Integrating the End into the Tech Tree

[badmojo98]

sorry for the semi-necro, but it's still on my mind. the original topic i mean. I concede all the points you've made, and that in more way than one i didn't completely think through my suggestions. i apologize, sincerely.

the one thing that's still making my brain twitch is this. what BTW has done with the nether is add a use to it's vast yet finite resources of netherack and soul sand, as well as unique fauna and associated resources, and unique conditions in regards to both windmills and still wanting automated farms without water flows.

so i felt it would fit for any adjustments to the end to fit similar themes. where the nether uses fauna and rock, the end could use the opposite. and considering the problems with end stone, making adjustments based upon adding mobs still feels like it would fit.

so instead, not giant mobs... just rare mobs, slightly differently colored and being super strong. kind of like rare mobs from Diablo or WoW. They mostly look normal, except the slight discoloration, yet they are super strong, and have chance for rare drops, mostly being extra loot. I certainly won't try say this would be easy again, but it could be fun :) and it would certainly make it worth while to invest in your endeavors to reach to end, rather than just go there with just one set of armor, a small stack of food, and a good bow. Perhaps then you could even legitimize using end stone as a resource to create unique 'the end' only technology, which is predominately aimed at sending stuff back to your overworld base.

of course, i'm still not really acknowledging the one fact that we have no idea what mojang plans for the end, and how that would interfere anything you might do in the meantime. the great thing about you nether changes is how well they fit into the recent changes mojang made. perhaps it interfered with some of your plans, but it didn't feel like you needed to get rid of anything to balance BTW out.

enough ranting, last post for the next day or two i promise XD

[FlowerChild]

There are some real fundamental problems with the End though that make it way less open to expansion than with the Nether.

First, it's just plain lame. The Nether always had potential that was unfulfilled. The End is just a floating rock in space that is comprised of a single finite (and ugly) material, with no room for exploration beyond that rock.

The entry requirements for it are also lame, basically boiling down to going out and hunting a bunch of mobs, which is not the kind of gameplay I want to encourage further by making aspects of the mod's tech-tree dependent on it (and if I don't make it dependent on it, then I don't see why I'd be adding End content).

And lastly, I don't know if you've noticed, but this mod really isn't about new mob types. I've mentioned the potential for them in the past, but in a very different context than what you seem to be suggesting, and that's as a real threat to player construction in order to encourage the building of defensive structures. I personally don't like the recent focus in Minecraft on combat, as I view the game's strengths to largely revolve around player creativity (and MC combat is also lame, and will always remain that way IMO). As such, I'd only really want to add mobs that encourage creativity through creating the need for various kinds of structures (like moats for example).

In short: I don't like the End, and I don't want to expand on it.

[badmojo98]

cheers FC, that seriously cleared my head up alot. i feel like i have a much better understanding of the kind of things you want to 'bring' to minecraft :)i especially liked "[the end is] just plain lame" because that's exactly how i feel about it so far. i was only really suggesting things because i felt like it was kinda still up in the air, and maybe you wanted to do something there but wasn't sure what. regardless, i shouldn't have kept someone else's thread going, and instead rethought the idea on based on it's own merit's for a new thread... i probably wouldn't have posted it had i done that, so thanks again :)

[Joeyjoebob]

The End may be finite in that it's a small floating island in a void, but it is functionally infinite because they are an undisclosed number of End portals in every world that lead to different areas of the End. Because of this, I think Flowerchild shouldn't be adverse to adding features having to do with the End.

Edit: I just read FC's explanation. Nevermind.

[Heilkaiba]

Actually there are only three end portals in any given world as they are only found in strongholds and there are only three strongholds in each world.

[FlowerChild]

Yup, only three...and motivated by this conversation to at least access the end in my main world, I just discovered that one of the three happens to exist *just* on the border of my previously generated terrain, and I can access the End through it.

<happy dance>

I may hate the End, but I did find it kinda lame that I couldn't get to it in the world I've been playing for the past year :)

[Yamboyz1]

I just thought that I should say this for anyone who didn't know:

If you can right click with an eye of ender in hand and it goes into the air, that means that there's an end portal in your world. Eyes of ender always fly to the nearest end portal when you throw them, but only if there is one. That's why you can't throw eyes of ender on flatmaps.

[daveboy2000]

Perhaps you could use the ender egg to make a sort of portal to the endER, and not the end. This new realm could be very smilliar to the end, however, infinitly generating, solving the finity problem, although it may be hard to code such thing.

[Gilberreke]

Perhaps you could use the ender egg to make a sort of portal to the endER, and not the end. This new realm could be very smilliar to the end, however, infinitly generating, solving the finity problem, although it may be hard to code such thing.

Daveboy, you're new here, try to interact with the community a little more before you try to suggest things. Here's a rundown of how suggestions work:

What FC is really looking for is novel game mechanics. The first user suggested block to make it in the mod was a hibachi. The user suggested that what MC is lacking is a way to turn fire on/off. This was a huge hit, as you can see it being a vital part of the mod. Most of those "obvious", but brilliant suggestions are already suggested though, so what you are looking for is a radical new way of working inside Minecraft.

For example, the original thought that we can craft items in the cauldron. Combining regular crafting with furnace like behavior is pretty simple, yet awesome. After that, FC added stoking to make tiered cooking, which he wouldn't have liked as a suggestion, since it's trivial to come up with. The mechanically powered bellows that stokes the fire, on the other hand, is another nifty item with possible future uses, since it blows air. So far, none have been found that would really work though.

A final option for suggestions, which is something the Turtles usually stick to, is small additions that don't take much time. These either slipped under FC's radar or they come from play-testing the mod. I requested hand-cranks on top of machines, since I noticed I frequently wanted to do that. Later I saw in Renevo's stream that he wanted to do it too. Playing the mod revealed a minor lack, someone posts about it, FC implements it. Similarly, users making big builds regularly suggest efficiency recipes when they notice certain items are pretty unbalanced if you have to make them in large quantities. Again, these tend to be implemented, since they are easy to do, and again, they come from extended play-testing.

I hope this is a good post to explain which requests are most likely to be helpful. That said, FC indicated in the past that he is not necessarily against discussing potential "cool things", as long as everyone understands that he is not going to read these threads or actually implement them. If something useful does come out of it, a Turtle will post the thread in the "golden feature thread" to indicate that the thread evolved beyond a user discussion into meaningful ideas.

[Retama]

One way to solve the issue of having finite endstone would be to use some endstone to make a device that (somehow) is capable of transforming basic blocks into other basic blocks (or at least making them out of something). That way, you wouldn't have to ever run out, but you WOULD have to go to the End at least once.

[FlowerChild]

I think it's time to lock this one down.