Development Blog #1 - Drill Pointed At The Head Of The Universe

Over a month after the release of 1.6.2 and, finally, I'm starting to build my own mod. It's taken some time to get everything set up, and even longer to make time for this project. The one thing that I'll undoubtedly end up regretting is this late start. My classes begin in just a couple of weeks. When that happens, I doubt I'll have enough time to dedicate to anything more than my article series and the occasional youtube video. But let's discard the pessimism momentarily to discuss this mod.

Standard Minecraft has some glaring issues for long-time players. Specifically the amount of grinding needed to accomplish anything impressive or worthwhile. An amazing build is created most often by those who dedicate the most time, and while there's nothing wrong with that it can be tedious for a player to work up their resource count to reach a similar level. One player on a server might be building skyscrapers and mob farms and roller coasters while another is struggling to automate a small wheat farm. One of them is strip mining for hours each day, or grinding away levels at a mob farm. The other gets on, plays for a few hours, and then goes on to address their other obligations in life. Caving takes time, and isn't always rewarded with a handful of diamonds. Strip mining is absurdly tedious, and while it provides the best diamond output it is very discouraging. The biggest reason why someone might step away from Minecraft? It takes too long to reach a level where it's possible to build the things they imagine.

The problem is in the first half of the name, Minecraft. The mining aspect is boring. Yep. Straight-up boring. That might seem like a strong claim, but who honestly enjoys shaft mining? Look at Feed The Beast. Buildcraft, Industrial Craft, GregTech, Tinker's Construct, Steve's Carts, ComputerCraft, and several other mods actively try to cut down the time you spend mining. They go so far as to actually automate the process...even to the point where you'll never have to use your pickaxe again. They immediately recognize that the amount of resources you need, and the amount of time you have, are not compatible. For a player who is no longer interested in the survival aspects outside of custom maps, it's incredibly frustrated to be limited by the sheer fact that I don't spend hours upon hours plundering the same depths again and again...and often without finding a single diamond.

My idea is to create a mod that changes the way players think about the mining process. It's an attempt at making mining fun and rewarding. You can look at it in one of two ways: one, you'll spend less time jumping around caves looking for the last four diamonds you need to complete your armor set, or two, you'll have so much fun exploring the world I've built that you'll actually look forward to caving. Caving isn't too bad on its own, but the key here is to make it worthwhile. Jumping into ravines and hoping they go below Y16 is an absurd way to look for the best mineral in the game. It's both risky and unlikely to find diamonds, and yet shaft mining is tedious and boring. I want to offer players an experience that combines cave exploration with the high-yield of mining below Y16...and make it even cooler.

The result? A mod that is part homage to one of my favorite RTS games, and part solution to a problem that has plagued my Minecraft experience since the days of Alpha. I'm hopeful that I can make this dream reality. I'll be updating on this blog with details as I go along. If you want to contribute, especially if you're an artist, lemme know. I'm looking for testers as well.

Until next time then.