BTW: Design Philosophy

[MoRmEnGiL]

I somehow get the feeling that a major hurdle for BTW in SMP will be performance, given that it encourages massive complicated automated contraptions. Those tend to be fine in SSP, but with a large amount of them around it might be an extra strain for the server.

My last sugarcane farm in vMC dropped me down to 2 fps when active, heh. (It was a bit big)

On the other hand, I also feel BtW encourages communal efforts in building things that can service a community, as opposed to a single player, leading to even more interesting design challenges.

EDIT: On the other hand, It just occurred to me that with the hopper, items do not have to lie around for long so this might help.

EDIT2: Apparently I have 3 hands :P

[DaveYanakov]

Most communities back when things were powered by waterwheels only had one or two of them running. Aside from anarchy servers, there would really only need to be one big processing hub to make all the steel, hemp, etc for everyone. Could even make for an actual economy based on refining of materials. Farmer brings in stacks of wheat to be ground, miller takes a cut of the flour for themselves while the farmer goes off and does his own thing. Miner brings a load of raw iron to the foundry to sell, then is able to purchase refined steel, bread, wood or whatever else they may need.

[M!C]

Could even make for an actual economy based on refining of materials. Farmer brings in stacks of wheat to be ground, miller takes a cut of the flour for themselves while the farmer goes off and does his own thing. Miner brings a load of raw iron to the foundry to sell, then is able to purchase refined steel, bread, wood or whatever else they may need.

I'd really love that type of gameplay.

[Shengji]

While I too love that sort of co-operation, if the server version of the mod isn't very different, it will never happen - one person can do everything for themselves and with decent automation techniques, make a surplus of everything! I think production times would have to be massively extended to make this worthwhile, so one player must focus on one thing and rely on others to pull their weight too - which brings the classic multiplayer issue - your fun is reliant on other people - people you haven't ever met in real life, and you have the responsibility of other peoples fun on your shoulders too. It just takes the hemp farmer to take an unannounced vacation and everyone's stuffed!

Actually, I did just think of a way - if there were a communal project, a massive one that would easily consume huge quantities of resources and take even the most dedicated of players months to complete - for example a huge world, like the two featured on digital diamonds recently, with themed cities, fantastic architecture etc

Another way may be to give each player a plot of land, they own all mineral rights under it and can only build or destroy blocks in that section. Then players would be forced to co-operate and the wealth generated can buy players more land.

[Elensaar]

While I too love that sort of co-operation, if the server version of the mod isn't very different, it will never happen - one person can do everything for themselves and with decent automation techniques, make a surplus of everything! I think production times would have to be massively extended to make this worthwhile, so one player must focus on one thing and rely on others to pull their weight too - which brings the classic multiplayer issue - your fun is reliant on other people - people you haven't ever met in real life, and you have the responsibility of other peoples fun on your shoulders too. It just takes the hemp farmer to take an unannounced vacation and everyone's stuffed!

Actually, I did just think of a way - if there were a communal project, a massive one that would easily consume huge quantities of resources and take even the most dedicated of players months to complete - for example a huge world, like the two featured on digital diamonds recently, with themed cities, fantastic architecture etc

Another way may be to give each player a plot of land, they own all mineral rights under it and can only build or destroy blocks in that section. Then players would be forced to co-operate and the wealth generated can buy players more land.

I completely agree with you on it being, in a way, too easy for a player to just do everything himself. The question is, to what extent has that got anything to do with BTW? I think the best solution, and of course this is all up to FC when he makes the server version of BTW, would be to give server admins a lot of control over how "easy" things are, so they can promote the level of specialization they wish to have in their world.

The last suggestion actually sounds like the easiest one for admins to do, and wouldn't need any setting support from BTW. If you only have a limited amount of land that you "own" it would force the players to cooperate to get to the levels they want. This, in turn, could promote specialization, as it might be easier to just buy your steel from someone than to buy everything you need to make it yourself. Of course, this would again be something completely up to the server admins, but that sounds like a cool world to play in.

[Tekei]

I think you guys are putting way too much thought into this. What you are discussing is a very specialized way of playing SMP. And there are a lot of ways to play SMP.
What me and my friends usually do is set up a server, and play (about 5 people online at the same time at peaks) more or less single player but with people to share your world with. We tend to compete in terms of nicest building or first to find diamond, and in general tend to involve some minor RP-elements into it all like actually naming places and dividing the world into lands/regions. All in all, BTW would be awesome in SMP but imo it wouldn't need any tweaking at all when it comes to balance etc. A straight up "port" to SMP would be more than enough for us. But as I said, there are so many ways of playing Minecraft and SMP that there's no way FC can please us all and I think the best way to do it is just to use the mod as it is and maybe people can use the future API to tweak it to their specific needs.

[Elensaar]

I think you guys are putting way too much thought into this. What you are discussing is a very specialized way of playing SMP. And there are a lot of ways to play SMP.
What me and my friends usually do is set up a server, and play (about 5 people online at the same time at peaks) more or less single player but with people to share your world with. We tend to compete in terms of nicest building or first to find diamond, and in general tend to involve some minor RP-elements into it all like actually naming places and dividing the world into lands/regions. All in all, BTW would be awesome in SMP but imo it wouldn't need any tweaking at all when it comes to balance etc. A straight up "port" to SMP would be more than enough for us. But as I said, there are so many ways of playing Minecraft and SMP that there's no way FC can please us all and I think the best way to do it is just to use the mod as it is and maybe people can use the future API to tweak it to their specific needs.

Well, you captured what I tried to get across very succinctly here. I don't think that BTW needs any tweaking for SMP. Maybe apart from more granulated settings. After all, it' sup to the admins/players to decide what kind of world and cooperation they want on the server, so modifying BTW to suit one of the myriad possible playstyles would be wrong.

Which is why I liked the limited space version of Shengji's post. If you're looking for a way to promote the kind of economy mentioned, of course. It wouldn't require any changes to BTW, just some area/economy tweaking. A much better solution, imo.

[Shengji]

I think you guys are putting way too much thought into this .... there's no way FC can please us all and I think the best way to do it is just to use the mod as it is and maybe people can use the future API to tweak it to their specific needs.

This is the design philosophy thread, and I'm very well aware that it's not the suggestion section - This is the place to think as deeply as you like about it! My suggestions were academic, not something I would actually like to see in BTW.

Guys, please read the opening post of this thread, I don't want this to devolve into a backup suggestions thread, what it is right now is a good place to discuss these things.

[Conscript Gary]

Yeah. BTW in smp works the same as normal smp, add more plugins to suit your desired style. With a side bonus of town buildings that actually serve functions.

[Tekei]

This is the design philosophy thread, and I'm very well aware that it's not the suggestion section - This is the place to think as deeply as you like about it! My suggestions were academic, not something I would actually like to see in BTW.

Guys, please read the opening post of this thread, I don't want this to devolve into a backup suggestions thread, what it is right now is a good place to discuss these things.

Ok, I'm not sure if I was misunderstood or if you actually think that what I said goes against the purpose of this thread. My choice of words could probably have been better though but I partly blame the fact that I'm from sweden and don't have english as my native tongue.
I don't mind that people think long and hard about these kinds of things. I like it. The fact that people are discussing ways to make people play in a certain way (i.e designated tasks for every player in order to work as a larger community) puts me off though, and I wanted to voice my opinion on the matter as to not make the debate too one sided.
I believe that it is very much in line with the design philosophy of BTW to keep the SMP and SSP versions of BTW as closely knit together as possible with as few deviations as possible, if any at all.

[Elensaar]

Ok, I'm not sure if I was misunderstood or if you actually think that what I said goes against the purpose of this thread. My choice of words could probably have been better though but I partly blame the fact that I'm from sweden and don't have english as my native tongue.
I don't mind that people think long and hard about these kinds of things. I like it. The fact that people are discussing ways to make people play in a certain way (i.e designated tasks for every player in order to work as a larger community) puts me off though, and I wanted to voice my opinion on the matter as to not make the debate too one sided.
I believe that it is very much in line with the design philosophy of BTW to keep the SMP and SSP versions of BTW as closely knit together as possible with as few deviations as possible, if any at all.

I didn't take you response as clashing in any way with the purpose of this thread. I read it, as you stated, as pointing out that adapting BTW to match one particular style of multiplayer would diminish the mod overall. And I totally agree.

Yeah. BTW in smp works the same as normal smp, add more plugins to suit your desired style. With a side bonus of town buildings that actually serve functions.

This is actually a good way of putting it. I think that it's fitting to the what I see as the root concepts of BTW that an SMP version of the mod would enable functional buildings and give the players the possibility to, together or separately, go through an "industrial revolution" of sorts.

Anything above and beyond that industrialisation should be done through other server modifications/plugins and settings. The only "nod" BTW could give towards that, is more options to customize things through it's settings. But even that might be too much, as FC is putting a lot of work into balancing the mod.

[Shengji]

Ok, I'm not sure if I was misunderstood or if you actually think that what I said goes against the purpose of this thread.

Oh, No, no, no! I thought you thought that what I had written was supposed to be suggestions for the mod, which they absolutely weren't. I was just responding to M!C's idea's about a server. The Guys, please read the OP bit was edited in by me later because it looked to me like a newcomer could misinterpret this thread, which was why I didn't direct that statement at you or anyone in particular and gave it it's own fresh paragraph - I can see how you may have thought I directed that at you, so I apologise for that!

My choice of words could probably have been better though but I partly blame the fact that I'm from sweden and don't have english as my native tongue.

You're English is perfect, I would never have guessed you weren't a native speaker!

I don't mind that people think long and hard about these kinds of things. I like it. The fact that people are discussing ways to make people play in a certain way (i.e designated tasks for every player in order to work as a larger community) puts me off though, and I wanted to voice my opinion on the matter as to not make the debate too one sided.

That's cool - I agree that people shouldn't be forced to play in a particular way, but I was putting forward those suggestions as idea's which would work with BTW and achieve the style of gameplay M!C was talking about, basically because without some form of restriction, I don't believe that type of gameplay is possible - it wasn't ever supposed to be a "BTW should hardcode this in so everyone who wants to use it in multiplayer has to have them" - it was a "The server that supports that type of game would need to think about idea's like that" - if that makes any sense!

[Tekei]

That's cool - I agree that people shouldn't be forced to play in a particular way, but I was putting forward those suggestions as idea's which would work with BTW and achieve the style of gameplay M!C was talking about, basically because without some form of restriction, I don't believe that type of gameplay is possible - it wasn't ever supposed to be a "BTW should hardcode this in so everyone who wants to use it in multiplayer has to have them" - it was a "The server that supports that type of game would need to think about idea's like that" - if that makes any sense!

Cool, no hard feelings :) I guess I mistook your post as being about the direction you'd want BTW to move towards in general, not about a specific server setup.

[M!C]

[...]I was just responding to M!C's idea's about a server.[...] the style of gameplay M!C was talking about, [...]

It's not that I dislike being credited but I merely said that I like DaveYanakov's idea. ;)

[Shengji]

[...]I was just responding to M!C's idea's about a server.[...] the style of gameplay M!C was talking about, [...]

It's not that I dislike being credited but I merely said that I like DaveYanakov's idea. ;)

Ooops, my bad!