Welcome to this week's blurb!
Welcome to this week's blurb!
Welcome to the second blurb of this two-part blurb special where we take a look and compare old Brickadia with new Brickadia! Last week, we covered community moments that happened while looking at older versions of Brickadia, so I suggest taking a look at that right after this blurb if you haven't read last week's blurb already!
Apologies for another unexpected delay in today's release, luckily I still released it today, but for those of you that don't know, I own a VGA/DVI-D monitor, and I hook that up to my PC using a VGA-to-HDMI cable. Unfortunately, the connection for that cable has been terribly bad for the past couple days, and got so bad today and yesterday that it culminated in me rushing to a Best Buy and having to buy a DVI-D-to-HDMI cable and an extra HDMI cable (goodbye $50). Huge sorries, just an unfortunate hiccup in the blurb creation process!
With that out of the way, let's do some comparisons between old Brickadia and new Brickadia, starting off with Alpha 4 Patch 1 (the current version of Brickadia as of the writing of this blurb is Alpha 5 Patch 6):
Customization menu (Top: Alpha 4 Patch 1 / Bottom: Alpha 5 Patch 6), the biggest differences between both versions is the fact that you're able to rotate hats on A4P1 and continue moving while in the menu, contrary to what A5P6 currently offers. While the new menu is certainly exceptional, it would be interesting to see alternating views where we can choose to customize in the closet setting and also have that option to view our character without that closet view and actually customize them while we're able to move:
Flat Bill Hat (Left: Version 0.3.5 / Right: Alpha 5 Patch 6), while the hat is mostly the same, it is interesting to see just how the form of the hat has changed in that regard, going from square to a bit more round around the sides:
Credit: Kokonut
Beanie with Pom Pom (Left: Alpha 5 Patch 6 / Right: Alpha 4 Patch 1), again, while the hats are mostly the same, it is interesting to see how the top of the beanie has been changed from a sphere to a more cuboid shape:
From left to right: Alpha 5 Patch 6, Alpha 4 Patch 1, Version 0.3.5, Version 0.1.3, and Preview Version. You'll note that the Brickadian itself has gone through a vast array of changes over the years; comparing A5P6 to A4P1, you can see how the avatar is mostly the same apart from one crucial bit: the hip piece. As a result of the missing hip piece, the foot ends up being its own piece while the two pairs of leg pieces above are pushed up, becoming the same size, In A4P1, the bottom leg piece and the foot piece were part of the same piece. Comparing A4P1 with 0.3.5, you'll notice how the top leg pieces have the LEGO round-bit to it (might be a little difficult due to lack of contrast, I was dressed up as a chicken lol). You'll also notice, surprisingly, that the lower arm piece was actually really short compared to the first two current iterations of the Brickadian avatar, a surprise to be sure. Now the last two iterations from the oldest versions of Brickadia are interesting to look at since we can see that, interestingly, these two iterations are shorter than the version we have now! Now if anything, I don't need to explain the huge differences for the last two, you can easily see them. One thing I will note is that the avatar scaling is not to perfect scale, and I mean that in regard to the picture scale, so there may be some discrepancies for height:
From top left to bottom right: Alpha 5 Patch 6, Alpha 4 Patch 1, Version 0.3.5, Version 0.1.3, and Preview Version: This is the build menu for each of these versions of the game, going from a side-menu to a large, simple menu for what we have currently. It's also interesting to note how in 0.1.3, the paint menu was open with the build menu, and I imagine this was removed in 0.3.5 going forward since it was redundant to have the paint menu open if you have your own paint tool in the first place. However, I do find it quite interesting having that side-profile build menu while you're still able to play the game. If anything, I feel like this sort of arranged menu should make a come-back as an option for how you want to build. Luckily, throughout these versions, you can see the evolution of the color scheme go from dull and gray to a nice eye-candy blue:
Character Color Customization (Version 0.3.5/Alpha 4 Patch 1):
The Dotted Bandana was in older versions of Brickadia but is currently not in the game (Alpha 4 Patch 1):
The Headdress and the Pumpkin were also in older versions of Brickadia but are currently not in the game either, but the Pumpkin helmet still exists as two separate brick objects that you can place in-game in the current version (Alpha 4 Patch 1):
In this version of Brickadia, you were able to go from third person and first person and have the avatar transition in very interesting ways, though this is currently not in-game (Version 0.3.5):
Brick Selection and Brick Objects (Version 0.1.3), in versions during 0.1.3 and before, bricks were the same that were used in Blockland plus a couple extra special bricks, allowing you to create interesting dioramas such as these. As of right now, Brickadia does not use any of these objects/bricks, as it would probably be wise for the developers of Brickadia to use their own pieces and NOT have a piece called meth lab:
In the early preview version of Brickadia, you were unable to paint objects individually. This is largely as a result of the fact that this version of Brickadia was just a Blockland build viewer. That or they were probably too lazy whenn making this version, which would explain kinda why each brick placed is randomly colorized whenever placed. Not only that, in this version, we have vehicles!!! (they do not work lol) (Version 0.1.3):
In this version of Brickadia, as you may have seen from the last blurb, there are no name tags for other players. Additionally, there was no limit to the size of the nicknames for players when they set their names using the /setname command (Version 0.1.3):
In this version of Brickadia, if you died or self-destructed in first person, you were able to stay in first person and have your camera rotate in orientations not currently possible to see in the current version of Brickadia. This is largely as a result of the fact that there is no first-person death view or contraptions of any kind to rotate the camera to angles such as these. (Version 0.3.5/Alpha 4 Patch 1):
EDIT: Turns out you're still able to do this, it was just disabled by default since it gave people motion sickness:
Credit: Sixmorphugus (Thanks!)
Perfect death pose! (Version 0.1.3):
And last but not least, a comparison of the menu screens and the logos! From top to bottom, Preview Version, Version 0.1.3, Version 0.3.5, Alpha 4 Patch 1, and Alpha 5 Patch 6. As you can see, the logo has gone from a LEGO looking block to the current Brickadian block we see today at the bottom! It's easy to note that the Preview Version and 0.1.3 look exactly the same, though the differences mainly in the options and quit settings. You might think the developers for some reason removed the credit and options button in the first two title screens, but that's only disabled because the button just says "Oops, there's nothing here!". It's also important to note that this is essentially the same case for buttons like Friends, Mods, and Tutorial in A4P1 and Version 0.3.5::
Now we arrive at this week's user column!
Each week I will be asking members of the Brickadia community a question relevant to Brickadia at the moment, whether that be in regard to development, speculation, or even just hopes and desires surrounding the game itself.
The question this week is:
If you could remove a feature that annoys you or irks you in Brickadia, what would you remove?
"Hmm, that's a hard question. Most likely the surface fog of water, when tinkering with with scattering and color absorption, you can never get the water looking right without the underwater being a weird color compared to the surface water. Wouldn't mind if they changed that or even just removed the weird fog that happens in general. Maybe it's just me being dumb about it, but it never looks good for me."
"(joking) BRICKS!!! I WOULD REMOVE ALL BRICKS I HATE BRICKS!!!!!!!!!!! But uh, hard question. Hmm. I can't really think of anything good, aside from the size duplications of bricks in the brick selection menu. The list of 1x2, 1x3, etc etc seem redundant to me when we have the resizer. I think reducing it down to the base brick sizes (1x1 plate, 1x1 tile, 1x1 smooth tile, etc) and categorizing them a little differently would be a change I think might be interesting."
"y'know, I don't actually have an answer for that. I mean I guess the 30 player cap, but I'm guessing everyone else is gonna say that."
Quite the trip down memory lane for some of you who may have played those early-early caveman-era versions of Brickadia, huh? With all of these things we've seen, it makes one wonder whether or not we'll see some of the features shown here ever again. You have seen me earlier before describe how some of these features should make a comeback. I really do enjoy the ability to move around while menus are open and be able to customize my avatar both while moving and also move while selecting parts and pieces to use to build. I'm not saying that these should be the default features, but I am a strong believer in the idea of offering different ways to build, and I feel like offering a different lens of glasses to those that want to build a certain way is a very desirable thing indeed:
But what about some other features that could make a return? You may have seen in this blurb that there were a lot of unique items, and while some of those items could obviously just be built, what about special bricks like food items, more foliage bricks, and even wire-fences? I myself am NOT a fan of having fences around a base take up 20% of the build's brick count. I'm serious when I say we need more special brick items that allow us to have more foliage options and fences without players having to bust up their server with lag as a result of 10k bricks being dedicated to foods and fences:
On top of that, even though the old Brickadian avatar is distinctly outdated and really not usable to any capacity now, what stops the developers from including different types of Brickadian avatars? It would be incredibly interesting having short Brickadians, wider Brickadians, and so on and so forth. I've posted this image before, but could you imagine this fella walking around your game? If you don't picture yourself as that, what about picturing that avatar walking around as a bot? The same thing with a wider Brickadian, and etc. etc., the potential for different Brickadian avatars is awesome!
Credit: wrap
Now I know some of you probably weren't expecting a wishlist of features for Brickadia in the future, but keep in mind that behaviors and wires and yada-yada aren't the only aspects of this game to be hyped up for. For a game that specifically revolves around the idea of creativity and personalization, I feel like some features have to come back. Rotating hats? Scalable players? Different player types? Maybe even a return of some old cosmetics that were previously removed! And what about menuing? Maybe the creation of more special bricks? Apart from what behaviors and the like offers, which I am of course absolutely hyped for, I also want to see some special features get added that could potentially add a whole other layer to the game itself in regard to customization and personalization. But that's just me, and I accidentally delayed this post today cause of bad cables.
And that's all for this week of the durb blurb!
If you want to see your creations, ideas, and speculations highlighted on the blurb, contact me at: durb#3215