Flower's Dev Diary (Week of April 29th)

[FlowerChild]

Another week (or month ;) ), another round of feature development!

As always, rules for this thread:

-DO NOT post suggestions.
-DO NOT critique unreleased features. Wait until you've had a chance to try them before passing judgement.

With that out of the way, let's open with an in-game screenshot:

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That's a picture of my little "snow shack" area in my main world, where I've been spending quite a bit of time as of late, both due to the snow changes I've made, and also as a test area for various optimizations :)

It's been a long time (over a month) since my last dev diary, but as you guys have probably noticed, I've been quite busy over that time. A plethora of hardcore modes basically reworking the entire early game experience, the port to 1.5, plus this latest round of optimizations.

I'm quite satisfied with the results of the latter, so I think it's about time for me to move back to focusing on gameplay and the "wrapping up" of BTW in general. This week, I plan on returning to a couple of small loose ends that I've left in the early game, and which shouldn't take me very long at all, and then shift my focus back to HC Villagers and get that taken care of.

HC Villagers is probably the last *major* gameplay change I have left to tackle on the mod (errr...total conversion), but I'm very much looking forward to the impact it will have on overall gameplay. I think you guys will be quite pleased with what I have planned there, and I think it will finally move villagers beyond the poorly integrated tagged-on addition to MC that they've always felt like.

Once I'm done with that, the only major task that really remains on BTW (other than the remaining bug fixes), will be to wrap up the "end game", which will tell the "story" (I feel dirty even using that word) of the transition between BTW and the Return to Home.

Guess that about covers it for now. Basically still busting my ass pushing forward to the point where I feel comfortable calling BTW complete :)

[savagelung]

Congratulations on reaching this stage of development! I can't wait to see what you have in store for us with HC Villagers. After a bout with world restart syndrome, I've settled cozily into a world that I feel great about riding from BTW to RTH. I have some serious incentive to get myself ready for future end game content, as I foresee some all-nighters whenever that content is released =)

[Folrig]

Is the "statue" in front of your Snow Shack for snow covered block testing?

Because it looks strangely symbolic.

[FlowerChild]

Is the "statue" in front of your Snow Shack for snow covered block testing?

Yup, it is. I basically needed an area on which to test snow on various partial blocks, and while I put it together, the statue just kinda happened :)

[FlowerChild]

Oh yes, and as I mentioned in the balance thread, I'm currently doing a play-through of the mod.

One thing I really love about doing play-throughs that I wanted to mention, is when I get into the play/develop mode of doing things. I reach certain points where I say to myself "fuck man...I'd really like to have 'foo' right now", and suddenly a new feature is born.

That's what just happened ;)

[jakerman999]

What, not even a small teaser of foo this time?

[Chibiterase]

Aren't those snow blocks on top of birch trees? (or was that shown before?)

[LJEKadeshi]

Perhaps I'm recalling incorrectly, but with his table on the left could we always have blocks that form benches that low?

[Blazara]

^ The benches have been around for a while now.

[FlowerChild]

What, not even a small teaser of foo this time?

Actually...sure, why not? :)

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[Thorium-232]

Actually...sure, why not? :)

I, too, have felt that cross-dressing as one's father did has been absent from the mod for far too long. Great idea!

[Sarudak]

Actually...sure, why not? :)

So you're integrating tree capitator into the mod???

[FlowerChild]

So you're integrating tree capitator into the mod???

But of course. You know I love me some treecapicitor. Mmmm, mmmm, give me some more of the big juicy insta-tree-felling action :)

[FlowerChild]

Hehe...I may as well just spoil this one. It's not a big deal, and I'm finding it amusing enough that I'd like to share :)

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[Sarudak]

Hats?? What is this TF2? :)

I'm guessing cloth armor? :P

[CycloneSP]

So I take it it is some form of cloth or leather variant that aids in tree felling? O.o Where's my tin-foil hat?

[FlowerChild]

Hehe...no, it's wool "armor"/clothing to act as an early game very basic form of low durability protection and to provide use to all the wool that tends to accumulate as you massacre sheep in the early game.

As I mentioned above, as I was doing my play-through I had a "fuck man...I really wish I could make some clothing out of this wool" moment :)

[savagelung]

Hehe...no, it's wool "armor"/clothing to act as an early game very basic form of low durability protection and to provide use to all the wool that tends to accumulate as you massacre sheep in the early game.

Early game? I'll choose looking like a lumberjack over safety every time :D

[FlowerChild]

Early game? I'll choose looking like a lumberjack over safety every time :D

Well, yes, it does provide a cheap alternative to leather, and aesthetic options throughout the game of course :)

[destineternel]

ooh! I like the idea of wool armor/clothing. Means I can finally wear a pink toque. :)

[FlowerChild]

Just one small caveat: there are no wool boots, as those would be socks ;)

[BinoAl]

I can't help but notice there are different colors of clothes in that screenshot :)

[FlowerChild]

I can't help but notice there are different colors of clothes in that screenshot :)

Hehe...yup, I implemented a system to easily add in mod-armors as there's also another set that will be coming in this release, and part of that was creating hooks for coloring armor like what is already done for leather.

Might be useful for add-on authors as well, as adding custom armors to MC was always a pain in the ass considering the base-class mods required to get them to display on players and mobs. Now, that whole thing is largely automated with the code I wrote, so adding new armors is mostly just texturing work.

The one part that I'm not implementing for this coming release though, is that the initial wool armor you create in the crafting grid is always grey (I assume a mix of colors is used in its creation), regardless of the colors of wool used in crafting.

Getting it to initially be the right color would be a fair amount of work, turning what was intended as a simple feature into a rather intense task, so I'll leave that for a potential future release. For now, after crafting it, you can dye it whatever color you like.

[Sarudak]

Wait... An additional new armor besides wool? Is it sealskin?? Did you add seals and sealskin armor?

[FlowerChild]

Wait... An additional new armor besides wool? Is it sealskin?? Did you add seals and sealskin armor?

I mentioned it in IRC last week. It's Padded, to serve as a middle-game alternative to leather for those that go the settler instead of nomad route.

It'll have the same protection values as leather (wool is much less than leather), but much lower durability. Also no boots though, so you'll need at least a bit of leather if you want a full suit.

It can be dyed as well.