Reto Häner

One way to achieve much more realistic terrain could be to give every chunk its own 0 point for the Y axis. So let's say you've got a 512 block world height, but where those 512 blocks are depends on the chunk, they can be shifted up and down to create a world that is much more than 512 blocks high. There'd be an obvious downside, which is that you could reach the bottom of the world by digging horizontally through a tall mountain, but IMO it would still be worth it. You could have much more interestingly scaled landmasses and allow rivers to flow in a far more reasonable way than with the current limitations. Combined with having something like Farseer by default, you could allow for some pretty spectacular worldgen that would also probably be far less annoying to navigate than what we have right now. 1000m+ high mountains, very gradual shifts in terrain height alllowing for things like proper highlands, rivers that flow realistically, etc. Stuff that simply isn't possible with the default 256.

People here are acting like even the most basic sailing mechanics require a rocket science degree or something. In JoS you adjust the sail with just two keys, it's as simple as looking at the wind angle and pressing W or S until your sail is at a good angle. Sailing mechanics can get a lot more complex and engaging than that of course, but at their most basic they're less work than conventional WASD controls, except if you have to go straight upwind. Mobile bases are the logical end-point of multi-block vehicles, but not something that should be in the vanilla game IMO. As a mod though? Absolutely.

Based on the video posted a while back, the sailboat in 1.20 will function basically like a motorboat: W to go forward, S to go backwards, etc. I think the Joy of Sailing mod has shown that simple sailing mechanics would be a much better option, giving the player at least something to do while sailing, such as trimming the sails to get as much speed as possible, and tacking if you're going against the wind. If we assume that there'll still be no autorun without mods, then they're less annoying too, because you wouldn't have to hold W the whole time. When we compare sailing to riding from a mechanical perspective, I think sailing needs to function a fair bit differently in order to keep it fun and interesting. When riding a mount, you still have additional things going on like terrain to navigate, enemies to avoid/fight, etc. If you're in the open ocean, you need something more to do than just hold forward, otherwise there's practically no gameplay. I don't know how far it would be sensible to go in terms of adding depth to the sailing mechanics, both in terms of gameplay and the engine side. For example, should it be possible to capsize in strong winds if you don't manage the sails right, or would that be too punishing? What about waves, is there a feasible way to add large waves in a game like this? Would that even be fun for most players? I'd enjoy such things, but I'm not sure if I represent the average player. I think simple sailing mechanics would be a good place to start, and a good compromise for the base game.