nodecore-cd2025/docs/nonideas.txt

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NONIDEAS: Ideas already considered and rejected
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- Anything Already Added
	- If something already exists in the game then it will not
	  be added.  Please play though the game enough to understand
	  what is already in the game before making suggestions.
	- Things that are ALMOST like things already in the game will
	  not be added.  Players are expected to adapt their ideas to
	  the materials available, not the other way around.

- Anything Explicitly Removed
	- If something previously existed in the game, but was
	  explicitly removed, then it was removed for a good reason and
	  will not be re-added.
	- Suggestions to reverse removals must meet a high standard
	  for comelling evidence, including an understanding of the
	  context and reasons for the original removal.

- Copying From Other Games
	- A game element added to NodeCore needs to be able to justify
	  its existence purely in the context of NodeCore.
	- The presence of an element in another game is not compelling
	  evidence it should exist in this one, even if the element is
	  a useful enhancing feature of that other game.

- Mobs/Animals
	- Things that are "off-grid" are discouraged.  Node-based
	  "staybs" could at least fit the mechanics, but entity-based
	  creatures that move freely do not.  Use of /clearobjects
	  should not remove key gameplay elements as long as the game
	  is allowed to "quiesce" first.
	- Monsters that are easy to understand and deal with would not
	  fit the games theme or play style.  Threats need to be subtle,
	  insidious, and indirect.  Threats that offer no direct
	  cathartic response (i.e. bashing it to death) also fit the
	  theme better, as well as threats that can be turned around and
	  exploited as resources once mastered (but remain a threat if
	  handled carelessly).
	- NodeCore pacing requires that dangers to a player should be
	  consequences of the player's own decisions, and not something
	  that can be blamed on environment or chance.  Having monsters
	  spawn spontaneously and stalk the player would be problematic.
	- NodeCore "conservation" mechanics discourage having things
	  spawn spontaneously at all, and they would need to be part of
	  mapgen.

- Food/Hunger
	- Players are like ethereal beings who visit the world only
	  temporarily and are not subject to injury or survival
	  mechanics within the world.
	- Things that focus a mechanic on/through the player do not
	  fit the world-centric/node-centric theme of the game.
	- Using food items to provide things like temporary buffs is
	  likely to be a lot of effort and likely to be skipped by most
	  players.

- Day/Night Cycle
	- Previously existed, was removed.
	- Was only ever of cosmetic value while it existed.
	- Only ever useful for powering lenses by skylight, but that
	  violated the game's principle of action only being dependent
	  on the state of things and their local surroundings, not on
	  specific times or places.
	- Interfered with gameplay by forcing players to take measures
	  to skip night (waiting, or begging for beds, see below) until
	  they had achieved reliable artificial lighting.  It was not
	  useful to compel players to develop lighting because darkness
	  underground was already sufficient for that.

- Health, Death, and Respawn
	- Previously existed, was removed.
	- Only ever included because it was provided by the
	  engine/built-in, but it never provided any justification for
	  its existence.
	- Only ever distracted from gameplay and design.  Health had
	  no effect other than death, and death was never more than an
	  inconvenience at worst.  Attempts to make taking damage
	  disadvantageous e.g. by slowing walking speed were only ever
	  annoying and tedious.
	- Death respawn could easily be exploited as a form of
	  teleportation, which was convenient under many circumstances,
	  and nerfed the threat of becoming lost or falling into
	  darkness, removing a lot of compelling reasons for players to
	  put attention into the game.

- Beds
	- There is no night to skip, and players have no need for sleep.
	- Bed-like structures can be made out of existing nodes. Purely
	  decorative elements that are not fungible do not fit the
	  game's design.

- Music
	- Minetest engine only technically supports music, but it
	  doesn't work smoothly.
	- Music would increase the download size of the game, and
	  correspondingly the media transfer time on joining servers,
	  but a decimal order of magnitude and is not worth it, even
	  at the lowest quality settings.
	- Players often prefer playing their own music, and can just
	  play other music with another media player in background.
	- Music is generally problematic for streamers and even music
	  that is supposedly freely-licensed sometimes ends up in
	  content fingerprint databases for automatic copyright strikes.
	  In theory this is not exclusive to music, but its prevalence
	  in music already is a big problem.

- Revert Item Stack Pickup Control
	- Without this feature, it's very difficult to control which
	  slot an item goes into, making it hard or impossible to pack
	  the hotbar the way the player wants.
	- Without this feature, it's difficult or impossible to split
	  stacks and pick them up while keeping them split.

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