The Spawn Chunks 258: Encyclopedia Minecraftia

Aug 14, 2023 | podcast

Joel, and Jonny vibe with the latest Minecraft snapshot update to skulk sensor frequencies, hear listener feedback on villager trading, and the idea of an in-game Minecraft codex strikes a chord.

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Joel

  • The Citadel
    • The End
      • Took the time to remove all of the end gateways around the main end island using red mushrooms, and growing them through the portals, to remove the bug where some gateway portals were sending players into the void on the other side.
      • Added end stone brick platforms, and stairs, leading to all of the remaining bedrock gateway portal frames for easy access after we defeat The Dragon a number of times to renew all of the portals.
    • Westhill

Jonny

  • The Minecraft Survival Guide, Season 3
    • Sniffers have arrived!
      • It took about an hour of searching warm ocean ruins to find two sniffer eggs.
      • Hatching eggs, and waiting for sniffles to grow feels like it takes a while, but it’s great to have access to pitcher plants, and torchflowers.
    • Developing Storage
      • Currently working on a large auto-sorted storage building intended to be the long term storage for the starting area.
      • Planning ahead to avoid mistakes of running out of room like in The Survival Guide, Season 2.
      • It’s been fun to figure out which blocks felt essential to store in bulk, and working out how to accommodate variants like stairs, slabs, and mossy bits.

Minecraft News

Chunk Mail

FROM: Brenrob
DISCORD MEMBER: Landscape Artist Member
SUBJECT: Villagers Change Feedback

Hey Joel and Pix!

Long time listener from Tennessee here (and recent subscriber to the Patreon), congrats on four stacks of episodes! I’ve been enjoying your discussion on the villager changes, and I wanted to share my thoughts on the subject.

  1. I’ve seen a lot of complaints that this change will make trading halls more grindy. Personally this new process seems way less grindy to me, since each librarian only has three types of enchantments that they can cycle through. It may be more time consuming to set up, but I’d rather spend my time exploring, and discovering the world than pushing a lectern back and forth with a piston, ya know?

  2. Max level librarians should sell the best books in their category, otherwise it would be impossible to create some of the best equipment with just villagers. Also, if Mojang decides to overhaul enchanting they should remove the anvil cap. We can already invest limitless XP into our equipment through mending, why not let players invest that XP through the traditional anvil repair method?

  3. This is the perfect opportunity for Mojang to add Abandoned Villages to the swamps, and jungles. This would still require players to cure zombie villagers, and set up the infrastructure, but it would support that process. It could also lead inexperienced players down the path of thinking “Hmmm, maybe there could be a new type of village here?” Plus both biomes could use an additional structure.


Thanks for all the great episodes, looking forward to more!

Brenrob fell from a great height and hit the ground too hard…and then he woke up.

FROM: ItzEkans
SUBJECT: A New Way to Muffle Sounds

Hello, Jonny and Joel!

I’ve recently rediscovered an age-old problem that’s been getting on my nerves for pretty much the entire time I’ve played Minecraft. That problem is sound. When building a farm or redstone contraption involving a lot of loud blocks or entities like pistons, it can get annoying if a build or some place you visit a lot is nearby. I’ve been thinking about ways around this and I might have come up with a solution.

Wool already blocks vibrations for reaching sculk sensors, so it’s possible that it could block sound itself as well. Of course, the problem is that players building with wool may not want sounds to be muffled. Therefore, a new block could be added called something along the lines of “packed wool”, which could be crafted using four wool. An alternative to the recipe could be wool in the middle surrounded by string.

Hopefully this could be a viable way to block or muffle sounds without going into the options menu every time you go near a noisy farm or build.

ItzEkans died of an earache because he built a piston contraption too close to his base.

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A Minecraft In-Game Codex

Joel, and Jonny expand upon an email from Xenith, pondering the potential of an in-game codex for Minecraft. What would a Minecraft codex look like? How would it function? What information would be included in the codex, and what information would be impossible to communicate to players in a succinct way? Even with all of the benefits, could an in-game codex be potentially harmful to the emergent gameplay, and community sharing that has become synonymous with Minecraft?

FROM: Xenith
DISCORD MEMBER: Landscape Artist Member
SUBJECT: Block-o-pedia

Good morning!

Xenith here with some food for thought!

I’ve recently gotten sucked into a game called Slime Rancher, and it has a particular feature that I think would benefit Minecraft greatly. They call it the Slimepedia, which is essentially an in-game encyclopedia that gets gradually unlocked as new slimes, materials, and locations are discovered. It’s opened with a single button, and has tabs for each section. I ended up referring to it constantly to check what food each slime prefers, and other details that were very useful. It kept me from visiting the wiki until I needed to find the last collectibles.

We have the recipe book in Minecraft, but as has been discussed, that’s just not good enough with so many systems in the game. I watched someone recently who tried not to spoil himself working with armor trims, and he eventually ended up making a wall of signs detailing what material each trim needs for duplication (Which he realized after using one up before duplicating it).  It feels unnecessary for a modern game to require us to go to a wiki for information like that because it isn’t shown well enough in-game.

Xenith was lost in thought reminiscing about the strategy guide books they used to buy with new games.