Most the suggestions I've read about this are nonsensical. I too just spent several long weeks digging an underground fortress at bedrock level. Once 1.8 comes out I'll be ****ed.
Here's a suggestion that should make everyone happy: Make it a damn option. It can be an option in the video settings or a server option.
How hard is that? People who like going blind at deep levels can enjoy feeling like a bat, while the rest of us who live in the real world and enjoy our games imitating some form of reality can enjoy seeing how a normal human being would see with torches in a cave.
Complaint: This "effect" really has no basis in reality. There is no deep fog or black dust at deeper levels, as long as you have sufficient light you can see the same distance be it 1 meter underground or 1000. Also, before people chime in with "BUT ITS A GAME IT MAKES IT'S OWN RULES" I should say that while I don't expect everything to be a simulation of real life mining, some consistency is nice. How my character moves and views the world I expect to be more or less the same as how I do, it's what makes the game believable. Once you start adding in things like black fog or depth of field (another personal pet peeve of mine) then it starts pulling me out of that world and I'm not sure this effect is worth it.
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Here's a suggestion that should make everyone happy: Make it a damn option. It can be an option in the video settings or a server option.
How hard is that? People who like going blind at deep levels can enjoy feeling like a bat, while the rest of us who live in the real world and enjoy our games imitating some form of reality can enjoy seeing how a normal human being would see with torches in a cave.
Complaint: This "effect" really has no basis in reality. There is no deep fog or black dust at deeper levels, as long as you have sufficient light you can see the same distance be it 1 meter underground or 1000. Also, before people chime in with "BUT ITS A GAME IT MAKES IT'S OWN RULES" I should say that while I don't expect everything to be a simulation of real life mining, some consistency is nice. How my character moves and views the world I expect to be more or less the same as how I do, it's what makes the game believable. Once you start adding in things like black fog or depth of field (another personal pet peeve of mine) then it starts pulling me out of that world and I'm not sure this effect is worth it.