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Anvildude wrote:
It's nice for combat weapons, since, for a high-damage weapon (I use axes with Smite and Sharpness V on them, respectively) it's one hit to kill- then the experience more than repairs that damage, since it's, I think, 1 durability per point of experience, and most mobs drop anywhere from 5 to 20, I think. Then, any extra goes into other stuff you're holding that you want to be repaired. Don't know about armour, of course, seeing as I don't really wear any.

It works for armor as well, anything you're wearing or holding in either hand will repair itself.

Anvildude wrote:
I think maybe a full Boss is a bit much- perhaps find a Spawner of some sort and build the labyrinth under that? Or use a small Mob Spawner system as opposed to a dungeon block.

 n0t_u wrote:
I don't really care what's at the end, but well built dungeons and labyrinths would be pretty fun to have.

What makes a good dungeon or labyrinth? If I made one it'd probably be too easy/safe... that's a bad thing, right?

I've got some ideas but not enough for a full dungeon.

 Melissia wrote:

 Lotet wrote:
Would that make people want them more? Is giving them away just too easy for some people?

It's not that, I just don't really feel too much of an urge to play Minecraft at the moment.

Just feeling burnt out when it comes to MC....

I didn't meant to imply that's your reason, about half the people I offer decline, otherwise I might have given all the suits away by now, so I'm just guessing a reason.

I have been contemplating a "Dungeon Zone" for a while now.

Set a time limit (say 1 month) and a space limit (say 100 x 100 blocks per team. Teams of 4 build dungeons / fortresses to explore, full of traps (and preferably spawners). At the end of the month you invite the other teams into your fortress to try to grab the treasures and secrets therein... I would suggest we agree on a minimum of say 40 diamonds or emeralds as loot in each fortress, plus whatever other nice loot (pretty axes etc.) people want to add. For maximum fun you have the fortress builders sit in on each fortress attempt, in Evil Overlord skins, trying to defend it against the adventuring party. If the first party doesn't crack it, another party tries. Once a dungeon is looted and the guards killed, you move on to a new team's dungeon and a different team has first dibs on that... Obviously the "no PVP" rule is temporarily suspended in the Dungeon Zone, but only during agreed dungeon raids. Anyone fancy it?

 Lotet wrote:

Anvildude wrote:
I think maybe a full Boss is a bit much- perhaps find a Spawner of some sort and build the labyrinth under that? Or use a small Mob Spawner system as opposed to a dungeon block.

 n0t_u wrote:
I don't really care what's at the end, but well built dungeons and labyrinths would be pretty fun to have.

What makes a good dungeon or labyrinth? If I made one it'd probably be too easy/safe... that's a bad thing, right?

Well puzzles, redstone and stuff like that. You can add danger zones if you want, but I'd suggest adding something to gather your inventory and bring it back out to the entrance for recovery.
Platforming puzzles too, like in pixelmon I made a water gym using the boat glitch to make moving platforms. If you're going to use mobs in it I'd say make a spawner somewhere to filter out creepers unless you feel like getting obby or something to shield the areas it could be in to be safe.

Other than those it's size, how well you use the area, hidden but findable secrets or easter eggs and looks. The prize at the end matters a lot to people as well, but honestly if you do a good job at building it it really wouldnt need to be all that much. The more tedious it would be the more that will be expected from it however. Honestly I'd say maybe make it known it wouldnt even really have prizes in it then have a wall of fame towards the start for bragging rights for people who complete it. Maybe the prize could even be some sort of specially named item, as sort of like a trophy. Have a mechanism so only one is dropped upon entering the prize room and no way to get back through without going back through the entire dungeon to get it again.

One of the things I have planned for the Mesa is a labyrinth underneath it- it'll be built at Bedrock level, fully out of Obsidian, and I might see if I can set up a system to automatically TNT the whole thing after someone goes through to get rid of any torches or blocks they may have put down, then the natural darkness will let it spawn mobs (that, and the fact that everything else will have been built in means no other places for mobs to spawn).

There are, to me, two kinds of "Explorable Area"- Dungeons and Labyrinths- as you said, Lotet.

Labyrinths are just straight up mazes. The biggest challenge in them is just finding your way through, and to support that, it's best to make them so that all the paths and intersections look as alike as possible, however they're built. The traditional one is 1 wide pathways just winding randomly all over the place, but you could just as easily make a maze out of 6x6x6 cube rooms and 2x2 hallways, though you'd need it to be much bigger to have the same level of complexity.
You can increase the challenge of Labyrinths through time limits, wandering monsters, darkness/other enforced rules (maybe use potions and dispensers to give the player debuffs like Blindness or Slowness?) and of course by making it 3 dimensional, but the primary goal is always to confuse and 'lose' the player inside. Emergency Escape systems might need to be in place in that instance.

Dungeons, on the other hand, are meant to be Dangerous Places. The point of a dungeon isn't to get a player lost, so much as it is to outright kill that player. This can take the form of deathtraps, purposely placed monsters, or higher monster volume than usual.

Both versions can have features of the other, as well as puzzles meant only to stymie and slow.


As for the players' stuff.. I'd say put a warning up, and a chest for them to drop their stuff in before they go, and then supply them with pre-made gear- leather or iron armour, iron weapons, maybe with low level enchants, some light sources, a bit of food, a bucket of water. Then they can choose to go in naked, with average gear, or risk losing their high-level personal stuff if they want to take that in with them.

What if you flood it to remove the torches so you don't need it to be reloaded either?

I'd prefer the TNT because there's always the chance that people will place blocks down for one reason or another, and unless they're carting around obsidian then the TNT will clear it out.

Anvildude wrote:
I'd prefer the TNT because there's always the chance that people will place blocks down for one reason or another, and unless they're carting around obsidian then the TNT will clear it out.

Doesnt mobs not spawn at a certain depth?

Honestly if you can program it just ask dark for a command block so you can have an area set for that function.

Lotet, just want to inorm you that myself & a friend took one of your Armour sets each (assuming they're open? if not say and I'll return it)

Ran afoul of those new Zombies, needed a new set of stuff, apologies if I overstepped.

 Desubot wrote:

Anvildude wrote:
I'd prefer the TNT because there's always the chance that people will place blocks down for one reason or another, and unless they're carting around obsidian then the TNT will clear it out.

Doesnt mobs not spawn at a certain depth?

Mobs actually spawn easier below a certain depth.

Tempted to try building another walled city near the city of ghost, but with an amusement park in it. Really want to fix up a system under it to spawn mobs to put out into its streets as something like a survival area which I think would be pretty fun to get going and hopefully before halloween but procrastination is a thing too.

Would want to filter out creepers from the spawn system for it, don't really care what happens to them but a grinder could be a good idea I suppose if not just dropping the things into lava. I'd also want to have it controlable so it could be turned on to let out the mobs or off to divert them to a grinder to keep their number down or something instead. Could even hook that up to a light sensor so they pour out into the city when it's night.

Problem is I'm not very good at figuring out how to make the spawn system yet, like if I want to go with one big spawner and hook up all the "spawn points" to it or if I'd be better off making a couple smaller ones, perhaps one at each corner of the city. Either way need to start building it first. Maybe give it a nice viewing platform so we can watch some golems vs mobs fun.

Another idea I've had is to make a portal array like a gold farm which could give it a centeral building feel, but zpm don't start agro to players so that'd limit the area a bit. Fortunately iron golems do start agressive to zpm at least.

mob sorting can be done, it's a bit complex though.

I feel like Zombies would be the easiest to sort out- just have a villager in a position where they can be seen by the zombles, but safe from them. You'd need half-slabs or glass or fences (if zombies can see through glass and/or fences) in order to keep out the babbies, though.

Not sure if Witches aggro to villagers,, but I know skeletons and creepers don't.

Anvildude wrote:
I feel like Zombies would be the easiest to sort out- just have a villager in a position where they can be seen by the zombles, but safe from them. You'd need half-slabs or glass or fences (if zombies can see through glass and/or fences) in order to keep out the babbies, though.

Not sure if Witches aggro to villagers,, but I know skeletons and creepers don't.

for just zombies though, I'd look for a spawner first, then build the area on top of it. You can use water to send them where you need them.

Does the "holding things" thing still apply to zombles? 'cause you could stick a chicken system on top to drop eggs on them, so that you could build up a really, really big mob before letting it out. Maybe use a bunch of stone pressure plates to set things up so that the system shuts off when the room gets full enough.

Spawners can be pretty slow though

Hey Sleit, what level are the rails in the Tunnel? I'm thinking I want to start laying some rails down, so I can start using chest carts to hump resources back along it.

...I can't remember offhand

We should get together and agree on a design at last, and finish the job!

When're you usually free?

Not often at the moment. PhD is in final panick-laden stages! I often get 30 to 60 min on MC in the afternoons and evenings though, UK time? After around 2pm GMT most days, if you want to send me a PM or something, maybe, I could log in for 30 min without too much trouble.

Can't be bothered building another city and transporting villagers so I've decided to just think up something to put near the existing city and have fun with that instead.

Had like 3 different buildings burn down... did they recently change the range for things to catch fire from lava cause that's the only way I can think of for these things to have been burnt this way. They've been fine for months until now and then even last night they were perfectly fine, but just today they weren't.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also where would the end portals be? Been a long while so I have no idea anymore.

I think they might have changed how fire or lava work. Not sure, though. And fire spread is a lot less, so I don't see that the whole building should have burned.

Player intervention? (IE, a pyro troll)

Would be more damage more randomly if it were that. Each that I checked I could trace the damage back to a lava source. I simply replaced the wood and they hadn't burnt again which is weird.

 master of ordinance wrote:
Player intervention? (IE, a pyro troll)

fires spread ridiculously well in the game. you should have been on when my boat was burnt to the keel. The whole boat was gone, down below the water line, and I just couldn't believe it was a lightning strike with such thorough destruction. I even called in dark, and he assured me it was natural causes. It might have changed after 1.8, but during that time my boat has burned down 3 times.

I play it quite abut and I've lost a roof pretty quick from lighting. Latest updates.

Lucky most of what I do is in stone or woodern frame, stone roofs, or wood detail with a hidden stone "armour layer" and fire break walls in stones and such.

Fire can be more dangerous than mobs!

Mostly offline, but same rules apply to game.

Huh. I had no idea how dangerous fire could be. Granted, I build almost completely from stone, so... Or ice. Which has similar resistance to being burned.

I build mostly from wood, so I tend to be extra-cautious about fire. The few fireplaces or lava lamps I have are very well contained.

What's the plans for a new world any time soon? I guess the next big biome patch?

I jumped on the server for a bit to looksee. 20 FPS at spawn. Oh dear lord!