Skyblock Revival

I had started to respond to a post in the discussion area, but, as the last comment mentioned, it may be more appropriate here. The question had been asked "what can we do to revive Skyblock?" A lot of the discussion will invariably go down the "Minecraft is dead" path and there could be some valid points found therein. However, that fatalistic view does nothing to actually answer the question.

I'm a diehard skyblocker. To me, Skyblock is the pinnacle of Minecraft and it's purest form will always be the single player challenge map. Multiplayer servers traditionally tried to take up the slack in areas where the single player experience was lacking. Whereas the single player map hits a dead-end in terms of available resources, the multiplayer servers would allow shops and trading to expand the selection of items available in the game. Single player gets lonely sometimes, but multiplayer affords players visitors from other islands.

Ultimately, everyone's fascination with skyblock servers stems from the single player map, though. My suggestion would be for Noobcrew to come out of retirement and make the "official" revision, complete with End portal and some select resources notably missing from the current skyblock experience. Keep the starting biome cold, add about 10-20 challenges, add a couple of diamonds, some nether quartz, and nether wart, and maybe even make it officially acceptable to travel to the mainland AFTER the completion of all challenges? (I might be pressing too much on that last one.) I know that there have been other attempts, but I keep going back to the classic originals. I don't like how other maps spare me the cold biome, or add in items that take away some of the initial challenge. While I recognize the dead end with resources like nether quartz, diamonds, or anything in the End, I don't want these things randomly gifted to me either. I want to work hard for what I have, because the end result becomes that much cooler when it happens that way.

This balance between challenge and accessibility underlies all Skyblock, and is applicable to multiplayer as well. So, why do I favor single player over multiplayer? Well, they're two different games and it's important to distinguish that. Multiplayer skyblock may attempt to emulate single player, but as long as mobs don't freely spawn on my island, they'll be two entirely different games with two different strategies. I've liked this server the most out of all other servers because it's more "vanilla" than a lot of others. That said, one of my resets was after I built an entire island thinking mobs would spawn and then realized I had to re-design everything with spawners in mind. I keep coming back because it's the closest multiplayer version of the single player experience I don't like ore generators. There's no incentive to make a golem farm if you can just get iron from your cobblestone generators. There's no need to kill withers for coal, zombie pigmen for gold, or trade with villagers for emeralds. With no need of villagers, there's no incentive to find the nether fortress and farm blazes. By giving me these ores, you've taken away something that draws me to the game, and have ultimately made it less fun to play.

Skyblockers like me enjoy challenges. I cut my Minecraft teeth on a hardcore survival server with a single life every month. I still remember the first time I tried Skyblock and had zero clue as to even where I should begin; I miss that. Multiplayer affords me the opportunity to show of building skills and socialize, but lacks much of the challenge I crave from the single player map. I would say a revival should begin with the single player map, and then the multiplayer experience should attempt to shift back to its roots. Maybe less loot crates and not more, in the most basic of terms.

 

On the cobblestone generators and some of the other points, I was speaking generally. This server does not have them, which is why it has traditionally been my favorite.

I agree mostly about the single player map, that it is okay as is, but I do think it could be made just a tad better and I think we're at a point where it could soon stand to be made more relevant. A lot of the "shortcomings" aren't nearly an issue until you reach the very end of it. In my current run, for instance, I've completed all 50 challenges and then some. I'm able to buy lapis from villagers, so I can even do blue and purple dyes. I located the nether fortress (using a piston to descend in the nether) and a nearby slime chunk in the overworld, so I can get every resource that's possible without going to the mainland. I can get cats and wolves to spawn even , by locating appropriate biomes and moving grass there with redstone contraptions. However, quartz, netherwart, cocoa, and a handful of diamonds are things that would further expand my end-game options. I'd like to have an echanting table, a small source of wart for potions, an End portal, and a jukebox to play records that I can collect. I can build a charged creeper contraption to collect mob heads, but I would have no safe way to ignite the creeper (flint). One change I'd suggest for the single player map might be replacing the glowstone island with soulsand or gravel (we can get ample glowstone from witches in a regular mob grinder), possibly having a second island in the nether with an End Portal. It'd actually be cool to have a lowered, suspended island of gravel that acts a lot like the sand island in the overworld. Getting to it would involve the player figuring out how to use pistons rather than the water elevator they used to get at the sand island, so it adds items WITH an additional challenge to get them. Not only would a little gravel offer the possibility of flint, but it could be used to make more dirt blocks as well.

With the aquatic update, I suspect there to be some changes in the way we play the traditional map. It seems like making a bed and getting some Zzzs will be a bigger priority with that flying mob that harasses you if you don't sleep. Will the new water mechanics break a lot of my mob grinders? I know the drowning grinder on my one skyblock map will break due to new mob behavior under water, but I'm sure there will be other hiccups I haven't anticipated. Also, I recently heard that a villager upgrade would be forthcoming. Will those new mechanics break the current models of golem farming? Will they allow us to acquire new items via trade, and will that change the overall dynamics of the skyblock game? Minecraft is evolving and skyblock will eventually become irrelevant if it doesn't adapt at least slightly.

I'm not bashing the server at all. In fact, it is my favorite skyblock server even if I'm not building like I used to a few years ago. Again, for me, it all originates from that singleplayer map and I feel that a major "official" upgrade might re-spark the interest that was only starting to wane when I first "discovered" skyblock. If someone were serious about reviving interest in skyblock and skyblock servers, I'd start there.

 

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Kind regards.