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ancientpower

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Everything posted by ancientpower

  1. World Generation and Player Freedom

    I'd like to kick off this thread with something that's sure to get the attention of the TFC developers: hexagons. I just want to get this out of the way because while it is one of my primary gripes with TFC2, it is also a focal point which ties into some of my other points of discussion. I don't think the hexagon-based archipelago world gen is inherently bad. What I do think is that it's an odd choice, and perhaps one that sounds better on paper than in practice. However, drawing my own conclusions is going to result in a mess of misunderstandings. I think what the community needs more than anything is a statement explaining the logic behind such a major and jarring change. This includes general notes on how it works, how it will benefit the gameplay, and also why it is being made out as critical to the scheme of the mod. And of course, why hexes in a voxel-based game? I get that the idea is to have "modular" islands, but it's still a lot to process. The changes to the world generation and the very strict direction which seems to be behind TFC2 have also raised my concerns about two things which go hand in hand: varying playstyles, and configuration. There are things that I both love and hate about TFC1. What I really loved it the feeling of freedom provided by the generated worlds which felt much more natural, immersive, and convincing than vanilla Minecraft. But not just that, I enjoyed it because that feeling was juxtaposed with the brutal and low level survival mechanics. Like any other procgen sandbox, you're encouraged to go wherever you can and explore, but with the ultimate goal of finding the perfect place to build your settlement, get into the game progression, and experience all the deep gameplay mechanics which make TFC so immersive. Island hopping for progression would ruin this atmosphere. TFC plays slowly (especially construction), and TFC2 doesn't seem to accelerate the gameplay. Starbound infamously fell into this "forced nomadism" pitfall by having the player hop planets to progress, meaning that you couldn't both experience the game progression as well as the wealth of building tools provided to them. Minecraft (and TFC) avoid this problem because they warrans almost complete freedom in regards to how the player approaches the game world. An infinite procgenned world does not lend itself well to a rigid progression ladder. Exploration and loose progression work far better and allow the player to decide what they want to do at any time without a playthrough being constrained by progression. Configuration is something which I feel is lacking and underutilized in both TFC and TFC2. While it would obviously take more work to implement more configuration options, it would also make the game far more appealing by allowing players to tweak gameplay features to suit their needs. Something which I felt was lacking from TFC1 were more detailed world gen options like in Dwarf Fortress. Being able to make the world shallower or increase the frequency of ores in an easily understandable way (unlike the vague config files) could remove a great deal of tedium from the gameplay. Or you could just choose to play it with default settings. Besides the effort of implementation, additional configuration has no real drawbacks. Tedium is something I'd like to touch on much more, but it is without a doubt TFC's biggest problem. And unfortunately, some of the newer features which required a great deal of work seem to have added an equally great deal of tedium, making the game less fun in the process. The new knapping interface has 4 times as many tiles, meaning that it effectively takes more work to knap out stone tool heads (a process which (while admittedly cool due to its convincing nature) was already grindy and didn't offer much fun to the player as it consists of repeatedly clicking squares away to form the same pattern). It also seems you can get shafted by world gen more than ever before! I spawned on the beach of a badlands-ish area, with steep cliffs surrounding me and no trees, fresh water, or soil in sight. Maybe not the greatest first impression, although that isn't really the devs' faults due to its random nature. tl;dr for mods: Please make a sticky in this forum about TFC2's questionable design choices (like our good old hexes) and explain why they've been made. And Bioxx, please try to make TFC2 as fun as possible instead of making it tedious solely to keep it believable.
  2. [0.2.4] TFC2 Prerelease

    I apologize if these have already been brought up but I have two questions. One, can the changelog be timestamped so we know when patches are released (until a more formal release method is adopted)? Two, are there plans for a dev map to be released of planned features/content, or is it even too early for that?
  3. Climbing

    It seems like islands have a tendency to spawn with steep cliffs at their beaches, and this makes starting the game a pain as you have to scavenge dirt blocks in order to scale them. I suggest a mechanic be added which allows the player to climb rough stone blocks (and possibly log blocks) as if they were ladders. Since this would only allow you to scale natural structures I don't think it would be particularly overpowered, but the climbing could be limited to 2-5 blocks of height without the player touching the ground. In addition, it should only work if the player is crouching (or by using another dedicated hotkey) to avoid annoying the player.
  4. Bonesaws

    Have you read, understood, and followed all of the rules listed in large text at the top of the suggestions forum?(Yes/No): Yes Answering "no" to the above question will result in your post being deleted. Allow us to craft saws out of bone as well as metal. This would either require a bone and a knife or a bone and a rock. For balance purposes, they should have durability similar to or lesser than stone tools. [x] Believable [x] Historically accurate [x] Gives more uses for bone [x] Allows players to create lumber early game, which is an incredibly useful resource for building
  5. [Request] Better Storage

    Would anyone consider creating a storage solutions addon for TFC akin to BetterStorage? We've gotten quite a few things to help out with storage in the base mod but it'd be nice to see things like vertical chests/lockers and some kind of stack based storage to add some variety.
  6. [Request] Better Storage

    Looks sick, can't wait to have it. Keys aren't really a priority for TFC, at least in my opinion. Size restriction should be lifted if they're as expensive as in the vanilla version.
  7. [Request] Better Storage

    What I'm going for is more the aesthetics of the lockers from Better Storage rather than just the convenience of putting things next to each other. It's a bit jarring going from the pretty looking lockers of Better Storage to vanilla chests.
  8. Why Suggestions Suck

    this thread is amazing thank you for enlightening us OP
  9. Dragons, ideas. community collaberation page

    Dragons are more like big, scaly vultures than gods, just saying. Also, Draco, why don't you just stop being such a fucking cynic and get over the fact that TFC isn't going to be the hyper-realistic survival simulator you want it to. It's OKAY to be a little disconnected from reality. Note how the dictionary definition of believable isn't JUST realistic, it can also mean CONVINCING. That or means either denotation is suitable. Dragons CAN be convincing, and so can magic. People CAN be convinced that these things COULD exist, under the right conditions, that is. Seriously though, calm your fucking tits for one second and see how these things could be fun.
  10. Creeps

    I'm pretty sure the joke is supposed to be "Dr. WHO?" or something along those lines.
  11. For the SSP players...

    People are overlooking the fact that this is already unintentionally implemented in SMP(yes I know some people mentioned it). I don't play SSP TFC, but I can imagine it would be much more difficult than SMP because you can't just log out and have your crops grow overnight. This has been suggested before, and I still support it.
  12. Cooking Food

    I really like the idea of overcooking food, except for one detail. It's great because you can't just drop food in a fire and come back to find it perfectly cooked, with a layer of skill and difficulty required for cooking added as a result. The bad is that it would make food much more tedious to produce in mass quantities, and cause the player to spend large amounts of time cooking as a result. Food should probably restore more hunger in general, anyways. After all, you can go a very long time without eating(but only a short time without drinking).
  13. Creeps

    Actually they aren't. Only the name was influenced by Slenderman, and that was after a fan pointed out the similarities to notch.
  14. Dragons, ideas. community collaberation page

    You don't need scientific evidence to disprove dragons, because that would be delving into the realm of realism, not believability. Believability is the average layman going "Hm, this seems like it could exist under the right conditions", not "This is physically impossible and here are my reasons why". Also I don't understand why six limbs is a problem. Just because there are no living reptiles with six limbs doesn't mean it's impossible. Other than that, I won't try to rationalize because it's quite obvious to someone scientifically minded that dragons wouldn't exist in their popular depiction in reality. But they could in a game, because it is a game. edit: I quoted the wrong post and then when I went to quote the right one I didn't realize it overwrote my existing post so I essentially left a blank post for about two hours. Sorry. edit2: actually my original post was still there how do I delete posts
  15. Tropical Island Biome Suggestion

    The word biome being redefined does not mean biomes have ceased existing, it just means the term has shifted meaning slightly. As for the topic of tropical islands, I definitely would like to see more islands, tropical or not. Specially generated island chains affected by latitude would be really cool, as we could have tropical islands along with arctic iceberg-esque islands. With current terrain generation, it's hard to find islands that actually feel like islands, and this has always disappointed me.
  16. Dragons, ideas. community collaberation page

    TFC isn't about reality, though, it's about being believable. The reason why I suggested European dragons is because they are the most generic and well known type of dragon, which would make them seem less out of place in a more BELIEVABLE survival experience compared to more obscure mythos(why am I even bothering you are just going to argue with me anyways). Also if there were dragons, like I said, they should be guarding huge hoards of treasure that are located in large mountain caverns(or deep underground, but it should be in specially generated caves either way). In addition, after going back and re-reading some posts, I want to elaborate on why fantasy elements should be generic. Simply put, TFC is a survival experience, not a fantasy epic. We don't need mythology or unique mobs because that ruins the atmosphere which TFC creates for the player. It's the same reason I think creepers and endermen should be removed in the mod; the game's atmosphere is generally enhanced without them. I know I am not the one developing this mod, but I feel that as a player I very well understand the direction it is under. As a result I try my best to influence others appropriately so that direction does not shift away, and the reasons behind my enjoyment for TFC ceasing to be.
  17. Creeps

    TFC aims to be BELIEVABLE, not REALISTIC. Huge difference. I still think Endermen along with any other Minecraft-exclusive mobs should be removed, however. Skeletons and zombies are generic enough to work, but with the direction TFC is/was heading all the unique mobs didn't make much sense. Same with The End, too. The Nether works because it's just a generic hell dimension, but The End is something strictly invented for MC(although a while back dunk made a really good post about what The End could be made into, with grim-reaper-esque mobs instead of Endermen, so I suppose as long as it looks nothing like the original it could work).
  18. Dragons, ideas. community collaberation page

    Seeing as TFC is aiming for BELIEVABILITY and not REALISM, dragons sound pretty cool. But they should be hostile and have huge hoards of treasure, LIKE how they were in European mythology(because this is undeniably the best mythology depicting dragons, obviously). Fantasy elements should be as barebones and generic as possible. We don't want TFC to develop it's own mythology and that is basically what you are doing by suggesting we have a superintelligent race of anthropomorphic lizards you can socialize with. edit: made my point less ambiguous so people wouldn't call me out as being retarded
  19. Kingdoms Brainstorming

    at this point it just sounds like you're forcing the way you think people should play the game on them vanilla smp didn't need kingdoms to be fun, so I don't see why TFC does honestly if you ABSOLUTELY believe these features need to be in the game, my opinion is that you should make them configurable
  20. Kingdoms Brainstorming

    No offense, Bioxx, but this is a terrible idea. Forcing economy and politics on multiplayer is a bad decision, because players can easily set both up themselves if they so wish. Adding a few cool SMP-only features would be neat, but focusing development on SMP player interaction is a bad idea and nearly makes me want to not play TFC. Currency is worthless in a game like Minecraft as only useful items have real value, and would certainly not work as intended and rarely be used if added. Politics should be strictly player-enforced(if even existent at all), and I personally hate things like the Factions Bukkit plugin that force players to assume negative feelings towards each other. At the very least, please focus development on actual features and content before branching off to things like this that hold no real bearing to the core gameplay.
  21. volcanic forgeing and smithing

    pretty sure magma forges are confirmed, you'll have to have magma flow through them remember: not everyone playing TFC has done real life blacksmithing; it's supposed to be BELIEVABLE, not necessarily 1:1 gritty realism magma is hot, therefore the average person will assume you can smelt metal with the heat from magma
  22. New smileys for the forum!

    There is a fine line between "behaving immaturely" and "liking immature things". I like a whole host of things that the average person would disregard as "immature" or "for children". I apologize, though, the only reason I was upset is because creeper and diamond emoticons do a great job of lowering post quality on MCF.
  23. New smileys for the forum!

    Having emoticons based on ingame objects will only bring lower-quality posting. Just look at minecraft forums, you have people going "+1 DIAMOND FOR YOU XD" or ":creeper: :creeper: :creeper: :creeper: :creeper: :creeper: :creeper: :creeper: :creeper: :creeper: :creeper: :creeper:" ad infinitum. I can see how you would want them, but in reality all they would do is increase immaturity and lower post quality.
  24. Why not remove shitty vanilla mobs? And magic.

    Will we be seeing ridiculous things that don't fit the bill(like creepers, etc) just getting straight up cut from the mod?