The changes to rendering and block handling are precisely the technical improvements we want. The 1.5-1.7 codebase is super manual and really error prone. The 1.8 codebase absolutely is more complex, but that complexity makes it way more robust. I'd much rather have more complex development up front that covers my ass in the long term than deal with doing everything manually in a super error-prone way in versions before 1.8. The custom block models are a side benefit, but definitely nice, since making custom block models for blocks before 1.8 is a pain in the ass.
Better than Wolves also makes huge optimizations and bugfixes to the vanilla codebase already, and once we update that will continue to happen.
/-- Gameplay --/
- Added the ability to chop melons into mashed melon with an axe in a crafting grid.
- Fixed an issue causing problems with animals being able to pathfind to eat by reverting the previous change to make animals stop eating while fleeing.
- Fixed an issue where fishing could work in much smaller than intended bodies of water in some circumstances.
- Fixed an issue where saplings would not grow into a tree after maturing.
- Fixed an issue where the daily growth flag was not being updated properly on saplings.
/-- Addon API --/
- Fixed an issue where PillarBlock was marked as client only.
- Fixed (hopefully) an issue where getBiomeGenForCoords was not available on server. This should fix a crash caused by BTA in multiplayer.
is there any possibility of a 1.7.10 version at any point in the future? it's fine if not
Technically, we will be updating to 1.7 at some point (currently working on an update to 1.6). However, it won't be on forge. It will likely continue in its current state of not using any API, but if we do end up moving the mod onto an API it will be legacy fabric (and this will likely happen on 1.8 - the main reason for updating is technical improvements, and 1.8 is likely the best version for us to land on for that)
This is a continuation of FlowerChild's Better than Wolves total conversion Minecraft mod. Its aim is to both recapture the feeling of that first time you played Minecraft, hiding in a dark hole on your first night with monsters all around, as well as extending gameplay by creating a deep tech tree that lets you slowly master your surroundings, as you craft windmills, kilns and crucibles and eventually reach steel production.
Better Than Wolves is trying to keep that old survival feel of versions past and therefore uses an old version of Minecraft: 1.5.2. This means that the installation is a bit different from most mods. Check out the wiki for installation instructions.
The Community Edition team would like to express its gratitude to all the people that have kept this community alive all these years:
FlowerChild, for making BTW
Dawnraider, for spreadheading the Community Edition effort
Sargunster, for keeping the forums and wiki online all these years
Sarudak, for moderating the forums
Zhil, for organizing the extended community and creating many of the build tools for CE
Arminias, for contributing architectural upgrades such as moving to fabric
Hiracho, for contributing significant work on design, features, and bugfixes
As well as a thanks the following people who have contributed time and effort to the community edition:
yany
IssaMe
rockoutwill
ExpHP
AnaRchX
Sockthing
cocona20xx
Furthermore, thanks to the following people who have provided translations for BTW:
Quanteus: Russian
Peakstep: Simplified Chinese
Sockthing: German
slzei: Turkish
Code and/or assets have also been used from the following sources:
MCPatcher by Kahr: Public Domain
πΊ What is Better Than Wolves?
Better Than Wolves is a "total conversion". This differs from most mods that you are probably used to in that it changes many of the rules of play to provide a richer experience, rather than just adding in new stuff. What makes it special however, is that it always attempts to do so in a way that retains the original spirit of the game, perhaps even more so than the newer official releases.
It focuses both on challenging survival play, and player creativity in terms of never providing "magic block" solutions to in game problems. Instead, it provides basic tools and leaves it to the player to figure out how to use them to get the job done.
In short, Better Than Wolves is a vision of what Minecraft could have been, designed by very serious players, for other like minded individuals.
π What Does Community Edition Mean?
Community Edition is the successor to FlowerChild's original mod. It is a direct continuation using FC's source code, developed by the community, and following FC's original vision for the mod. The primary focuses of CE are fixing some of the features and systems FlowerChild left incomplete when he left the mod, as well as providing bugfixes and quality of life improvements.
πΌοΈ Screenshots
π License
Better Than Wolves and its source code are made freely available under the creative commons attribution license:
You are free to modify and redistribute portions of BTW and its code as you wish, but I (FlowerChild) would appreciate acknowledgment if you do so. Keep in mind however that parts of BTW may be based on modified versions of Mojang's code and assets, and it is left to anyone redistributing portions of BTW to make sure they are appropriately considering Mojang's intellectual property and licensing as well.
ποΈ How do I obtain the source code?
- Download Minecraft Coder Pack (MCP) for 1.5.2
- Download the source code for a specific version from the releases page
- Unpack the source code in a folder
- Put mcp751.zip in this folder
- Run gradlew.bat (Windows) or ./gradlew (Shell)
This will take a few minutes and place the source code in the mcp/src folder.
π A Note About Compatibility
Because of the extremely large scope of Better than Wolves, it is monumentally unlikely for any mods not explicitly designed for Better than Wolves to be compatible. Due to the polished and self-contained design of BTW though, I personally don't think that's a bad thing as it creates a more curated experience for the player.
However, for those looking to expand their options beyond just BTW, there is a lively community of addon creators over on discord and the forums. These addons are designed to work with BTW and enhance the experience.
Anyone wishing to create an addon for BTW is free to do so. BTW CE has a built in addon API which will continue to be expanded in future releases.
π FlowerChild's Final Message to the Community
With today being the 10th anniversary of the first release of Better Than Wolves, and with the release of the source code, I feel it is a good time for me to say goodbye to the mod and its fans.
It's been a wild ride this last decade with plenty of highs and lows along the way, but it's clear to me this is a chapter I wish to bring to a close in my life. If I ask anything of the community in leaving, it is that you let me do so in peace and let me make a clean break with the mod and FlowerChild. After all this time, effort, and conflict, it is not something I wish to carry any longer and I hope you all will respect that.
Version 1.1.7 of Better than Wolves: Community Edition has been released! Download here
Thanks to the following people who contributed to this release!
- Dawnraider
- Zhil
/--General--/
- Fixed an issue where falling sand would generate an error on chunk generation.
/--Gameplay--/
- Fixed an issue where comparators had the wrong recipe.
- Fixed an issue where the game would crash when a platform began moving.
- Fixed an issue where the game could crash when a max level villager tried to refresh its trades.
Iβm sorry, but is there any reason for this mod to be made for 1.5.2? in 2021 no less? I donβt even know anyone who still plays 1.5.2 for mods. 1.6.4 or 1.7.10, yes. But 1.5.2?
Yeah 1.5.2 is a weird version to be on admittedly. It is the version on which FlowerChild stopped updating to modern versions of Minecraft due to divergence in design directions and to have a stable codebase to work from. Because of the extensive edits to the codebase, updating to a more recent version would be incredibly difficult to do. Not impossible, and there has been some discussion among the dev team about how to do it, but it is not something planned in the immediate future.
Because it is a total conversion, however, it's not feasible to use Better than Wolves with any other mods anyways, so I am not particularly concerned with updating for any reason besides engine upgrades.
1
The changes to rendering and block handling are precisely the technical improvements we want. The 1.5-1.7 codebase is super manual and really error prone. The 1.8 codebase absolutely is more complex, but that complexity makes it way more robust. I'd much rather have more complex development up front that covers my ass in the long term than deal with doing everything manually in a super error-prone way in versions before 1.8. The custom block models are a side benefit, but definitely nice, since making custom block models for blocks before 1.8 is a pain in the ass.
Better than Wolves also makes huge optimizations and bugfixes to the vanilla codebase already, and once we update that will continue to happen.
1
Version 2.0.4 has been released!
Download here
/-- Gameplay --/
- Added the ability to chop melons into mashed melon with an axe in a crafting grid.
- Fixed an issue causing problems with animals being able to pathfind to eat by reverting the previous change to make animals stop eating while fleeing.
- Fixed an issue where fishing could work in much smaller than intended bodies of water in some circumstances.
- Fixed an issue where saplings would not grow into a tree after maturing.
- Fixed an issue where the daily growth flag was not being updated properly on saplings.
/-- Addon API --/
- Fixed an issue where PillarBlock was marked as client only.
- Fixed (hopefully) an issue where getBiomeGenForCoords was not available on server. This should fix a crash caused by BTA in multiplayer.
Technically, we will be updating to 1.7 at some point (currently working on an update to 1.6). However, it won't be on forge. It will likely continue in its current state of not using any API, but if we do end up moving the mod onto an API it will be legacy fabric (and this will likely happen on 1.8 - the main reason for updating is technical improvements, and 1.8 is likely the best version for us to land on for that)
3
π· Better Than Wolves - Community Edition π·
This is a continuation of FlowerChild's Better than Wolves total conversion Minecraft mod. Its aim is to both recapture the feeling of that first time you played Minecraft, hiding in a dark hole on your first night with monsters all around, as well as extending gameplay by creating a deep tech tree that lets you slowly master your surroundings, as you craft windmills, kilns and crucibles and eventually reach steel production.
Better Than Wolves is trying to keep that old survival feel of versions past and therefore uses an old version of Minecraft: 1.5.2. This means that the installation is a bit different from most mods. Check out the wiki for installation instructions.
π Links
* Download β Installation
* Github Repository
* Report a bug
* Forums β Wiki β Discord
* Original Wolves Are a Bad Idea Thread
* Original Better Than Wolves Thread
π A word of gratitude
The Community Edition team would like to express its gratitude to all the people that have kept this community alive all these years:
As well as a thanks the following people who have contributed time and effort to the community edition:
Furthermore, thanks to the following people who have provided translations for BTW:
Code and/or assets have also been used from the following sources:
πΊ What is Better Than Wolves?
Better Than Wolves is a "total conversion". This differs from most mods that you are probably used to in that it changes many of the rules of play to provide a richer experience, rather than just adding in new stuff. What makes it special however, is that it always attempts to do so in a way that retains the original spirit of the game, perhaps even more so than the newer official releases.
It focuses both on challenging survival play, and player creativity in terms of never providing "magic block" solutions to in game problems. Instead, it provides basic tools and leaves it to the player to figure out how to use them to get the job done.
In short, Better Than Wolves is a vision of what Minecraft could have been, designed by very serious players, for other like minded individuals.
π What Does Community Edition Mean?
Community Edition is the successor to FlowerChild's original mod. It is a direct continuation using FC's source code, developed by the community, and following FC's original vision for the mod. The primary focuses of CE are fixing some of the features and systems FlowerChild left incomplete when he left the mod, as well as providing bugfixes and quality of life improvements.
πΌοΈ Screenshots
π License
Better Than Wolves and its source code are made freely available under the creative commons attribution license:
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
A note from FlowerChild about licensing:
ποΈ How do I obtain the source code?
- Download Minecraft Coder Pack (MCP) for 1.5.2
- Download the source code for a specific version from the releases page
- Unpack the source code in a folder
- Put mcp751.zip in this folder
- Run gradlew.bat (Windows) or ./gradlew (Shell)
This will take a few minutes and place the source code in the mcp/src folder.
π A Note About Compatibility
Because of the extremely large scope of Better than Wolves, it is monumentally unlikely for any mods not explicitly designed for Better than Wolves to be compatible. Due to the polished and self-contained design of BTW though, I personally don't think that's a bad thing as it creates a more curated experience for the player.
However, for those looking to expand their options beyond just BTW, there is a lively community of addon creators over on discord and the forums. These addons are designed to work with BTW and enhance the experience.
Anyone wishing to create an addon for BTW is free to do so. BTW CE has a built in addon API which will continue to be expanded in future releases.
π FlowerChild's Final Message to the Community
1
Version 1.1.7 of Better than Wolves: Community Edition has been released!
Download here
Thanks to the following people who contributed to this release!
- Dawnraider
- Zhil
/--General--/
- Fixed an issue where falling sand would generate an error on chunk generation.
/--Gameplay--/
- Fixed an issue where comparators had the wrong recipe.
- Fixed an issue where the game would crash when a platform began moving.
- Fixed an issue where the game could crash when a max level villager tried to refresh its trades.
Yeah 1.5.2 is a weird version to be on admittedly. It is the version on which FlowerChild stopped updating to modern versions of Minecraft due to divergence in design directions and to have a stable codebase to work from. Because of the extensive edits to the codebase, updating to a more recent version would be incredibly difficult to do. Not impossible, and there has been some discussion among the dev team about how to do it, but it is not something planned in the immediate future.
Because it is a total conversion, however, it's not feasible to use Better than Wolves with any other mods anyways, so I am not particularly concerned with updating for any reason besides engine upgrades.