Minecraft

[Robert Maxwell]

Yeah, three strongholds per map, but I believe an unlimited number of abandoned mines (and NPC villages)?

The "three per map" rule also seems kinda stupid. I would think it should be more like, "one per n regions," so they aren't too common but you'll never technically run out.

 

[Itisnotlogical]

Well, I think there should be a limited number per worldgen but a higher number, so that they're still kind of unique and special but not incredibly rare.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

My main beef with having a set number is that if you've already generated a lot of your world map, you may have generated the regions where the strongholds will be, and thus never have any. Which is dumb.

 

[Itisnotlogical]

I think they're randomly created every time a new chunk is generated, aren't they?

 

[TheGodBen]

Either that or strongholds are another variation on the dungeon.

Strongholds are going to be pretty important as they'll be the only locations with portals to The End, which you'll need to go to in order to "win" the game. Abandoned mineshafts are just caves with wooden arches and goodie chests.

 

[Cutter John]

Yeah, Strongholds are pretty pointless atm. Though it would be nice to collect some of that brick. Weren't they intended to be boss lairs at one point?

Owain - No cave spiders yet eh? Consider yourself lucky.

 

[Owain Taggart]

There's an end to this madness? Dunno, but I've always felt the game was more or less like Warcraft in terms of gameplay, with no end in sight. Does that mean there's going to be an official story or campaign mode? Having an end seems more fitted to single-player anyway.

Anyway, I'm glad we cleared up that confusion about strongholds. I'm going to assume that finding a mineshaft doesn't mean I've found a stronghold, even though mineshafts may be part of strongholds, as a bigger picture. So, it's possible we'll still find one.

 

[judge alba]

is the server down? i cant seem to get on keep getting 'cant resolve host name', what ever that means.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Yeah, there's a hardware issue that my host is dealing with. It is taking longer than usual. Sigh. I can post an update in here once it's back up.

 

[judge alba]

ah ok i was mucking around with my minecraft removing a few files i dont use, thought i had buggered it up

 

[Cutter John]

OMG, wierdness in the heavens. Notch has just proclaimed that the sun and moon will be round from now on, and the sun will rise in the East! Our whole world just got flipped 90 degrees!

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Round things? In my Minecraft?

And this means Cubehenge is going to be ruined!

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Heh, I will just use MCEdit to flip Cubehenge around or something. No way am I going to rebuild the damn thing...

 

[Robert Maxwell]

By the way, our server's back!

 

[TheGodBen]

There's an end to this madness? Dunno, but I've always felt the game was more or less like Warcraft in terms of gameplay, with no end in sight. Does that mean there's going to be an official story or campaign mode? Having an end seems more fitted to single-player anyway.

Notch said last year that beating the game would be very open-ended and very difficult, and he mentioned the idea that killing a dragon would constitute winning. Considering dragons are now being added in the last few days before a freeze on new features, they're planned to be almost impossible to kill, and they'll only spawn in a realm called "The End", I would assume that's going to be the way to win.

OMG, wierdness in the heavens. Notch has just proclaimed that the sun and moon will be round from now on, and the sun will rise in the East! Our whole world just got flipped 90 degrees!

I can understand changing the direction the sun rises from, although my sunrise/sunset observation rooms in Fort Jupiter are now useless, but I don't like the idea of a round sun and moon. The Minecraft world is a massive square so it makes sense that the sun and moon would be too.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I'm sure there will be "purist" texture packs to bring back squaresun and squaremoon!

 

[Itisnotlogical]

Cutter John, you can make stronghold bricks by mixing up 4 smoothstone blocks. Kind of a pain in the ass, but in the end you'll have a nice looking structure.

And IMHO, the idea of "winning" Minecraft seems pretty pointless. What is there to do once you "win"? Everything you've always done, building stuff, finding strongholds, and surviving the night.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I think the idea of "winning" would only come into play with the "Adventure" mode. (Not to be confused with the "Adventure Update," which was 1.8, I think?)

What we've been seeing is "Adventure Mode" created piecemeal: the NPC villages, the strongholds, the abandoned mineshafts, etc. As originally described by Notch, Adventure Mode would have you incapable of breaking/placing blocks. You would basically have a world to run around in and accomplish tasks. It makes a fair amount of sense that you would therefore start off in an NPC village, be given quests by the villagers, gradually build up weapons, armor, and experience, find and explore the strongholds, and your eventual goal would be to go to the End and kill a dragon.

That all makes sense from the perspective of a linear game. But it does make me wonder what purpose the End and dragons would serve in a traditional Survival game. There would be no point to building there if a dragon's just gonna wreck it, but it makes no sense for a Survival game to "end" just because you killed a dragon, either.

Hopefully the Mojang folks are working this out internally. It would be cool to have three different game modes: Classic, Survival, and Adventure. I've just never been convinced that a separate Adventure mode would really add much to the game, especially as it's just a single-player experience that takes away much of what makes Minecraft enjoyable (the mining and crafting!)

 

[B.J.]

Notch also said on Twitter (and provided a pic) that the reason for the sun/moon being round is because the moon will now have phases.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Maybe he's adding a werewolf mode for when there's a full moon.