Flower's Dev Diary (Week of November 27th)

[Sarudak]

What if I were to do something I haven't seen a mod do before and develop a *true* sequel?

-snip-

This is a very nice idea. A few problems I have with it is that I wonder how much more time you would want to invest in a project that is a known dead end so to speak. Although perhaps it would be good for you to be able to still put out occasional updates to episode 1 while you work on episode 2 I also fear for the amount of maintenance work you'd be committing yourself to.

[nmarshall23]

I'd go with option 2. And go ahead with extending blockIDs yourself. Remember that forge has done this, so there could be some potential for collaboration, on a world convertor utility. Also while your at it, why not extend blocks to 8 bits of metadata.. I'd go as far as to share that idea with the Forge guys, because anytime you can collaborate that's less time eaten by mind numbing programming.

And as someone who's been dabling in moding MC myself, I'd kill for both extended blockIDs and extended block metadata. :-D

But don't discount the idea of writing your own game. I'd throw $30 help you kickstart development of a new game.

What ever choose you make, I trust your design decisions. The Hardcore changes have proven that to me. I think that dissatisfaction for them, really is players expressing displaced frustration with vMC's lack of game design.

[Panda]

That sequal Idea is totally Awesome!!! I don't mind having 2 versions of minecraft for this!

[Mudkipz]

Why would you need new block IDs for home dirt/sand/ect.? Is there not a way that you could use vMC dirt/sand/ect for Home but change the rules they follow?

I am very ignorant when it comes to coding, but I don't understand why this is not an option. If it is possible, it would cut down on the number of block IDs that you would need to use.

[BinoAl]

As cool as the sequel idea would be, is it worth all the extra maintenance? Those hellish updates where you had to fix *everything* would be twice as bad, and you losing your desire to maintain either mod would be tragic. If you're confident that it won't be an issue, I'm all for the sequel mod :)

[Vitreous]

I say we just storm Mojang and take the block ids by force!

Maybe Mojang will eventually make enough bullshit stuff that they need some extra block ids. lol

But jokes aside, I along with many others, completely support whatever you decide.
I often feel like I play Better Than Wolves, not Minecraft. I do love my world and
would hate to part with it, but if that's what happens so be it, it will be worth it.
I respect that you care so much about your mod community's opinion as many mod
developers wouldn't give a shit. This mod had made me enjoy Minecraft again and saved the game,
and not only that, I've actually become fairly interested in engineering because of it. Your mod is
literally genius and as a member of the mod's community I trust you to make the best decisions for the mod, as you always have.

[DaveYanakov]

I'm of the mindset that major changes, such as a new hardcore mode, are deserving of a world reboot. I'm sure that I'm in the minority with this opinion but it's the one I will stand behind all the same.

The design of vMC is deeply flawed. There are power imbalances all over the place, half baked implementation left in the game for no reason at all, etc. By the time you got villagers worked out it would nearly be a TC already. If you were to start fresh and rebuild the game from the ground up in a proper manner, the fundamentals of the existing BTW tech tree would be altered to the point where starting fresh and learning it properly would be a good idea in any case. I know how to flip jars back and forth manually and no one is forcing me to delete old saves. Yes it would suck to lose some of the larger and more complex builds but I personally feel that it would be worth it in order to be able to move back and forth as originally planned.

The only real drawback I can see for a full on TC would be the tremendous amount of work involved in overhauling the entire game rather than simply starting work on a new Better Than Minecraft mod. If we have two separate mods for each dimension, we lose our old builds anyway.

[Joshua37w]

Whatever you decide I am sure that it will be awesome, and thanks for developing this mod for all of us to enjoy!

[SterlingRed]

As cool as the sequel idea would be, is it worth all the extra maintenance? Those hellish updates where you had to fix *everything* would be twice as bad, and you losing your desire to maintain either mod would be tragic. If you're confident that it won't be an issue, I'm all for the sequel mod :)

This is pretty much my sentiment as well. Btw as it is now could serve as a great way to introduce new players to btw before tossing them into a full tc mod where they're getting instantly mutilated by god knows what's in the home world. Break the unwashed hordes cherries so to speak with btw 1 and go full fetish with btw 2!

[Ceunon]

Just to add one thought:
I'm not sure if it's the same for everyone else who'd rather go with the "do your own extended ids" idea, but my point is: The transition overworld-Home is *the* big deal for me. The ability to climb up the tech tree and then be rewarded with a brand new world, different, but similar, gets me thrilled. The whole "nostalgia" thing of keeping my good old world afterwards is a big bonus, obviously.

So, yeah. I'd stick with the extended ids plan: Do it your own way. If Mojang ends up with their "official" thing, you can always throw the vMC out the window and stop updating.

[danielngtiger]

To me, this has all the advantages of going TC, while preserving the integrity of the original BTW as it stands.

What do you guys think?

Well, I haven't been able to contribute to the discussion before, but what I think is that a sequel is a quite a good solution to this problem. You have BTW, which teaches new users the basics, and is able to be returned to at any point, which, for me at least, would likely mostly migitate the effects of installing BTW2, as I could go back to my old worlds whenever I want. I also see the possibility for BTW as a sort of "BTW2 gateway drug," introducing users to new concepts without just throwing them in the deep end. I suppose you have already thought through most of this, but anyway, I just want to say, whatever your choice, I will still be a proud user of BTW.

[FlowerChild]

Actually, the sequel idea adds no work over what I had planned for the Return To Home, and simplifies matters greatly, which is why it appeals to me so much.

The thing is, with regular RTH, I have to maintain the existing code anyways, plus I have to worry about potential interactions between BTW & RTH.

Doing it as a sequel however, I have a completely clean code-base to work with for RTH. No interactions are possible with existing blocks. I can wipe out all of Mojang's too and start fresh, with a full 256 block IDs.

It totally isolates the two code bases and effectively amounts to the same thing from a story standpoint. The sense of continuity is preserved (at least as much as it is in any game or movie with a sequel), I get my new world to work on, BTW remains intact, I get to bring over any code that I want (and only that code) from the original mod to the new one, and (hopefully) everyone is happy.

Yes, it is obviously more work than just going TC and letting the original BTW die along with people's worlds. However, it is actually less work than what I had originally intended for RTH.

[Sarudak]

Well when you put it that way it really does sound like the best option...

[walker_boh_65]

Since you sound pretty excited about this, I'd say you go for it. Everybody wins. :)

[Ferrus.Manus]

Well when you put it that way it really does sound like the best option...

Ditto.

[danielngtiger]

Well when you put it that way it really does sound like the best option...

Ditto.

Ditto.

[CycloneSP]

Wow very interesting discussion going on here. I kinda feel like I came in a bit late.

But yeah, I can totally feel for you FC, and I would support you regardless of what direction you decide to take this. That being said, I am actually liking the sound of a -true- sequel. It definitely has grabbed my interest. The only downside I could see in it would be that it would fracture the smp playerbase. As you would now have to have servers for both BTW 1 and BTW 2. Albeit BTW2 would be far better, there are still some 'completersess'(yeah I suck at making up words) that would want to play the first game before the second.

But that is only a minor detail, nothing too big.

EDIT: ditto

[Battlecat]

Honestly it sounds perfectly win win to me. While I'd love to have the RTH as part of the mod as you'd originally planned, this sounds like a good plan to me since it simultaneously preserves old worlds while letting you really free up your design talents. Also you won't be as much of a slave to mojang's future decisions.

Plus you sound more excited than I've seen in a while, so I say go for it!

[obl1terat1ion]

Well when you put it that way it really does sound like the best option...

Ditto.

Ditto.

tritto.

[EpicAaron]

I believe this was mentioned earlier, but not talked about. I remember a mod called the 4096 Id fix that could potentially clear up the id problem. Although, hooking up with this Id fix would require adding a new dependency and what will most likely be loads of work making it compatible with your class changes. Whatever you decide to do, flowerchild, I will definately be sticking with it. You always seem to do what is right!


EDIT: Woah, quite a bit seems to have been talked about since I started writing this post. I apologise if a better option has already been chosen or named!

[userzero]

I would go for to total conversion or head over to kickstarter, set a goal with enough money to hire someone(s) to help with the unrewarding part of the low level coding so you can both develop the game from scratch and spend more time focusing on the stuff you find rewarding. Personally I would love to see what you could do on your own. Since MC isn't worth playing without your mod, and I think most people who really get into the mod have the same stance, a Total Conversion or going your own route doesn't seem like all that big a deal from the player standpoint.
I just started coding my own mods for MC because of the work I saw you doing. I had no interest in it until you started making the HC changes and it opened my eyes to what was possible with the game. Either way looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

I know the money is not why you do it, but with money you could focus on what you want to do and get the other stuff done to your specs.

[TGLumberjack]

Just out of curiosity...say Mojang did expand the number of block IDs and even release an API that didn't suck within the next year or so...a long enough time that you're fairly invested in the whole "sequel" option. What would you do at that point, FlowerChild?

[ziyakaz]

As cool as the sequel idea would be, is it worth all the extra maintenance? Those hellish updates where you had to fix *everything* would be twice as bad, and you losing your desire to maintain either mod would be tragic. If you're confident that it won't be an issue, I'm all for the sequel mod :)

I'd also be concerned about the amount of maintenance involved. Edit: Nevermind as I just read back a little ways and it's not such an issue.

Break the unwashed hordes cherries so to speak with btw 1 and go full fetish with btw 2!

That's a disgusting and misogynistic analogy.

[FlowerChild]

Just out of curiosity...say Mojang did expand the number of block IDs and even release an API that didn't suck within the next year or so...a long enough time that you're fairly invested in the whole "sequel" option. What would you do at that point, FlowerChild?

Once I commit to a course of action on this, I likely won't change it to accommodate additional changes Mojang makes, if that's what you're asking. So no, I don't see myself merging them both back into one mod down the road, regardless of what happens.

[Lord Cake]

I'll echo the other comments on here, and say that the sequel idea seems like a great course of action, and that I immensely look forward to whatever you produce if you go in this direction.