[Games] Minecraft Ruins

[jordangreywolf]

Okay, so I've been playing Minecraft for quite a while. It's a silly "sandbox" game with a procedurally-generated world of colorful low-resolution cubes. The gist of the game is that you've got to avoid or fight monsters (who "spawn" in the game under different conditions -- mostly in the dark), collect resources, eat food (you can potentially die of hunger, and you get hungry as you exert yourself), and eventually gain the means to visit other dimensions (the infernal landscape of the Nether, or the surreal floating-sky-island space of The End). Originally it was an open-ended game, where the "object" was just to build marvelous things out of the available materials -- perhaps a big fortified city, or maybe a gigantic statue memorial for yourself, say. Presently, there's a big dragon you can fight in The End ... but even then, the game keeps going.

It's especially fun for multiplayer servers -- initially upon a new world-spawn, a bunch of players rush to find some sort of a nice foundation to build a home, hunker down for the first night to avoid monsters, and then start venturing out to establish their bases -- planting an orchard and some crops above-ground, and establishing a mine to quarry stone and look for coal and iron and other useful things underground -- and this is made even more complex by the addition of mega "modpacks" that add new things -- new dimensions to explore (Twilight Forest, The Lost City), new bizarre machine structures that can be built (RFTools, et al.), magical frameworks (Thaumcraft, Mystcraft, Astral Sorcery, etc.), and so forth. A lot of the fun is in being able to go and visit each others' masterpieces, and perhaps show off what we've discovered about this or that mod (e.g., "I've come up with a design for a super-efficient mob-grinder!" or "My lighthouse has a redstone circuit that makes the lights blink on and off in a circle!").

But then eventually interest dies out, we accomplish our goals, and whoever is hosting the server gets tired of ponying up the $10-25 a month (or thereabouts) that it costs to keep the thing running for everyone. (Or in some sadder cases, the save-file gets too huge as people explore in different directions, or someone stumbles across a crippling bug in a poorly-written modpack that corrupts the save-file in such a way that we'd have to go too far back into archives to recover from it.)

The main thing that gave it staying power for me was my discovery of the Ruins mod. The original idea was that it would add a little more interest to the world by dotting the landscape with "ruins" -- a gutted house foundation here, an abandoned tower there, and so forth. The genius of the program, though, is its potential for customization: I can set up a "baseplate" of some material of choice, and then build a structure atop that, execute a command, and the program will translate my structure into a "blueprint" -- a text file that contains some arrays to map out what blocks go where. I can then edit the file manually to fine-tune it, set some parameters (Is this a "pirate ship" meant to spawn on the water in the Ocean? Is this a log cabin that should only spawn on solid ground in Forest biomes? Or maybe it's a hidden dungeon that should only spawn UNDERGROUND?) and then it gets added to a library of potential structures to pop up during procedural generation of the world terrain as it gets explored.

I've actually "captured" a few of Gwendel's creations from shut-down Minecraft worlds: Someone would send me a copy of the save-file (or I had server access and grabbed it for myself), and I just went in, in "creative mode," put a "baseplate" under something Gwendel had built in order to set the dimensions for the structure, captured it, then proceeded to edit it for general use. (So, carve away any dirt/rock from surrounding terrain, just leaving the bricks and blocks that Gwendel had actually placed ... convert those building blocks added by YetAnotherRandomBlockMod over to something more commonly available in the "vanilla" game ... establish some rules for what biomes this structure can spawn in, place a few treasure chests and monster spawners so it's worth exploring, and so on.)

So, some of our creations can carry on in "posterity," in a manner of speaking, as things for other players to explore. I've got several ZIP files full of my creations on my web site, divided up several ways. First, Minecraft has undergone several revisions, and each time it's necessitated a few changes to the syntax for the "templates" used to spawn structures -- and in other cases, the changes added new creatures, new blocks, new possibilities to work with. Some people still play using older versions of Minecraft (if you've got a modpack with 130 mods in it, not EVERY mod author is going to update his mod for the latest version of Minecraft), so I keep my bundles around with older-version-compatible templates. Also, some folks request a more "peaceful" experience (no monsters, no traps), so I have a packet of stuff that's merely decorative (a giant tree, a vine-covered statue, an idyllic pool, a secluded villager shop, etc.) without the monsters & loot.

Others have made their own creations ... and recently, Dr_Rhubarb mentioned interest in trying another Minecraft server. This time around, I figured it was my time to pony up to support one. (This was right around when I learned that my local work office was going to be closed, and I was facing the possibility I might have to move, or maybe change jobs, or any number of things, and I just thought -- eh, forget it all. Here's a "last hurrah" before it all goes belly-up. :/ ) I invited Gillymoth, one of the contributors on the Ruins forum thread (and who has taught me a lot of tricks-of-the-trade with designing dungeons and such), plus Gwendel and a bunch of our regular Minecraft-fan friends. Purportedly, we may have a few others joining in as latecomers -- friends of friends -- but the nice thing about this game is that there will be plenty of room for several more. :)

Our friend Ambrose has a knack for meddling with modpacks in ways that crash the server. (This time around, it involved creating some massive machine of destruction that breaks huge swathes of the terrain so quickly that the server bogs down trying to track all the breaking particle blocks and "entities." Oops.) Digital_Rampage was the one to drag us into Minecraft back when it was new and shiny, but he's since drifted on to other things. Still, this time around he's at least dropped by occasionally to play around with some of the new changes. Gontharas is mostly interested in the rail aspect of Minecraft (there are tracks you can lay down, and little mine carts that you can push along or ride in), but unfortunately this pack doesn't include his favorite, "Railcraft" (which adds switch-tracks and cart-engines and all sorts of useful tools if you want to turn this into a giant trains-set game). Dr_Rhubarb is, as per usual, building massive housing complexes loosely inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright architecture, with a dash of magic and complex machinery.

I've mostly just been camping out at Gwendel's base (she's building something inspired by World of Warcraft dwarven architecture) and building portals to venture into other dimensions such as the Lost City or Twilight Forest to do some occasional exploring ... but mostly I was interested to see how several of my Ruins template creations (mini-dungeons, etc.) interact with an actual multiplayer environment. Already I've learned that a few of my structures are a bit "broken" ... and some could use some better tweaking for play-balance. (For instance, quartz blocks are pretty ... but quite a few mods use them as a rare resource, so my use of them in too many structures can end up "breaking the economy" of the game -- much the same as if I had buildings spawn into the world with diamond-block walls and solid-gold rooftops, that the players could simply disassemble for the riches. Hence, I've been taking some of those structures and finding something ELSE to put in place of those quartz blocks ... or else increasing the rarity of such structures and increasing the minimum-distance-from-spawn setting so you won't start the game with a quartz temple right next to you, ready to be knocked down and exploited for materials.)

Right now, we're in version 1.12.2 of Minecraft. (When we started at this, so many servers ago, it was something like 1.5.2, some 6 years ago or so.) Version 1.13 is imminent, with a lot of neat new things to add to the Minecraft world (mostly interesting new things swimming around in the ocean), but I view it with certain anxiousness, because behind the scenes there are going to be major changes to how data is stored in the world -- and the implication is that it's going to so thoroughly "break" all of our existing Ruin templates that they'll all have to be re-coded. (We've been lucky enough that most changes are minor enough that quite a few templates from older versions of Ruins/Minecraft will still work, with a few little tweaks. This is going to require more like a complete rewrite -- I may have to start over from scratch.)

Until then, though, it's fun to explore things. "The Twilight Forest" is my favorite exploration modpack, as Benematic has been expanding upon the random dungeons and magic items that can be found there. (I'm such a fan of it that a while back, while Gwendel was knitting soft polyfil-stuffed Creepers and such for friends, she knit a Twilight Forest Raven for me, and I still have it sitting up on the bookshelf next to me as I type.) A new and interesting addition is "The Lost Cities" by Mcjty -- a dimension that has oceans and deserts and forests and such like the "Overworld," but THIS dimension has clusters of abandoned and partially damaged cities full of skyscrapers, streets, highways, parks, subways, etc., haunted by monsters (and with random treasure chests scattered about). If nothing else, it's a great source for finding concrete blocks. ;) I've had some fun setting up something of a base for myself in a building, putting a "business sign" on top, and then exploring the subway system. Since the whole DIMENSION is already full of "ruins," however, I've disabled the spawning of Ruins-mod structures for that particular dimension. (There are plenty of OTHER places for them to pop up, after all.)

In this pack, not only do I have my own Ruins structures popping up, but Gillymoth's structures and ST753mb's as well. It's given me a few ideas for ways to alter my own structures. The Lost Cities inspire me to do a little more with Minecraft's new (and colorful) "concrete" blocks. I also see that some of my Ruins behave differently in different dimensions: The "Mining World" dimension spawns my structures just fine, but mob-spawners don't seem to work as intended, so any treasures the "monsters" were meant to guard are simply there for the taking. For play balance, I should probably exclude any such structures from the Mining World dimension, for instance.

Anyway, it's still going about a month into things. My flying around to other states for work has somewhat limited my ability to be active on the server, but at least it's keeping Gwendel entertained (when she's not playing World of Warcraft). I still have quite a few things I'd like to try out, so I figure I'll stick with the auto-renewal for the time being.

(And ... well, if I DO end up having to move for work ... well, it's not like I have to pack up the Minecraft world and move it anywhere. :/ There's that, at least.)

Comments

[tuftears]

Quartz is rare? Glad to hear you are continuing to find entertainment in Minecraft. };)

[jordangreywolf]

Well, I suppose I should further clarify that the material is called "nether quartz" in the game, as it can only be found in little chunks in the underworld dimension known as "The Nether," and you have to collect 4 chunks to make a "nether quartz block." These nether chunks can be used in the creation of certain devices useful for in-game "redstone circuits" (complex logic arrangements of blocks that carry "redstone signal" and can be used to power lights, sound blocks, traps, pistons, and other interesting things). For whatever reason, while you can use 4 chunks to assemble a decorative block, the crafting doesn't go in the other direction: you can't break down a nether quartz block to get the individual chunks useful in other "recipes."

In the base game, the nether quartz blocks have a look something like white marble, and there are decorative variants -- either solid blocks, "columns" (with scribed vertical lines suggesting the main body of a Roman-style column), and "chiseled" blocks (which look something like ornate capitals for the aforementioned columns). What it's great for is to make pseudo-Roman-esque architecture, like "ruined temples" and the like.

Normally, it wouldn't be a big deal for there to be a few "ruined temples" in the world for PCs to find, due to the inability for the blocks to be converted back into the "chunks" used in the creation of other devices. However, sometimes certain mods come along that ascribe some sort of value to a previously not-quite-so-significant resource in Minecraft -- and "Tinkers' Construct" is a fairly popular mod that allows for the use of various semi-rare and limited-use materials (lapis, redstone, nether quartz, etc.) to make special enhancements when crafting tools and weapons. (You just have to collect an AWFUL LOT of these things to get your weapon improved.)

So, suddenly what otherwise would have just been a "decorative" block is now a resource that could potentially make your sword do more damage against monsters, if you collect, oh, 128 of them, or something like that. This results in behavior wherein, if some explorer finds a whole temple made out of such blocks, his first inclination is to demolish the thing to scavenge it for materials to enchant/enhance his sword to do more damage. (I mean, he COULD demolish it anyway just because the blocks are cool and he might want to make a nice new portico for his home base, but now there's an added incentive.)

[tuftears]

Aha - that makes sense now. I was thinking of regular rock quartz. As far as redstone circuits go, I did hear that they actually implemented a working computer in Minecraft, one that even runs Minecraft. x.x

I haven't played a lot of Minecraft-alikes. I played Starbound with Jared and that was fun for a bit, we set up a base with a farm where we could grow the ingredients to make fried rice, which fed our characters while we worked through the game story. Subnautica was a lot of fun but it's a solo survival-crafting game. Very effective at immersing you (sic) in the atmosphere and story, but not much replayability.

[jordangreywolf]

Heh. I think the idea of a computer IN Minecraft that PLAYS Minecraft is a little bit of a stretch. Basically, "redstone circuits" can be used in various Rube-Goldberg-esque devices, and can be employed in ways to simulate traditional logic circuits and such, but such circuits take up a lot of landscape, and while Minecraft may supposedly have an "infinite" (not really) amount of space for its world, only so many "chunks" of that space are actually loaded into active memory at any given time. (As you move along, "chunks" from areas you move closer to get loaded into memory, while the "chunks" furthest away are unloaded and saved into the save-game. Among other things, this can wreak havoc on complex devices that happen to be built across a chunk "fault-line.")

There are also some timing factors, and a few devices such as "note blocks," so I've heard of people "programming" redstone circuits to play a song -- but even there, the note blocks can only handle maybe one octave, so we're not talking anything terribly sophisticated. It might be possible to rig up a "computer" that can do math, but it would be with a level of "elegance" comparable to a Babbage difference engine as built by the Flintstones (but without the aid of helpful little intelligent dinosaurs). :)

Anyway, the most complex redstone circuits I've worked into "Ruins" structures have just been for stuff like smashy traps, with pistons that do something like opening up the floor underneath someone who opens up a booby-trapped treasure chest without sufficient caution.

I think Gwendel played Starbound for a bit with some friends, but I don't think it was for terribly long before they completed whatever their main objective was.

I'm warily interested in what Fallout 76 brings to the table. It LOOKS as if it might be something like what I wished for Fallout 4: a chance to build settlements *cooperatively* with some friends. However, I'd probably be more on board with paying a subscription and hosting a server for a few months (like what I do with Minecraft) rather than being on a more MMO-like environment.

One of the "features" they advertised was that people can get hold of tactical missiles and nuke other settlements; that was NOT a selling point for me. (Yay, we put all this work in ... and then some 12-year-old troll nukes it?) I'm much more on board with "PVE" (player vs. environment) rather than PVP (player vs. player) games. I'm hoping there's some way around that for folks more inclined toward cooperative play.

[tuftears]

It wasn't a full version of Minecraft, more a... very simple 2d version:

https://www.gamesradar.com/guy-makes-minecraft-playing-computer-minecraft/

I haven't looked at Fallout 76 much. I do agree though, I really don't want PVP in my games, especially the ones where I'm building something.

[rowyn]

Yay for getting back into Minecraft!

The minecraft computers sound hysterical. XD

That "nuke other PC's settlements" option sounds like a fun feature for almost nobody. I guess it appeals to the kind of folks who like Eve, maybe. ALthough even Eve has high-security space for people who don't want to risk PvP constantly.

[jordangreywolf]

Judging from a lot of the opinion pieces I've been seeing, nobody who comments on the "nuke other PC settlements" option has been keen on it. All it takes is one bozo with far too much time on his hands (and doesn't have a day job or social life to worry about) to grind his way toward getting his hands on a nuke to threaten everyone else with and/or simply unload it for the stupid fun of it.

On the other hand, they claim that even if you die, you don't lose anything, and even if your base is destroyed, you still don't lose anything, or nuked areas "recede in time." (What the heck does that mean?) It's all very vague and at times seems self-contradictory.

If indeed we can build settlements ANYWHERE, my first thought is, "Let's build a settlement in an abandoned subway!" Not so nice of a view, but at least you don't have to worry about rad-rain or random nukes quite as much.

If there's no room for single-player or private-server and mods, that's going to seriously dampen my enthusiasm. I don't intend to rush out for a pre-order on this one. I love the thought of the possibility of CO-OP -- something that I felt like Fallout 4's settlement development was sorely missing -- but opening up griefing from random strangers is NOT the price I'm eager to pay for it.

[rowyn]

Yeah, if they were going to go the MMO route, it'd make a lot more sense to do both PvE and PvP servers, the way most MMOs do. Guess you'll see in time! :)