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Harminoff posted:Went back ten pages and didn't see it posted. Looks like another clone is on it's way, looking pretty good though. This looks amazing. It's a combination of the smaller blocks and the non-programmer-art graphics.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 06:19 |
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| # ? May 23, 2013 17:35 |
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That does look really cool but I could never play it because the building tools look way too complicated for me to do anything with. I like building stuff in MC because it's really simple and easy to make things that fit in with it's unrefined aesthetic.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 06:29 |
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Harminoff posted:Went back ten pages and didn't see it posted. Looks like another clone is on it's way, looking pretty good though. This is an amazing creative mode building tool. I hope that there is a game to go with it. When he walked in to the little house at the end I was thinking "It reminds me of Myst. I hope they support adventure map creation."
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 06:42 |
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Harminoff posted:Went back ten pages and didn't see it posted. Looks like another clone is on it's way, looking pretty good though. In Minecraft its add-block, remove block; with these they add all kinds of new ways of providing surfaces but the UI is honestly complete poo poo; you don't want to pull the user out of the environment to consider the tool they need for the task. Now I'm not saying Notch is a genius at UI; I'm certain he was stupidly fortunate in the design, but these clones are going to be mere curiosities unless they stop and consider how they're going to be played. [edit] Well gently caress, didn't read this page before posting; YOURFRIEND sums it up well.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 06:50 |
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I don't see how the tools are all that difficult though? It's just "block type" "material" and "add/remove" as far as I can tell. That's barely more complicated than Minecraft. Minecraft is glorious in its simplicity, but there's such a thing as being too simple. I think separating material and block type is a significant improvement, as is allowing for multiple blocks to be placed at once. thelightguy fucked around with this message at Feb 24, 2012 around 07:03 |
| # ? Feb 24, 2012 07:00 |
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thelightguy posted:I don't see how the tools are all that difficult though? That is, what happens when you have tool X and strike a surface? Can you select the angle of cleave? Can you select the volume of blocks removed? In Minecraft its one tool removes one block; what about these games? If you're required to dig through a series of menus just to shape the world you divorce the player from the game.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 07:29 |
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And having to memorize arcane crafting recipes just to access different block types (stairs vs slabs vs blocks) is somehow an improvement over having an option on the actionbar to select "I want to make and place angled blocks with this stack of material?"
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 07:36 |
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Yeah really. Taking all of Minecraft's nonsense in at once while being completely new would be a lot worse, especially coming from an editor that lets you do what you want when you want. Also Minecraft gives you way less power, therefore you can't make as cool stuff.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 08:02 |
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Harminoff posted:Went back ten pages and didn't see it posted. Looks like another clone is on it's way, looking pretty good though. We can (and often do) argue the quality or depth of that gameplay day and night, but the problem with nine out of ten Minecraft clones is that they get as far as a rendering engine and the whole "place/remove blocks" mechanic and that's it. I couldn't count on both hands the number of games that copied Minecraft and only ever got as far as Creative Mode, including FortressCraft which promised it would have more and never did. Hell, one of the only games people called Minecraft-inspired that truly grew into its own was Terraria, and it saw widespread success for it. Blockscape looks like it could be great, and visually it's certainly enticing, but it needs more than just hollow freebuilding in an empty world.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 08:11 |
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I tried the Blockscape demo. Pretty fun to play around with, although the lighting system bothers me (too harsh/high contrast?), and destroying a tree is 100x worse than Minecraft if you dislike floating geometry. You can very easily make little houses with WAY more architectural personality and uniqueness to them than you can in Minecraft though. I'm interested in seeing where the developer takes the game.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 08:12 |
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Vib Rib posted:UI choices, developer art, all that stuff is well and good, but I think Minecraft usually comes out on top because there's an actual game in there. Phase 2 is supposed to add adventuring elements to flesh it out. Phase 3 is a "secret" so who knows what that's going to be.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 08:24 |
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Harminoff posted:Went back ten pages and didn't see it posted. Looks like another clone is on it's way, looking pretty good though. I know plenty of people talk poo poo about Minecraft, but after watching this video, I'm reminded that Minecraft at least has... charm. This looks so loving dull that it's unbelievable; I am completely echoing what Vib Rib said here, the game looks 100% purposeless as hell, and as lame/unbalanced/mediocre Minecraft seems, it's an infinitely better game than some of the clones that have come out (you can't deny that as a designer Notch is pretty good (comparatively), but let him near the code and it royally fucks up).
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 08:27 |
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I like that the Golems actually have attack animations and a unique way of walking. Hopefully this is a thing that will spread throughout the rest of the game.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 08:47 |
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So, Crupmet, if blockscape added some bump attacking human shaped mobs, a ridiculous ranged weapon, and fire then would it be on par with minecraft? The engine is already far superior - i just got it installed on my laptop - and I'm going to withold judgement on the gameplay until the dev actually gets around to adding, you know, gameplay. Minecraft's charm amounts to a hipster-esque way of rejecting everyone who criticizes the fact that right now, the only thing vanilla minecraft adds above creative is a guaranteed way to have your poo poo hosed up. There's a reason that the creeper is minecraft's mascot - not because it's really that great, but because it's the only real dynamic gameplay element in the entire "game."
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 08:54 |
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D34THROW posted:Phase 2 is supposed to add adventuring elements to flesh it out. Phase 3 is a "secret" so who knows what that's going to be. For the record, June 15th 2011 was the stated release date for FC Chapter 2. I guess some people are still waiting on that. Getting to the same point as Creative Mode is easy. Lots of MC clones do it. Getting farther is the real test. thelightguy posted:Minecraft's charm amounts to a hipster-esque way of rejecting everyone who criticizes the fact that right now But since you're asking, yes, a combat system and actual non-player entities would go a long way towards making Blockscape feel like an actual game. Vib Rib fucked around with this message at Feb 24, 2012 around 09:04 |
| # ? Feb 24, 2012 09:00 |
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Vib Rib posted:See, this whole ridiculous attitude, the kind that calls Minecraft a "game" with emphasized quotation marks, just makes me incredulous. People can and do argue the breadth and depth of Minecraft, but Christ, at least there's something there. There's something there in tic-tac-toe as well. Survival adds, in my opinion, absolutely nothing to the game except a bunch of tedious bullshit, hence why I called it a "game." Minecraft would be far superior without that half-baked mode. Minecraft is unique not because it is any good, (at least not without piling on several dozen mods) but because it is the first of its kind. The reason most clones don't get any farther than creative is because then try to emulate minecraft survival for their game-mode and burn out after they realize they just made their game worse. thelightguy fucked around with this message at Feb 24, 2012 around 09:30 |
| # ? Feb 24, 2012 09:27 |
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I really like the way Jon/Jeb (The J team!) are taking minecraft, much better than the updates they had before. I would like for the villagers to actually construct the golems though, maybe a dedicated building dedicated to making the golems, why bother having the advanced AI (Jon is a genius) when the golems just simply respawn.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 14:03 |
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hogofwar posted:I really like the way Jon/Jeb (The J team!) are taking minecraft, much better than the updates they had before. Whelp, i can forsee myself adding a "golem forge" to every NPC town i come to care for now. Thanks for that.  But yeah, Minecraft does seem to be picking up speed now, looking forward to all manner of crazy stuff  I kinda hope it will be possible to cause zombie invasions elsewhere too, hell a mechanic like Terraria's Bloodmoon's could be good fun for putting survival in the forefront of peoples minds.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 14:10 |
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Anyone know what Jeb is trying to show with slabs in this picture? Is it that the 2nd slab on the right is a half block off the ground? Could swear you can get that to happen with a bit of fiddling around (placing a half slab high above then placing slabs underneath until you get it where you wanted). Not sure what he has changed unless placing slabs at that height is easier.. Also, since he is fiddling around with slabs and stairs, I hope he adds in sandstone stairs..
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 14:11 |
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Enzer posted:Anyone know what Jeb is trying to show with slabs in this picture? You're kidding, right? Those are half-blocks with the bottom half missing.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 14:21 |
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Oh, man, between this and upside down stairs I'm going to have to rebuild all of my stuff to take this into account. It's gonna be awesome.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 14:23 |
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Slabs up until now have come in two flavors; double slabs that take up a whole block height, and single slabs that take up the bottom half of the block. He's now made it so you can place them with the slab as the top half of the block. And no, up until now you couldn't place them that way. Edit: Beaten. And yeah of all the updates since about 1.8 this and the upside down slabs is the thing that's made me most excited, just because of the building options it gives you.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 14:23 |
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Fuego Fish posted:You're kidding, right? Oh god dammit. Was looking at it wrong, was thinking of having a half slab space between slabs of the same material as seen on the left side of this structure:  Yeah, that is pretty nifty.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 14:27 |
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thelightguy posted:And having to memorize arcane crafting recipes just to access different block types (stairs vs slabs vs blocks) is somehow an improvement over having an option on the actionbar to select "I want to make and place angled blocks with this stack of material?" Back to Minecraft; I'd like see the mobs removed from being hard-coded into the game so that players/creators could place any mobs they wanted into the game. I'm probably asking too much though.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 14:50 |
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fondue posted:Back to Minecraft; I'd like see the mobs removed from being hard-coded into the game so that players/creators could place any mobs they wanted into the game. I'm probably asking too much though. Nah, you know what's asking too much? Having a fully-dynamic lighting system, couples with directional light and/or throwable torches. If they were to make torches have more uses or have a 'second-level light source', then I think you could balance that out by making them not last forever. For example, it would take just as much effort to make a torch as it does now. It would take a bit more effort to make those lanterns they were discussing. And it would be totally awesome if you were able to combine the lantern with a helmet, so have constant light in front of you. My god  that would be perfect. I have hope that SOMETHING might come of this, someday, but I'm not holding my breath.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 15:04 |
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An ingame mob editor so you can create terrifying things on the fly for people to fight with would be an amazing creative mode trick. Would not have to be too complex, could be a simple manner of how it looks, its health, how it attacks, what its AI is, its traits (burns in the sun Y/N and the like) and maybe a size modifier so i could have 1000% doom chickens that breathe ghast fireballs.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 15:11 |
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fondue posted:No, it's not an improvement; an improvement would be a tool which performs a task to create the desired shape, I think. I don't know about you, but the only difference I can think of between carving steps out of a solid log and carving a slab is the number of swings of the axe it takes. At some point you have to sacrifice realism for convenience and playablity. And if you're dead set on tools, I think one tool per material with an intent selector is a much better choice from a usability and gameplay perspective that a different tool for every possible block shape. I mean if you wanted to get obsessive about it, you'd have an axe to fell the tree, a hatchet to remove branches, a two-man saw to carve it into usable logs, a planer to finish those logs, and then a pot of tar or pine resin to preserve them so they don't rot.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 15:18 |
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thelightguy posted:I mean if you wanted to get obsessive about it, you'd have an axe to fell the tree, a hatchet to remove branches, a two-man saw to carve it into usable logs, a planer to finish those logs, and then a pot of tar or pine resin to preserve them so they don't rot. Why's it gotta be a two-man saw? Why can't two women do it? I don't know about the ability to select triangles as shown in the Blockscape video, but the ability to select three different sizes of blocks is pretty great. Is there anything on the horizon for that in MC? I'm new to this game - is there a reason everyone runs around with a bow and arrow?
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 15:38 |
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The bow and arrow is the end-game super weapon, and the only reliable way to take down skeletons, creepers, blazes, and ghasts without dying horribly.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 15:42 |
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Real men box creepers.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 15:50 |
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What makes the bow-and-arrow "end game"? Is it difficult to farm up the materials?
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 15:52 |
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It's the best weapon to kill anything. That's it.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 15:53 |
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HauntedRobot posted:Edit: Beaten. And yeah of all the updates since about 1.8 this and the upside down slabs is the thing that's made me most excited, just because of the building options it gives you. I know. Since I'm mostly screwing around in Creative, this pleases me. Now, if only I could mix halfblocks. Sadly, Jeb has already said that it's not gonna happen. (Of course, he also said that "inverted" half blocks might happen in a future update and it happended now, so 
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 15:54 |
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entris posted:Why's it gotta be a two-man saw? Why can't two women do it? Because mankind comprise only men.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 16:11 |
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Downloaded the demo, and Blockscape definitely looks great, but actually building things is a lot more finicky. (and undo key would definitely be useful) I fiddled around trying to build a newb house a few minutes but couldn't get the slopes on the roof to do what I wanted so I gave up. I have no doubt somebody who actually knows what they're doing is going to be making some truly bitching adventure maps with this thing someday if it ever does take off though. So, being too impatient to build anything, I basically just ran around looking at things. No real caves in the Minecraft sense but there were small ones here and there, and I did find a cool little hidden underwater tunnel. Right now the landscape seems to be made up entirely of forested hills broken up by mountains, with little strips of sand on the beaches.    There is a snow biome.   Another interesting thing that I did not get a picture of, it seems that there's an actual water table. Dig into the sand on the beach and water will automatically fill the hole. Dig down deep enough from the top of an inland mountain and you'll eventually hit it as well. In my case, I just kept digging...and digging and digging and digging, and learned that if there's a bedrock equivalent in this game it must be VERY deep, because I sure couldn't find it. As for height limit, I didn't actually get around to nerdpoling, but there were a couple of impressively tall mountains. It's kind of fun climbing them - movement in this game feels like you're bouncing around on the moon. So anyway, I think this might be the most promising clone I've seen so far...really I just wish there was a little more substance to the site, like a blog or something. It's like this site just popped up and is already for money right off but I can't get any real feel for the developer or the pace of development. Can't even see a way to contact him from the site for questions, etc. We all know Notch is horribly unprofessional but with Minecraft (and indie games in general) a big part of the appeal was the personal touch there, being able to follow along as it developed and seeing him just as excited about new stuff as the players. And I know Notch started charging for Minecraft back when it was literally just creative mode in a tiny area, but that feels like a mistake here. It would have been better to build up a little good will through word of mouth first, IMO, but oh well...we'll see what happens if Phase 2 ever materializes. Zoe fucked around with this message at Feb 24, 2012 around 17:02 |
| # ? Feb 24, 2012 16:59 |
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See, I actually think the extra graphical power actually hurts Blockscape and similar clones for me. It's easier to buy the conceit of a Block-by-block world when everything's pixelated and grainy. Throw in AA and reflective water and poo poo and suddenly the blockiness is just jarring rather than fitting n with the art style.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 17:04 |
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Zoe posted:
He is active on tigsource, which is where I found it. Seems like a pretty nice guy and is taking suggestions from people. http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=24486.0
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 17:10 |
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Spiritus Nox posted:See, I actually think the extra graphical power actually hurts Blockscape and similar clones for me. I like the way it looks  Just need a little more suspension of disbelief to keep the illusion of a virtual world ticking over.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 17:10 |
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Spiritus Nox posted:See, I actually think the extra graphical power actually hurts Blockscape and similar clones for me. I think it's more to do with how well the textures fit. If you look at Sphax, the huge high-res texture pack, everything works well because it's nice and cartoony. Each texture has been designed from the ground up, so to speak, to fit the cube-based world. With Blockscape, the textures really haven't been designed to fit. Same goes for most high-res/"realistic" textures for this kind of geometry. The whole mountains/trees/water/etc. aesthetic is one that Minecraft and all its clones love to embrace, because it's so very easy to do. It's based off real life, and everyone knows what to do with the things they find. Trees are made of wood and have leaves, rock is tougher than dirt, but plants can only grow in dirt, so on and so forth. Going less real might solve some problems - for instance, if the game was set up to be the inside of a computer world, like Tron, then it'd be so much easier to explain away the floating geography or the dodgy water physics. But the moment someone breaks apart a block and gets a collection of ones and zeroes? It's not going to be instantly evident what they can do with them. Which is where an in-game tutorial/manual would help a lot. Plus Troncraft would be loving cool.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 17:14 |
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| # ? May 23, 2013 17:35 |
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With the exception of the water, that looks really loving ugly.
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| # ? Feb 24, 2012 17:15 |
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