Flower's Dev Diary (Week Of March 18th)

[FlowerChild]

Eur-fucking-reka.

Ok, just had a brain storm of monumental proportions that left me raving like a mad man (I don't think I drooled) about all things BTW related while my friends stared on in shock and disbelief (I think one may have been on the verge of tears for a moment there).

I obviously don't want to give away the details, but I now have a crystal clear road map towards the end of BTW and moving onwards towards RTH that ties together absolutely all the separate elements I've been thinking about for the past months (and even years).

Just wanted to share my excitement for a moment with people that have actually played the mod (unlike my poor bewildered friends), and seriously.... <dances>

[Sarudak]

Hehe score man! Can't wait to see it! :D

[PatriotBob]

First, congratulation on the revelation.

Second, you're killing me! And I'm sure we all are eagerly awaiting your big reveal.

I look forward to all the twisted hints you will torture us all with in the coming weeks.

[Simurgh]

Tease. :p

Seriously though, looking forward to seeing what you've came up with, if it has you raving like that it must be pretty epic. Actually more excited about this than any commercial release in the last year or so, kinda a sad statement about the state of commercial games but also a positive one about the quality of the mod. Most specifically the last few months, the quality and frequency you've been churning content out has been sensational.

[FlowerChild]

I discard ideas on a continual basis. Constantly and continually. I am definitely my own harshest critic in that regard.

So yeah...when I start ranting and raving like that, it's because I *know* with absolute certainty that something is good and I've absolutely and positively found *the* solution to a problem, which just starts pouring out of me in my excitement over it.

It's a very rare occurrence that I wind up going that far into such a state, so yeah, in this case I will even say that I know it's hela-good :)

Don't worry guys, I'm definitely a tease, but all will certainly be known to you within the year or so...tops ;)

[PatriotBob]

... but all will certainly be known to you within the year or so...tops ;)

:|
You...

[FlowerChild]

:|
You...

Well, I did say it was big. Would love to give it all to you guys tomorrow, but the space/time continuum being what it is...

;)

[PatriotBob]

Well, I did say it was big.

Now you're just bragging...

[Xeo]

:|
You...

Well, I did say it was big. Would love to give it all to you guys tomorrow, but the space/time continuum being what it is...

;)

What is this time you speak? Whoever created that made some poor design decisions...

Anyways you have no idea how happy your confidence and excitement makes about the future of BTW,
I will now return to dancing around my room like a ballerina high on LSD.

[MrPlatypus]

Congratulations man! I wish you nothing but good luck with the future of BTW and the soon-to-be RTH. Glad to hear that things are wrapping up the way you want.

[TheGatesofLogic]

This isnt even fair...

[dawnraider]

:|
You...

Well, I did say it was big. Would love to give it all to you guys tomorrow, but the space/time continuum being what it is...

;)

What is this time you speak? Whoever created that made some poor design decisions...

Anyways you have no idea how happy your confidence and excitement makes about the future of BTW,
I will now return to dancing around my room like a ballerina high on LSD.

No,, it's not an issue with the design, it's that the players haven't fully discovered what it is. We percieve it as a linear progression, but I fact it is a ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey... stuff

Props to those who get the reference.

[Xeo]

No,, it's not an issue with the design, it's that the players haven't fully discovered what it is. We percieve it as a linear progression, but I fact it is a ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey... stuff

Props to those who get the reference.

Maybe if we chant MU three times in a particle accelerator with candles on either side we can cross the fold and get to this New Release through a sort of cosmic cheat code.

BTW: Now transcending the 4th dimension!

[FlowerChild]

Props to those who get the reference.

Dude...Dr Who references in a community this geeky receive no props for being recognized ;)

[jakerman999]

I've been "playing" through a couple pairs of maps that have identical seeds, one vanilla and one with 4.63T. I haven't been going over them block by block, but even minor landmarks are consistent between them. In about 30 hours of testing, the only differences I've seen have been your changes. I haven't looked at subterranean features yet, but if I've interpreted your changes correctly they shouldn't change anyways. If this isn't the case, I can go back and have another look. Otherwise, they all look clean. Feels natural.

I do wonder though, isn't worldgen a big enough change to warrant a bump up to 4.7? This is the first time you've touched it, and for good reason. Perhaps I overvalue the significance though.



also:

Props to those who get the reference.

Dude...Dr Who references in a community this geeky receive no props for being recognized ;)

Perhaps instead we scorn those who do not?

[FlowerChild]

I've been "playing" through a couple pairs of maps that have identical seeds, one vanilla and one with 4.63T. I haven't been going over them block by block, but even minor landmarks are consistent between them. In about 30 hours of testing, the only differences I've seen have been your changes. I haven't looked at subterranean features yet, but if I've interpreted your changes correctly they shouldn't change anyways. If this isn't the case, I can go back and have another look. Otherwise, they all look clean. Feels natural.

Cool, thanks for the verification man. At this point I think I have enough info to feel confident that the changes I made have no adverse impact on worldgen.

Thanks for helping me out with this guys!

[BobSlingblade679]

Eur-fucking-reka.

Ok, just had a brain storm of monumental proportions that left me raving like a mad man (I don't think I drooled) about all things BTW related while my friends stared on in shock and disbelief (I think one may have been on the verge of tears for a moment there).

I obviously don't want to give away the details, but I now have a crystal clear road map towards the end of BTW and moving onwards towards RTH that ties together absolutely all the separate elements I've been thinking about for the past months (and even years).

Just wanted to share my excitement for a moment with people that have actually played the mod (unlike my poor bewildered friends), and seriously.... <dances>

The fact that you didn't say something like the above before HCH yet are saying it now makes my brain explode.

[SterlingRed]

:|
You...

Well, I did say it was big. Would love to give it all to you guys tomorrow, but the space/time continuum being what it is...

;)

Somehow I managed to miss your little eureka post the other day. Amazing! Glad to hear you have line of sight to wrap this up and move on to rth.
Also I took the above quote as a hint. I understand that in so doing I may be trolling myself.

[BobSlingblade679]

:|
You...

Well, I did say it was big. Would love to give it all to you guys tomorrow, but the space/time continuum being what it is...

;)

Somehow I managed to miss your little eureka post the other day. Amazing! Glad to hear you have line of sight to wrap this up and move on to rth.
Also I took the above quote as a hint. I understand that in so doing I may be trolling myself.

Dammit, now I think its a hint... xD

[FlowerChild]

Interesting tid-bit about me: I don't get bored.

Stick me on a 12 hour bus ride with nothing to read and I'll happily get lost in my own head for that time. It's a skill of mine, and one that I'm quite happy to possess.

Well, I believe that just changed. I started in on the 1.5 update today, and after a few of hours at it, I want to start cutting myself just so I will know if I can still feel.

Nothing hard. Just fucking boring as all hell, and wanted to vent momentarily :)

I really don't know how many more of these I want to do. At least I used to get excited updating because of the new features that came along with it, but now, the only thing I have to motivate myself here is that I'm going to be able to ditch that old forge code lingering in the mod.

Anyways, yet another reason to look forward to RTH and having my own code base that won't shift under me every few weeks/months out of nowhere and often times for no good reason :)

[Gunnerman21]

Wow FC, that sounds really bad.. :(

But at least you're being optimistic about it! :D , I updated yesterday to see what the fuss about everything in 1.5.1 was... and man does it suck ass... From what I can remember, there was nothing good about this update. I trust you will save us all from the pit of despair :) ...or at least put us in your own ;)

[BobSlingblade679]

Man, its a shame you can't just *not* update for a while. I mean I'd be ok with it. ;)

Sorry you have to suffer through it. I hope it doesn't take long so you can get back to the stuff you enjoy.

[FlowerChild]

Man, its a shame you can't just *not* update for a while. I mean I'd be ok with it. ;)

I've already been doing that for a few weeks now ;)

I believe the "ok...got to get this over with some time" impulse finally kicked in strong enough for me to get started on it. Now hopefully the "man, I need to get this hell over with" one will carry me through.

But at least you're being optimistic about it! :D , I updated yesterday to see what the fuss about everything in 1.5.1 was... and man does it suck ass... From what I can remember, there was nothing good about this update. I trust you will save us all from the pit of despair :) ...or at least put us in your own ;)

I'm ripping out everything man. The only thing I'm leaving in is nether quartz, because I don't want to fuck up people's worlds, and I'll be repurposing it to something entirely different. I don't even like nether quartz, nor would I have added it myself either, so I'm doing that *strictly* to not leave holes in worlds.

So yes, 1.5 sucks badly, hence why this update is such a drag. I don't believe there's a single new feature that I'd choose to add to BTW, with the possible exception of zombie swarming, and I could have done that myself in under an hour.

To give you an idea, here's the associated release note that I already wrote up while I was procrastinating about working on the update itself:

-Updated the mod to version 1.5.1 of Minecraft. Note that as part of this process, I ripped out almost all the new features that Mojang added as most of them serve to imbalance, are primarily useful only for their exploits, and/or don't fit well with BTW. *Some* of that functionality may be reactivated in future releases, but I want to give myself proper time to consider each individual feature and its impact on the game before making them a part of BTW, instead of rushing those decisions as part of the update process. My apologies, but vanilla design has gotten so substandard/absent/random that I am no longer comfortable just integrating anything new they put in by default, as it risks severely degrading the quality of the mod. From this point forward I intend to hold vanilla features to the same design standards that I apply when adding new features to BTW (in other words, if I wouldn't want to add it to the game myself, I won't include it in BTW), and will be referring to BTW as a "total conversion" (instead of a "mod") to reflect that. The one exception I'll be making to this is features that affect world generation (like nether quartz), as I don't want to leave holes in people's worlds by disabling them.

[Shinxy]

Damn FC, hope all the final updates of BTW go smoothly for ya. I mean, damn, that snippit from the next update really shows how much it must suck for you, if almost nothing in a release Mojang does is beneficial.

I'll throw a jackson or two at you next time I get payed. You deserve it man.

[Detritus]

You're working on the update now? I hope for your sake it doesn't take too long. I know I wouldn't want to be in your shoes.