Chapter 206: Basic Settings and Some Changes
After Alex finished explaining the initial conceptual draft of Minecraft, everyone began working diligently on various preparations. Some were responsible for the subsequent operations of Don't Starve and the release of downloadable content.
As for Minecraft, the development cycle reserved for it was a full six months.
In Alex's case, he was simply explaining some game concepts to Eric and the rest, and then he began to produce the game's artistic resources. For the entire game, Alex also needed to work on a more detailed basic rules document for Minecraft. And unlike the previous version of Minecraft, Alex needed to optimize many aspects of the development of Minecraft.
The first and most important were the game modes. Alex planned that the initial version of Minecraft released to players would initially feature three different modes. The single-player mode, of course, covered both creative and survival modes. Players create a world and the terrain is automatically generated. As they explore, the world expands infinitely, without limits. In theory, the size of the Minecraft map is limited to the size of the player's hard drive.
There are also multiplayer modes: local servers created on players' computers or servers configured by themselves. Within these servers, players can establish their own rules, and server owners can add various mods. In short, the rules are established by the players.
Finally, there are the official servers, or simply pure servers. These are divided into creative and survival modes. Each server uses a fixed world, divided into different zones, and can host a maximum of 2,000 players on a huge map. Of course, as mods proliferate, official servers dedicated to minigames will be released. These include Bed Wars, Hide and Seek, Builder, and more.
There are also aspects related to the player's experience, such as the most frustrating aspects of Minecraft players in the past. After the server was launched, their painstakingly built structures and other important projects were destroyed by the influx of "griefers." Upon seeing the trinitrotoluene explode, many players were heartbroken.
For this reason, in previous versions, many server owners configured add-ons such as explosion prevention, high-altitude fluid blocking, lava flow blocking, and territory fences to prevent griefers from destroying their work. Alex specifically implemented these settings, allowing players to make certain buildings indestructible on their servers or restrict other players' permissions to prevent these griefers from appearing.
Of course, this part, which involves the player's experience, will still require the initial release of the game, followed by gradual tests by the test team, with adjustments based on the real experience.
The remaining components are the basic materials of the world, inspired by the previous version of Minecraft. These include dirt, sand, stone, water, lava, trees, various minerals, and creatures like pigs, cows, and sheep. Different materials can also be crafted using tools like workbenches.
In the Nebula Games office, Alex gradually perfected the basic conceptual draft of Minecraft. In addition to the content from the previous life, Alex also considered incorporating excellent mod settings into the Minecraft system. After all, the core concept of Minecraft is openness. The type of completion depends on the players themselves, which allows for more elements to be created directly in the game and provides clearer and more complete creation rules tables. At least, without the same situation as in the previous life: players must search for creation tables in search engines while playing without creation table mods.
It is not an exaggeration to say that, without creation tables, most players might not be self-sufficient in Minecraft. After all, there are so many things and content that can be created that even veteran players cannot say that they remember everything.
Alex also has an idea for Minecraft: adding modified content. For example, more technological creation content would give the game a more complete technological development route. In fact, many similar mods already existed in the original Minecraft.
For example, in the early days of Minecraft, players used various materials to build cars and weapons. However, in the game, these objects were inanimate, completely motionless. To solve this, many modders created mods for cars to drive and weapons to shoot, which allowed players to play first-person shooter games and racing cars in Minecraft, and even drive a Gundam if they wanted to.
Alex is considering integrating these functions into the game itself, making them part of the gameplay. If players meet the requirements to build a car, why can't they also move it? If they meet the requirements to build airplanes and rockets, why can't they also fly through the skies? From a technical perspective, Alex considered it carefully and concluded that it was not particularly difficult.
As for whether players could understand cutting-edge redstone technology, just like in previous lives, he spoke as if everyone mastered it. It is well known that Minecraft players are divided into several stages of civilization. The first stage: cave dwellers, who consume raw meat and drink blood; the second stage: the entry into a primitive society and the understanding of the importance of livestock farming; the third stage: the beginnings of the industrial era, when the fundamentals of redstone technology are finally understood.
After that, it is the mastery of the experts, who offer all kinds of advanced redstone technology, even allowing a complete computer to be created within the game, capable of performing tasks that go beyond simple calculations, such as the introduction of Chinese characters, Snake, and Minesweeper.
Of course, for the most common players, it will probably be a similar situation: commands are still used to copy blocks, while the other experts have already reached industrialization.
Beyond these changes, Alex also faced a more challenging task: the specialized optimization of Minecraft mods. Just like in previous games like Overcooked and Fall Guys, to allow players to design maps and levels, most were made divisible, assembled, and assembled with existing materials.
However, this was not the case with Minecraft. In its past, Minecraft had many versions. The original Java version, developed in Java, was mainly open, but it was poorly optimized. Thanks to Java, the initial development of Minecraft had a large amount of content for modders, which enriched its ecosystem. It is still one of the favorites among many players and modders.
Later, the Bedrock Edition emerged, which offered improved optimization, but a significantly smaller openness. Modders had less freedom and the content was much less extensive than the Java version.
For Alex, Minecraft directly used the official game engine, eliminating the version problems. This represented a more challenging task. Alex needed to create several specific open ports for Minecraft, along with the corresponding tools, to facilitate the development of the players.
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