i swear to god every blockland video that's from someone's outside pov is
"hmm im gonna try singleplayer...
ooh that was kinda fun... ooh look at this server...
*server is weird or does something that seems weird out of context*
ermmm im done >_> xDDD"
it's annoying as forget because they don't bring any new insight or try to be creative in any way. they just play 1-2 servers and say "this game is bad"/"this game is dead"
There's only so much content users can generate. But the issue is if users don't want to generate content, it won't get made in a user generated content based game.
And I don't care that it was 8 years ago. I'm still gonna call out the shadows and shaders update as a stupid regressive update.
The removal of maps ripped a giant hole into the middle of the community. Modders who were exclusively map modders were basically laughed at. Anyone who questioned it was laughed at as a caveman who "no liked change."
But the issue with the update was far deeper than "no liking change." It was a divisive update that, even until this very day, had split the the community in two.
B4v21 is a great example of this. This update added shadows and shaders (
ooh pretty). But it also came at the cost of user generated content and users.
Less players and less content creators means less people want to play the game. And that makes less people want to play or create content for the game. This is not a spiral you want to get into. Which is what this update did.
After RTB shutdown with no real great alternatives taking its place, this should have been a major red flag. Glass was close, but it just didn't really hit the mark, and honestly it wouldn't have been fair to expect any of them to do great. Because the main thing that drove RTB was community content. Without motivation for community content systems like RTB had no reason to exist.
Generally speaking, community content games are going the way of the dodo. And that's sad. But unlike other community content games, this decline happened much earlier because of stupid short sighted and frankly arrogant decisions.
If you're gonna ban me for saying this, than fine. But it needs to be said. After v21 not only did community content stop, but main line developer content did too. Anyone who was against it was mocked and ridiculed, with no real alternatives for map makers except for "just make different add-ons." Even though maps are fundamentally different than any other Blockland add-on and badspot should know this, because he made the loving game.
A seriously good update would add more ways to generate content, while also giving us default examples. We had vague promises of a hat update, but that just kinda went into the memory hole. And I know since someone is going to say it, but the gamemodes from v21 aren't new. They're new content, but gamemodes in general aren't new to Blockland in the v21 update.
In v9 eventing was added.
In v11 physics were added.
But after that major content updates didn't seem to happen.
What about an update that allowed users to make custom hat models? I imagine that would've been the hat update.
Or to go even further, how about every part of the blockhead having custom model options.
I'm aware this kinda is already a thing, but only though the playertype.
Infact, I remember a while back, static shapes were made as a mod for Blockland. It won't replace terrain. But having native support for static shapes and a few example static shapes would be cool.
TL;DR removing content to make content is a bad update strategy, especially if the new content splits the community.
