BTW + Villages

[M!C]

So far the only things people on this forum said about the villages that will be added in 1.8 were in which way they are going to deconstruct them so I thought it would be time to discuss the possibilities to include villages with BTW features constructively.

I'm sure FC already has some great ideas but I want to know what the community thinks would be nice to have?

One aspect I find interesting is the inclusion of BTW items in villages. There could be a windmill build by NPCs for example. Maybe that could give the tech tree alternative routes. One way to acquire let's say a working millstone might be to help a village build a windmill first before you can build it yourself (by giving them recources or some kind of money).

I know this isn't the best of ideas so give me better ones! ;)

[Stormweaver]

I'd give them a handcrank and a millstone and punch them till I have sails. Then leave with my handcrank and millstone.

In all fairness, unless villages provide decent services (being able to purchase coal and iron would be nice), they're going to be little more than flammable stress relief for most players. On the off-chance they're useless, I vote that by placing a villager on a hopper loaded with soul sand, we can steal their souls. I'm open to the idea of putting villagers in millstones first if needbe :p

[M!C]

On the off-chance they're useless, I vote that by placing a villager on a hopper loaded with soul sand, we can steal their souls. I'm open to the idea of putting villagers in millstones first if needbe :p

Not really fitting the term "constructive" but still a nice idea. If the NPCs are really that useless they deserve to be treated like wolves anyway (equally useless and even annoying feature).

[FurkeyRefills]

I say trap them in their own 1x1x2 cells so they can't move and lower my FPS !!!

[Praetorex]

it would be nice ofcourse if you could "employ" them to work on your sugar cane / hemp / wheat farms to harvest your crops and have them deposit it in some hoppers or chests.

their fee could be not to be the tester of your new highly efficient mob trap :p

[FurkeyRefills]

That would be cool, hard to code but cool none the less.
Love your signature btw ;)

[M!C]

That would be cool, hard to code but cool none the less.
Love your signature btw ;)

I don't want to say it's easy but since there are already mods for bots out there it can't be impossible.
I have to admit though you'd have to keep it extremely simple like marking a prepared area with signs and the task being very easy and without to many additional variables (like uneven terrain, obstructions, lava pools, mobs).
Like this it wouldn't require any pathfinding which is something MC simply doesn't do very good (cp. wolves ;) )

[Praetorex]

That would be cool, hard to code but cool none the less.
Love your signature btw ;)

yeah, assassins creed :p

I don't want to say it's easy but since there are already mods for bots out there it can't be impossible.
I have to admit though you'd have to keep it extremely simple like marking a prepared area with signs and the task being very easy and without to many additional variables (like uneven terrain, obstructions, lava pools, mobs).
Like this it wouldn't require any pathfinding which is something MC simply doesn't do very good (cp. wolves ;) )

yeah, hence the name of the mod xd

[Necropolis]

I wonder if there would be different factions? I would hate to make all npcs hate me just because I firebombed some ramdom village from my zeppelin Dresden-style. Also, being able to recruit an army, load it onto trains, arm it, and take to war with other villages (whom we would easily overcome thanks to our superior technology) would perhaps make the blight of villages on my clean minecraft world more bearable.

I've always kind of liked the deserted island sort of feel minecraft has. Would be strange to suddenly see entire villages of people and have to wonder, is Steve some sort of deranged hermit? Why isn't he in a village?

[sargunv]

Why isn't he in a village?

Probably because the villagers don't approve of his wolf-torturing and soul enslaving ways.

[M!C]

Why isn't he in a village?

Probably because the villagers don't approve of his wolf-torturing and soul enslaving ways.

I can already imagine a crowd with torches and pitchforks marching to the gates of my castle ... not that they would ever get that far.

[gftweek]

As far as I can remember from Notch discussing plans, each village will be distinct and my have some kind of reputation (or given Notch's current level of AI for mobs, they might just all ignore you whatever you do).

Originally the plan was that NPC villages would be populated by pigmen and/or goblins, either of which would explain why Steve doesn't belong.

To be honest, I don't expect them to hold a candle to Millénaire villages, so I expect Kinniken will improve them to a usable level

[Banpower1]

I think it will resemble millénaire, because everything notch added to the game so far, is just a copy/ripoff of some known mod already there, so he will most likely steal the code from millénaire and use it, since thats how he did with pistons for example, and when the code of most of the mods is open source, why the heck not?

[M!C]

I think it will resemble millénaire, because everything notch added to the game so far, is just a copy/ripoff of some known mod already there, so he will most likely steal the code from millénaire and use it, since thats how he did with pistons for example, and when the code of most of the mods is open source, why the heck not?

I agree and I hope Notch had a thorough look at that code. Millénaire is really awesome after all. Still I have doubts it can be included in smp ...Kinniken said that the pathfinding of his mod sometimes strains CPU capacities. But then I am not expert on these things so hope still lives. Somebody care to strengthen/exterminate it? ;)

[Banpower1]

I'm no hawk at programming, but i'm learning slowly, but my conclusions comes from other games, say WCIII for example, or older games of that sort, they had pathfindning on crappy computers, no?
and with the lighting fix and probably also some other fixes to lower computer costs it wouldnt be that great a problem, and when bukkit releases a version there is nothing to worry about (bukkit is a server wrapper where they take notches code and fixes bugs and improves perfomance issues)

[gftweek]

Considering wolves have no pathfinding ability, I don't expect NPC's to. Kinniken has spent a lot of time getting Millénaire to this level, and the pathfinding still isn't perfect. The reason that pathfinding is so intensive for the mod is that it is in 3D and for a lot of individual NPC's that each have different goals. In RTS's (especially older ones), pathfinding is mainly just making a group of units all move to the same location in 2D, so it's a lot less strain on resources (plus it's not something that is modded into an existing game that doesn't have support for it).

As much as it would be cool that NPC villages work just like the mod, I actually expect far less. I'm expecting the NPC's won't do much more than wander around aimlessly (within the confines of the village), falling into lava, drowning themselves in the well and getting trapped in buildings. For them to go around harvesting crops, mining, blacksmithing and building like in the mod, I don't see it happening, it's too big for the time they've taken so far.

I expect most people will just turn them off after a while.

[M!C]

I expect most people will just turn them off after a while.

Nah, I don't think so. Many people already expressed the usefulness of NPCs for target practise, trap testing and various other applications of cement, water and fire.

On the other hand that gets boring after a while ... ... ... yes, you're right.

[Triskelli]

Well hey, the villages themselves actually look pretty nice, with stuff like forges and inns. A little extermination, a little pest control, and you've got a great base!