Vanilla Minecraft News Discussion

[Chomamonka]

Hm, that could make some fantastic axle, saw, conveyer belt blocks.

[RezDev]

Nobody has brought up yet one of the few features I'm actually glad to see: The activator rails and TNT Minecart.

Meh. Of all of the things to import from Railcraft, the TNT cart and priming rail would not have been on the top of my list.

I'm looking forward to the new textures changes.

Misa certainly isn't (scroll down a few posts--apparently I am too computer illiterate to figure out how to link to a specific forum post :/ ):

Well hell... All that work after I got back from vacation for nothing. I was going to update today for last week's snapshot and just add any new textures that were introduced in today's snapshot. But Mojang's decided to utterly destroy the living hell out of my current texture pack with the new texture pack format (even after using their conversion tool). Their high-res texture support is currently pretty atrocious and inefficient. Despite breaking terrain.png into a bunch of separate files, they're still stitched to an fake terrain.png before being broken up again... Why? I have no damn clue. But it makes this new format seem 100% pointless. And over that it's pretty much destroyed my texture pack in its last, good, working state.

So yeah, now I dunno what I'm going to do...

I can do one of the following:
1) Assemble an update for last week's snashot and release it today to be met with a lot of confusion with people trying to run it on today's snapshot.
2) Release no update to be met with people asking me to update for the one particle that's missing from fireworks or for the last snapshot that they're still running.
3) Attempt to adapt my pack to the new format and release a mess of a texture pack that looks worse than it did in 2009.
4) Acknowledge that I had a good run for three years and just call it quits.

There's probably some other options, but I'm too irritated and baffled by the current situation to think of them... Thanks Mojang.

Her other posts expand on her frustration on the matter.

I hope Mojang doesn't break all the texture packs...

[coolio678]

You want a seizure?! Let's make the walls move..

Spoiler

Show

Ohhh, thats trippy!

oh god, that didn't help my headache at all

[Scarrboros]

One of the recent tweets from Jeb showed that he had a rail on top of a hopper. I wonder if that is anything special or...

[Katalliaan]

It's nothing new, if that's what you were wondering. It was added in either the "b" version of the first snapshot or the second snapshot (don't remember which), to make it easier to use as a cart unloader - the first snapshot allowed hoppers to empty chest carts, but you had to push them off the rails to do so.

[embirrim]

It's nothing new, if that's what you were wondering. It was added in either the "b" version of the first snapshot or the second snapshot (don't remember which), to make it easier to use as a cart unloader - the first snapshot allowed hoppers to empty chest carts, but you had to push them off the rails to do so.

Hm, how exactly does that work? I haven't been up to date a lot with snapshots and stuff. Do you just run the chest cart over the hopper/rail and it dumps everything? If so, that is quite disappointing. Or is something else required?

[FlowerChild]

Hm, that could make some fantastic axle, saw, conveyer belt blocks.

You could already do that, as demonstrated by the mod's stoked fire texture.

I was planning on doing the axles as well, but knowing the texture system was getting revamped soon, decided to hold off.

I think the only thing this change is intended to do is make it easier for texture pack authors to animate textures, rather than it having to be done by modders. Plus, for things like the blocks you're describing, they're not really things that can be done without modding the code, as whether the animation should play is dependent on an on/off state (unless you want axles animated at all times whether they are powered or not).

[Battosay]

Hm, how exactly does that work? I haven't been up to date a lot with snapshots and stuff. Do you just run the chest cart over the hopper/rail and it dumps everything? If so, that is quite disappointing. Or is something else required?

Yup, something like that. It takes some times, but that's how it works.
To be honest, the only thing I like about the vHopper is that you can use it with the Brewing station ... wink wink ;)

[embirrim]

Yup, something like that. It takes some times, but that's how it works.
To be honest, the only thing I like about the vHopper is that you can use it with the Brewing station ... wink wink ;)

Well that is... easy. Just continuing the recent trend I suppose.
I don't play much with potions, but it's one more thing to automate I suppose.

It seems to me like they're taking a look at the most used things in mods and the most askd stuff by the community, and they're putting it out in the most flashy, braindead manner.

[Thorium-232]

Tweet from Dinnerbone I just saw linked on Reddit: https://twitter.com/Dinnerbone/status/2 ... 3755307009
The associated album: http://imgur.com/a/yMMAc

I understand the problem he's trying to address, but the implementation is just... man. So now we have nonsensically and inexplicably sturdy minecart rails? Another manifestation of fixing without consideration. TNT is dangerous, that's the point. It should be respected, not just patched away ad-hoc when it doesn't suit the scenario.

[FlowerChild]

Tweet from Dinnerbone I just saw linked on Reddit: https://twitter.com/Dinnerbone/status/2 ... 3755307009

Errrr...wtf?

I got nothing else. The almost daily assault on any kind of design consistency has exhausted my material.

[Siege Wizard]

Tweet from Dinnerbone I just saw linked on Reddit: https://twitter.com/Dinnerbone/status/2 ... 3755307009

Errrr...wtf?

I got nothing else. The almost daily assault on any kind of design consistency has exhausted my material.

Not only consistency. Tell me why would you want to blow up a TNT cart at the middle of a rail? Anarchy servers? Then you don't mind blowing the tracks. And you will probably just let the cart there until someone comes raiding another minecart to collision with it and explode. Do they detect collision with other carts?

The only use I find to TNT carts apart from Anarchy, where you don't mind blowing the tracks, is mining. Start a mining saft, set some rails and throw some TNT carts. This TNT carts won't explode on rails, but when they are out of them so, what's the purpouse of this update?

Seriously I can't understand dinnerbone even if I try i hard.

S.W.

[Thorium-232]

I got nothing else. The almost daily assault on any kind of design consistency has exhausted my material.

Their process is so relentlessly reactionary that at some point they're going to need to throw in a fix that will compromise another fix, or as my old supervisor used to say "The shit pile's so high you can't see the bottom anymore", and then it's going to be interesting to see how they handle it. Good design is like telling the truth: it's always easier to keep your story straight when you do it. It's never pretty to watch when the loose ends begin to trip over each other.

The only use I find to TNT carts apart from Anarchy, where you don't mind blowing the tracks, is mining. Start a mining saft, set some rails and throw some TNT carts. This TNT carts won't explode on rails, but when they are out of them so, what's the purpouse of this update?

My thoughts exactly. There are so many immediate edge cases that come to mind, I can't actually believe this solution was even considered.

[FlowerChild]

Seriously I can't understand dinnerbone even if I try i hard.

Dinnerbone isn't hard to understand. He's a kid in his early twenties that's never worked in the game industry before, has no game design experience, and suddenly finds himself designing features on one of the most popular games on the face of the planet while dealing with a huge amount of public attention and pressure. He's at an age and experience level where anyone's designs aren't going to be very good, probably just doing the best he can, yet somehow...he's designing features on Minecraft.

Plus, he's constantly getting positive reinforcement for these kinds of decisions from the community, which is actually training him to do the wrong thing. Like, look at the responses to this minecart thing on his twitter account, and you'll see it's all people saying how cool it is, without a single word to the contrary. As long as he's giving people more power, they praise him, no matter how nonsensical it is.

As I've said before, what's hard to understand is why he's in that position, and why there isn't an actual game designer working on Minecraft and saying no to this kind of thing. Everything else aside, MC is a HUGELY valuable property and thus it is ridiculous that any company would handle it in this manner.

[Siege Wizard]

Seriously I can't understand dinnerbone even if I try i hard.

Dinnerbone isn't hard to understand. He's a kid in his early twenties that's never worked in the game industry before, has no game design experience, and suddenly finds himself designing features on one of the most popular games on the face of the planet while dealing with a huge amount of public attention and pressure. He's at an age and experience level where anyone's designs aren't going to be very good, probably just doing the best he can, yet somehow...he's designing features on Minecraft.

Plus, he's constantly getting positive reinforcement for these kinds of decisions from the community, which is actually training him to do the wrong thing. Like, look at the responses to this minecart thing on his twitter account, and you'll see it's all people saying how cool it is, without a single word to the contrary. As long as he's giving people more power, they praise him, no matter how nonsensical it is.

As I've said before, what's hard to understand is why he's in that position, and why there isn't an actual game designer working on Minecraft and saying no to this kind of thing. Everything else aside, MC is a HUGELY valuable property and thus it is ridiculous that any company would handle it in this manner.

His age has nothing to do with his actions, maybe his lack of experience or his need of being rewarded does, but not his age. Believe me. The creativity nearlly never increases with age, it usually drops quite fast. on the other hand, abstraction capacity gets a bit reinforced with ages, but not really that much. And you have to admit that creativity and abstraction capacity are two of the most important skills for a programmer.

S.W.

[FlowerChild]

His age has nothing to do with his actions, maybe his lack of experience or his need of being rewarded does, but not his age.

Given one accumulates more experience with age, yeah, I say it would. Also, given that you tend to become more self confident with age and thus put less stock in the approval of others, again, yeah, I think it is related.

Is it possible for a kid to be an awesome designer? Sure...but it's also way less likely.

Believe me. The creativity nearlly never increases with age, it usually drops quite fast. on the other hand, abstraction capacity gets a bit reinforced with ages, but not really that much. And you have to admit that creativity and abstraction capacity are two of the most important skills for a programmer.

Design goes way beyond that man, and I think it's quite obvious that excellent programmers aren't always excellent designers.

[Pseudosavior]

On the hopefully good side of things, Dinnerbone apparently buffed both skeletons and zombies. How much, not really revealed.

https://twitter.com/Dinnerbone/status/2 ... 1458947072

[MoRmEnGiL]

This might shed some light on the skeleton part.

TL;DR 50% increased range, and better accuracy depending on difficulty.

[Pseudosavior]

This might shed some light on the skeleton part.

TL;DR 50% increased range, and better accuracy depending on difficulty.

Ah, yes, I've seen that video. However, I feel he's referring to something different. One can only speculate, really.

[Gormador]

On the hopefully good side of things, Dinnerbone apparently buffed both skeletons and zombies. How much, not really revealed.

https://twitter.com/Dinnerbone/status/2 ... 1458947072

Even if I appreciate what makes the game harder, when I saw this yesterday on twitter I couldn't do otherwise as to think that this change doesn't make any kind of sens.
Why ? Because I don't think a range weaponed mob should have close combat protection as it should be their weakness (after all, being ranged fighters they shouldn't have to worry about close combat). Same is for zombies : they are close combat fighters : they should be able to block your close combat attacks and be more vulnerable when shot from a distance, NOT catch your arrows before they hit them.

IMO mobs are already annoying enough to deal with. And those changes only make them even more a pain in the ass at each encounter...

[johnt]

I'd rather they made skeletons harder to shoot at range and zombies harder to melee, to be honest.

[SterlingRed]

I'd rather they made skeletons harder to shoot at range and zombies harder to melee, to be honest.

Agreed. Dinner bones changes are completely backwards to the sort of combat balancing convention nearly every game ever has used.

[Gormador]

I'd rather they made skeletons harder to shoot at range and zombies harder to melee, to be honest.

Thanks for saying in a single sentence what I failed to express in a paragraph ^^

[Shengji]

I'd rather they made skeletons harder to shoot at range...

Agreed, the fun of fighting skele's is trying to get close enough - discouraging that will just make them more annoying and less fun to take on. Zombies, I'm not fussed which way they make the change - I don't think they really benefit either way to be honest.

[dawnraider]

I saw that skeleton video too yesterday. I think it is good they are trying to make mobs harder, but they are doing it completely wrong. I do, however, agree with the range increase.