Flower's Dev Diary (Week of November 27th)

[FlowerChild]

Well, I've decided this week's dev diary is going to be something a little different.

I've decided to talk about some of my plans for the mod (a rather rare occurrence), and why Mojang's actions as of late have been causing a great deal of difficulty with regards to following them through. I also want to discuss why this has resulted in a bit of a design impasse for me.

Many of you here probably remember my many mentions of "The Return To Home", "Phases", what have you, and today I'd like to share and discuss some (not all ;) ) of those plans.

To open, I'll temporarily unlock the video I made back in the day related to Home, and teasing about its upcoming inclusion in the mod, as I reference it repeatedly in the following:



The long and the short of it is that "Home" has always been intended as a new world. Not only a new world, but one completely of my own design from the ground up, where every single block is handled by my own code, and the rules of the world itself are of my own determining.

And I'm not talking about a "world" like the nether here. I'm talking about a full-featured MC world on the scale of the overworld, where the player will likely be spending the majority of their time once they gain access to it (hence my "waving goodbye" to my world in that video).

This has a huge number of advantages for the mod. First, it allows preservation of people's existing worlds (including my own, which you all know I'm very attached to). People would be able to continue playing the mod the way they always have, and the choice whether to go "home" is entirely up to them. However, once they're there, all bets are off, and I can design absolutely everything to suit the way I want it to play. Blocks and items from the overworld can NOT be brought to Home (through hard work, you can bring Home stuff back to regular MC though). Only the player himself may travel there, hence my dropping all my items in the chest in the video.

Home itself will contain a wide range of challenges not found in vanilla MC or BTW at present. It will be a very dangerous and different place from what you are used to. It will also contain the possibility for the future technological advancements in the mod. Basically, once Home is released, I will cease to develop things for the regular vMC world, and any new ages in the mod can only be experienced within Home itself. This is also the reason why people will want to primarily "live" in Home, as to progress further in the BTW tech-tree, you will have to be there.

What all this amounts to is that it isolates me from any boneheaded design decisions that Mojang makes. They can "wreck" the vMC world or its balance in any way that they choose, and I can just happily continue developing Home largely unaffected by that. It also does it in a cool in-game way in that as the player advances through the tech tree, they gain access to new challenges and rewards in a very "natural" way.

Basically, I saw what's happening now to vMC coming a long way off and planned Home as an ideal solution to the overall problem. However, I was also counting on Mojang to follow through with their announced plans for extended block IDs. If we had just gotten those fucking things 6 months ago or so when they were supposed to happen, I'm fairly certain that we'd all be happily playing in Home right now and many recent issues with the mod's community wouldn't have happened.

The big reason for that latter part is that many of the "Hardcore" changes making their way into the mod now were originally planned for Home, NOT for the vMC world. As I've said above, my world, my rules, and that's that. I suspect that would have been *much* easier for people to swallow then the hardcore changes as they stand now. By traveling to home, they're basically implicitly accepting that things will be very different there from what they are used to. It involves a level of player consent that I think is causing many people to freak out in its absence.

I think there are very few that would disagree all this would have been an awesome step forward for the mod, and it was one that I was extremely excited about myself, but unfortunately, it was brought to a grinding halt by Mojang first announcing extended blockIDs and then dragging their feet in an epic manner with regards to them. Looking at the above video, it's extremely saddening to me to see that I released it over six months ago, and at the time I was actively working on Home and planned to have it ready for launch within a few weeks.

Ever since then, I've been in a conflicted state over the design of BTW where I have all kinds of plans that I want to implement, but I can't do them in Home, so I wind up doing them in the vMC world instead. At the same time, I can't go as far as I really want to with them either, as that would turn BTW into a full-out total conversion that bears very little resemblance to vMC, and which would completely trash people's existing worlds. Meanwhile, as I predicted when I planned all this, vMC is continuing to evolve in alarming ways that I'm not at all comfortable with and I find myself spending more and more time "fixing" Mojang's features rather than working on my own content.

This is all rather frustrating and even infuriating for me. I have a *very* solid plan in place that would have made all this a non-issue, but I'm seemingly at the mercy of an external entity that isn't following through on its own promises, and which is making it nigh impossible for me to follow through on my own plans. Again, all this "you'll have the mod API next release" bullshit has been going on for 6 months now.

So, why I'm telling you guys all this is that something has to change here, and I need to stop relying on Mojang to follow through and make it all possible. As a result, I'd like to share with you guys a number of options that I have considered, or am still considering, along with the associated pros and cons of each, on how to move forward from here. I want to open this up to community discussion so I can get an idea of how people feel about the various routes I may take in resolving this ongoing issue.

I'll be detailing these options in additional posts to this thread, as I think I've already written enough here to give people a lot to mull over while I write up the rest of this :)

[DemonButter]

I for one fully understand and I'm behind you all the way.
Always have been, always will be. Your design always feels thoroughly thought out and solidly implemented; I've never been disappointed by what you had to offer with the mod.

Thanks for your dedication to Better Than Wolves.

[Ceunon]

Man, this post made me sad. I mean, I was kinda pumped up on the part where you teased how Home will be and made it clear that you still plan on doing the Phases, but then the tone changed.

I know I've expressed this a thousand times already, but you have in me a huge supporter, FC. I love MC and I love BTW, but to see the designers of both to have such conflicting philosphies gets me depressed. I'm looking for your nexts posts, I really hope you have a solution planned for all of this.

[Huli]

*edit after videoadvice for germans below*

It does not sound too bad. I say too bad because there is a hardcore option I have a personal issue with that does only partly result from vmc and I did enjoy that you gave the people freedom to choose if they wanted it or not unlike mojang does with bats (even in peaceful >.<!).

Considering the changes to enderman I can see "Home" as a whole new challenge with sense of accomplishment that I feel missing in a lot of other games.
The issue however I can ultimately see arise is that people who like even small additions by mojang, like cobble fences for example, will continuesly harrass you to introduce similar features.

I would like to write more but since this is not a discussion topic (i believe?) let me end with one question if you allow:

Would there be an option for player to instantly start out in "Home" since they leave everything behind anyway?

I ask because investing a lot of time into a redundant task is in my eyes more work than fun.
*edit 2: same concern as Sarudak :x*



If people from germany want to watch this video which is blocked cause of musicrights violation from GEMA and do not know how yet.

Please download firefox and install a plugin called "proxtube" it lets you bypass this little issue aslong as you have proxtube activated.

[Sarudak]

Hey it's public! That means I can finally talk about this... :P

Anyway personally I've always though a total conversion would be better than return to home. I know you want to preserve people's worlds. But as I said people can always keep a copy of minecraft with BTW and their old worlds. For the new player it kinda sucks because they have to play through Mojang's crappy minecraft before they can get to the real game. It also is likely to teach people bad habits. It also, I think, makes you less inclined to spend time on your world because you know it's just a stepping stone. Personally if I were to start off I would want to go straight into the Return to Home world and not have to play around in the current world. Also as I understand it the bar for entry is quite high so playing in Mojang's minecraft is not something you can easily skip.

Now for the existing player I think many of them would be torn. Should I go to Home? I know that it's a level of player consent that way but I think many people would have a hard time leaving their old world behind and never being sure if/when they can return to it.

Overall I think the Return to Home could also be harder for you as a mod maker. I mean you say that you would want to keep your entire focus on the world you created but if a large portion of the mods users are not there you'll be having to either abandon them to a hybrid of what was good when you left it plus mojangs attempts at ruining the game experience or be back at the state where you have to spend most of your time fixing Mojang's screw ups.

I hope this gives some perspective on why I've been pushing so much for you to go TC over RTH. :)

[Battlecat]

I'm really sorry to hear how frustrating this is for you. I'm interested to hear what options you're considering but at the end of the day, I trust you'll do what's best for both BTW and more importantly for your personal enjoyment on this project.

[Detritus]

Personally, I don't see why you shouldn't implement extended blockIDs yourself. By this stage, nearly all of us are using BTW on it's own without other mods except for those that are designed specifically to fit in with it, so the compatibility aspect of that isn't really an issue. Also, the main inhibiting factor that I see for you is that it will break many worlds when the official solution comes out; As a solution to this, I see two real options: 1, Don't pick up the official solution at all. You appear to have been managing fine with your own base-class mods up to now, so you could just continue on your own. When we were dubious about Modloader updating to 1.4, you were considering just doing it on your own without Modloader, and so you could just do the same thing when the API itself comes out, assuming that Modloader ceases to be developed.
2, Drop your own system when the official one is released. I understand that this is less desirable than the other, because it requires a large amount of work being disposed of. This would also impact people's worlds, and they would have to either restart, or spend a large amount of time in previous versions collecting the mod items up, and uncrafting them. This is an altogether less ideal system, although it does allow greater ease, using the API itself.

Anyway, if you could actually explain to me your reasons behind not wanting to do this, I may be able to contribute more constructively to this discussion.

[FlowerChild]

Man, this post made me sad. I mean, I was kinda pumped up on the part where you teased how Home will be and made it clear that you still plan on doing the Phases, but then the tone changed.

Well, even the name "Home" works on many different levels. There's an in-game connotation that works on the level of the backstory of the mod. There's a connotation for player's themselves as this will be their new home during play. Then there's the connotation for it being my new "home" as a developer where I can develop the mod freely without what's wound up feeling like Mojang's constant interference in the mod's design as they release new features.

You may have seen me say many times over the past several months stuff along the lines of "man, I need to get the fuck out of this place" and this is what I've been referring to. I really no longer want to develop in Mojang's version of the MC world as doing so is driving me nuts and taking a lot of the fun out of making the mod.

The "Phases" were my plan to try and delay working on Home itself due to the blockID issue while still continuing to move the mod towards it. They largely involve expanding upon the in-game steps required in order to make that final trip.

HOWEVER, the problem with the phases is that they still leave me tied to the vMC world, which is what I've been trying to get away from to begin with. As a result, every time I decide to work on them, I inevitably get distracted by something else, as I think deep down I know they don't represent a real solution to this problem...just a delay in resolving it.

I think my reason for deciding to post this particular diary is that I think I've finally had enough of it and have realized I need to do something to make Home a reality sooner rather than later.

Anyways, will write up my potential solutions. I'm just reviewing them all for myself right now to get it all straight as this is an ongoing thought process that's been going on for me for over 6 months now.

[FlowerChild]

Anyway, if you could actually explain to me your reasons behind not wanting to do this, I may be able to contribute more constructively to this discussion.

I absolutely don't want to get into that aspect. It's been discussed to death in the past and a forum search will provide you with the reasons behind it if you take the time to look.

For the purposes of this conversation, I ask people to simply accept that it's a bad idea and work from there.

[DemonButter]

-snip-

Overall I think the Return to Home could also be harder for you as a mod maker. I mean you say that you would want to keep your entire focus on the world you created but if a large portion of the mods users are not there you'll be having to either abandon them to a hybrid of what was good when you left it plus mojangs attempts at ruining the game experience or be back at the state where you have to spend most of your time fixing Mojang's screw ups.

I see the Overworld remaining as a likely cure to World Restart Syndrome many Minecrafters go on about, so yes first time players won't be able to dive into Home but they will have to go through the basics of BTW and it's hardships which I suppose will (by the sound of things only slightly) harden the player for the juicy challenges FC hands us. If the Overworld and Home are mutually exclusive I don't see what bad habbits may emerge. As I understood it, FC is mostly leaving the Overworld to the wolves (Mojang) and is spending his focus on his world which to me means he can more easily prevent the possibility of Bad Habbits

Edit: Totally my speculation of things of course.

[Stormweaver]

It's sad in a lot of ways; a lot of the above has been hinted enough for some people to get a good idea of what would be happening (the new world, possibly no way back thing) and to be honest I always saw it as a situation where you would one day decide that you're done with the vanilla world; there's nothing more you can do but go on. Kinda like choosing death when you're not sure if there's an afterlife or not.

I say it's sad because, in the original running of things, it felt like it would have a fairly deep impact when you first go home in a new world. But if the trend continues with mojang, it's going to be less a case of that, and more of a case of escaping the really bad pseudo-reality you find yourself in into a new, better one. Not a bad thing in itself, but the less comfortable the original game is, the less impact home will feel like having.

Then again, it's the perfect encouragement to start a world and stick with it :p

So yeah. In the end you know you have my complete trust as the developer of the game I invest my time on, and I look forward to whatever you pull off. I just hope that Mojang don't muddy the canvas too much in the meantime :)

*HUGE NINJA* assume I posted before flower's second post. Now to catch up...

[Sarudak]

Ah but what if you lose your world to some accident and you have no backups or you lost those too? Or what if you want to startup a server with some friends?

[FlowerChild]

It also is likely to teach people bad habits.

That part I don't agree with. I view the vMC portion of the tech tree as being more of a "tutorial" in which you learn the basic mechanisms of the mod in a much easier environment. There will definitely be carry-over in design concepts between the two, even if there are also many differences. It's not an entirely separate game though.

Overall I think the Return to Home could also be harder for you as a mod maker. I mean you say that you would want to keep your entire focus on the world you created but if a large portion of the mods users are not there you'll be having to either abandon them to a hybrid of what was good when you left it plus mojangs attempts at ruining the game experience or be back at the state where you have to spend most of your time fixing Mojang's screw ups.

That may be a fair point, and is certainly a plus for the TC approach. It *is* much cleaner in terms of "this is BTW and that's that".

[Sarudak]

I view the vMC portion of the tech tree as being more of a "tutorial" in which you learn the basic mechanisms of the mod in a much easier environment.

I'm getting the feeling that the first period/age/whatever of being in 'Home' is going to play out like a survival horror game... Lol

[Wafflewaffle]

Ow! So that was "The Device" everyone talks about. I can only imagine the amount of freedom this Home would give FC. The power to control Minecraft from the ground up, and still be able to do it without fear of reprisal. Its always awesome when we get to peak at your mind, keep up the good work and be sure we will follow you Home.

[Kazuya Mishima]

I pretty much came right from vanilla to your mod and couldn't imagine going back. I couldn't stand the idea of automation(what was the point after-all) until i started to get deep in your mod and it's really enhanced the enjoyment of the game. Mojang's design philosophy brings me as far as a constructing a nether gate and then I'm at a loss for things to do and feel all activity is rather without purpose after that achievement. BTW enhances the survival aspects and adds what i think is a totally new dimension with requiring you to automate.

I think the community needs to consider that some inconveniences should be endured for the good of the development of the "real" game here which is BTW and its' creator's sanity. It would certainly be another form of contribution to FC's work. If that means having an old incompatible world or lose some potentially attractive vanilla features i don't think that is unreasonable sacrifice, some might disagree.

[Chomamonka]

This is really exiting to hear about such changes. I, much like the majority of this community, am sick and tired of Mojang's recent changes to Minecraft. I trust you as a developer, your not one to jump into something like this. I know you will get it done right (no matter what you decide to do)

[FlowerChild]

Ok...screw writing up all the options. Many of them are already coming up in the course of discussion here, so let's just keep talking about them as I'm not in the mood to write another wall of text to detail them all :)

It's sad in a lot of ways; a lot of the above has been hinted enough for some people to get a good idea of what would be happening (the new world, possibly no way back thing) and to be honest I always saw it as a situation where you would one day decide that you're done with the vanilla world; there's nothing more you can do but go on. Kinda like choosing death when you're not sure if there's an afterlife or not.

Well, there's an aspect of that yes (and one that ties into the Tree Of Life style painting in the mod...I've put a LOT of thought into all this ;) ), but part of the design for Home is that you would always be able to travel back to the vMC world freely.

The major limiting factor is that ONLY Steve could make the trip to home for reasons that are part of the backstory. All equipment and blocks need to be left behind. In practical terms, this means that Home itself is an isolated play environment that vanilla (or even other mods installed alongside BTW) can never impact in any way.

I say it's sad because, in the original running of things, it felt like it would have a fairly deep impact when you first go home in a new world. But if the trend continues with mojang, it's going to be less a case of that, and more of a case of escaping the really bad pseudo-reality you find yourself in into a new, better one. Not a bad thing in itself, but the less comfortable the original game is, the less impact home will feel like having.

Well, again though, this is part of the backstory, which I'm not prepared to share at this stage. Suffice it to say, there are in game reasons as to why the vanilla world is "less real".

Actually, I'll give you guys an idea about what's going on here. Again, in reference to the Tree of Life, look up the "formative world", and I think that painting in the mod will begin to make much more sense.

Basically, I've integrated the non-sensical aspects of the vMC world into the back story ;)

[Ferrus.Manus]

I will wait till FC post his proposed solution (since his solutions will almost certainly be much better than what I have in mind) before speculating much but I'm glad you decided to take some steps forwards this, I was so stoked for the anniversary update and seeing it delayed more and more was aggravating.

[Sarudak]

Is there any other options besides full TC and RTH that you've been considering? If so it might be valuable to the discussion to mention them.

[johnt]

I don't actually have a problem with a non-backwards compatible version of BTW. People can always take a wait and see attitude to upgrading, and I'm sure as you keep developing the new version, people will hop on board.

[FlowerChild]

I think the community needs to consider that some inconveniences should be endured for the good of the development of the "real" game here which is BTW and its' creator's sanity. It would certainly be another form of contribution to FC's work. If that means having an old incompatible world or lose some potentially attractive vanilla features i don't think that is unreasonable sacrifice, some might disagree.

You know what strikes me as funny in this? Despite how many out there claim I don't give a shit about players or whatever, I think the above would be a non-issue for almost every other mod author out there.

Other modders seem to be of the inherent assumption that people's worlds can be routinely trashed at any point. Heck, even Mojang seems to think that on occasion.

So, almost anyone else would have just made "BTW 2" at this stage and called it a day. It's only my own concern for players and their worlds that hold me back from doing something like that.

I will wait till FC post his proposed solution (since his solutions will almost certainly be much better than what I have in mind) before speculating much but I'm glad you decided to take some steps forwards this, I was so stoked for the anniversary update and seeing it delayed more and more was aggravating.

I think it was probably most aggravating for me man. I just didn't want to talk about it too much because I didn't want to give anything away, because "Home" always seemed to be just over the horizon and I wanted to preserve many of the surprises involved in my usual manner.

However, I think now I'm basically accepting that Home isn't going to happen unless I take drastic measures, which is why I've decided to open this all up and talk about it.

But yes, it's been driving me frigging nuts not to be able to move forward on this.

[Panda]

Lets just say, better than wolves is minecraft for me, not that cheap immitation that keeps getting ruined by vanilla, your ideas feel much more like actual minecraft was for me when i started playing! Im fully behind what ever decision you make. :D
Do your Evilest!

[Sarudak]

So, almost anyone else would have just made "BTW 2" at this stage and called it a day. It's only my own concern for players and their worlds that hold me back from doing something like that.

I understand that totally. But I don't think there's anyone here that's more attached to their worlds than you. If ultimately you decide you're willing to start over to go TC then I think 90%+ of those here will ultimately come to the same decision.

[Chomamonka]

I was little nervous reading this but just a couple of more posts in and I am already sold. You have made a minecraft so much better with this mod. I will most definitely had over my minecraft experience to you. You are real developer of minecraft. If you need more freedom to do more of what you have been doing then by all means!