Minecraft "Cheating"

[Thorin]

Here's a thread to discuss what we might consider "cheating" in Minecraft.  Note that I'm not passing judgement here, as some might consider an action perfectly valid while another might feel it morally wrong.

Feel free to post your opinions on any of the following, or add your own.

JourneyMap

So I know Lazy and I both use the JourneyMap mod.  This allows us to see where we are, what our surroundings are, and what monsters are around us.  This could be considered a "cheat" because it replaces the in-game-crafted maps and makes it much harder for creepers to creep up on you (although they still do if you're not watching the map).

I don't consider this cheating because it doesn't significantly alter the playing experience nor grant anyone a huge leg up.  By knowing when monsters are near, you can stay out longer and get more done at night, but that's a two-edged sword (try getting to safety through six creepers, eight zombies, and three skelly archers!)

Zombe Mod Pack - Cheat - Show Ores

As this is completely client-side, I'm willing to bet it doesn't show up in the server logs.  However, turning on a mod that shows a marker that you can dig towards for all the different ores you might be looking for _does_ grant one player a significant advantage over another.  Especially if you mine all the diamonds and gold and iron out of the vicinity of their mines.

I tried it and it's terribly addictive to dig straight for the ore you want, instead of having to follow a pattern in your mine and getting a much lower percentage hit of ores.  If anyone uses this, everyone should use it.  If not everyone uses it, no one should use it.  It really isn't fair otherwise.

Zombe Mod Pack - Cheat - Show Mobs

Also client-side, also probably doesn't show up in server logs.  Shows a marker for each mob in your vicinity, but you do still have to look around to see them (you can't see behind you, like JourneyMap allows you).  I don't think this does anything worse than JourneyMap and I have no problem with it.

I don't use this because I use JourneyMap, but I wouldn't care if someone else had it turned on.

Zombe Mod Pack - Cheat - See Through Solids

Again client-side.  Great for avoiding lava, but anyone who doesn't have the x-ray vision is at a pretty significant disadvantage when digging down low where the lavas flow.  It really didn't feel right to me to be looking through the wall - part of the excitement of Minecraft in Survival mode is that you have to try not to burn to death in lava (holy cow, once I actually managed to get out of the lava and get the fire out and I was left with 0.5 hearts - and I had 30+ diamonds on board!)

Zombe Mod Pack - Sun Control and Op Commands - Change Time of Day

These do basically the same thing: let us advance night to day so we don't have to try and survive the night time.  I'm a bit ambivalent on this - on the one hand I know how annoying it is to sit inside the house waiting for 7 minutes between dusk and dawn so your creation doesn't get blown up by creepers, but on the other hand it's not really fair to those that are not Ops.  And on the third hand, time can be advanced by everyone jumping in bed, so it could also be seen as reducing the work required for everyone to go to bed.

Zombe Mod Pack - Others

For the rest of the Zombe mods, I have no qualms about people using them.  Cloud Control, Compass, Craft All, World Information, Path Tracker, Spawn Highlighter, and Wield Key all remove the necessity to craft an item or two, or give you info that you could find in other, harder ways, but don't give you a significant advantage in finding materiel or surviving through the night.

Op Commands - Give

Whether /give usage is cheating or not, in my mind, depends on the situation.  If you're moving a bunch of materiel from one chest to another and something happens to the server and it disappears, I have no problem with you getting it back thanks to a thoughtful Op using /give.  On the other hand, dying in lava and losing all your stuff is (a mildly frustrating) part of Survival mode.  If there's no penalty for dying in lava, why not switch the server to Creative mode?

It can also be very frustrating to look for a particular ore or mineral to craft something, but /giving it to yourself should be a last resort, not a first thought.  Otherwise, again, why not switch to Creative?  If you've spent two long nights mining for, say, Soul Sand and still haven't found even one block, though, well, you've put in a large amount of time and I'd be much less inclined to complain about "cheating".

I guess that's the overriding factor for me with the Give command - has the player already put in a significant effort to get what they want through conventional methods?  If not, then it's not fair to the other players who can't use /give to quickly gain new materiel.

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So these are my opinions, I'd love to hear what other people think!

[Mr. Analog]

Three things make Minecraft exciting:

-Not knowing where the hell you are
-Getting ambushed
-Not knowing where resources are

You can find your way back to spawn by building a compass, you can only find your way back to a given area if you made a map there AND you aren't outside the range of the map.

Digging for resources you need is absolutely essential to the game, knowing where rare stuff is kind of destroys the fun part of digging and not knowing what you're going to get.

And I know it's annoying to lose all your stuff because you aren't ready for a fight but one happens anyway, but man if you survive it's the best thing EVER.

So I say tools that give you an edge in these key areas defeat many of the most fun parts of the game, you cheat yourself out of having a more intense experience.

[Thorin]

Well, the Survival mode in Minecraft.  In Creative mode, those three things don't apply   Some people really like the builder aspect and are really frustrated by the keep-on-your-toes aspect.

I've found it frustrating to not know where I am simply because the game can't render as far for me as others (32-bit Java vs 64-bit Java).  I remember my first day running with you and you told me to aim for that building in the distance and the game hadn't rendered it so I didn't see it.

As for cheating oneself, true.  But there's also a feeling of getting cheated by others if _they_ employ techniques that appear morally wrong to oneself.  For instance, if someone new logged on and had no problem using mods to find all the diamonds and gold and iron and just mined it all out, leaving you nothing, wouldn't you feel they cheated you after you spend days looking for raw materials?

I think it's this last point that I'm trying to address with this thread - what actions of others on the server would actually bother you?

For me the answer to that question is actions that let others do things significantly easier than me, but only if I'm not also to do those actions.

[Mr. Analog]

OH if you put it that way, I don't care if someone else "cheats", find fun your own way I guess, as long as it doesn't collide with what I'm doing.

[Lazybones]

To add to the list there is a transparent block texture pack as well, all blocks are just boards, kind of like windows, accept for minerals

[Thorin]

Yeah, Lazy, that falls into the same category as the See Through Solids and Show Ores mods from Zombe.  For those, it'd bug me if I found out someone else was using them to dig up all the valuable ore in my area.  If they're using it to root around in their own area, I wouldn't care.

Although that begs a different question - how to tell what is whose area?  Obviously right under your main abode is your area, but you guys are all scrunched pretty tight together in Spawn City and you're gonna end up running into each others' mines.  And yes, I know, it's kinda fluid, but imagine if you found out someone used a ore-finding enhancement to go into what you consider your area and took all the diamonds.

[Lazybones]

There are server mods that address the land claim issue http://forums.bukkit.org/threads/sec-areaguard-v2-0-players-work-for-tokens-then-they-claim-areas-to-themself-1-2-5-r1-0.68555/

but with big game changes expected to directly support such mods, possibly not something that should be done?

[Mr. Analog]

I dunno, it hasn't really been a big problem because in general we communicate well with each other, so if I tunnel into someone's stuff I try to wall it up again or fix it (or in one case add some much needed doors).

I figure when my mine area is tapped I'll just move my main operation to my corner of the server and keep working. I fully expect the spawn area to be tapped out eventually and built up with lots of crazy cool stuff.