Minecraft is all about emergent gameplay. I think the coolest way to implement this is to just allow players to construct a flag that can be easily taken down and shows up on the player model when in you inventory. That way you don't have to play capture the flag all the time, you can just be like, hey guise want to play CtF and they'd be like HELL YEH! so you craaft flags and do it up.
Sounds solid but this would still be harder to organize than a dedicated CTF mode. Players joining regular survival servers may or may not want to play CTF, while everyone joining a CTF server obviously want to. Also some features like even teams, a system to keep score and fair maps that would be in CTF help streamline the game and make it more fun.
With Minecraft multiplayer here and beta approaching, a lot of people have come up with ideas for new game modes. Well it's my turn to throw my hat in the ring, the hat being the legendary game mode of CTF. We're all looking forward to exciting and challenging raids on forts and castles, so why not include a separate game mode that quickens the pace of gameplay and adds an objective. Griefers are probably going to be a problem in SMP no matter how hard we try, and getting together the people required for a raid and defense of a fortification will take a lot of organization. With CTF people organization will be much easier and those we consider griefers in SMP will be attackers in CTF.
It's classic capture the flag with randomly generated environments, player-made forts and endless ways to play. What's not to like?
Gameplay
Players joining the server will be split into 2 teams (red and blue for simplicity.) The map type will be chosen by a server admin and then randomly generated according to his settings (more on maps below.) Then a brief countdown timer will start. Upon reaching 0 the players would spawn with their team at their flag's location and the game will begin.
Flags will be a unique block that can only picked up by the enemy team. This means that you will not be able to move your flag when it spawns and have to adapt your defense around it. The block under the flag is indestructible and immobile, while building on top of the flag is prohibited. To pick one up you must destroy it like any other block. Flags are destroyed with 1 hit by any item. Flags are touch-return meaning your flag will return to it's original location when a teammate touches it. To capture a flag you must bring it back to your own, so completely sealing off your flag from all sides is not a smart idea. First team to X captures or the team with the most captures after Y times elapses wins.
Apart from this, the game will function like regular Minecraft. You will use materials to build your defense and craft items and equipment to attack the enemy with. There will be a short 5-10 second respawn timer after each death (the closer you were to your flag the longer the wait.) This is so defenders don't immediately respawn on top of attackers who just managed to breach the fort, while also rewarding players who venture out further with a shorter wait. Upon death all items you were carrying will be removed from the game, minus the flag which will be dropped where you died. This is so defenders can't become perpetually stronger by killing the attackers and looting their gear. Throwing items, however, will remain as normal so you can throw your buddy some pork for example.
Players on the same team will share objects such as the workbench, furnace, chests and others. Anyone can craft from a workbench made by a teammate, anyone can supply or use a teammate's furnace and chests are used by your entire team. This will help ensure a faster pace of gameplay as you will need one or maybe 2 workbenches/furnaces per team as opposed to every player having to craft their own.
Mobs will spawn in CTF just like in a regular game as they are required for essential materials like gunpowder, string, leather, feathers and pork. They will follow the same rules as a regular game; hostile mobs will only spawn in dark places so you don't get a creeper randomly blowing up your fort. Hostile mobs will attack whatever player is closest to them regardless of team or position on the map. If need be skeletons can be prevented from spawning as they are the most annoying enemy and don't drop any necessary item when the die.
Maps
Maps in CTF will be randomly generated, finite and semi-mirrored. This means that maps will generate similar terrain for both teams so that they are symmetrical in theme, have similar amounts of space and resources but are not identical in execution. They will be finite so players don't get lost and there isn't really a reason for infinite maps for this game mode. Maps will also be generated so that players can walk from one flag to the other without having to break or place additional blocks (this can be removed it it proves too difficult.)
What I meant by "symmetrical in theme" is that if the map chosen is an island type, both teams will spawn on a similar but not identical island. This should prevent any imbalances the map generator could make like having one team start on an island and the other on top of a cliff. Some ideas for map themes are listed below:
Islands.
Teams start on an island with few resources. Islands with additional resources are scattered around the map. The use of boats and the cover of darkness is impeccable to infiltrating the enemy island.
Hill.
Teams start on the low ground with a large hill in the middle of the map. Resources are plentiful but most teams must compete for the central hill underneath which most of the stone and ore is to be found.
Valley.
Opposite of hill. Teams start on the high ground and must cross the low ground to attack one another. Defenders have the high ground advantage but must move out to the middle for additional resources.
Lowland.
A dense forest split in two by a large river. Trees and wild animals are plentiful while stone is scarce. Lots of wood means a quickly setup fort but not a very strong one, so a fast rush is your best bet.
Cliffs.
Extreme version of valley. Teams start on massive cliffs that will slow down attackers. Stone and ore are plentiful within the cliffs but beware of enemy tunnelers trying to dig their way into your base.
Cavern.
Deep within a mountain where lava lakes are common place. Each team has a small path to the surface where trees and animals can be found. Even rare ores are found here.
Floating islands.
Teams spawn on on of two massive floating islands. The islands are connected by only a few narrow bridges so it's in your best interest to build some more. Unfortunately, the other team can also use them. Watch your step when crossing: one slip is certain death.
Final Words
If you're still reading, I hope you enjoyed. If not, here's a quick summary:
Players are divided into team, each with their own flag. Players then build fortifications to defend their flag and equipment to destroy the other team's fortifications to capture the enemy flag. All the materials and crafting recipes in normal Minecraft are present in CTF so it's easy to play. Mobs spawn just like in survival mode for the double benefit of a little more chaos for both teams and mob-specific loot like pork and gunpowder essential for an assault. Maps are mirrored by themes like islands or valley but are not entirely symmetrical so each time you play it's a new experience.
I hope to get lots of feedback so I can improve my proposal. Even if you think something like this won't work in Minecraft please say why so I can change some things or try to convince you. Thanks for reading !
Rarely get lost. Got an awesome spawn right under a huge floating island where I made my home base. With a tower up there and using the sun/moon/clouds to direct myself it's pretty easy to find my way back.
I suggest you should just play multiplayer as there is no need for NPCs and their function does not justify the work needed to implement them. Combat is very easy even on the hardest difficulty so there's no need for guards. Merchants don't provide anything I can't get myself. In essence they'd just be for decoration.
Enough land-based passive mobs imo. If we want harmless fish or something that would be a good idea but we don't need the entire animal kingdom in Minecraft.
I don't think we need a third way to get feathers, especially when they're not really useful. I'm all for new mobs but they should have some purpose other than just being there.
Oh ok that clears it up at least, but it's still very counter-intuitive. If the pick is too weak shouldn't it simply not be able to mine the material? The current method tricks the player into thinking it's going to work and then making it look like a bug. Anyways thanks for the help, hopefully other people don't run into the same issue.
Gold is the same as Wood. Gold is a weak metal in real life and it's the same in Minecraft. Please check the Wiki next time.
I don't understand. If gold was weak then shouldn't the pick have broken when I tried to mine diamond with it? Maybe I wasn't clear but the ore was successfully mined, it's just that the diamond didn't appear in my inventory, was not on the ground and there were no holes nearby for it to fall into.
I once broke the cardinal rule of mining: never mine the space directly beneath your feet. Turns out that innocent piece of stone was hiding a pitfall into a room of creepers and spiders. Death followed shortly after.
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Sounds solid but this would still be harder to organize than a dedicated CTF mode. Players joining regular survival servers may or may not want to play CTF, while everyone joining a CTF server obviously want to. Also some features like even teams, a system to keep score and fair maps that would be in CTF help streamline the game and make it more fun.
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With Minecraft multiplayer here and beta approaching, a lot of people have come up with ideas for new game modes. Well it's my turn to throw my hat in the ring, the hat being the legendary game mode of CTF. We're all looking forward to exciting and challenging raids on forts and castles, so why not include a separate game mode that quickens the pace of gameplay and adds an objective. Griefers are probably going to be a problem in SMP no matter how hard we try, and getting together the people required for a raid and defense of a fortification will take a lot of organization. With CTF people organization will be much easier and those we consider griefers in SMP will be attackers in CTF.
It's classic capture the flag with randomly generated environments, player-made forts and endless ways to play. What's not to like?
Players joining the server will be split into 2 teams (red and blue for simplicity.) The map type will be chosen by a server admin and then randomly generated according to his settings (more on maps below.) Then a brief countdown timer will start. Upon reaching 0 the players would spawn with their team at their flag's location and the game will begin.
Flags will be a unique block that can only picked up by the enemy team. This means that you will not be able to move your flag when it spawns and have to adapt your defense around it. The block under the flag is indestructible and immobile, while building on top of the flag is prohibited. To pick one up you must destroy it like any other block. Flags are destroyed with 1 hit by any item. Flags are touch-return meaning your flag will return to it's original location when a teammate touches it. To capture a flag you must bring it back to your own, so completely sealing off your flag from all sides is not a smart idea. First team to X captures or the team with the most captures after Y times elapses wins.
Apart from this, the game will function like regular Minecraft. You will use materials to build your defense and craft items and equipment to attack the enemy with. There will be a short 5-10 second respawn timer after each death (the closer you were to your flag the longer the wait.) This is so defenders don't immediately respawn on top of attackers who just managed to breach the fort, while also rewarding players who venture out further with a shorter wait. Upon death all items you were carrying will be removed from the game, minus the flag which will be dropped where you died. This is so defenders can't become perpetually stronger by killing the attackers and looting their gear. Throwing items, however, will remain as normal so you can throw your buddy some pork for example.
Players on the same team will share objects such as the workbench, furnace, chests and others. Anyone can craft from a workbench made by a teammate, anyone can supply or use a teammate's furnace and chests are used by your entire team. This will help ensure a faster pace of gameplay as you will need one or maybe 2 workbenches/furnaces per team as opposed to every player having to craft their own.
Mobs will spawn in CTF just like in a regular game as they are required for essential materials like gunpowder, string, leather, feathers and pork. They will follow the same rules as a regular game; hostile mobs will only spawn in dark places so you don't get a creeper randomly blowing up your fort. Hostile mobs will attack whatever player is closest to them regardless of team or position on the map. If need be skeletons can be prevented from spawning as they are the most annoying enemy and don't drop any necessary item when the die.
Maps in CTF will be randomly generated, finite and semi-mirrored. This means that maps will generate similar terrain for both teams so that they are symmetrical in theme, have similar amounts of space and resources but are not identical in execution. They will be finite so players don't get lost and there isn't really a reason for infinite maps for this game mode. Maps will also be generated so that players can walk from one flag to the other without having to break or place additional blocks (this can be removed it it proves too difficult.)
What I meant by "symmetrical in theme" is that if the map chosen is an island type, both teams will spawn on a similar but not identical island. This should prevent any imbalances the map generator could make like having one team start on an island and the other on top of a cliff. Some ideas for map themes are listed below:
Islands.
Teams start on an island with few resources. Islands with additional resources are scattered around the map. The use of boats and the cover of darkness is impeccable to infiltrating the enemy island.
Hill.
Teams start on the low ground with a large hill in the middle of the map. Resources are plentiful but most teams must compete for the central hill underneath which most of the stone and ore is to be found.
Valley.
Opposite of hill. Teams start on the high ground and must cross the low ground to attack one another. Defenders have the high ground advantage but must move out to the middle for additional resources.
Lowland.
A dense forest split in two by a large river. Trees and wild animals are plentiful while stone is scarce. Lots of wood means a quickly setup fort but not a very strong one, so a fast rush is your best bet.
Cliffs.
Extreme version of valley. Teams start on massive cliffs that will slow down attackers. Stone and ore are plentiful within the cliffs but beware of enemy tunnelers trying to dig their way into your base.
Cavern.
Deep within a mountain where lava lakes are common place. Each team has a small path to the surface where trees and animals can be found. Even rare ores are found here.
Floating islands.
Teams spawn on on of two massive floating islands. The islands are connected by only a few narrow bridges so it's in your best interest to build some more. Unfortunately, the other team can also use them. Watch your step when crossing: one slip is certain death.
If you're still reading, I hope you enjoyed. If not, here's a quick summary:
Players are divided into team, each with their own flag. Players then build fortifications to defend their flag and equipment to destroy the other team's fortifications to capture the enemy flag. All the materials and crafting recipes in normal Minecraft are present in CTF so it's easy to play. Mobs spawn just like in survival mode for the double benefit of a little more chaos for both teams and mob-specific loot like pork and gunpowder essential for an assault. Maps are mirrored by themes like islands or valley but are not entirely symmetrical so each time you play it's a new experience.
I hope to get lots of feedback so I can improve my proposal. Even if you think something like this won't work in Minecraft please say why so I can change some things or try to convince you. Thanks for reading !
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Collect as much gravel as possible, spend the night flint farming.
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Isn't an infinite spring made with a 2x2 of water, aka 4 blocks.
Very good guide though.
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I don't understand. If gold was weak then shouldn't the pick have broken when I tried to mine diamond with it? Maybe I wasn't clear but the ore was successfully mined, it's just that the diamond didn't appear in my inventory, was not on the ground and there were no holes nearby for it to fall into.
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