Alternatives for magical mobs

[Tsuarok 47]

 If you were replacing the mobs with something else, with the aim of believablity, what would you put in?

 

So, I've long felt that zombies and skeletons and such are out of place in TFC. One easy way to change this is to simply rename and reskin them via a resource pack.  As I'm in the process of making a pack right now, I thought this would be a good time to replace them, but I'm not quite sure what to change them to.  My first thought was some sort of pre-human ancestor.  I went with homo hablis.

 

 

...but... well... while they are only a rough draft, they just don't feel right.  

 

So, I'm wondering what ya'll think. I was also considering some sort of giant insectoid creatures (which would go well with the spiders).

[PaoloEmilio 53]

Emm... I seem the monkeys are funny!

[Tsuarok 47]

Well, they're just something I roughly threw together, just to sort of field test them.  The final product, if I decide to do them, would probably have clothes and/or jewelry and such, and the zombies (left) and skeletons (right) won't look exactly the same (though they should look like the same species).  

 

IDK, if I do choose the human ancestor route, I might go for homo erectus or neandertal (I know, not actually an ancestor).  These look too much like gorillas I think.

[Feycat 3]

I agree with you! I actually turn mobs off in my TFC games because it just doesn't feel right being chased around my magical monsters in such a survival-based game. I really wish we could get rid of the walking skeletons and creepers and whatnot and replace them with aggressive wolves, bears, bandit, etc...

[Tsuarok 47]

If I could I'd definitely do wolves, panthers, etc, but I can only edit the skin, the model (the shape) has to stay the same.  Within those bounds, there isn't much that actually exists, but I think it would still be better to do something that could exist (but doesn't) than obviously impossible creatures.  Unfortunately, the list of things that could reasonably exist with a humanoid shape is pretty small.  Maybe zombies could be made into bears... that always stand...  but when you give them weapons and armor, the suspension of believe collapses. Though it's still better than the walking dead.

[Feycat 3]

Oh absolutely agree. I considered doing the same thing you are, but making skeletons and zombies more into "bandits" and "highwaymen."  Nothing much can be done about the giant spiders and creepers though. 

 

I really feel like this is less of a fantasy mod and more of a "settlers/Oregon Trail" type of survival game, so I hate all the goofy Minecraft mobs. I was actually disappointed when I ran into bears and wolves and they weren't aggressive. Bulls and boars should be too.

[Tsuarok 47]

I suppose that when my hypothetical believable mob bursts into flames in sunlight, belief will go right out the window anyway...

 

If I went the insectiod route, my thought for the creepers would be sort of a vertical larva, with the head near the feet and an exploding, engorged vertical abdomen.  Some species of social insect do sacrifice themselves for the good of the hive, so that wouldn't be too bad.  But they do have the problem of being giant insects.  And a little gross.

[Kittychanley 1,002]

Something to keep in mind is that the plan for the "magical" mobs like Creepers, Skeletons and Zombies is for them to be moved underground into caves and perhaps dungeons once the "normal" hostile mobs for the surface are complete. The reason that you don't get attacked by bears and wolves right now is because all of the mobs are still very much in beta, and have quite a far ways to go in regards to behavior and AI. The plan is that eventually all surface mobs, including wild animals like boars and aurochs (cows) will also fight back when they feel threatened, likely charging the player.

[Feycat 3]

Something to keep in mind is that the plan for the "magical" mobs like Creepers, Skeletons and Zombies is for them to be moved underground into caves and perhaps dungeons once the "normal" hostile mobs for the surface are complete. The reason that you don't get attacked by bears and wolves right now is because all of the mobs are still very much in beta, and have quite a far ways to go in regards to behavior and AI. The plan is that eventually all surface mobs, including wild animals like boars and aurochs (cows) will also fight back when they feel threatened, likely charging the player.

 

Awesome! 

 

My only request would be not to tie animal mods to "peaceful" settings, so you can turn off the magical mobs and still have those.

[Tsuarok 47]

Awesome! 

 

My only request would be not to tie animal mods to "peaceful" settings, so you can turn off the magical mobs and still have those.

I agree, though I'd like to make sure that the animals don't attack in creative mode... that would just be annoying.

[starXephir 30]

Apemen are allergic to Vitamin D? They're burnin' up!

 

 

I agree, though I'd like to make sure that the animals don't attack in creative mode... that would just be annoying.

I think creative mode makes hostile mobs ignore you.

[Dorrin 0]

Why not just create a Mo' Creatures plugin that gives TFC settings to Mo creatures mobs?  They have foxes and bugs and animals galore, both hostile and passive.  Just need to disable all the magic crap and make both mods compatible.  That way you don't have re-skined burning monkeys and pretend that is an elegant solution.  

[Tsuarok 47]

Feel free to write that up, I'll add support for it in my resource pack.

[Feycat 3]

Not a fan of Mo'Creatures for a whole host of reasons. It crowds mobs into ridiculous density with no real concern for biome and whatnot, and wouldn't be compatible with this mod anyway. I'd rather see the mob issue dealt with from inside the mod, rather than papering it over with another mod.I'd love to see foxes, pheasants, seagulls, snakes etc in the actual mod, though.

[Tsuarok 47]

At least if they're underground they won't be bursting into flames too frequently.

 

Now what would a believable subterranean biped look like? *golum* *golum*

 

meh

[Tsuarok 47]

There's always the naked mole rat...

 

...though I'm not quite sure fanged phallus is the direction I'd really like to go in...

[Dorrin 0]

Feycat, Mo's has EXTENSIVE controls for spawning, including biomes, and frequency.  The defaults are wacky I agree, but all your complaints are dealt with by simply hitting the settings.  I don't see the point of reinventing the wheel.

[Copper 7]

Any chance of posting a quick how-to for the original post? I've been planning to do this for a while, but hadn't yet taken the time to figure out how.

[Tsuarok 47]

So... you need a resource pack to change it.  You can make your own from scratch, but the easiest way is to simply download any pack, edit the textures that you want to change (mobs are in "texturepack"assetsminecraftentities), and delete the rest (or use them if you'd like).  

 

I personally like GIMP as an editor, because it's free, but paint.net (also free) and photoshop (definitely not free) also work. MS paint doesn't work because it doesn't support transparent pixels.

 

If you need the image to be a higher resolution you can scale it up, as long as it is 2^x (that is, 16, 32, 64, etc.)  You may need optifine to do higher than 16, I don't remember.

 

The homo hablis are 256 btw.

 

 

 

Now... does anyone have any ideas for a believable texture?  I should have put my question in the title...

[Kittychanley 1,002]

Feycat, Mo's has EXTENSIVE controls for spawning, including biomes, and frequency.  The defaults are wacky I agree, but all your complaints are dealt with by simply hitting the settings.  I don't see the point of reinventing the wheel.

 

The problem with that is that those extensive controls are based off of vanilla biomes, which TFC does not use. The other issue, which I'm not sure is configurable, is that health is greatly scaled in TFC, so while a cow in vanilla has 10 HP, a cow in TFC has 500 HP. Damage is scaled as well, including fall damage; so any mobs using vanilla health that fall more than 3 blocks are very likely to instantly die and any mobs that deal damage to the player are unlikely to leave anything more than a barely noticeable scratch.

[AllenWL 186]

The problem with that is that those extensive controls are based off of vanilla biomes, which TFC does not use. The other issue, which I'm not sure is configurable, is that health is greatly scaled in TFC, so while a cow in vanilla has 10 HP, a cow in TFC has 500 HP. Damage is scaled as well, including fall damage; so any mobs using vanilla health that fall more than 3 blocks are very likely to instantly die and any mobs that deal damage to the player are unlikely to leave anything more than a barely noticeable scratch.

 

So, while that army of werewolves, ogres, giant scorpions, and so on can't even kill an unarmed player, the player would be able to slaughter then all with a stone knife?

Anyways, I bet the mob drops would also be a annoyance as well, as they would have no use...

I supposed the only positive thing you might get is a chance for flying mounts.

[Dorrin 0]

Those extensive biome controls do include custom biomes.  The hp and drops are issues, but ones I think that there are solutions for. 

[Kittychanley 1,002]

Those extensive biome controls do include custom biomes.  The hp and drops are issues, but ones I think that there are solutions for. 

 

Except that TFC's custom biomes have to do with the shape of the terrain (hilly, flat, ocean) and has nothing to do with the climate (temperature and rainfall) which is used to spawn TFC mobs. So you could configure it so that a mob only spawns in TFC Hills, but you wouldn't be able to configure if they spawn in snowy hills, or arid hills. You also wouldn't be able to use it so that a certain mob only spawns in forests with certain trees, because that isn't determined by biome in TFC either.

[Feycat 3]

It makes way more sense to me for the mobs to be added internally to TFC rather than trying to tack-on another mod.