Vanilla Anvil inbound

[finite8]

Time for a "Soulforged Anvil" perhaps?

https://twitter.com/Dinnerbone/status/2 ... 6693440512

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[Sarudak]

That or he could just tear it out... It looks like it's going to have stupid features anyway. Isn't it for repairing tools?

[finite8]

It looks like it's going to have stupid features anyway. Isn't it for repairing tools?

I would normally say yes, but i have a little bit more faith in Dinnerbone. I know way back in the Get Satisfaction days there was talk of repairing tools, weapons and armour with raw materials. Perhaps this is what will be implemented?

I will however NOT be surprised if they just move the repair recipe out of the Workbench and into the Anvil. It is vMC after all.

[Husbag3]

One thing is for sure, our anvil is a lot prettier.

[Aeslynn Winterfell]

One thing is for sure, our anvil is a lot prettier.

Lol. I was actually thinking the same thing just before I read your post. :)

[FlowerChild]

I'll wait and see what the actual release version is like, but my first instinct is to just rip it out. BTW already has repair and enchantment customization systems which seem to be better thought out than this thing, and vanilla enchants are already way overpowered without throwing this into the mix.

I'm not pulling any punches anymore with regards to new vanilla features. If I don't like them, they just don't make the cut to be in BTW.

I would normally say yes, but i have a little bit more faith in Dinnerbone.

I don't. Take a look at the tripwire design and implementation. It stinks, and feels much more like the work of an amateur modder than a professional. As far as I can tell, his attention to detail is just rubbish.

[Sarudak]

Yay! Next step rip out the vanilla enchanting system wholesale! :D

[utakataJ6]

Tear it out...got to respect that. The precedent needs to be set somewhere, I suppose. Not sure how I would feel about it as a soul-forged anvil, because that doesn't change the OP enchantment combination necessarily.

[finite8]

I don't. Take a look at the tripwire design and implementation. It stinks, and feels much more like the work of an amateur modder than a professional. As far as I can tell, his attention to detail is just rubbish.

Actually, I agree with you here. It is half arsed and unreliable. It had so much potential too (the proposed mechanics of it actually fits with BTW) but having it bug out if you alternate between it floating over water and solid / air is just.... dumb.

The poor-mans lens block is just too useless, and so will the anvil implementation (yours looks better too).

[finite8]

This seems appropriate right now.

[FlowerChild]

Actually, I agree with you here. It is half arsed and unreliable. It had so much potential too (the proposed mechanics of it actually fits with BTW) but having it bug out if you alternate between it floating over water and solid / air is just.... dumb.

The poor-mans lens block is just too useless, and so will the anvil implementation (yours looks better too).

Yup, and one other detail that I will add in is that the way the hit-box works on the string (just one big ugly square outline) just screams "amateur". Take a look at the difference in how I handle the hit-box on string attached to stakes and you'll see what I mean. I put a lot of work into resizing it based on the actual string lay-out, ray-tracing vs the various parts, etc., while he just slapped a big rectangular solid over the maximum space it could occupy and called it a day. On top of that, I was working in a full 3 dimensions with that, making it much more difficult than what he would have had to do in 2.

That's what I mean about attention to detail.

[MoRmEnGiL]

It does have some interesting applications with minecart system, falling stuff detectors and mob height though..

As for the anvil, for vMC it's not that bad, as vMC lacks the expanded enchanting features of btw.
The problem is though, at this point, including the anvil, getting the enchantment you want is super easy, but STILL up to the rng. They could just make the enchantments selectable and drastically up the costs, or otherwise tweek it. Having it random but giving many side features to help you get what you want is counterproductive if you ask me.

Again, feels like they do not know what they want.

[Mason11987]

Actually, I agree with you here. It is half arsed and unreliable. It had so much potential too (the proposed mechanics of it actually fits with BTW) but having it bug out if you alternate between it floating over water and solid / air is just.... dumb.

The poor-mans lens block is just too useless, and so will the anvil implementation (yours looks better too).

Yup, and one other detail that I will add in is that the way the hit-box works on the string (just one big ugly square outline) just screams "amateur". Take a look at the difference in how I handle the hit-box on string attached to stakes and you'll see what I mean. I put a lot of work into resizing it based on the actual string lay-out, ray-tracing vs the various parts, etc., while he just slapped a big rectangular solid over the maximum space it could occupy and called it a day. On top of that, I was working in a full 3 dimensions with that, making it much more difficult than what he would have had to do in 2.

That's what I mean about attention to detail.

Well considering how long it took to make stairs with an acceptable hitbox, the huge hit-box was not at all surprising to me.

[dawnraider]

Again, feels like they do not know what they want.

Yes, they do. They know they don't want to grow a pair and stand up to the hordes of haters such as our Eldtritch overlord has for the past year and a half. FC is worthy of respect. Mojang really needs to get their act together and stop throwing in half-finished features that add nothing to the game, just to please the masses screaming "PLEASE make the game easy! Its too hard! We want to turn 'survival' into creative [imo, it won't take to much to do that]. We want MOAR POWER!" that are unable to know what is fun for them, even if they think they do. That is why we have FC, the REAL designer of MC, that actually has his act together and knows how to make a great game, is able to stand up to the haters, and who does all of this for free, taking up his own time, purely for HIS OWN pleasure. If it is not fun for him, we don't get any of the cool features we have. And if he succumbs to the haters, then it will no longer be fun for him. If you don't like it, then that's your opinion, but you don't have to force it on the designer. So, thank you, FC, for all the time you have put into this mod, and battling through the haters, weilding your banhammer in triumph, unlike so many people out there are unable to *cough* Jeb *cough*.
[/end rant]

EDIT: clarity

[FlowerChild]

I posted this to MCF with regards to the anvil earlier today:

Hehe...yeah. You'd basically have to in order to justify that quantity of iron being involved :)

This is what I was going on about the other day with regards to some of the newer features coming into vMC feeling a lot like those in a mediocre mod rather than being professionally done.

Just looking over the screenshots for the vMC anvil (I haven't even tried it yet), I came up with a small list of such aspects that I had planned to post on the forums right before they went down, that felt distinctly amateur.

The recipe was obviously a big one, but it's also in a lot of the details like the slots being off-center, and the big ugly hammer icon which totally contrasts with the rest of the interfaces in the game. The only precedent for something like that is the book icon in the enchanting interface, but that's an animated 3D model, and in that case I think it fit because it gives the player the sense that they're doing something special.

You'll notice I pay a lot of attention to interface convention with mod blocks to make them feel like a more natural part of MC and avoid stuff like high-tech looking gauges and numerical displays which you see a ton of in other mods which inevitably wind up making it feel like you're playing a mod rather than it just being an extension of Minecraft.

These are small things, but they all add up in terms of the player's sense of immersion. The kind of stuff I describe above just winds up screaming "amateur" at you.

With regards to the recipe, my original point was that putting such a "THIS IS FOR BALANCE!!!!" recipe in the game was pure amateur. You see it with mods all the time, where they put in totally unreasonable costs to an item/block strictly for balance even though it makes no sense from an in-game standpoint, instead of putting in the work to have balance AND context.

Anyways, I suspected as much after the trip-wire, but seeing just the above with the Anvil, I'm convinced that Dinnerbone is not a professional...at least not from a design standpoint. I think I'm defaulting to yanking his features so as not to detract from the quality of the mod.

And yes...I am stricken by the irony of that. A *mod* is now removing features from a commercial product in order to preserve its own quality. How fucked is that?

[OldMarriedDude]

I think I'm defaulting to yanking his features so as not to detract from the quality of the mod.

And yes...I am stricken by the irony of that. A *mod* is now removing features from a commercial product in order to preserve its own quality. How fucked is that?

And this FC, is why we all love you and BTW- You are not afraid to do the right thing for your mod and our enjoyment even if it flies in the face of "popular" (MCF) opinion. I havnt been playing MC or BTW long enough to have seen many updates but I have played long enough to know vMC sucks without the challenges BTW incorporates.

[Sherlock]

Wouldn't it be more constructive if you *fixed* the vMC anvil instead of completely removing it? I'm mostly saying this because I read your post in which you said you were going to get rid of bad vMC features, and frankly that scares me because most of the features coming out vanilla are going to be of the same mediocre quality, which will result in the removal of a lot of features(some which have good potential) from BTW, when they could be tweaked and given an useful purpose. You are completely right about the vMC anvil, it doesnt even look like an anvil, and crafting recipe is just a lousy attempt at being balanced. The only *good* feature of the vMC anvil, is the renaming of items, which could be useful in role-playing servers, but even that could have been implemented in better way.

[kazerima]

Honestly? the only plans I have for the vMC 'anvil' are its use as a drop weapon for 6 hearts of damage.

[FlowerChild]

Wouldn't it be more constructive if you *fixed* the vMC anvil instead of completely removing it? I'm mostly saying this because I read your post in which you said you were going to get rid of bad vMC features, and frankly that scares me because most of the features coming out vanilla are going to be of the same mediocre quality, which will result in the removal of a lot of features(some which have good potential) from BTW, when they could be tweaked and given an useful purpose. You are completely right about the vMC anvil, it doesnt even look like an anvil, and crafting recipe is just a lousy attempt at being balanced. The only *good* feature of the vMC anvil, is the renaming of items, which could be useful in role-playing servers, but even that could have been implemented in better way.

Fuck off.

[Mr_Hosed]

Massive amounts of iron, limited number of uses (consumed), and just allows you to repair enchanted weapons (doesn't even stack enchants)? Yeah, that just needs to go.

The only cool thing about the vMC anvil is a total gimmick anyways and that's the fact that it inherits gravel physics and can be launched from cannons.

[Laskeri]

Well Mojang was planning on making MC modular in the future (If they don't screw that up somehow) so that could help with removing the future features you don't like.

But of course, this is supposed to be implemented with the mythical Mod API, so yeah. >_>

[Stormweaver]

Well Mojang was planning on making MC modular in the future (If they don't screw that up somehow) so that could help with removing the future features you don't like.

But of course, this is supposed to be implemented with the mythical Mod API, so yeah. >_>

Wasn't that about a year ago? When I heard that plan, I thought it was the best thing they'd thought of since dirt blocks. Instant excuse for them to set up an API, and allowance for them to add whatever crap they wanted without necessarily pissing off users like us. Shame it never happened.

[Laskeri]

Well Mojang was planning on making MC modular in the future (If they don't screw that up somehow) so that could help with removing the future features you don't like.

But of course, this is supposed to be implemented with the mythical Mod API, so yeah. >_>

Wasn't that about a year ago? When I heard that plan, I thought it was the best thing they'd thought of since dirt blocks. Instant excuse for them to set up an API, and allowance for them to add whatever crap they wanted without necessarily pissing off users like us. Shame it never happened.

It was discussed at the API meeting a while ago, I'm not sure if they're even still planning on doing it.

[FlowerChild]

My apologies for being exceedingly blunt last night, even for myself. Friday night drinks and all :)

To elaborate: salvaging poorly conceived ideas would likely be far more work than implementing new ones, and frankly, it's rather tedious. I have plenty of ideas of my own I want to get to, and the thought of perpetually fixing Mojang's mistakes instead of working on my own ideas is rather depressing.

I'm sure there are some features I'll want to "fix" instead of just ripping them out, but when I see something as poorly conceived and implemented as this anvil thing, I think just ripping it out and being done with it is a far saner option. There's nothing in there that the mod doesn't already do, probably in a better way to begin with, that is of any real value.

Also, making your first post to the forums a critique of my decisions is probably not wise, especially on a Friday ;)

[jakerman999]

To elaborate: salvaging poorly conceived ideas would likely be far more work than implementing new ones, and frankly, it's rather tedious. I have plenty of ideas of my own I want to get to, and the thought of perpetually fixing Mojang's mistakes instead of working on my own ideas is rather depressing.

I'm sure there are some features I'll want to "fix" instead of just ripping them out, but when I see something as poorly conceived and implemented as this anvil thing, I think just ripping it out and being done with it is a far saner option. There's nothing in there that the mod doesn't already do, probably in a better way to begin with, that is of any real value.

This would be why you created stakes, rather than inplementing the functionality into the tripwires? It's the only design decision you've made that I can't see the reasoning behind.