What's the last new vanilla feature you really used?

[Battosay]

Oh yeah, mob heads. Loved it, especially with a Battle axe in SMP :)

[FlowerChild]

Oh yeah, mob heads. Loved it, especially with a Battle axe in SMP :)

Worth mentioning that Mojang chickened out and only left the wither heads active in their version ;)

[TheGatesofLogic]

or they are an early (depending on your luck, why do zombies drop them?) food source that does not require a hand crank in BTW.

They don't drop them in BTW.

Well shit... I just thought they were really rare... A whole section of my mob trap filter is designed to separate those... I feel reeeaaaal stupid right now... :P

[FlowerChild]

Well shit... I just thought they were really rare... A whole section of my mob trap filter is designed to separate those... I feel reeeaaaal stupid right now... :P

If it's any consolation, Mojang making them drop from zombies to begin with was way worse ;)

[lostone1993]

Probably Pistons as functionional

As decoration mob head and items frames

Rest is grey slop in my memory of recent updates, which is where 1.5 is properly going to go to

[ThePuzzleMasher]

I use stairs a lot... so brick, colored wood, upside-down, and corner stairs are things I use frequently in my builds, especially when combined with siding and other BTW blocks.

[SterlingRed]

There's vanilla in my btw? Where? Since when?

Really though I honestly don't know what is just vanilla anymore or what they've added that I'm not using. I use some of the aesthetic stuff, never pots, fireworks, anvil. Forgot about the repeater lock. I'll have to learn how to use that, could be useful. Um, Witches beacon and wither, and villagers get used but only because fc changed them.
Probably the most technical functional vanilla items I use are pistons and dispensers.

[Thorium-232]

What I find surprising is the list of things I don't use. Non-comprehensive list:

• Dead Weight
• Flower Pots
• Fireworks
• Most food items
• Diamond Tools
• Diamond Armor
• Beds (I freaking love the flavor text for this one, btw)
• Wolves (as vanilla intended)
• Basically everything in the redstone update...

When you compare the list of things they've put in vs. what you've put in against what I make use of, it's not even funny how much of their effort is ignored. I'm currently putting together a system that will sort the arrows out of my mob trap and filter the flesh/bones into an automated kibble factory that runs in tandem with my zombie drops smelter. What does vMC provide that even comes close to that?

[FlowerChild]

When you compare the list of things they've put in vs. what you've put in against what I make use of, it's not even funny how much of their effort is ignored. I'm currently putting together a system that will sort the arrows out of my mob trap and filter the flesh/bones into an automated kibble factory that runs in tandem with my zombie drops smelter. What does vMC provide that even comes close to that?

Bah. Didn't you know? Automation only leads to the game "playing itself", and thus is bad, mkay?

What you're supposed to do instead is totally exhaust the limited content supplied and stop playing entirely.

[Wafflewaffle]

To be honest the last vanilla feature that i use to this day everyday is Sprint. And that is kinda fucked up by singleplayer lag since the smp merge...

[Thorium-232]

Bah. Didn't you know? Automation only leads to the game "playing itself", and thus is bad, mkay?

What you're supposed to do instead is totally exhaust the limited content supplied and stop playing entirely.

Oh right, my mistake. I guess I've just been playing their sandbox game the wrong way :(

Besides, the mod implements automation the wrong way. What you're supposed to have, see, is a single block with "AUTOMATION" written on the side that takes in dirt at the top and shits out anything you want from the bottom. Aside from fun, that is.

Oh, and it costs an astronomical eight iron to build. Because endgame.

[FlowerChild]

Oh, and it costs an astronomical eight iron to build. Because endgame.

+1.

Someone recently proved my concerns about the vanilla hopper to be totally invalid because...6 iron.

[jakerman999]

Oh, and it costs an astronomical eight iron to build. Because endgame.

+1.

Someone recently proved my concerns about the vanilla hopper to be totally invalid because...6 iron.

On twitter none the less. And you thought nothing good could come from there. pshaw.

[FlowerChild]

On twitter none the less. And you thought nothing good could come from there. pshaw.

Well, nothing "good" has really come of it, however, it's doing a great job of fulfilling my need for internet conflict :)

[dawnraider]

The extremely sad thing is that apart from cement (the so-called bastard child, which I do use sometimes) the only btw things I haven't used are beacons and ie, simply because i've never gotten that far. The list of vanilla features I don't use would stretch from earth to the moon

[magikeh]

I think the only other thing that has not been mentioned that i do use fairly regularly is the open links in chat, and the command/name auto complete majigger. Other than that its all potions and digging for me! :D

[FaceFoiled]

I went through the update list (@ http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Version_history to try and see what I last used, and I found this:

1.4.2, Cobblestone walls.

Used that last night to secure my first crops. :D I honestly could not find anything added after that, that I have ever used at all.

[PatriotBob]

I went through the update list (@ http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Version_history to try and see what I last used, and I found this:

1.4.2, Cobblestone walls.

Used that last night to secure my first crops. :D I honestly could not find anything added after that, that I have ever used at all.

I would have a hard time considering Cobblestone walls as a feature, more an aesthetic upgrade to fences.
If I was to limit this to actual features, that change gameplay to a significant degree...
I'd have to say 1.1 when sheep began to regrow wool by eating grass.

So yeah, FC is putting out more useful content in a month than Mojang does in a year.
Although to be fair, they seem to have been doing a fair amount of code cleanup as of late, which is good. But kinda eats into feature time. I just can't seen any sort of creative direction, updates are just kinda ll over the place.

[Sandrew]

The most recent non-aesthetic feature I used was the tripwire hook for detecting falling items. They were added in august 2012 and I've only gotten around to using them yesterday.

[FlowerChild]

Although to be fair, they seem to have been doing a fair amount of code cleanup as of late, which is good. But kinda eats into feature time. I just can't seen any sort of creative direction, updates are just kinda ll over the place.

On the code cleanup being good: I have my doubts.

I suspect it's amounting to a lot of wankery, "fixing" stuff that isn't broken, breaking other stuff in the process, then giving up on stuff like lighting bugs because it's too hard.

I think the real litmus test will be the texture changes in 1.5. I haven't taken a look at that code yet, but when I do, I think I'll have a much more accurate impression as to whether what's going on right now is actually beneficial or not.

I do know now though, that the last major refactoring they did of the code base, with the client/server thingy in 1.3, was less than stellar in its results.

[dawnraider]

[quote="PatriotBob"But kinda eats into feature time.[/quote]
You act as if this is a bad thing. The more time they spend elsewhere (though, unfortunately they still screw up the game) the better, so we get less of the shit they've been putting in recently.

[PatriotBob]

Although to be fair, they seem to have been doing a fair amount of code cleanup as of late, which is good. But kinda eats into feature time. I just can't seen any sort of creative direction, updates are just kinda ll over the place.

On the code cleanup being good: I have my doubts.

I suspect it's amounting to a lot of wankery, "fixing" stuff that isn't broken, breaking other stuff in the process, then giving up on stuff like lighting bugs because it's too hard.

I think the real litmus test will be the texture changes in 1.5. I haven't taken a look at that code yet, but when I do, I think I'll have a much more accurate impression as to whether what's going on right now is actually beneficial or not.

I do know now though, that the last major refactoring they did of the code base, with the client/server thingy in 1.3, was less than stellar in its results.

Here I was trying to be nice, last time I was too harsh on Mojang I got warned for rule #1 and I'd like to avoid that. :)

You act as if this is a bad thing. The more time they spend elsewhere (though, unfortunately they still screw up the game) the better, so we get less of the shit they've been putting in recently.

Quite the contrary. I am a big proponent of code maintenance, and from my professional experience it's appalling how few programmers actually perform this fundamental task. I'm hoping that's what they're actually doing. But as FlowerChild has stated that doesn't always end as well as we would like.

The update to texturing is great and all, but what ever happened to block ids?
Or the whole Mod API thing?
I had popcorn all ready for that fiasco.

ON TOPIC:
Oh and I use maps, I will admit I like to make big map rooms with the BTW item frames mod that makes them tile seamlessly. So nice.

[darahalian]

I've enjoyed and used all the changes they've made to inv management, like shift clicking and pressing number keys to move items to hotbar, and I'm really looking forward to the upcoming ability to evenly spread items in the crafting grid. I enjoy exploring the abandoned mineshafts. I use pistons a lot. I use potions, though not as much now that there are beacons to replace them. I still use health and regen when fighting the wither, though. I use the vanilla enchanter. I often use maps while exploring, but not without my own modifications. And that's all I can think of for newer vanilla features that I use. BTW features, on the other hand, it would be way easier to make a list of the ones I don't use than the ones I use.