Thoughts about gameplay and game progress

[MarkuBu]

I assume that Farlands should be more a survival and adventure game than just building. But to make fun for more than two hours it needs a lot of content.

• it must be necessary to explore the map, but it shouldn't be boring.
• it must be necessary to dig, even deep, but it shouldn't be boring
• it must be necessary to kill mobs
• the game needs a lot of items and blocks.

These are only a few things of a long list.

Exploring the map: there are a lot of things that can make exploring necessary. One thing are ores. Not all ores are common everywhere like it is currently. For example: coal is available everywhere, but just enough to build some torches and cook some food and smelt some iron. If you need more you need to find a tundra biome (for example Russia). There are big sheets of coal. Gold can be found in deserts and savanna (south africa)

Also you can find some items only in loot chests, maybe also only in specific biomes or only in dungeons or other structures.

But traveling shouldn't be boring. Lots of different landscapes, structures and other things. And navigation should be easier. Maybe teleporting will help to explore larger areas, but it shouldn't be free.

Teleporters can spawn rarely or can be build by the player. Once a teleporter is activated he should be bookmarked in a list

More thought will follow

[tobyplowy]

I assume that Farlands should be more a survival and adventure game than just building.

Yes correct

Exploring the map: there are a lot of things that can make exploring necessary. One thing are ores. Not all ores are common everywhere like it is currently. For example: coal is available everywhere, but just enough to build some torches and cook some food and smelt some iron. If you need more you need to find a tundra biome (for example Russia). There are big sheets of coal. Gold can be found in deserts and savanna (south africa)

Yes I agree with that but there should still be a reasonable amount of (insert ore name here) in every biome So if people can't or don't want to explore they don't have to but it will take more time

Also you can find some items only in loot chests, maybe also only in specific biomes or only in dungeons or other structures.

Yes YES and again YES I love this stuff Unique loot is amazing especially weapons Ice sword in cold biomes and someting like a horn of the ocean that kills enemies if you blow on it (because of the high frequency of sound) and so on I can come up with some crazy stuff! refere to #97 for this

But traveling shouldn't be boring. Lots of different landscapes, structures and other things. And navigation should be easier. Maybe teleporting will help to explore larger areas, but it shouldn't be free.

Yes but it can not be cheep or OP (overpowered)

Teleporters can spawn rarely or can be build by the player. Once a teleporter is activated he should be bookmarked in a list

Maybe for the natural teleporters we can link up all natural teleporters so if you enter teleport A You will be teleported to B if you enter B you go back to A Maybe they can look something like this https://www.arenaflowers.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/spacefabric.jpg

More thought will follow

Yes keep them coming :)

[tobyplowy]

Less effort Less reward, more effort more reward

Effort shuld be rewarded and laziness shuld not be rewarded but also not be punished! (we have to keep it fun for everyone but people hoe put in more effort shuld be rewarded more)

This will make gameplay addictive in a good way :)

(I hope that makes sense)

[MarkuBu]

it must be necessary to explore the map, but it shouldn't be boring.

To make exploring the map not boring two major things are necessary: more biomes and more structures

More biomes also means more plants and more nodes. First we should decorate the existing biomes

We can add for example an igloo to the icesheet, also something like the ice spikes with a unique node or something similar or totally different. It must not exist in the real world.

Structures can be more buildings for villages, small sheds in the forest, bigger structures like castles or temples or natural structures like the ice spikes or things like this

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/87/ab/97/87ab973f5f40429e091061a328e5dd66--minecraft-traps-minecraft-build-ideas.jpg

[tobyplowy]

more biomes and more structures

yes im actually thinking about ideas

Structures can be more buildings for villages, small sheds in the forest, bigger structures like castles or temples or natural structures like the ice spikes or things like this

yep but they need to make sense

[tobyplowy]

what about crapy little houses for swamp npcs

maybe thay can be frog poeple

[D00Med]

@tobyplowy I like the idea of frog people. I have some ideas for structures. We could have windmills, different types of villages, and tower dungeons. I think dungeons as towers is better than what I used in the past, where you can break into anywhere at ground level. Tower dungeons would mean you have to stack dirt and then break in xD

[MarkuBu]

Tower dungeons? Hmm, interesting. Could be made of some segments that are stacked.

Can we make an ice tower for the icesheet?

[D00Med]

@MarkuBu Sure. I have several ideas for nodes that could be used for building them.

[tobyplowy]

Can we randomise the floors so all towers are unique

If so I want to built some but I will need a template

[tobyplowy]

I like the idea of frog people.

So we add frog poeple in the swamps

[D00Med]

@tobyplowy Yeah that'd be good. I should make a drawing of what I have in mind

[tobyplowy]

@D00Med yup go ahead :)

[MarkuBu]

Make the tower completely random takes a long time to generate. Would be easier and faster if we build a lot of room segments and save them as schematics, similar to the woodland mansion.

[tobyplowy]

@MarkuBu That's what I meant with floors (floors = segments)

So it's a good idea?

[MarkuBu]

Ah, ok. I thought you want to draw them completely random like the dungeons in MT

[D00Med]

It's not much, but here's my ideas so far. I think towers should have un-craftable machines in them, or machine parts, to make them worth finding. Also I think each floor should be separated by rooves or platforms, or be of a different size to those above and below. That way they will look more interesting.

[tobyplowy]

Ah, ok. I thought you want to draw them completely random like the dungeons in MT

No no that wuld look so bad and strange XD

Can you please give me a room template

[tobyplowy]

I mean room template

[D00Med]

What do you mean?

[Xaleth]

The bigger the schematic, the longer computation time it takes. The more schematics there are, the longer computation time it takes.

Try to make generated schematics simple. Leave all the complicated stuff to the player.

My 2 cents.

[MarkuBu]

Oh come on, in a dens jungle forest hundreds and maybe thousands of schematics are placed. That is much more than such a tower, and it still works.

Why is everybody so concerned about performance? Do most players have only PCs from 1999?

[tobyplowy]

Why is everybody so concerned about performance? Do most players have only PCs from 1999?

Hahahah probably yes,

Well I Don't Care About Performance alot but the game should not change into a slide show (aka 3 fps) But generating a tower probably won't lag the game alot So my conclusion Performance should be considered but it should not limit creativity Also it should not be top priority!

[MarkuBu]

I have more concerns about the height. We can't make the tower as high as we want, because the chunk size is the limit. The chunk size normally is 80 nodes and the lower edge of the chunk starts at -32, so the top of a chunk is at 48 plus a shelf of 16 nodes.

So if the ground height is at +20 we can only build 44 nodes high, if at all. If we want to build higher we really have to do some magic, I'm not sure if it is possible

[tobyplowy]

If we want to build higher we really have to do some magic,

open an issue in minetest engine Boom magic XD

But seriously now can you make an issue for it?

[MarkuBu]

That's not really an issue. That's how Minetest works. Minecraft doesn't has this problem because the world is only 256 blocks high and each chunk uses the full hight.