Other Please explain where the player came from.

[>>Terrarian<<]

Hello everybody, How are you?

Well, maybe the title didn't say my idea in enough detail, so let's go from the beginning.

Here I am talking about the player as being the main character of Terraria who is that character that you control, right?
Ok, and at the beginning of the game you just show up (or as stated in the game, spawn) and you soon see the guide next to you and start with everything we all know.

Well, "so what?" you must be saying, what happens is that to me it just seems strange to start the game like this from scratch because, theoretically, the player already existed before you saw it or even created it and that's where I get in on the action.

The main character should at least appear in a kind of "short film" of just a few minutes (less than 5 I think), and after the short film ends the player appears in the place where he should be (but wait! he will no longer spawn in the center of the map! read on and you will find out where).

The film:

The film starts showing a small boat on the high seas sailing in a very strong storm.
This boat, is made of wood and is a sailboat.
Then the player comes out of the boat's cabin and tries to look in the distance with his binoculars, but he doesn't see any solid land.
Soon after this scene the boat ends up being struck by a lightning, causing the sails to catch fire and the character no longer has control over the direction of the boat.
So he decides to stay inside the boat's cabin to be more protected, but shortly afterwards the boat hits a rock and starts to sink.
In the next scene the player is already in the water, but luckily he is hugging a piece of wood left over from the boat, which is floating.
He spends the night on this piece of wood in the middle of the sea and then the current takes him to the island of Terraria.
When he runs aground on the sand, so to speak, he is asleep because he has been exhausted from all this adventure and near-death.
And the last scene shows him waking up on the sand the next day, getting up and then looking into this new island full of mysteries to discover and good things to do.


Well that was the mini film and after it finishes the character spawns on the beach and the player can start to control his character as usual but with a few different things: the first is that you start without any tools, and you will have to make your own with the materials you are lucky to find, as with any castaway in real life.

The second thing is that luckily the game now allows you to make tools from both wood and stone, but that will come at a cost: you need to build a workbench to make stone tools. Otherwise, if you want to have something just to start, make the wooden ones (and their varieties) as they do not require any crafting station.

Well, in general that was my idea, just leaving out as a detail that all this should be an option for those who play, not mandatory, because nobody will want to wait for this whole movie every time they start with a new character, and that's it then guys. Sorry for the long text, but I wanted to give as much detail as possible so that nothing was missing and thanks for reading!!

Just remembering, comment!!

 

[Sora_92]

It's an interesting idea, but I think it wouldn't work (at least not for vanilla. in modded though, maybe)

I think, while the background of the main character (or more, if it's multiplayer) is quite myserious indeed (as well as several other things in the game, like where all those zombies are coming from?)
it might serves as a sort of "make your own story"
because there can be all sorts of characters, and they can have all sorts of backstories.

As for the video, it could be interesting (feels like Link's Awakening?) but dunno if it's needed or anything. might would work in a mod.

But. there are a few general problem there. Sure, it would be interesting to have your spawn on the beach (I think you can actually set it in T-edit, so these stuff could be tested.
There are many things that don't happen near the center of the map - like martian probes, goblin scouts, king slime spawning at random, etc. These all can happen at the edges of the world.
It's also often a challange in itself, to reach to the ocean, and it offers lots of things, like the angler, a great fishing spot and... well, I guess nothing much else. if it is on the dungeon side, then easy and early access to the dungeon, but you can't find much useful stuff there now pre-skeletron, no water bolt or anything like that... but it could be very convinient later, to have the dungeon so close.

And as for spawning without anything, there's but just one big problem with it. How would you gather resources, if you have no tools? The merchant do sells copper tools, but you need 50 silver coins for him to move in (which means you likely have to fight - which needs weapons - and you also need some houses. which means you need at least some wood. and torches.
They all are things (even wood now) that has a chance to be found in chests, but it's very random if you actually find any chests close by, or if they have such stuff. - and if you say "then a chest like that nearby should be guaranted" then, might as well just have the character spawn with the usual copper tools. it's easier that way.

The "empty inverntory at start" would likely only work, if there would be already structures at the start with NPCs like the merchant, so you could buy the starter gear. but that would affect the game a lot in a different way, and limit creativity with building your own towns, which would be bad in general (though might works in modded, I think there are mods that add structures like those - and which can be a pain for builders, because those are in the way XD

 

[>>Terrarian<<]

It's an interesting idea, but I think it wouldn't work (at least not for vanilla. in modded though, maybe)

I think, while the background of the main character (or more, if it's multiplayer) is quite myserious indeed (as well as several other things in the game, like where all those zombies are coming from?)
it might serves as a sort of "make your own story"
because there can be all sorts of characters, and they can have all sorts of backstories.

As for the video, it could be interesting (feels like Link's Awakening?) but dunno if it's needed or anything. might would work in a mod.

But. there are a few general problem there. Sure, it would be interesting to have your spawn on the beach (I think you can actually set it in T-edit, so these stuff could be tested.
There are many things that don't happen near the center of the map - like martian probes, goblin scouts, king slime spawning at random, etc. These all can happen at the edges of the world.
It's also often a challange in itself, to reach to the ocean, and it offers lots of things, like the angler, a great fishing spot and... well, I guess nothing much else. if it is on the dungeon side, then easy and early access to the dungeon, but you can't find much useful stuff there now pre-skeletron, no water bolt or anything like that... but it could be very convinient later, to have the dungeon so close.

And as for spawning without anything, there's but just one big problem with it. How would you gather resources, if you have no tools? The merchant do sells copper tools, but you need 50 silver coins for him to move in (which means you likely have to fight - which needs weapons - and you also need some houses. which means you need at least some wood. and torches.
They all are things (even wood now) that has a chance to be found in chests, but it's very random if you actually find any chests close by, or if they have such stuff. - and if you say "then a chest like that nearby should be guaranted" then, might as well just have the character spawn with the usual copper tools. it's easier that way.

The "empty inverntory at start" would likely only work, if there would be already structures at the start with NPCs like the merchant, so you could buy the starter gear. but that would affect the game a lot in a different way, and limit creativity with building your own towns, which would be bad in general (though might works in modded, I think there are mods that add structures like those - and which can be a pain for builders, because those are in the way XD

Well, I see that you found several defects in my idea but, let's go by parts, as Jack said.

Well, first of all, I hadn’t thought of this idea as making a mod, but whenever an idea of mine is excluded I go for that option, although I don’t know how to make mods and never made one.
On second thought, each one must probably have a story of their own, I think.
I think those kinds of things like the ones you mentioned about martian probes, goblin scouts and the king slime spawning are really hard to change.
The same thing happens with the angler, but I think that if it were possible to choose the side where you start the story you automatically chose the side where the angler spawns and it's just the opposite, so as not to make it too easy for the player.
About the dungeon I can't say much because the player could very well fight Skeletron before any other boss even without having the beach as a spawn point.

Now talking about the part of spawning with nothing I had a better idea, but I hadn’t even stopped to think that it doesn’t even exist in Terraria yet.
It goes something like this: trees now drop wood that can be collected without using any pickaxe. They are simply a few small branches that have fallen from the trees.
And obviously, if there are enough trees the character can make his first pickaxe and axe from wood.

I think I've answered everything so far. If more questions arise feel free to ask me.
And I'm glad that you liked my suggestion.

 

[Sora_92]

Putting aside the backstory thing,
as for the "spawn on the beach", I guess if things are modified (I have no idea how, but some modders might know) that the game would consider the spawn area still similar as the original spawn, meaning those things don't spawn there, etc.

But if certain other things are on the other end of the map, traveling through an entire world to find the angler/get to the dungeon/etc. could be quite tough - although once you tamed the wilderness a bit, and set up some towns, with pylons, it wouldn't be as bad.

also, you can fight skeletron before any bosses, but you still won't likely do that early game.

as for the "no tools at start", you can shake trees now with axes, but that still requires a tool (an axe). - I did thought of - and suggested somewhere - a tool like "harvesting stick" for a completely different reason, that wouldn't really be able to chop trees, but can shake them, to get fruits and stuff sometimes (basically, technically an axe with 0% (or 1% if 0% is invalid) axe power)

But, let's be honest, even if you can get some wood by shaking trees, that won't be enough for a house. and then once night falls, it won't be fun with all the zombies around without any sort of shelter...
and you still need to get torches somehow as well...

so, no, I don't think that could work... you would need at least an axe at the start. if you have that, you can get wood, then workbench, wooden sword, and kill enough stuff to buy a copper pickaxe from the merchant, to be able to mine stuff. however that's rather complicated... and would be bad, if you couldn't mine the stuff you placed, e.g. if you put something somewhere that turns out it's actually in the way or something.
and if you can make a pickaxe from wood... I dunno... although... you can make one from cactus, so who knows...