Minecraft Beta Update

[Plinko]

Durability works as intended as far as I know - 66 for stone, 125 iron and 1025 diamond.

I put in my first 20 or so hours not knowing about the drop/regen bug and dug most of my great hall out using a stone pick per row, so about 200 stone picks. I usually made 6 at a time and kept a workbench nearby.

I'd like durability to be longer, but I'm not sure how much.

[KRG]

The only time I am using iron tools or higher, is for mining something that requires it. I have a healthy tree farm so the only hassle is harvesting it all and the crafting involved.

Honestly, I'll be a happy camper if the lag would just get fixed. I can live with everything else.

[Masakari]

It's so easy to tell how many of you haven't played single player just based on all the whining about durability.

Durability is fixed now - dropping it to refresh it was a bug. Yes, it may take longer to mine now and find more materials, but that's the way the game was intended. It adds value to iron and diamond - otherwise, it just piles up and you end up with more than you can possibly need.

[MasterChef]

We were all exploiters and need to be banned!


But seriously, durability = bad. I can see the wood and stone tools wearing out. And even the iron tools, but it needs to have its durability increased.

[Boss Llama]

I played quite a bit of single player before delving in to multiplayer, and my point remains. The appeal of Minecraft is in building stuff and sandboxing. One cannot do that efficiently with tools that are utter rubbish. Eliminating durability on tools, or making it far far better than it is presently, allows the game to be much more fun. Honestly, the idea of "survival" is a joke - anybody can survive. It's the "do big stuff" and "do fancy stuff" that makes it a game.

In other news, a new patch has pushed, and my log-in problems are solved on my main box. Time to go see if things are better in game

[Plinko]

I can say I do read the official forums and no one at all is complaining about durability.

I did see one on another site and the general response was 'lulz try classic mode'.

One good thing is with leaf decay, tree farming will get to be a ton faster/easier. I'll be in a conundrum about swords, diamond kills the standard mobs in 2 hits, while iron will need 3 and stone 4. . .

[Masakari]

I played quite a bit of single player before delving in to multiplayer, and my point remains. The appeal of Minecraft is in building stuff and sandboxing. One cannot do that efficiently with tools that are utter rubbish. Eliminating durability on tools, or making it far far better than it is presently, allows the game to be much more fun. Honestly, the idea of "survival" is a joke - anybody can survive. It's the "do big stuff" and "do fancy stuff" that makes it a game.

In other news, a new patch has pushed, and my log-in problems are solved on my main box. Time to go see if things are better in game

I'd argue that SMP is more about scavenging, exploring, and survival, while classic is for those who want to build crazy ridiculous things. Assuming you don't just cover away at night (Which really would be wasting most of your time), you should be spending time spelunking in caves and collecting resources to craft cool things. Yes, you can build cool things in that too, but if that's the main thing you're doing in it than I think you're not taking advantage of what the game mode has to offer, and would probably be better suited playing classic, or creating a server with mobs off and regenerating health.

[TheCarpe]

I gotta agree with Masa on this one. Having played months of single player before coming online I was having a little difficulty understanding the durability "problem". Wood and Stone tools are meant to be stepping stones to something better, Iron is the staple, and Diamond is the good stuff. But they all break. As the game was intended. If your diamond pick breaks, load up and go exploring for more.

SMP = Survival Multi-Player

Building stuff is cool, I love building interesting things, but exploration and survival is the meat of the game.

[metacide]

exploration and survival is the meat of the game.

I contend that exploration and building is the meat of the game. As long as you dont fall to your death the mobs are easily avoided or killed.

For those that worry about killing mobs with a sword now... switch to a bow. It does take more hits to kill them, but at least it wont use up your ore supply.

For those that whine about not being able to find enough diamonds... I have to date found 5 diamonds on Stevo's server and 0 on Dog's. Maybe I'm just unlucky or I was hitting areas that had already been mined out. With the durability bug fixed diamond will actually be precious and perhaps we wont see so many people wearing full diamond armor. Then again maybe MMX will be busy duping diamonds from now on.

[TheCarpe]

Diamond is supposed to be rare, and it's a major event when you find it

[Plinko]

Server Ops can always use commands to get whatever. I imagine you could always mod durability stats or not use it at all as an op, there are tons of mods already out there.

I have like 18 diamonds on the alt server, meta. I can give you 3 for a pick if you want, just catch me when I'm on tonight (assuming the update has fixed the lagginess!).

[Masakari]

The best moments I've had in SMP have been exploring with other players and all the shenanigans involved with it. For example, me getting lost and Carpe having to go out and find me, then me getting lost again and appearing from the exact opposite direction that he was in. Or, even better, working together with gator on my server and figuring out how to take care of a spawner when we were both at low health.

If all you've been doing is building, then I truly invite you to go out spelunking and looking for caverns/spawners with one or two other people. That's what SMP is all about!

@Plinko - While there are options to give items, I'm so against it I can't even say here. As said before, if building is your biggest priority than Classic is probably your game mode. Getting items added takes away from the challenge of the game. As for durability, that would probably require patching both the client and the server. I don't think any mods exist like that right now.

[gator]

I played quite a bit of single player before delving in to multiplayer, and my point remains. The appeal of Minecraft is in building stuff and sandboxing. One cannot do that efficiently with tools that are utter rubbish. Eliminating durability on tools, or making it far far better than it is presently, allows the game to be much more fun. Honestly, the idea of "survival" is a joke - anybody can survive. It's the "do big stuff" and "do fancy stuff" that makes it a game.

While I haven't played since the update, if the point of the game is building/sandboxing, then why even bother have mining? Just have an unlimited supply of all materials.

[metacide]

I played quite a bit of single player before delving in to multiplayer, and my point remains. The appeal of Minecraft is in building stuff and sandboxing. One cannot do that efficiently with tools that are utter rubbish. Eliminating durability on tools, or making it far far better than it is presently, allows the game to be much more fun. Honestly, the idea of "survival" is a joke - anybody can survive. It's the "do big stuff" and "do fancy stuff" that makes it a game.

While I haven't played since the update, if the point of the game is building/sandboxing, then why even bother have mining? Just have an unlimited supply of all materials.

Brilliant! I'm going to make a game called buildcraft! You'll make buildings and maybe towns.. maybe I'll even have people you can put in and you can manage their lives... wait.. that sounds familiar.

[gator]

I played quite a bit of single player before delving in to multiplayer, and my point remains. The appeal of Minecraft is in building stuff and sandboxing. One cannot do that efficiently with tools that are utter rubbish. Eliminating durability on tools, or making it far far better than it is presently, allows the game to be much more fun. Honestly, the idea of "survival" is a joke - anybody can survive. It's the "do big stuff" and "do fancy stuff" that makes it a game.

While I haven't played since the update, if the point of the game is building/sandboxing, then why even bother have mining? Just have an unlimited supply of all materials.

Brilliant! I'm going to make a game called buildcraft! You'll make buildings and maybe towns.. maybe I'll even have people you can put in and you can manage their lives... wait.. that sounds familiar.

It does, doesn't it! ::shrugs:: Just saying. It is called Minecraft for a reason right?

If the developer's smart, he'll make the durability a server setting so that each community can fine tune it to their own preferences. That way people can't complain that the mining component of the game is too easy or too hard.