Disillusioned with TFCraft

[Brodiggan 77]

I don't want to get into a big back and forth discussion over this, there's enough drama already, but I felt like I had to at least respond to a couple things here...

1.) Arguing about the intent someone had in posting something is just a bad road to go down. It's way to easy for everyone involved to read the intent they want to see or are primed to see into things instead of any intent the person who posted things actually had. It's hard enough sometimes just to be sure you're getting the message someone was trying to convey; divining their intent from that message is just that much more in the eye of the beholder.

In the case where you don't really care if anything gets changed and your intent is to flaunt some sociopathic traits (and there's at least one of those who posts here often), feel free to use fallacies, hyperbolic terms and/or inflammatory language. It'll be summarily ignored, in most cases, and that's lose-lose even if it makes you feel better.

and 2.) Attacking people (even by implication) by saying they're flaunting sociopathic traits seems like a bit much, as does the rest of the statement. It would be helpful in your argument about remaining civil and avoiding hyperbolic statements if you remained civil and avoided hyperbolic statements.

[Sarethor 3]

To a certain extent yes I am .. hence the title of this thread. I've been playing this mod on and off since pre6 and I have come to like it's style and play style ..

However, when there is no reward for hours and hours of play it ceases to be a game, and becomes a simulation. If the development team want to write a simulator then I'm not going to complain as long as its sold a such.

However, Minecraft, even when modded by Terrafirma craft is still a game, and therefore it needs to be playable, and quite frankly B45 and to a certain extent B46 are neither. I don't want to stop development, but right now TFCraft is starting to attract a sizable following and the worst thing that came happen at this stage is to rush out betas a rapidly as possible, and b45 and b46 have all the hallmarks of rushed development.

Whilst certain elements of the community would love to see betas rushed out on a daily basis this isn't the way to win and keep fans of this mod. Take it form me, slowing down the development and spending twice a much time testing as coding/designing will pay massive dividends in the end.

Expecting bugs with betas is taken for granted, removing/breaking massive chunks of basic functionality is not.

I empathize with you - really. However, it's important to realize there's a continuum of what constitutes "rewarding" and that's all subjective and highly variable.

Based on the posts since the build 40 ore generation, most people are in agreement - myself included - that some change in the current algorithm might be warranted. The question always becomes: are you expressing yourself in a way that conveys the right message?

With regard to "playability", that's also highly dependent on your expectations. Given the beta situation of TFC, I'd posit that our job in playtesting the mod is to try to quantify the effects of changes and provide feedback as necessary. Part of our problem is not knowing a lot of detail with regard to the why/how some changes are made but that only limits the depth of the feedback we can provide. If something is fundamentally broken, that's pretty simple to find and communicate.

Most people with experience doing development of any kind are not lobbying for more frequent, and thusly less tested, updates to be pushed. I'd also state that it doesn't appear to me that Bioxx and those who are helping him operate that way, regardless of the build46 happenings.

It's a slippery slope to claim that not enough rigour was provided in testing before pushing a build simply because there were large bugs which appeared. I'd argue that's not constructive, on it's own, and if that's the root cause he doesn't need us to tell him about it. This doesn't even speak to the time he took between build45 and build46, specifically. It was one of the longer builds and yes, there were obviously problems and his frustration is evident in the Codename for 46b. A little empathy goes a long way, especially given the context of the work he's undertaking and his compensation (or lack thereof) for it.

Speaking in general terms, most people who play any type of beta just want to play and not really test it - even though that's exactly what they're doing.... TESTING. Things can and will break and your gameplay experience may vary. I'd like to see more people realize the amount of change which is happening behind the curtain, set their expectations accordingly, and sign up to help instead of merely throwing rocks at the developers from the Ivory Tower.

The more we can all help in developing this, the more we'll all reap the rewards as time goes on.

[Sarethor 3]

I don't want to get into a big back and forth discussion over this, there's enough drama already, but I felt like I had to at least respond to a couple things here...

1.) Arguing about the intent someone had in posting something is just a bad road to go down. It's way to easy for everyone involved to read the intent they want to see or are primed to see into things instead of any intent the person who posted things actually had. It's hard enough sometimes just to be sure you're getting the message someone was trying to convey; divining their intent from that message is just that much more in the eye of the beholder.

and 2.) Attacking people (even by implication) by saying they're flaunting sociopathic traits seems like a bit much, as does the rest of the statement. It would be helpful in your argument about remaining civil and avoiding hyperbolic statements if you remained civil and avoided hyperbolic statements.

I'm not sure why you felt compelled to write this, as I did not try and claim what your intent was or did I accuse you of your #2 point, nor did I attack anyone specifically. I've never posted anything remotely uncivil here.

Perhaps I wasn't explicit enough about my "intent" comments being general; I apologize. It was my general feedback to everyone about giving feedback.

That said, If you read through enough of the threads, you should be able to see what I'm referring to about sociopathic comments. Whether you agree with my characterization is up to you but it's not really something that's subjective.

[Brodiggan 77]

...I did not try and claim what your intent was or did I accuse you of your #2 point, nor did I attack anyone specifically.

I never said you did (and I'm not sure why you assumed I thought you were talking about me).

I've never posted anything remotely uncivil here.

I think describing other posters as "flaunting sociopathic traits" and making significant assumptions about their "REAL intent" (emphasis yours) is fairly uncivil, even when you aren't pointing at anyone specific.

Whether you agree with my characterization is up to you but it's not really something that's subjective.

That's pretty much the definition of subjective, actually.

[Sarethor 3]

Ahh, all is clear now.

[TonyLiberatto 364]

I have played the mod for about 3 months now. I found cassiterite. I have a base close to a tall mountain. On the top of the mountain my forge. I have a farm and an orchard. I have tin tools. I should be happy.

Can’t find copper close to home.

Am I supposed to go looking for copper and when I find build another base?

What if I can’t find iron close to the copper base? Move again?

Since there is no vehicles and no roads, moving between bases is very troublesome.

I understand the concept of realism. But in real life no one lives alone.

People find ore in a place, build a city and commerce for everything else.

I think the mod would be more playable if we were to find all ores in a certain radius. Let’s say 500 meters from any given point.

The way it is now it makes me wonder if bioxx still play the mod himself. Releasing an update every day and sometimes more than one. We can only be grateful for all the work. On the other hand making it hard and harder to play the game will make more and more players simple rage quit.

If the ores are going to be spread over long distances we should be able to develop some sort of transportation. We need roads and carts. Since railroads are totally out of question.

Peace and Love.

I am not a coder. I have no idea how hard it is to create a mod like this one. I imagine is hard and time consuming. Thanks Bioxx.

[redundantusage 330]

I've only been playing this game since pre27, and I will say that I've seen the game go from being able to get to roughly bronze/steel in 3-4 days on single player to being just short of impossible to get to steel on singleplayer as of the last few patches. But since switching from single player to entirely multiplayer with this patch, what I've noticed is the scarcity has very much opened up the avenue of trading. On pre45 all I did was build myself an out of the way home and work on some minor projects like building some roads. A bunch of other people mined in a wide variety of different places and the end result was that a bunch of people ended up with different things. I may not have had ore, but I had a boatload of charcoal and cooked molds that people didn't want to bother gathering themselves, and since this guy has a supervein of sphalerite he couldn't use all of if he wanted to, and this other guy a thousand blocks away has copper in the same situation, people traded, banded together, whatever. It created community.

Good luck on single player though, couldn't pay me to play that again.

[kotoroshinoto 97]

I've only been playing this game since pre27, and I will say that I've seen the game go from being able to get to roughly bronze/steel in 3-4 days on single player to being just short of impossible to get to steel on singleplayer as of the last few patches. But since switching from single player to entirely multiplayer with this patch, what I've noticed is the scarcity has very much opened up the avenue of trading. On pre45 all I did was build myself an out of the way home and work on some minor projects like building some roads. A bunch of other people mined in a wide variety of different places and the end result was that a bunch of people ended up with different things. I may not have had ore, but I had a boatload of charcoal and cooked molds that people didn't want to bother gathering themselves, and since this guy has a supervein of sphalerite he couldn't use all of if he wanted to, and this other guy a thousand blocks away has copper in the same situation, people traded, banded together, whatever. It created community.

Good luck on single player though, couldn't pay me to play that again.

I feel that this is kind of the point of the mod, it doesn't really feel like it was designed for a one-person does everything approach.

[kotoroshinoto 97]

I understand the concept of realism. But in real life no one lives alone.

People find ore in a place, build a city and commerce for everything else.

^ THIS

its called SMP. I highly recommend you dont play alone.

[cevkiv 156]

^ THIS

its called SMP. I highly recommend you dont play alone.

What if I don't want to play with people? What if I don't want to get my building griefed, or my now (even more precious and hard to find) metals stolen?

Until there is some sort of locking safe that only you can open, why play SMP with random strangers?

[Jed1314 420]

What if I don't want to play with people? What if I don't want to get my building griefed, or my now (even more precious and hard to find) metals stolen?

Until there is some sort of locking safe that only you can open, why play SMP with random strangers?

A fair comment. I have a vision for my personal server where griefing and theft are kind of institutionalized, in the form of organised seiges and raids, but being the victim of random griefing and theft is never fun :/

Even with a whitelist, it is impossible to totally prevent these problems.

[cevkiv 156]

A fair comment. I have a vision for my personal server where griefing and theft are kind of institutionalized, in the form of organised seiges and raids, but being the victim of random griefing and theft is never fun :/

Even with a whitelist, it is impossible to totally prevent these problems.

The problem with sieges and raids is ensuring that there are actually people around to defend their homes.

[Jed1314 420]

The problem with sieges and raids is ensuring that there are actually people around to defend their homes.

Yep, I have been pondering that one for a long time myself. The real issue is alerting people to the event before it happens, so that they are prepared, without making it a bureaucratic exercise

[cevkiv 156]

Yep, I have been pondering that one for a long time myself. The real issue is alerting people to the event before it happens, so that they are prepared, without making it a bureaucratic exercise

Also, it just doesn't make much sense in Minecraft.

What's the point of making a giant ass castle if a) you don't have enough people to protect it, and it doesn't do jack because any old asshole with a pickax can go right through the walls, or just pile up some dirt underneath himself and go over them?

The best defensive "structures" you can get in Minecraft are TNT boobytraps that blow someone up if they go in the wrong way, and even those have to be set up very carefully, and aren't always going to work.

And then, if you fix the fact that it's far too easy to demolish the walls of a castle with a pickaxe, say, by making some sort of reinforced masonry bricks that you can make out of regular bricks, that take 4 or 5 times as long to mine through, you make it too imbalanced on the side of defense, because in real warface, people didn't just run up to a castle's walls and hit it with pickaxes. They lobbed heavy ass stones at the wall for weeks on end, tunneled underneath the walls to start fires, or did what almost always worked:

Guy: Sir, we're being sieged!

Castellan: Shit, how much food and water do we have?

Guy: Six months!

Meanwhile, outside

Guy: Sir, we have them completely cut off!

Captain: Excellent. Catapult some plague victims over the walls, and then we'll have dinner after raping the more attractive villagers. When they're so weak from hunger and disease they'll just give up.

That's basically how medieval warfare went.

[Jed1314 420]

Also, it just doesn't make much sense in Minecraft.

What's the point of making a giant ass castle if a) you don't have enough people to protect it, and it doesn't do jack because any old asshole with a pickax can go right through the walls, or just pile up some dirt underneath himself and go over them?

The best defensive "structures" you can get in Minecraft are TNT boobytraps that blow someone up if they go in the wrong way, and even those have to be set up very carefully, and aren't always going to work.

And then, if you fix the fact that it's far too easy to demolish the walls of a castle with a pickaxe, say, by making some sort of reinforced masonry bricks that you can make out of regular bricks, that take 4 or 5 times as long to mine through, you make it too imbalanced on the side of defense, because in real warface, people didn't just run up to a castle's walls and hit it with pickaxes. They lobbed heavy ass stones at the wall for weeks on end, tunneled underneath the walls to start fires, or did what almost always worked:

Guy: Sir, we're being sieged!

Castellan: Shit, how much food and water do we have?

Guy: Six months!

Meanwhile, outside

Guy: Sir, we have them completely cut off!

Captain: Excellent. Catapult some plague victims over the walls, and then we'll have dinner after raping the more attractive villagers. When they're so weak from hunger and disease they'll just give up.

That's basically how medieval warfare went.

Hence why I have a suggestion for reinforced walls and siege engines. I don't really feel like going on a diatribe about my vision for how it would work in the current system, but with falling cobble, it is now easier to build balanced defensive structures. I'm intimately familiar with medieval warfare (being an enthusiastic reenactor and having had a lifelong fascination with the middle ages) and am aware of the difficulties of applying it to MC. If you're interested I could pm you about how I intend to go about it, once this mod stabilizes

If not, no worries. I expect you will tend toward the latter

[cevkiv 156]

Is there a thread in the suggestion forum about it? 'cause I could just go read that.

[kotoroshinoto 97]

What if I don't want to play with people? What if I don't want to get my building griefed, or my now (even more precious and hard to find) metals stolen?

Until there is some sort of locking safe that only you can open, why play SMP with random strangers?

run a server off one of your friend's machines, keep it private, ???, profit

[cevkiv 156]

run a server off one of your friend's machines, keep it private, ???, profit

I have tried to get every single god damned friend I have who plays Minecraft to play Terrafirmacraft with me.

EVERY single response has been some variation of, "That sounds neat, but it sound tedious to the point of being unenjoyable."

[cevkiv 156]

This includes friends who love Dwarf Fortress.

[Jed1314 420]

Is there a thread in the suggestion forum about it? 'cause I could just go read that.

Nah, it's more of a general idea without adding any new features. Don't worry about it, I suspect it's only of interest to me

[kotoroshinoto 97]

This includes friends who love Dwarf Fortress.

I can let you dick around on mine when I bring it back online, I tend to update it with every hotfix though .

I won't be releasing my personal IP outside of PMs, I dont want my computer being flooded with connection attempts.

[benkc 1]

I have tried to get every single god damned friend I have who plays Minecraft to play Terrafirmacraft with me.

EVERY single response has been some variation of, "That sounds neat, but it sound tedious to the point of being unenjoyable."

Heh, likewise.

[dunkleosteus 2,425]

the ore gen is fine, and any issues are being worked out. If you happen to think there are problems, try starting a new world, that usually fixes it..

[cevkiv 156]

the ore gen is fine, and any issues are being worked out. If you happen to think there are problems, try starting a new world, that usually fixes it..

Urge... To be... Pedantic... Rising...

[kinjirurm 1]

I'm on a fairly new map (a few days old). I found a good cluster of ore and made several picks and a couple pro picks. I've since gone through all of those tools without finding more ore. I'm forced to use a sluice to try to get enough ore for more tools to do real mining. I wondered if it was just bad luck, so I created a creative map and went insta-breaking my way through the world below. I passed through huge chambers, made enormous tunnels, used a pro pick from time to time and after 10+ minutes in creative doing this, I found zero ore.