like ingredients for new potions- USEFUL new potions. Hell, lilypads could be used for a "Potion of Water Walking". Things like this make biomes useful to travel to.

-As per above, more biome-specific mobs. Not "SssSand creeper (:", or mummies that are zombies with a different skin, or something equally dumb. I mean a mob that's really different from the other ones still, and give unique item drops. Snakes that are the size of silverfish, but can poison you, and only attack you if you get pretty close to them. Sharks that only spawn in ocean biomes, and drop shark fins used for... some water-based potion. Things like this. I could go on for hours, but I'd rather make a mod to show how it can be done.

-Make trees taller. Seriously, they look like crap. I've already doubled the height of oaks and birch, and they look great (like they always should have looked). Pine/spruce look alright, though.

-Make use of the extra space you now have. This just infuriates me. First off, make the earth deeper- make it ~90 blocks instead of 63. This means, yes, making everything generate higher to match this, but this is fine. Then, make mountains (extreme hills) generate higher than just 64 blocks from the sea level (127 - 63 = 64). With the average sea level of 90, the average mountain should go up to ~200 (110 rather than 64 blocks from sea level). This still gives 56 blocks for players to build on top of the mountains. This is plenty to build a multi-level mansion with roof space. From the peak.

-Make a proper pre-requisite system to biome generation- right now, it's pretty much entirely random where biomes spawn, so you have taigas next to deserts, etc. They should use a flowchart of sorts- getting which biome is there, then deciding which biome(s) to generate around it depending on whether or not it would be appropriate to place it there. This wouldn't be too hard to implement, and would make things look a lot better. This also relies upon more biomes being put in (for more "transitional" biomes, like savanna between plains and desert), but that's kind've a given.

-As mentioned above, more biomes. Not just for the sake of having them, of course- but by now, that should also be a given. Things like Savanna's, Bogs, Marshlands, Hills (Just hills, not extreme hills... which should be renamed to mountains, anyway), Badlands, and plenty more. All of which have some use, and all of which should look different.

-Variations of existing biomes. Things like spruce forests (not just in taiga's anymore), rocky mountains (all stone instead of grass/dirt), forest mountain (think eastern United States) and so on would be nice. Variations of stone types would help, as well- brown, dark grey, etc. Similar to the variations in wood.

-Make plains more flat. Right now, they're basically hills, and that's a little silly. Make a hills biome, splitting it from the plains biome.

-Deserts shouldn't have pools of water in them. This is just stupid. Players should have to use desert wells for water here.

-Make dirt/grass slabs (again), then use it for generating hills. It's silly that I have to jump up just to go over a hill. Just have the slabs generate every other block on hills, or something, and it'd work fine.





5a: Lack of equipment choice.














5b: How to fix it.

-Add in "Knockback" as a weapon stat. At the same time, add "knockback resistance" to armor, with heavier armor having more knockback resistance. Mobs should also have varying levels of knockback resistance- skeletons could be easy to knock back, but zombies would be harder. Generally speaking, it should be harder to knock things back than it is right now.

-Add an attack speed stat for weapons. The fastest should be the default attack speed (which is 3 per second IIRC). Pretty straightforward-

-Make new weapons. Battle axes, maces, spears, crossbows- all of that, and preferably more. Give them unique levels of of those 3 stats (Damage, knockback, and attack speed). Then, give them unique secondary abilities (right click)- spears can be thrown, maces can stun, and so on. Maybe even make different weapons have another ability- spears could hit 1 block farther than regular weapons, etc. Tons of ideas, and as long as they're balanced, they'd be fantastic.

-Increase default sprint speed. Then, divide armor into different "armor classes", or assign them different "weight" levels. The better the armor, the heavier it is- heavy armor would make you sprint slower, and after a certain point, you'd be unable to sprint with really heavy armor. It should also disable certain other abilities (again, more on this later) after certain points. This would make going without armor fairly viable- just the same, going in full armor would mean you'd not be knocked back nearly as easily (and plus still be a juggernaut).

-Add more material types. Not just "dragon ore! better than diamond, but is really hard to get (:", because mods that do this are stupid as hell. I mean things within the bounds of iron or diamond- with unique uses. A "fire" ore that makes your weapons able to set things on fire with a set chance. Or tools that allows you to cook ores/etc you mine with a certain chance. And the armor can reduce fire damage, and with the full set can make you immune to it. But it'd be slightly worse than iron- better than stone/leather, but still a bit worse than iron. And that's just one new material type- there's so many more ideas. GOOD ideas, not just ideas that add more to "hurr tier 6 elite ultra dragon equipment!1".





6a: Lack of player abilities







6b: How to fix it.








7a: The community is terrible.












7b: How to fix it.


















"Use mods."


"Minecraft is not an RPG."


"Players should be given the choice to play the game exactly as they want to."


"The game is about building, not fighting."


"The game is fine."


"Your changes are crap. They wouldn't make the game better."