#modded minecraft grind.

[pyrriax]

some random mc screenshots to counteract the amount of angst i just wrote. mostly of me being stuck in weird places because of Claimed Chunks making it so im functionally in adventure mode at other people's bases

bonus screenshot of @aperture-science-sys drowning in the field. because death message testing. i think that was the reason?

[syn4k]

The sea is cold and surprisingly full of life.

Do not call this body of water an ocean. It is too small to be an ocean and too large to be a lake. It hovers in-between as you dart betwixt its long, meandering strands of kelp, sopping wet, teeth grit, hunting and hunting for hands much like your own but bloated by the sea.

You've been at this for three days and three nights. At this point, you feel prepared to consecrate your own Noah.

The Drowned speak. Most of them don't talk in a language you understand, of course. Their words are bubbles and growls, raspy throats corroded by the salt water. Very few remain to tell stories at all, but the ones who do and the ones who can and the ones who share name you player and name you hunter.

"What do you seek?" one asks, voice barely a whisper above the roiling bass of the sea. You pause, sword suspended at their neck.

"What?"

"The still-hearted do not come to the sea," they say, dragging you closer to them to rasp in your ear. You let them. "What do you seek?"

Long, ruined limbs wrap around your torso. You shake yourself loose. "I need a weapon," you say, voice honed sharp to cut away the lingering strings of enchantment binding you close to the doomed soul. "Something I can throw."

"And after that?" the drowned drawls. "Will you enchant it?"

"Yes," you say. "To summon lightning."

"For what cause?"

"I am crafting," you say, continuing to swim backwards and letting your arms drift outwards a bit as if to suggest grandiosity, "a set of armor so great and so powerful that none shall touch me when my work is done. I shall use it to protect my friends and defeat my enemy. It needs to be struck by lightning before it works, though."

"And after that?" asks the drowned, voice eerily pleasant. This is a trap. There is no life behind those eyes, no soul behind that voice. If it is, it's rotted, stinking of dead fish and decaying kelp and the salt-stained piers of long gone seaside towns. There is nothing for you, a living player, here. Still, you linger, momentarily paused in your journey to trade words with a long dead wraith. "What will you do when you've conquered the world and swallowed the sun, player? You can fly. I've seen you do it. What comes next, hunter, when all of your friends are safe and all of your needs sated?"

You pause. "I do not know."

The drowned smirks, mouth twisting oddly and cruelly, as if the movement pains it somehow. "You are of the land and sky," it says, kicking forward to place one clammy hand on your cheek in a gesture that is the very shadow of tenderness. "But I? I pledged my love to the sea and she gives me all I need. The ocean is eternal, and I am the ocean's."

"That's no way to live," you say, not exactly thinking before speaking.

The drowned laughs at that, a raspy laugh of ruin and salt. "I died long ago," it murmurs, standing up straight and aiming its trident at your heart. The kelp that you did not realize was twining itself around your limbs and sword cinches tight. With a twisted grin, the trident pierces.

You wake with a strangled gasp on the shore, freezing and soaked to the bone. It's nighttime and raining. You run as fast as your legs will carry you home and half-collapse inside your house, teeth chattering, head full of eerie words, not giving your stolen trident a second glance.

[mesa-mineshaft]

[nails "i miss mumbo" sign to post] [monitor screen shatters immediately]

[shortfeather]

the way the water echoes

did a little sprint based on that neverend mod idea, centered on cleo courtesy of @tripping-sideways. posting this mostly unedited; i think tumblr-only writing is gonna be more casual for me than AO3.

warnings: isolation, sort of imprisonment, liminal spaces, drowning, minecraft death mechanics including deliberately forcing a respawn

It doesn’t really hit her until she’s staring at the pit that leads to a second level, communicator hanging silent at her waist, how much trouble she’s in.

Cleo had been searching for an End portal a little closer to their base. Even with the Nether shrinking the distance eightfold, the main portal was ridiculously far from their home, and considering the amount of endstone she was going to be using this season it made sense to find one nearby. The stronghold had been half flooded, and they’d come close to death against the Drowned in the halls before finally making it to the portal room.

The lava was warm against their undead skin, even as the portal frame exuded a voidlike chill. To their delight, the frame had been mostly filled, just two eyes short. Cleo had popped them in, set a bed down for spawn, double-checked their gear, and hopped on through. Had bent their knees slightly, the way every new player is taught, so the jolt of the hard obsidian landing doesn’t do any damage.

Instead, she’d fallen far and landed in a deep pool of water, surrounded by white walls and with a beautiful blue sky shining down from above her. The exact opposite of what they expected.

Really, this whole dimension is about as different from the End as it gets. The End is all disconnected islands, here is a never-ending series of halls and rooms. The End is dark and cold, here is bright and pleasantly warm, enough for the cool water that covers the floor to feel like a comfort. The End is dead, and here there are bushes of something her inventory calls liminalgae, and occasionally, groups creatures similar to axolotls called poolfish. She can even pick them up, attracting them with the liminalgae like a cow to wheat. They're rather cute. The End is mostly void, here there is a beautiful flat ocean beyond the walls that an invisible barrier prevents her from reaching.

The End is a place Cleo knows how to leave, and here she does not.

She’s tried. The first thing she did upon scrambling out of the water was message X, only for her communicator to show a chat validation error. Their messages can’t go through, though waiting about ten minutes shows that they can still see the messages everyone else is sending. That’s comforting, to a degree; if they wait long enough, someone will realize something is wrong, and Xisuma can do his admin-y things and get them out of here. She’d told Joe what she was doing right before she found this dimension; maybe he’ll look into it even before someone thinks to call X in.

While she’d waited for other messages to come in, she’d taken a look around the room. Everything was made out of some variant of an unfamiliar block, similar in look to an iron block, but with a grid pattern and a feel like glazed terracotta. The entrance was decorated beautifully with bushes of the liminalgae stuff, which broke easily beneath her fist and stacked nicely in her inventory.

Which was also how she discovered her inventory was empty. 

Around then, her communicator had displayed a message from Mumbo, something about server lag. Cleo ignored it for a moment, because their inventory was empty, even their armor slots and offhand—they’d been fully prepared to go End mining, going so far as to stick a carved pumpkin on their head. It’s all gone.

Then they process that their communicator buzzed, and the fact that it’s not completely broken isn’t nearly as relieving as it could have been. They still can’t send messages out, but they can see what their friends are coordinating, and be prepared for whatever rescue entails.

Whenever rescue comes.

It doesn’t take long to get bored, which is why Cleo starts exploring, despite the fact that their F3 screen only says no, lmao. X is going to get an earful for including whatever mod this is when she gets back—

For now, they wander. They find some bizarre architecture choices, and rooms full of poolfish and liminalgae both. They discover, with a deep sense of dread, that the beautiful view of the flat ocean outside is a mirage; exploration reveals a set of windows that theoretically should point directly into another hallway, but instead show that bright blue sky. Whatever’s out there… 

Well, she’ll never know what’s out there, because the block refuses to break beneath her fist, no matter how long she punches at it. Same with the walls.

For untold days, she wanders. Without her F3 screen, there’s no way to be accurate about the time she’s spent here, but it feels like a week and a half. There’d been a jolt of hope when Joe asked if someone had seen them recently—but Tango had reminded him that they were End mining, probably deep in the grind by now. It’s been a week and a half, approximately, of ankle-deep water in hallways, and deeper water in grand, open rooms, and nothing to eat but liminalgae and nothing to do but walk around and breed poolfish. They’ve been staying close to the spawn room, unwilling to lose their one known location in this unknown dimension.

Their communicator buzzes more as time passes: Doc pranking Gem, Gem killing him in revenge. Xisuma reminding everyone to avoid the world border chunks until the next update. Grian pretending to be Iskall’s conscience, teaching him how to use boats. She mutes the communicator. It hurts to see everyone this way, while she’s stuck here.

She still checks it; she's not stupid. She just… can’t keep watching the texts fly by without her.

And then she finds the pit.

It’s a room unlike any other she’s seen so far. It leads down, deeper than even the deepest pool of water she’s encountered, and it’s filled with rows of stacked arches, bridging the gap. She crouches onto one and peers down. It’s darker, but not pitch black, and there’s a pool of water at the bottom, the same shape and size as the one they originally fell into.

In her inventory, her collection of favorite poolfish squirm. Cleo’s guts match the motion, because this is obviously where the dimension intends them to go. The pit yawns before her like a beckoning, like a challenge. But there’s no blocks here, no drops from poolfish or craftables with liminalgae. If Cleo jumps down, she has no way back up.

No way save dying, drowning or starving wherever she finds herself. Because that was the other thing she’d tried, when her messages refused to send and her inventory yielded nothing. Cleo had dove down to the bottom of the spawn room pool, and pushed all the air out of their lungs, and breathed in that cool water.

It worked everywhere else. It wasn’t pleasant, but it worked, and they were a grown-up who could work with something that wasn’t pleasant.

They’d respawned in free-fall and crashed into the very pool they’d just died in.

That had been a very brutal realization: they were stuck here. And yet it feels like that realization pales in comparison to the pit before her, the pit that calls to her so tauntingly with its insinuations. That there is more to this place than white walls and fake ocean and sunlight. That there is escape, if she’s willing to fight for it. Escape that may come quicker than her friends.

Cleo has always been a fighter. But they’re smart, too. Before committing either way, they check their communicator.

Unread messages:

<GoodTimeWithScar> DONT HOTGYU ME

<GoodTimeWithScar was shot by Grian>

<Grian> get gud 

<iJevin> seriously, is cleo just living in the end at this point?

<StressMonster101> Im sure theyll be back soon, luv

Without timestamps, it’s impossible to tell how recently Jev and Stress sent their messages, but they make Cleo waver. The safest option is to wait near the spawn room, where X or Joe will eventually spawn in and help her escape with their admin-y ways. With the poolfish and liminalgae, she can survive as long as necessary, although the liminalgae doesn’t seem to regrow. Still—up here, where she understands the terrain, is safest.

<iJevin> stress its been a MONTH

<iJevin> even for a megabase grind thats ridiculous

Cleo’s stomach falls out from under them.

A month?

They’ve been stuck in this endless pseudo-paradise for a month, and people are only just now worrying—

No. No, fuck this, fuck everyone except Joe who asked about them way back towards the start, except he hasn’t said anything since so actually fuck him, too. And fuck X for chatting about updates like everything’s normal, and Ren for saying innuendoes and double entendres like nothing’s wrong, and Grian and Scar for being Grian and Scar when she’s stuck in here—

Fuck Jevin especially, for saying that where they could see, where they could realize no one is coming for them.

Distantly, Cleo realizes that this is a bit much, that people do regularly go off and grind resources for absurd lengths of time, but that doesn’t stop her from beating back sobs by fostering the rage in her chest. Distantly, she realizes that this is all uncomfortably close to a breakdown, and they don’t get those. They don’t do those; they’re a fighter, someone whose first answer is violence and barbed words and arson. 

So. Fuck their friends. Fuck them all. Cleo will rescue herself. 

They double-check their poolfish and liminalgae count—enough to last another goddamn month, if need be—and jump into the dark waters far, far below.

[medicinemane]

Ok, minecraft complaint time

They need a way to slime proof a slime chunk

Slime spawning is a really nice mechanic if you're trying to make a farm, but I've walked into a couple of the rooms I've done only to find slime

It's well lit (which I know slime don't care about), it's... you know... it's mob proofed to normal standards. There shouldn't be random chunks that look identical to other chunks that just play by different rules

Great for farming, annoying for everything else

(Also would be nice if you could stop villagers from spawning golems. Basically anything where you can just manipulate bits of the environment, cause at the end of the day minecraft is basically an interactive diorama a lot of the time, you know?)

Anyway, it'll probably just be a matter of that sometimes you come into the map room and have to fight a giant slime, and since everything's eventually probably gonna be pretty well lit it'll probably be a frequent thing but... not much else to be done

It's something that you can live with, it's just kind of dumb and annoying is all

I like slime chunks, I just wish there was a way to disable spawning within them when you didn't want it

[akirameta84]

"ugh mining all the new hardmode ores in terraria is always so annoying..." <- willingly plays and enjoys gtnh

[vandevos]

Okay normally this would be an update but this may just be me having enough of Vault Hunters.

I was gonna hop onto my world tonight and do some quick chores, plus I needed to update to the current version anyways. But when I got into the world, I had one to two frames, period. Shut the game down, used task manager to end some processes, booted it back up, my frames went up but now there’s extreme periods of stuttering. And I cannot tell where it’s coming from. For me at least the modpack’s unplayable. If anyone out there knows what’s going on please let me know.

As far as the pack itself, I think I’m over it. The sheer amount of randomization you have to slightly through, the expense of repairing gear and constant readjustment of mod costs to require grind times that casual players like myself can’t put in, the decision to have chests and coin piles attached to an attribute rather than a tool type, it’s all becoming too much. And now they drop a patch that’s eating up frames? If this ain’t the last straw idk what is.

Thanks for reading, and happy hunting.

[aria0fgold]

Playing solo minecraft as just for fun is really nice cuz I have recently added a mod called "Mahou Tsukai" which added magic in the game and I'm here for a good time, not a long time so I used the command to increase my mahou (the mana in the mod) to 999,999,999.

[typicalcommondandelion]

im gonna die of social anxiety if [mod of minecraft server] doesnt respond to my public discord messages asking for a little itty bitty bit of please cam i.. cheat.

[xeshire-the-cat]

Sleepy Saturdays

[prvttymochi]

Gamer Bf Matt

Warnings - none

A/n - Chat two posts in the same week, whats going on?? Lowkey just thought of this cause of the Sims.

❕Gamer bf Matt who lets you sit on his lap while he games, doesn’t matter what game. He likes having you close all the time.

❕Adding on to that, while he plays his video games if you have a snack or some food. You’ll feed him, bringing the food to his lips and he doesn’t look away from his screen but he accepts whatever you’re trying to give him.

❕Gamer bf Matt who lets you download the sims 4 on his pc and let’s you get as many mods and CC as you like, because your laptop can’t handle everything. He also pays for all the newest packs and kits, even if you don’t need it.

❕You guys have a shared Minecraft world where you and him build pretty buildings together but also go on mining trips together to see who can get the most diamonds.

❕Gamer bf Matt where when you want something on your account he’ll spend time grinding on the game to get it for you.

————————

A/n - What else do I write about, I’m going into finals week I’m scared

[dappervoided]

Docs vacation to Quesadilla Island!

So I watched Docm77 last Hermitcraft season 9 episode today and RAN to make this.

More so on the topic!

He needed to take a break and get his creative juices flowing? What's a better break (nightmare) than to come enjoy the island for a short while!

I've been spinning around the idea of Qsmp and Hermitcraft crossover since the start of Qsmp. There's so many ideas in my brain about this topic even though it'll never actually happen! I'm so sorry, but some things are bound to get out of my daydreams and materialize into doodles!

I think Doc would LOVE the eggs! Not to mention all the cute creatures they'd show him! He'd get attached instantly, they're too adorable!

I could only fit 3 here without making it too busy, but I wanna expand on what I could see the interactions being. Massive ramblings, often grammatically incorrect ahead:

Sunny - now we all know she's a material princess, they'd love Docs bedtime stories about the diamond pillar wars and his incredible contraptions made of diamond in the Perimeter and all the riches he had. Now Tubbo not only has Pierre to watch out for, but Doc also, cause Sunny would beg him to make stuff out of diamonds to show off!

Empanada - she'd clock in instantly that Doc is a German and would try speaking to him in German every moment she got. Now she has both her mom Niki and Doc to talk in her language to! It's not much of an expansion, but she appreciates it a lot! They'd have many delightful conversations and Doc is always happy to have her build little things together. They learn from each other!

Ramon - besides finally having another redstone genius with an entire Hivemind on the server, Ramon would be interested in how Doc works - both in a cyborg way and in the way he creates mind-blowing, game breaking contraptions. If they're not destroying the server together for fun, they're not making the most of their time! Jk, but it do be nice when both of them get to hang out and show each other what they discovered that's scuffed on the server.

Some eggs that aren't drawn:

Chayanne - finally! Another farmer came around! Chayanne would show off his impressive potato farm and cooking skills to Doc, who will always be amazed at the kids dedication! Doc can finally have his tomato farm in a Minecraft world now, since the mods allow it! It is too free for everyone to use

Tallulah - If she would show Doc the incredible builds she made and her and her papas place, he would be moved to tears! Everything is made with such love and incredible amounts of effort and thought! From her farm of all possible plants, to her garden and to El Cielo De Las Tortugas. Such incredible places to visit and appreciate! And Tallulahs amazing way of storytelling would only serve to amplify those feelings

Dapper - now besides trying cage trap Doc 1000x times, Dapper would definitely show off everything he got once he discovers that Doc is deeply amused and surprised by all the non vanilla things! They would invite Doc to their base to show everything and I mean EVERYTHING there is for show. It's definitely too much, but Doc is very impressed by her and would praise how much work she puts in! Dapper do be the definition of GRIND!

Leo - Leo and her dads made so many incredible builds, Doc would be amazed at how much they did in such a short time! Besides that Leo herself is an incredibly, theatrically even, good at body language and expression! He'd die of cuteness and laughter like all of us already do!

Pomme - we all know that Pomme has so many talents! From being a little musician, to an incredible warrior, to a thought out builder and a spectacularly emotional writer. There's a lot Doc will have to slowly discover about Pomme! And each time the scale and depths of things will get more and more impressive, because the share amounts of time and effort she puts into her creations, passions and loved ones is massive!

Pepito - this kid! Pepito is such an incredible character to be around! Pepito is so dedicated to whatever Pepito does, especially if it's with friends! Whenever Pepito has fun, it always radiates outwards in many different ways! You can't really help yourself but get charged up with energy when you're around. And Doc does just that!

Richarlyson- Richas is a lot in the best ways possible! But we all know he's very much a jokester, he wouldn't miss a beat trying to mess with the goat! And once he finds out what kinds of retaliations Docs is capable of? OH IT'S WAR (for fun, cause that's what it's all about!)

I'm sorry if this is chaotic at some parts or lacking in others, I have to write this all in one go before my battery dies. I haven't been able to watch many streams so I'm sorry if Im not up to date with the characters, but that is what I remember them as! Any corrections or lore updates are always welcome! I want to learn more, especially now that I can't watch!

Anyhow, now that I look back on that drawing why do I feel like I've done something terrible.... I've seen those designs before......

OH NO

[vicmillen]

Since I'm checking on my Minecraft world again...

The chain if they're on the same Minecraft server:

Time: Server owner, but not always on since he has a full time job, or something. Except every time he gets on the server some drama (pos) will happen. The others is at least sure of a correlation, but yet to prove the causation.

Wind: The elytra guy™. Raids every single end city before anyone else. Absolutely zooming everywhere and being a nuisance. Hates grinding for materials but have a monopoly of the elytra trade and a deal with four in selling rockets, so he's doing ok.

Four: The redstoner™. Have a contraption for every single task you could need, and twice that amount for stuff you don't need. Banished to a faraway corner of the server because he's the number one contributor of lag.

Wild: The Hoarder™. Probably the richest guy on the server in terms of materials. Have most over the top automatic storage system that he doesn't fully knows how and why it works. Chronically online and absolutely living the grind.

Legend: Mini game maker. Idk what else to say except this guy's a Legend.

Warriors: Always got questioned if he had nagged Time to secretly add [insert mod of his preference], always denied. Claims to have nothing to do with it even after said mod is actually added. Also claims to not know that old man at all, which is definitely a lie and everyone knows that. Other than living the drama he's also a hardcore castle manic, usually complete with a whole town too.

Sky&Twilight: Aesthetic builder, with Twilight focusing on buildings and Sky focusing on the terraforming. Dirt and wood is literally worth more than diamonds for these two.

Hyrule: He can work some serious armor stand magic, and have a potion shop on the server that's always fully stocked. Usually appears and disappears at random times because of irl business, but you bet he'll be there whenever legend dropped a new mini game.

[tikiloowho]

QSMP Purgatory Thoughts

I have a lot of thoughts regarding the current arc for QMSP. I also main the team BOLAS???!? POV but as an insane individual I have seen the vod's and watch multiple teams POV's at the same time. So take all of this with a grain of salt. It's not that deep and I have absolutely no malice towards any of the CC's. Purgatory is not meant to be easy, it's meant to be harsh. People will not act in a fashion that they usually would in this environment and condemning them as terrible individuals is extremally short sighted and wildly unnecessary. No-one deserves a hate raid just because they decided to attack someone elses favorite CC. Makes no sense. That being said, I think people are collectively undermining the weight of the actions (in rp) done to team red on the first day. The first day in purgatory team red was SLAMMED. From being slain by friends to being spawn killed, to having bodies looted and homes ransacked, team red somehow kept getting the brunt of the focus. This was not intentional of course but it kept happening. ( Notably, team red has some of the least experienced players when it comes to playing minecraft itself along with the most players with the lowest chance of coming online at ALL during the event. However. This team also has some of the veteran players and have some of the most consistent players. This balances them out when it comes to the other teams who are better at PVP and better at Modded minecraft, respectively. ) The events of day one set the tone for red teams response to every single action the other teams took from that point forwards. They tried talking to others and were silenced. They tried setting up a base and it was destroyed over and over. This chain reaction is WHY team red is so hesitant to speak to others let alone work with them. This mentality keeps being re-enforced by the actions of others when red team takes the chance to talk or lower their guard. ex. Jaiden willing to talk to Tubbo, only for BBH to spawn kill her. ex. Teams agreeing to just pvp for the event only for Green team to start harming the enemy teams egg first. ex. Red teams alliance with Green team being cast aside so green team could win by making a deal with blue team.

From Red team's POV genuinely, there is no reason to talk or make alliances. They only have each other. This trust in one another alone is why red team keeps managing to gain the wins. It's a level of trust in the others capabilities that makes them strong. The RP team just spends the day giggling and cheering each other on regardless of where they are on the score board. They only take a chance to try and win when one of them goes "hmm... You guys wanna try?" and the group just agrees to give it a shot. There is nothing deeper too it. Red team has become the frightened dog of the server. Of course it's going to bite at the hands offered. They aren't trying to win they are trying to survive. They have the least amount of resources and the weakest gear. They have some of the worst pvp players but by god they are having so much fun with one another. There are exceptions to who they relax around and those are usually "partners" and or "close friends" but even then, team red knows that at any moment these meetings could turn to bloodshed. Having seen some of the other teams POV's is boggles my mind how certain both blue and green team are that red team has some giant base and has crazy enchants and super armor when they went into the event with basically nothing enchanted they used up EVERYTHING they had for the event. They haven't been on the grind as much because they spend a lot of time dead. The red team is also extremally "task" oriented. They all love finishing a list and honestly that's really all spend their day's doing. The tasks at hand and trying not to die. That and having a good time. Which.. when it comes down to it, isn't that the point of all of this? To have fun?

Red team also got the Eye guy to say "Bolas" and that in of itself is a win.

[shuttershocky]

Penny for your thoughts about this thread? Just wanna hear some more opinions from people who work in the industry.

I don't want to fucking talk about pricing and monetization and markets and how F2P live service titles have warped the industry beyond recognition anymore.

The insights look good (of course they look good, this guy literally worked with Square Enix) I just can't fucking take it anymore I know what he says before I even finish reading the tweets and it's reminding me of how I started getting into learning game development in 2010-2011? (I don't remember anymore it's been that long) and EVERY SINGLE TALK AND MEETUP AND LECTURE WAS ABOUT MONETIZATION (to be fair, my local industry was a small one that could only really support mobile back then)

I watched all of this happen. I saw how the mobile industry's designs slowly bled out of mobile and into the AAA industry, warping it forever. I was in college when I first learned what minnows, dolphins, and whales were and why your games ought to be fishing for whales. I watched Team Fortress 2 go from a premium game you got all the content at the start to introducing lootboxes (they popularized that shit outside the gacha sphere btw, people blame Overwatch, but TF2 started that trend) to going F2P. I've been an active Dota player since 2012, meaning I was there when the concept of Battlepasses were first birthed into the world during 2013's The International 3 and which made other companies realize live service titles could gain yet another psychological hold on people to add on to World of Warcraft's skinner boxes.

"We are seeing standard singleplayer games no longer able to gain new audiences as they are crowded out by increasingly growing live service titles like Fortnite" "Why would someone spend 60 dollars to play FF16 for 100 hours when they could continue playing Fortnite and Minecraft and Roblox for free where all their friends are"

I have seen all of this before I remember when Overwatch first came out in 2016 a peculiar statistic was that almost every popular title at the time saw their playerbase drop as everyone moved to Overwatch, EXCEPT for Dota 2's because of how hard Valve had captured their audience to the point where they would not play other games. Of fucking course everyone else learned that was actually an incredibly efficient way to make money forever and they should do that too (except Dota was free and had all characters and all game mdoes unlocked for free, but these other games would now ask you for 60 dollars to play as 4 guys with a 100 hr grind for the rest)

I might feel a little unhinged right now because I have worked for two weekends straight and it's a Sunday night (EDIT - put it in drafts and it is now Monday and I am at work) and I'm still at work working on video games and tomorrow will be Monday and another work week working on video games where if we don't sell our upcoming titles my job is toast but fuuuuuuccckkk dude I just wanted to help make things that people would find fun

Capitalism and corporate greed (but I repeat myself) has twisted an industry that was already shitty in the 90s to be something hideous and completely hostile to the idea of creatives being able to make games that are meant to be played, finished, and remembered fondly and even wholly single player one and done experiences like Insomniac's Spider-Man games need to fill themselves up with checklists or else their audience will claim they got ripped off because the time they spent on it was simply not worth the money which STILL happened with Spider-Man 2 anyway

I'm not against live service games as a concept I love seeing a title like Dota get constant support since 2011 (or 2003ish if you want to count the original WC3 mod) and witness it grow and evolve with the times but I hate how it's become increasingly difficult for other games to exist.

I don't actually have a point to make here I'm just rambling. FF7Rebirth was fucking great though (and I hated FF7Remake as a game) so I hope it actually makes its sales target eventually so it doesn't scare Square into adding even more bullshit filler or worse into the 3rd game. I need to play Vincent Valentine with Rebirth's combat system. it's not a want, but a need. A thirst even.

[theminecraftbee]

more seriously i'm realizing the thing that makes it hard to go back to vanilla minecraft for me is that vault hunters, and then modded as a whole, is way less... self-guided than vanilla. like, okay, no, you can play modded in a very free, self-guided way, like if you just install create and go ham the progression is very similar to vanilla. but in something like vault hunters or another modpack, there are often quest systems that give you concrete goals as you go that help like... scaffold what you're doing. it makes it easier for my brain to latch on to. but it's not just that; it's ALSO that, by the nature of certain things in modded, i have ways to set my own progression goals WELL PAST the 'endgame' of minecraft that aren't just 'build a really big thing', and give me a sense of being Better and More Efficient now.

like, okay. in my current vault hunters playthrough i am level 90. i have been playing since like, september i think? normally by now in vanilla i've hit endgame and don't really need anything else and then i quit. but in vault hunters, even though i've very reached endgame there, i have things i can do that will give me a real sense of Actual Progression. on the vault hunters end, my Actual Progression goal is to make my divine paradox vault as good as possible and unlock some of the god armor transmogs. on the modded end, i am DEEP in mekanism and can go 'well, if i make a fusion reactor i can make antimatter, which will make me REALLY post-scarcity, but also means i'll be generating power that doesn't risk exploding and is more effective than my current fission reactor is. maybe i'll quintuple ores while i'm at it.'

and yeah, those are ALSO an unnecessary self-directed goals! they're basically the equivalent of 'i should build a megabase' in terms of absurd resource grind and being unnecessary! but at the end i get something Tangible that makes me Better At Game, which makes it feel like i'm accomplishing something a little better than giant builds tend to for me. like, at the end of my god altar arbitrary goal, i get something. at the end of my mekanism arbitrary goal, i get something. but ALSO i get something at every grindy step along the way, too, and at least FOR ME, modded is better than vanilla at giving me rewards for my progress?

and this isn't me saying there SHOULD be more 'rewards' for progress in vanilla minecraft; part of the whole POINT of minecraft is that it's open-ended and self-driven. it's just that that's also the reason that the moment i make it to the end in one of my minecraft playthroughs i'm like. well i could grind for netherite but i don't like building that much so i guess it's time to pack it up and do something else instead. for someone else, having so many concrete goals would feel railroady and break the 'progression', or lack thereof, of vanilla minecraft! i get that.

they're different playstyles and it makes perfect sense why someone might prefer one to the other is what i'm saying, but like, if you've only ever tried to play modded in packs WITHOUT a quest or progression system to help guide you, let this be me saying "no i actually think that's an integral part of the first time playing modded experience in order to GET why people like modded", yeah?