Snow will probably... you know... put snow on the ground, and freeze water... Yeah I'm just going to assume that was a joke in the article. Unless it only snows over frozen regions... then it'd be weird. Anyways, sounds pretty cool.
aaaactually, it would make sense for it to only snow over frozen regions, that's part of Notch's whole thing with Biomes he's trying to do, cold regions remaining cold and hot regions remaining hot. Like, it really should not snow in the desert. That should not happen.
What it is is that currently, harvested snow does not respawn, which can give your glorious snow-draped view a decidedly splotchy appearance if you put a lot of torches down or do any work that rips up the ground. Same with ice, if you break a block of ice, that iceblock remains broken forever.
Grass respawns, you see, any block of dirt that is directly adjacent to any other block of dirt that has grass on it will eventually also have grass on it. That's how creeper-ravaged or strip-mined areas stop looking creeper-ravaged or strip-mined, cover it with dirt, make sure that dirt touches a grassy block and poof, in the space of a day, it'll look fine.
Currently, that is not so with snow and ice. Laugh at this if you want - lord knows I do - but to some people, this is a big deal, views can become ruined by time and circumstance and your snowy field can quickly look like a white-green-brown-grey-splotchy mess.
That's honestly what this update is, it's cosmetic and it opens the door for weather-triggered events - like, for example, flowers might spawn more after a rainfall, letting you anticipate flowerspawns and thus have a little better time farming dyes.
I know exactly what you mean, but the thing is, I'm not sure if there's actually specific code to determine where a biome begins and ends, so having it snow only over snow biomes would probably mean that it only snows over currently snow-covered blocks.
Unless there /is/ some code that determines where each biome begins and ends, in which case... cool!
Not to be the party pooper, but it must be a slow news day if the Escapist is doing a story on a proposed feature for one of the many updates to a game in beta. I wish you guys would do stories on features I plan on adding to games I make.
The Escapist has a Minecraft obsession. Every little thing added to the game must be covered by the news even before it's released. So Toady can add all of this to Dwarf Fortress;
Toady One This is the first release of what we once called the Caravan Arc, where we'll be changing how trade and the economy work. The entire release schedule is up at the development page. This particular release doesn't have visible changes to trade -- just a lot of world generation infrastructure. People eat and starve in world gen now, though it doesn't matter afterward. Subsequent releases coming up will be making use of these changes during play, but don't expect too much there this time. There have been many other changes. Seeing most of them will require generating a new world.
There are lots of new domestic animals. We also added giraffes, rhinos, honey bees and bumblebees. Bees were the winner of the animal sponsorship drive and they had many associated jobs, so we didn't try to get into the other sponsored beasts, but we'll be adding those in with every release.
Animals can be placed in pen/pasture zones, and grazing animals will need to graze on grass (they can also eat underground fungus found in many open cave layers). Pastures should be made large enough to provide ample grass and to prevent animals from being stacked on top of each other. Animals crammed into one place for too long can become grumpy and violent, but the animals will stay in the pastures without much tending (a dwarf may occasionally run over to an animal if it wanders off the pasture border to walk around something). There is no way to trade for hay or animal feed at this time, so don't expect grazing animals in new forts to survive on glaciers or the deepest deserts. Many deserts have patches of grass (or succulents) now.
Sheep, llamas and alpacas (and trolls for goblins) can be sheared and the wool can be spun into yarn. Chickens and other birds will lay eggs in nest boxes if you place the boxes in accessible areas. You can mill rocknuts into paste and press the paste for oil (which goes into jugs). Pressing occurs at the new screw press building.
You can make many of the more clayish soil types into earthenware ceramics now (and you can make fire clay into stoneware and kaolinite into porcelain). If a fort embark location has clay above the aquifer (or any clay if there is no aquifer), it'll be displayed in the embark readout. I didn't get very far into glazing, but you can ash glaze and tin glaze (with cassiterite). Earthenware jugs need to be glazed to hold liquids. Stoneware and porcelain jugs don't require glaze but can be glazed. You can also make large pots out of various materials, and these act like barrels (they are associated to stockpiles in the same way, etc.).
Honey bees can be collected and kept in artificial hives (which you can make out of various materials). You'll need one natural hive on your embark location to get started, but after that you can split the colony into new artificial hives. The process is fairly automated. You just need to place the hive buildings and a beekeeper will do the rest. You can adjust a few settings on each hive to control which hives are held for splitting and which are collected. You'll need to have jugs around to collect honeycombs (the royal jelly holds up the process otherwise), and you'll need another jug to collect the honey. Wax cakes can only be made into crafts by a wax worker at this time.
The site finder records the best hit in each square now, and you can stop the finder at any time and browse the results. The categories and readout have been changed up a bit. Minerals have been redistributed on the world map, though this might not be satisfying as I was expecting to get a bit farther with dwarf mode trade. Adjustments might have to be made there until trade is updated. We'll see.
Animals and plants occur with more or less contiguous ranges now, respecting biome. There are specific grasses. The evil grasses are probably a little extreme and seizure-inducing. I might throttle that back.
I'm starting the first one to two week bug fix cycle now, so there weren't a lot of bug fixes for this release, but creatures, items and vegetation don't pick up as many contaminants now.
There are new options in the graphical map export from legends mode, and I fixed a bug there with village maps getting cut off.
And never get a single mention, but the second Minecraft adds something trivial like beds it gets showered with attention.
Still, I'm surprised there was no mention of the pistons mod in this article. It may only be a user mod at the moment but it's pretty much confirmed to be coming soon since it adds so much potential to the game.
Dwarf Fortress is one of the single least accessible video games that has ever been made. Yeah Minecraft lacks a tutorial, but once you have the basics you really don't need one beyond possibly a cheat sheet for the various crafting creations.
DF's tutorial is somewhere in the neighborhood of seventy pages long and even then doesn't cover absolutely everything that you might need to know.
You can pick up and play Minecraft even if you have never seen or heard of Minecraft before and are not an engineering major.
The same is not true of Dwarf Fortress.
It's not fair to make these comparisons.
DF is and will remain underground because of its insane complexity and because its most fervent fans love and thrive off of that complexity.
DF is the smarter, more complex big brother who spends years perfecting works of art by himself in the basement, whereas Minecraft is the perky, hot, accessible little sister who is a fraction as difficult to figure out but no less satisfying to get into.
You cannot expect the Escapist, a website that caters to the average gamer, to spend time on DF.
There are reviews for fucking Call of Duty on this website. Where do DF and CoD have ~anything~ in common apart from the electronic medium?
Do you see what I'm saying here?
You don't pick up a copy of People magazine and complain that it's not keeping you updated on String Theory.
Rain and snow sound cool, but let's add some lightning.
Actually, maybe not. I'd love to see it crater a mountain peak, but I wouldn't want it to see it hit my wool sculptures.
Not to be the party pooper, but it must be a slow news day if the Escapist is doing a story on a proposed feature for one of the many updates to a game in beta. I wish you guys would do stories on features I plan on adding to games I make.
The Escapist has a Minecraft obsession. Every little thing added to the game must be covered by the news even before it's released. So Toady can add all of this to Dwarf Fortress;
Toady One This is the first release of what we once called the Caravan Arc, where we'll be changing how trade and the economy work. The entire release schedule is up at the development page. This particular release doesn't have visible changes to trade -- just a lot of world generation infrastructure. People eat and starve in world gen now, though it doesn't matter afterward. Subsequent releases coming up will be making use of these changes during play, but don't expect too much there this time. There have been many other changes. Seeing most of them will require generating a new world.
There are lots of new domestic animals. We also added giraffes, rhinos, honey bees and bumblebees. Bees were the winner of the animal sponsorship drive and they had many associated jobs, so we didn't try to get into the other sponsored beasts, but we'll be adding those in with every release.
Animals can be placed in pen/pasture zones, and grazing animals will need to graze on grass (they can also eat underground fungus found in many open cave layers). Pastures should be made large enough to provide ample grass and to prevent animals from being stacked on top of each other. Animals crammed into one place for too long can become grumpy and violent, but the animals will stay in the pastures without much tending (a dwarf may occasionally run over to an animal if it wanders off the pasture border to walk around something). There is no way to trade for hay or animal feed at this time, so don't expect grazing animals in new forts to survive on glaciers or the deepest deserts. Many deserts have patches of grass (or succulents) now.
Sheep, llamas and alpacas (and trolls for goblins) can be sheared and the wool can be spun into yarn. Chickens and other birds will lay eggs in nest boxes if you place the boxes in accessible areas. You can mill rocknuts into paste and press the paste for oil (which goes into jugs). Pressing occurs at the new screw press building.
You can make many of the more clayish soil types into earthenware ceramics now (and you can make fire clay into stoneware and kaolinite into porcelain). If a fort embark location has clay above the aquifer (or any clay if there is no aquifer), it'll be displayed in the embark readout. I didn't get very far into glazing, but you can ash glaze and tin glaze (with cassiterite). Earthenware jugs need to be glazed to hold liquids. Stoneware and porcelain jugs don't require glaze but can be glazed. You can also make large pots out of various materials, and these act like barrels (they are associated to stockpiles in the same way, etc.).
Honey bees can be collected and kept in artificial hives (which you can make out of various materials). You'll need one natural hive on your embark location to get started, but after that you can split the colony into new artificial hives. The process is fairly automated. You just need to place the hive buildings and a beekeeper will do the rest. You can adjust a few settings on each hive to control which hives are held for splitting and which are collected. You'll need to have jugs around to collect honeycombs (the royal jelly holds up the process otherwise), and you'll need another jug to collect the honey. Wax cakes can only be made into crafts by a wax worker at this time.
The site finder records the best hit in each square now, and you can stop the finder at any time and browse the results. The categories and readout have been changed up a bit. Minerals have been redistributed on the world map, though this might not be satisfying as I was expecting to get a bit farther with dwarf mode trade. Adjustments might have to be made there until trade is updated. We'll see.
Animals and plants occur with more or less contiguous ranges now, respecting biome. There are specific grasses. The evil grasses are probably a little extreme and seizure-inducing. I might throttle that back.
I'm starting the first one to two week bug fix cycle now, so there weren't a lot of bug fixes for this release, but creatures, items and vegetation don't pick up as many contaminants now.
There are new options in the graphical map export from legends mode, and I fixed a bug there with village maps getting cut off.
And never get a single mention, but the second Minecraft adds something trivial like beds it gets showered with attention.
Still, I'm surprised there was no mention of the pistons mod in this article. It may only be a user mod at the moment but it's pretty much confirmed to be coming soon since it adds so much potential to the game.
Dwarf Fortress is one of the single least accessible video games that has ever been made. Yeah Minecraft lacks a tutorial, but once you have the basics you really don't need one beyond possibly a cheat sheet for the various crafting creations.
DF's tutorial is somewhere in the neighborhood of seventy pages long and even then doesn't cover absolutely everything that you might need to know.
You can pick up and play Minecraft even if you have never seen or heard of Minecraft before and are not an engineering major.
The same is not true of Dwarf Fortress.
It's not fair to make these comparisons.
DF is and will remain underground because of its insane complexity and because its most fervent fans love and thrive off of that complexity.
DF is the smarter, more complex big brother who spends years perfecting works of art by himself in the basement, whereas Minecraft is the perky, hot, accessible little sister who is a fraction as difficult to figure out but no less satisfying to get into.
You cannot expect the Escapist, a website that caters to the average gamer, to spend time on DF.
There are reviews for fucking Call of Duty on this website. Where do DF and CoD have ~anything~ in common apart from the electronic medium?
Do you see what I'm saying here?
You don't pick up a copy of People magazine and complain that it's not keeping you updated on String Theory.
Yeah, and when did I say any of that wasn't true? You seem to be assuming that I think it's unfair that Minecraft gets showered with so much attention. And while I do find it annoying, it is understandable. When a website adores a game that much, it only makes sense that it is constantly reported about regardless of what the actual content is. Meanwhile a game like Dwarf Fortress adds a ton of stuff and goes unnoticed becuase looking at ASCII graphics makes most people want to turn off their computer. I get why nobody talks about Dwarf Fortres here, as much as I like to.
If you notice the post I originally quoted was questioning why the Escapist gave Minecraft so much attention over little things. My response was meant to show that it doesn't really matter how much the game adds, but rather how much the site already likes and thus will enjoy hearing anything about it.
That's what they're working on.
They're reworking the internal code to make it more neat, accessible to modders, and stable as well as making future additions and fixes easier.
That's why we're only getting minor new content.
Have some patience.
Snow and rain have been in Minecraft for a while now.
Rain was first put in by Notch as a tech test ages ago (but never actually implemented), and if you generated a snowy map before the 1.2 biome update, snow fell on the entire thing.
Now we just need him to make snow always fall above the cloudline, so we can have snowy peaks with epic lava-castles on them.
Ooh! Maybe later down the road we can have seasons, (each lasting maybe a dozen Minecraft days or so) where trees blossom and later the leaves fall off and snow starts falling!
Yeah, and when did I say any of that wasn't true? You seem to be assuming that I think it's unfair that Minecraft gets showered with so much attention.
The Escapist has a Minecraft obsession. Every little thing added to the game must be covered by the news even before it's released. So Toady can add all of this to Dwarf Fortress;
(snip)
And never get a single mention, but the second Minecraft adds something trivial like beds it gets showered with attention.
It sort of means "I feel it is unfair that Minecraft is getting showered with attention."
The expression "showered with attention", which you have in fact used twice, does in fact suggest that you feel it to be unfair.
And while I do find it annoying, it is understandable. When a website adores a game that much, it only makes sense that it is constantly reported about regardless of what the actual content is.
Beds were not a meaningless addition. Beds altered gameplay by allowing players to advance time in large increments, and now permit players to change the location of their spawn point.
Meanwhile a game like Dwarf Fortress adds a ton of stuff and goes unnoticed becuase looking at ASCII graphics makes most people want to turn off their computer. I get why nobody talks about Dwarf Fortres here, as much as I like to.
Okay, this is yet another gross oversimplification.
Minecraft's monstrous inaccessibility is not remotely confined to its graphics.
At all.
In any way.
If you notice the post I originally quoted was questioning why the Escapist gave Minecraft so much attention over little things. My response was meant to show that it doesn't really matter how much the game adds, but rather how much the site already likes and thus will enjoy hearing anything about it.
Erm, no, see, Minecraft is also wildly popular and the Escapist is a business. The more people click on their pages, the more ad revenue they get.
They want people to click on their pages.
And Minecraft is wildly popular.
Do you see the connection, here?
(also, and I hate to say this, but despite your protestations to the contrary, you're still coming off like you are saying "it is unfair for game X to get this attention, rather than game Y."
Because you are, is the thing. That's exactly what you're saying. Please stop attempting to pretend it is not the case, with all due respect.)
snow will make snow "grow" on the ground and then you could shovel it and make snowballs, and there was snow before, but it was horrible on the fps and made the game run really slow
Why are you trying to debate me over something we're in agreement on? You merely misinterpreted my post. That's it. I don't get why your writing a long winded response and telling me that I said something I didn't.
Seriously, you're grossly misinterpreting everything I said. Don't put words in my mouth.
OT: No pistons for 1.5 sadly, but the dude did submit them so odds are we'll get them.
Mind you if they just sorted the mod API it wouldn't matter.
Rain and snow and arguably wolves are cosmetic features for the most part, mod support and bug fixes are practical gameplay enhancing things that need to be bloody sorted asap
Why are you trying to debate me over something we're in agreement on? You merely misinterpreted my post. That's it. I don't get why your writing a long winded response and telling me that I said something I didn't.
Seriously, you're grossly misinterpreting everything I said. Don't put words in my mouth.
And so long as you're getting a little overdefensive at me for pointing out the not-at-all-subtle "this showering of attention is unfair" undertone in your posts, why are bring up DF at all?
This thread is about Minecraft. DF is really not even remotely like Minecraft in any real way.
Posting all that update about the Caravan Arc is really a gigantic nonsequitor, isn't it?
You may as well have brought up the new Monopoly movie by Ridley Scott, it is exactly as relevant in this thread as DF.
I mean, if you're that annoyed at the dearth of DF information on this site, why not make your own threads in which you keep us all updated on new DF developments?
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