Let's Minecraft Together!: Episode 11 [Jeff's Dig]

When I mine you mine we mine.

All this talk about having an external program to bring up a map - there are maps in game too guys! You can put waypoints on it and everyone that has a copy of the map shows up on there too.

And when I get the feeling, I feel the feel swell

All of the troubles they've faced thus far are things you have the power to address with built-in systems, but they've become accustomed to bypassing them with admin access. You can't put the game genie back in the bottle. They're not playing Minecraft anymore.

Welcome to Jeff's Flat Zone.

of course Jeff would run at a creeper and say "blowmeupcreeper dot com". Of course Jeff would randomly make a Tom Leykis reference.

I've played plenty of minecraft with plenty of people on plenty of servers since beta and I can pinpoint the downfall of several servers to the moment where someone (sometimes me) uses admin commands to do something small, which opens the floodgates into more and more things until eventually you run out of motivation to do anything because it's all there with the click of a button. They're not at that point yet but I am worried it'll get that way.

(Also fuck me, who cares, play how you like)

For real though make some maps, it's a fun long term goal to explore them, and they link together perfectly so you can build out a huge world map by sticking them in item frames, it's also super handy to see where everyone is and to work out if you've been somewhere before. Also if you right click a banner with the map open it marks a waypoint on the map, so you can be like "oh this is where the ocean monument is" and you'll always know (I learnt this last week, minecraft isn't great at teaching you things tbf). You can rename banners on anvils to dictate what text shows up on the map too.

beans

Wait! Who dethroned Jeff Jarrett as employee of the month?

@spudnickator: I can totally relate to the notion of servers dying once people start abusing op powers.

And I agree, I'm not going to try dictating how people play games, particularly Minecraft where half the fun is coming up with your own way to play, but all the things they're doing for "convenience" end up upsetting the balance of the game and sucking out the fun and tension.

Downward spiral of op abuse aside, I think getting rid of the death penalty was the biggest mistake. If they do want changes like that, I think Vanilla Tweaks provides a good set of tweaks with balance considerations in mind, including the option of a death chest sort of thing (plus @brad it should let you get multiplayer sleep in 1.16 without having to install a custom server... at least I think so, I've never used it).

I don't quite know of a solution to their desire to teleport, but I do think it ruins a lot of the fun, too. What's the point in building transportation systems if you're just going to teleport around everywhere? One thing Vinny mentioned is that maybe you could teleport but you would have to die first (wasn't meant as a suggestion but I liked the idea). Not sure how that would play out, but it's a thought.

Anyway, that's just my two cents. Like I said, they're free to enjoy the game as they see fit.

On an unrelated note, @jeff you sounded pretty down about getting that bamboo but I think that's the first bamboo anyone's found in this world? You should farm it so you can make scaffolding.

@pimanrules: @spudnickator: @hughj:

Insightful stuff. I mean Jeff, of all people, knows the downward spiral of the cheat engine trap. Once you get started down that dark path, the motivation to do anything the "right" way just dissipates. But that said, there are some good middle ground solutions. Death chests to turn it into a Rogue-like isn't a bad idea (though, would that help them with their affinity for lava? I'm not sure)

And making a world map is an awesome semi-short term goal. I really think that they just need a couple of larger, but fairly quickly achievable goals to work toward to get them back into a frame of mind. Building the transportation systems and homes was a good start, but whether that's just beating the game or filling out a big map or building something (giant bomb bomb?) or some redstone (chicken cooker?) or doing some mass terraform just for the sake of it. Might just help refocus them on a goal.

@pimanrules: "I think getting rid of the death penalty was the biggest mistake."

Yup, and I feel like the impact that has on the gameplay gets too easily hand-waved away in the name of personal preference. There's really no other way to look at this than "you're playing it wrong", subjective opinion be damned.

In MC the value you attribute to your character comes from valuing the contents of your inventory. That death penalty is the single motivator for players to build shelter and craft picks, and eventually engage with concepts and systems like mob harvesting, farming, armor, potions, enchantments, villagers, etc. Just like technology in real life, these are things that make moment to moment existence easier and expand what you can do; they're not merely technology for technology's sake. If death doesn't have that penalty then there's actually a disincentive to engage with most of the complexity the game offers because the time and inventory cost of building things actually represents a net-negative return.

This has a recursive knock-on effect that reduces the value of everything. Why craft and wear armor if it only exists to become degraded and broken? Why spend inventory slots on food if you're planning to die and warp back to spawn with the stuff you mined? Why mine/harvest resources if you no longer need them? Diamonds may still be rare, but they're no longer scarce.

It trivializes the massive scale of MC's world because you've effectively got one foot planted at your spawn at all times. You can never become lost or find yourself in a dangerous place that you need to get yourself out of. There is no room for problem-solving if you're prevented from experiencing problems.

All that said, if they want to pretend to play MC for a couple hours a week and enough people enjoy watching that then go right ahead. :P

What's the name of the shader pack they are using?

@jeff For diamonds, y11 and start branch mining. Dig a 1x2 tunnel and every 3 blocks dig out a branch. I usually go 30 blocks in each branch. I've been swimming in diamonds since I switched to this method, and I don't go through too many picks. Also, enchant your shit! Even iron tools with enchantments (unbreakable/mending, efficiency and fortune are must-haves for pickaxes) and then you can kinda just steamroll the whole mining process with a couple hour session every week or so. I can regularly get a stack of diamonds per session with fortune 3 on a diamond axe.