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Menoch

Re-Introducing fear (Part 2)...

16 posts in this topic

I saw that the ever-fantastical Sugar Noodles (aka: srgnoodles) posted a thread of the same title in the TFC2 section of the forum. I wanted to continue that thread and discuss the "fear factor" touched upon in that thread.

TL;DR (what scares you?)

-------

Personally, I agree that the creatures right now in MC are a joke. The fact that Creeper explosions are a mosquito bite and that there is really no fear of creatures in TFC has left their presence more of a nuisance than a fear factor. Again, that is barring initial gameplay when you have nothing to call your home or any weapons... but even so, a well placed Javelin and a few Knife jabs, even from a stone knife, and you are good to go. On a side note it is my opinion that these creatures have no place in TFC any who aside from the Spider... though I would ponder that more fantastical (Old-worldish) creatures might have a more "believable" place for this mod setting... (At least underground or in the dark of forests anywho....)

As ECC elegantly (sarcasm) stated "What the f**k is wrong with you", when addressing someone else's take on "Hardcore" or what they considered FEAR, it is evident that fear means something different to many people.

The fear of the unknown is a well documented fear. Yet so is the fear of what is known... for instance were a Creeper explosion more likely to take your life like it has to me many times in MC (as well as all that I worked hard for), then you would fear that happening and take precautions to prevent a surprise Creeper Spawn in your backyard, etc...

Shortly after Bioxx added the TFC music tracks, an individual by the name of Fairawen wrote:

"What do you guys think about the new soundtrack?

I have to admit, the sun started going down and I heard the song with the drums... and for the first time since I started playing Minecraft, I went "Oh shit oh shit I'm gonna die so scared ;_;" Something about this music is eerie, inspired, and sometimes inspiring. I climb to the top of those notorious TFC mountains, new song plays, and feel like I'm king of the world. Or that a creeper is gonna blow me up any second. Or both.

Fantastic stuff! Whoever wrote this music, kudos to you."

To her the music induced the feeling of fear. It was gritty and primal...

Both visual and Audio nuances are key in setting a bigger picture. For example, Dawn and Sunset in the game, especially in the shadows of a Sequoia ladened forest ALWAYS play with my imagination, and no matter how many times I see it, I love it just as much if not more.

The death penalty imposed should also induce a feeling of fear in players so that on SSP they are more cautious about what they do as they are all alone and no one is there to bail them out.

In SMP acting like a complete and total douche could get you ganked, and on the flip side, playing on a server where you can be jumped by PvP'ers and griefers can come with its fair share of fear.

In the end though, it is my opinion that the Fear factor definitely does need to be re-introduced into TFC. Be it by implementing new mobs that "stalk you and follow you back to your home", which I am all for, or even rare and deadly mobs whose appearance is so rare that they may only be legend, and you hope they are.... Perhaps even a mob that by wandering too close to it, you run the risk of being gored or attacked violently (AKA Hippo or Male Auroch)

It is my hope that the revamp of the combat system will be followed up by a reason to use a combat system in the first place, outside of SMP. And since as of yet Bioxx and Dunk have not failed to deliver, my hopes are high!

While it is apparent that a fear factor in Peaceful Mode is ludicrous, this is a thread for the Hardcore and Normal gameplay....

So if I may ask, what (within reason) do you think could be added to boost the "FEAR FACTOR" in TFC?

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That would depend on if the "Fear Factor" would be realistic (A shadow crossing wolf) or fantastic(A flying demonic beast)

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for me, the fear comes from above, for in nearly EVERY situation, game or not, our attention is primarily on whats in front and below us, not at whats above us (barring monumental gaze area's) herefore i proposed a lurker mob who would be capable of spawning and roaming vertical and upside down surfaces, of several blocks of thickness, armed with either a ranged attack (chance of missing) or a pounce, to follow up with either running or regular attacks (shouldnt be all too strong besides the pounce)

there is nothing more creepy than being attacked, not knowing where its coming from, not getting any cue's besides a fastly moving critter you might glimpse a bit, until you're hit again.

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i remeber that when i first started playing minceraft, the nmain thing that scared me was the fear of the unknown, the fact that you had no idea when the next monster was going to pop out of nowhere or even that the monsters existed in the first place, iof you had just started, the suspense of lighting up a new section of the darkness to reveal what lies ahead

another thing, was dread of the night, the additions of beds really killed this, which kinda ruined the whole feel of minecraft, which was a nice peacefull, beautiful, resource laden world, completely uninhabited other than you, and durring the day, this world seemed innocent and hospitable. but at night, this changed, as darkness falls this world of peace and beauty suddenly was teeming with horrors and evil things, and you understood why this world was uninhabited, you made it a point to build a base that was safe, inaccesable to the monsters of the night, and you just wait, wait out the night, hiding from the monsters, and then morning comes, the monsters burn, and the wrold returns to its peaceful state,

right now, there's really no reason to fear these mobs, as they are more or less easy to take down or avoid, and heck, after the first few nights, i went outside and went looking for mobs to hunt down. these monsters are supposed to be the things of nightmares, the risen dead, reanimated skeletal archers, enormous spiders, strange beasts that explplode violently at their chosing, and mysterious trans-planar beings, ignorant of your existance, but that become aggressive when eye contact is made.

these are not things to brush off lightly, they should make you fear encounter with them, to make sure you are well armoured and equiped before venturing into any place that they might hide. and to makie your home in this strange world as secure as possible against these horrors

this is how i see fear in minecraft should be

oh, and menoch, i'm so going to kill you

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oh, and menoch, i'm so going to kill you

:o And fear takes yet another form! :rolleyes:

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I honestly would like to see more intangible fears in minecraft. One thing I often do to enhance gameplay is to actually switch the view distance to short, even tiny. It envelops everything in a fog that it seems anything can come hauling out of. It also makes navigation a great challenge, because landmarks become almost non-existent. The constant pressure that one feels from leaving a well known area only to not find your way back can often be a fear inducing scenario.

Perhaps, this could be taken out of control of the player by adding to the dynamic range of minecraft weather. Although some days begin peaceful and sunny, they can quickly become be devoured by a crippling fog. A bad rainstorm or snowstorm can also quickly reduce viewing range. All these weather effects can lower the lighting enough as well to cause hostile mobs to spawn. However, the low visibility makes enhances the threat these mobs impose. This fog effect would also happen at night to better represent how it feels to navigate during a moonless night. In other words, night would be much more realistically hard to navigate than it is now.

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the main thing that should happen is an AI upgrade and removal of mob sounds, its so lame when you're in a dark damp cave without torches and you can hear the zombies moaning from miles away, whilest they're barelling straight-line for you, not stalking, flanking, anything, unless they happen to spawn behind you.

the worst moment i ever had was when i just started out, i built a house on a mountain, and a creeper decided to spawn in a hollow 3 blocks below that house and instantly detonated, causing me to literally fall off of my chair of the jump it gave me.

(OH AND FOR GODS SAKES REMOVE THAT STOLEN ENDERMAN NOISE, ITS SO LAME!)

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the main thing that should happen is an AI upgrade and removal of mob sounds, its so lame when you're in a dark damp cave without torches and you can hear the zombies moaning from miles away, whilest they're barelling straight-line for you, not stalking, flanking, anything, unless they happen to spawn behind you.

the worst moment i ever had was when i just started out, i built a house on a mountain, and a creeper decided to spawn in a hollow 3 blocks below that house and instantly detonated, causing me to literally fall off of my chair of the jump it gave me.

(OH AND FOR GODS SAKES REMOVE THAT STOLEN ENDERMAN NOISE, ITS SO LAME!)

yknow, i dont remember how long ago, but i saw this one mod that pretty much made it so that solid blocks would block out sound, so say you had a wall between you and said zombles, you wouldn't hear much, but if they're right next to you, you would hear them
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What scares me is silence, not a calm silence but an eerie silence, what you can hear you won't be afraid of, but what you don't hear you will be afraid of, especially if the silence is broken with normally mundane noises, such as a crow chirping or the noise of your fire dying down in the middle of the night. Fear shouldn't be based on tough monsters, it should be based on no monsters or beasts at all, building you up for your inevitable demise, beasts are just one of the many things you should fear.

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So two things that peak my interest have been mentioned...

The first, and I think probably the one with more impact in the long run, is fog. It would be quite interesting to have a world-gen that placed fog in biomes like swamps and jungles... especially at night. Deserts would let you see for as far as your options are set to, but in other areas, perhaps it would be better to have a sight-distance-limitation. This in turn would improve performance perhaps? I dunno just me thinking aloud.... err.. in text...

Ambience like fog and fireflies at dusk and nightfall would be incredible awesome as well.

Creature sounds, namely Zombies and the like, are, I think, a preference. I lost count how many times I am minding my own beez when I all-of-a-sudden hear a creeper getting ready to detonate right behind me. This is why I always play MC with an extra set of britches! But they do nothing in TFC, really. As for Zombies, I think that they should always be silent unless they see their food... namely the player. At which time they begin to moan and shuffle forward.

Spiders... well.. I have never heard a spider irl, but I know that the fact that they are silent makes them all the more creepier!

So yea.... I am all for silent current mobs and fog. Now what would really be creepy is having a thick fog and hearing a zombie that you can't see, but the fact that you can hear it means it can definitely see you... CREEEEPY!!!!

As far as Animals and the future of such mobs is still up in the air. I do think that animals should be heard when they call to each other (i.e.: mating season, wolves communicating at night, or if there is a herd, and the likes)... but perhaps that is all? Again, just me thinking in text. :)

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Making creepers fatal again and increasing their blast radius would do a good deal to add fear, I think. My heart hits my stomach when I hear a creeper hissing behind me in vanilla. In TFC, I just shrug it off. In fact, I've just walked right through a group of TFC creepers in a field because I knew they wouldn't really cause any harm.

Creepers: more damage to players and environment.

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Fear is come about the wrong way in Minecraft, we can't really on details obviously but getting slightly more "active" models brings life to fears rather than just being a lifeless model now we have something that looks alive, hungry, and creepy. I once watched a video of what the minecraft spiders would look like if they would walk on walls, have knees, and let there knees flow in the wind while jumping as if they were actually pushing off and then preparing for a landing and honestly the guy in the video was almost screaming, heck I was almost screaming, it was freaky as hell. How do we react if we see a spider now? Damn spider, leave, nobody loves you. *spam click*. which brings me to another point the hostile mobs are way to common still. The movement underground should fix that but until then I'm tired of walking by flocks of harmless zombies which have evolved into nothing more than an extreme annoyance. If you die to a zombie, everyone laughs, if you die to a skele, everyone laughs. Why? Because you are a frickin' noob.

What kind of balance am I looking for? Difficulty of wolves and other smaller animals should be that of the current hostile mobs aka you run from them until you have a camp and at least a decent knife. The sight of large predators such as bears should give people the "Damn, I'm going to die" feeling unless you have an impressive set of armor and weapons, are in a large group, or are hiding somewhere out of reach. Killing them should take tactics not spam clicks. Subterranean hostile mobs would be a rare and frightening sight. A bloodthirsty zombie would be a difficulty without a decent sword. A spider would only be approached if you really had to and even then you would need to be fast and smart to keep it off you, because you sure as hell aren't outrunning it. It is a giant spider for a petes sake most people see a normal spider and scream the sight of a giant one should make you shit your pants. Creeper encounters would be something to boast of surviving even large groups would boast of it.

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dont decrease render distance with fog unless its optional/circumstantial, instead of permanent, i have enough troubles seeing my mountain houses in vanilla as is, never you mind when its permanently foggy/cloudy

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For me fear, in a game at least, involves an element of the unknown, the unexpected. For example, I'm walking along with my hunger bar empty and down to my last health point. I'm searching desperately for some food but I'm in the middle of a frickin' desert and there's nothing. I can see the time running down. C'mon...c'mon...there's got to be *something*! That's scary. Then the sand suddenly gives way beneath me and I'm falling. That's *really* scary. But it's a long fall and I look down to see that there's no water below me. Now I'm not scared any more because I know that I'm going to die and there's nothing I can do about it, no suspense. My state of mind is more, "Aw crap, I'm gonna have a helluva a time getting back to my equipment before it times out".

So something unexpected, or a dangerous situation where the possibility of death (or other significant loss) is high, but there's still a chance of winning through.

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actual fear is doing this: Posted Image and calling it a photograph of srgnoodles *runs for his life, hopping across dimensions*

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Fear is night-time with Gamma set to -0.5. Everything is black past a handful of blocks, and even light sources don't illuminate much; a cooking fire will illuminate about a three-block radius.

For best results, as was mentioned, drop your render distance to short or tiny. Never use beds, and try not to go full Blair Witch.

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