Just an Idea: MineCustomization

Minecraft's Default Characters With Different Height & Arm Sizes.

While my recent Minecraft Just an Idea "articles" focused on things that have an actual effect on the game itself, this time I'm going to poke around something less influential to the gameplay... Depending on your perspective and specific question, I suppose. It's no secret that customization in video games nowadays considered by many as major part of people's favorite titles. It's not that hard to find someone playing a certain game only because of its skins, armor and all that kind of stuff. Even if they can't and/or don't want to purchase these items for real money or Minecoins in Marketplace on Bedrock Edition, some of them would likely still jump in for a few seconds just to grab free stuff. I know that because I'm one of these folks.

As overrated as it can be in some cases, customization can be decent. Not only new cosmetic items can encourage players to explore the side of the game they haven't engaged with before, but also reward them for both expressing their own creativity and spending more time in Minecraft. In this case, I'm talking about the kind of customization options that are available in-game without microtransactions. Although this post will cover all(?) the basis of cosmetic features: free things, accessible option, challenging reward and cunning offering. You just can't not have the latter when it comes to subjects like this.

Missed Default Debuts.

Thumbnail kind of gives away one of the ideas I had in mind regarding customization. I don't really have nothing against newly added default skins for Minecraft. People get more options this way, it doesn't affect negatively affect anyone. The best option is still getting your own skin: either draw it yourself or utilize Character Creator in Bedrock Edition. However, this integration feels pretty rushed. When Alex was added as a part of Bountiful Update (Patch 1.8-pre1, to be specific) for the original Minecraft, she came in with changes to game's skin system: slim hands and second layer (64x32 → 64x64 resolution).

Skins in Bedrock Edition are much more customizable than in Java Edition: from neat Achievement rewards like Golden Watch & Archers Quiver (the ones I use personally) to recent-ist animated items and hideous wings. That's one of the features you know won't be carried over to the original version of the game and it's probably for the best. This system has one skin option that I think can and should be carried over via Parity: body height. As you can see from the thumbnail, default skins cover every combination of height & arm sizes with just one repetition. Perhaps that's just the casualty of Mojang Studios' current approach to development, who knows. I hope different height will be added to original Minecraft sooner rather than later. "Tall" height adds one pixel to chest and arms, which would increase skin's resolution to 64x66. Although something tells me it won't be easy.

While there's already enough variations of Zombies in both editions, regular ones still wear only Steve's clothes. I think it's about time when they have more outfits, similarly to Zombie Villagers. Why not? I know that Steve is and always will be the star of Minecraft (not arguing about that), but others shouldn't be left out. Just a little detail that adds a bit of variety to players' meeting at least one Zombie during a night walk or caving adventures.

Addressing Capes.

Besides skins, capes are likely the only notable customization element in both versions of Minecraft that are really somewhat valuable in original one. There're a lot of Back Items in Bedrock Edition accessible in Character Creator, some great and others really atrocious. There're multiple types of capes with the most popular being the ones from Minecon. While the first one (Minecon 2011) was tied to the username of attendee, others were given out via special codes or URL... Probably somewhere in between. Naturally, some Minecon capes were obtained by not those who visited the actual events. This was possible up until May 12, 2020, when all remaining Minecon capes codes were disabled and no longer available. Approaching Mojang Studios for help with this is pointless.

While looking around some material related to Minecraft's capes, I've noticed a tweet from Mark Watson, an associate producer at Mojang Studios who's also known for creation of Mark's Head Format, where he talks about how game's capes should be devalued in order to stop encouraging account hacking and elitism in game's community. However, the aforementioned deactivation of Minecon codes only gives people more reason to sell or hack accounts that have those capes. You can add as many common capes as you want, but there's always going to be an audience that wants this cape specifically because it has a certain appearance or due to its rarity.

There's no need to worry about the rarity factor when it comes to Minecon capes since they were devalued twice. Special Skin packs with Steve & Alex wearing most and/or all existing Minecon capes were given away for free to players of Legacy Console & Bedrock Editions as part of the event in 2015 and 2016. Previously you could argue that it doesn't matter because "Java Edition is the real deal". As Mojang Studios currently views both original Minecraft and Bedrock Edition as two main versions of the game as evident by current distribution model of PC version as "Java & Bedrock". At this point of time, with all previous decisions made by them, Mojang might as well just give away all capes during every Minecraft Live or whatever title the event would have in the future. This would also be a great opportunity to achieve Parity among Capes in both editions of Minecraft in style of Vanilla cape.

Deluxe Capes (Front Side Only) Sketch for Minecraft.

A couple of my latest posts were dedicated to Caller's Bane & Cobalt, I've mentioned the fact that both of these titles offered players a chance to earn special Minecraft capes by completing specific challenge or participating in a tournament. While Minecraft Dungeons also has a wide selection of Capes, Mojang Studios haven't resumed their old tradition of adding one for their "main game". I think I saw capes on some player characters in Minecraft Legends, but we don't have enough details on that game yet. Still, I think it's save to say that Mojang are missing out by not tying up a special Minecraft game to its spin-off for additional promotion. While I tried to come up with a solution similarly to what was does for previously mentioned non-Minecraft releases from Mojang Studios, I thought of how Blizzard Entertainment used to add stuff for their other games in their Collector's Editions and that hit me. Just add Minecraft Capes to Dungeons' Hero Edition and whatever title will be given to Deluxe Edition thing for Legends.

My current pixel art skills are nonexistent, as you can see. I just added one line of pixels to Hero Cape since Dungeons' capes are shorter in comparison to Minecraft ones. As for "Unity Cape", I've used the approach similar to LeeJowReddit's method who (according to Minecraft Wiki) originally suggested the design idea for current Hero Cape: took Minecon 2012 Cape as a base that I covered by Dark Blue Marker in Paint 3D, then tried my best to copy Legends logo as I couldn't find "proper pixel perfect" version of it and then added the detail from Hero's Cape. Placing these Capes behind this paywall is the easiest and most logical solution to me. While it would've been better to have unlocked for, let's say, beating the game, this approach of tying it to "special edition" of a title is easier & more profitable.

Elytra Fashion.

Just as I was getting ready to actually write this "article", I've suddenly recalled something. Instead of actually dealing with remaining (and definitely broken) achievements on Bedrock Edition and switching to original Minecraft as an expression of common sense, I've been watching a few Let's Plays on YouTube. Mostly Hermitcraft, but there's been an overlap with Empires SMP due to crossover. Either way, I've noticed some Elytras with custom textures and before I didn't know that was a thing (or forgot, but I doubt it in this particular case). I have no idea whenever it involves a Resource Pack or a full-on modification, I'm usually not very familiar with this stuff actually works. However, it's not hard to notice that there's something to this concept.

Before it's proper addition into Minecraft, Elytra were teased by Jens "Jeb" Bergensten on Twitter multiple times and his first tease showcased them having texture similar to Ender Dragon's wings. Currently, Elytra look very bland by default and adopt different design based on the cape that player wears at the moment. You can easily keep that feature by introducing new craftable variations of Elytra with unique look whenever or not a Cape is present. Just combine these wings with specific Head or Skull, some of which should be added to the game first:

• Skeleton Skull.

• Chicken Head.

• Blaze Head.

• Dragon Head.

• Wither Skeleton Skull.

• Bat Head.

• Vex Head.

• Parrot Head.

• Phantom Head.

• Bee Head.

• Allay Head.

It's worth noting that some of these options were already realize as a part of Vanilla Tweaks' "Aesthetic" Resource Packs that change Elytra's default look. I've picked every mob that either has wings or can fly: skeletons are the exception here since people would obviously want "bone wings". Wasn't sure about mentioning passive mobs, but decided for it in the sake of consistency. I don't go into why this might be problematic in the eyes of Mojang Studios since I brought up this topic in Phantom Changes post already (that includes adding Phantom Head!), so let's not fall into that rabbit hole this time around. It's worth noting that some of these Heads, if implemented, likely won't be wearable due to being too small in comparison to Player's face and be more like a "miniature toy".

Although you can argue that Head/Skulls have more than enough functionality at this point. I think this idea clicked with me simply because it's just very "arcade" if that makes sense. Just adding a straightforward addition to well-known silly challenge. You can also make a unique requirement for each variation of customized Elytra to make it more fun diverse journey for those who would want to go for every option: from simple options (surround Elytra with Bones on Crafting Table) to more difficult ones (throw Elytra into Dragon's Breath cloud). But this means doing additional work (potentially more than just adding more Heads), which isn't something developers might want to commit to.