bstylia14 – Exploring the Possibilities of Minecraft Through DreamSMP

Drama, Conflict, Warfare, and Reconciliation. These are the words that I say in order to keep you hooked on this video, but beyond that, these are the recurring themes in the story of DreamSMP. The popularity of DreamSMP has been steadily increasing since the first launch in May 2020.

While the amazing contents of DreamSMP’s livestreams and videos are entertaining millions of people, to me, it also shines a light on the possibilities of Minecraft. Since the resurgence of Minecraft, the game has been constantly updated with interesting mechanics, structures and mobs for the players to conquer and interact with.

But here lies the problem: With each update players are drawn to the game, they explore and familiarize themselves with the new contents within a month or so, then quickly lose interest in the game and stop playing. Then the next update drops the next year, and the cycle continues.

The new contents added are great, and the upcoming caves and cliffs update is certainly boosting the hype of Minecraft. But we must ask ourselves, are further exploration and conquest updates truly what we wanted? Let’s think for a second, what exactly is the appeal of Minecraft? Is it the simplicity?

Is it the distinctive appearance of a blocky sandbox game? Is it the modding community? Or is it all of them, is it the endless possibilities that appear before you as you first load into the game, not knowing what you’re doing, excited about all the things that you can do?

No matter how many new structures, biomes or dungeons Mojang adds, they can never keep up with the demand of the millions of players in this game. However, I can think of two simple things that Mojang can add to sate the demand of their massive fanbase: Red stone contraptions and building blocks.

These things give players more freedom to build and to create, but they don’t give a purpose. In one of my favorite video essays called a serious critique of Minecraft, Whitelight pointed out a very important issue: Why build these fancy castles and red stone contraptions

When you can survive just fine in a 3 by 3 dirt hut? Sure pillagers do provide a reason to fortify a village, the developers can even add new mobs that forces players to fortify their base. But mobs are predictable, they can be stopped if you can figure out their AI.

But there is one entity in Minecraft, that can plan and perform tasks that requires meticulous calculations and processing. One that is capable of fighting with strategy, and negotiating when necessary. And that entity, is the player. Throughout the Dream SMP warfare, we can see players manipulate, trap, and negotiate with

Each other to get what they want. The conflicts and the drama in Dream SMP is so enjoyable that it draws in millions of viewers including myself. That made me wonder if there can be an update that gives players countless possibilities

And choices, that can either lead to cooperation or conflict depending on the players’ actions. And if there ever was one – I would call it the multiplayer update. Minecraft has been thriving for more than 10 years with a player base of 126 million people.

This means there are countless amount of people of different countries, age groups and backgrounds with different perspectives as to how the game should be. Some people like it simple since it reminds them of their simple childhood, some people

Like it full of dungeons and monsters since they think of it as a game of conquest. For that reason, instead of thinking about the game called Minecraft that we have all came to love and enjoy, I would like all of you to think of what I’m about to propose,

As an update to a completely different sandbox game from an alternate universe. This way, we can explore a lot more controversial ideas without worrying about the game losing its core values, and also it keeps people off my ass. Let’s start by taking a look at arguably the most successful Minecraft SMP server in

History. It’s quite obvious that the drama and tension are the things keeping the story interesting. In the first major conflict, Dream stole one of Tommyinnit’s disc in an attempt to stop him picking fights with everyone in the server. This backfired and in turn Tommy teamed up with his friend to fight against Dream.

Let’s think for a second why the drama started with a disc. Discs are rare items that can only be found in dungeons and mineshafts. They cannot be crafted or farmed. The variations of discs also add rarity to each specific disc.

Now Tommy is an exceptional content creator, and he knows that drama means content, thus he’s willing to spend time fighting Dream in order to get the disc back. However, in a normal setting, a music disc isn’t that important to a player.

It’s a good collection for sure but there’s no real incentives to fight or actively look for it. Now, what if there are loots in mineshafts and dungeons that are just as rare as music discs that provide side benefits to the player holding the item?

Not only does this encourages explorations and adventure in which Mojang has been trying to do for the past few updates, it also makes players fight over them. Think of it as the Rings of Power in Lord of the Rings, the agency of action isn’t the ring itself, it’s greed.

Now, on a larger scale, what causes faction conflicts? In Dream SMP, the town or faction L’Manberg declared its Independence because they wanted a place for Europeans to live in ‘harmony’. Dream then steps in and threatens to destroy L’Manberg unless they forfeit their territory.

Again, this is up played by the brilliant content creators in the server. If L’Manberg truly only wanted independence, they could have chosen to run away to a far away land to start over. Since the world of Minecraft expands infinitely, and the resources are unlimited, there are

Not many good reasons for players to claim territories and fight for a particular location. But what if it isn’t? What if the world of Minecraft is actually round (or square) and eventually with enough player base, the resources can be depleted?

What if the ores underground are not scattered everywhere, instead, they spawn as large ore deposits that can be only be found using treasure maps? This gives players a reason to claim and fight over territories. This can facilitate trades between factions, or conflicts depending on the ways players decide to interact with each other.

Instead of being useless decorations, what if castles and clever red stone contraptions can be used to protect your territory from the barbarians trying to rob your precious resources. The walls are too easy to breach? What if there are blocks so tough that you can only break through it using a drill?

What if there are carts that give you the ability to mount tnt cannons on top of it? I’m geeking out over here just thinking about the possibility of a medieval warfare. This all sounds ridiculous, but it does fit very well into Minecraft’s medieval settings.

One big problem that arise from this, is the fact that players will always try to raid territories when the owners are offline. This can always be fixed using plugins and permissions, but I can come up with a few interesting ideas.

Firstly, what if villagers can now be armed and trained as guards and soldiers, that attacks entities not whitelisted by the owners of the territory? Extra stats can be given to guards and soldiers when there are no whitelisted players around the territory, so as to prevent griefing and raiding during down time.

Secondly, what if you can’t check if a specific player is online or not using tab and commands? What if you can’t see the name tag of the players not in your party? How will all this affect the way players choose to interact with each other? That would be an interesting sight to see.

Now let’s discuss one of the most important aspect of multiplayer: Law and order. In normal Minecraft servers, law and order are enforced through commands and permissions. In Dream SMP, there… isn’t exactly law and order. People are constantly killing each other.

A classic example would be Tommy who joined the server and started killing people so many times that Dream had to teleport him away, which is rendered completely useless when Tommy decide to kill himself and respawn in the original location just so he can do it all over again.

Luckily, peace is restored briefly after Dream stole Tommy’s disc and threatens to burn the disc if Tommy doesn’t behave. Just like real life, Tommy at the start of the storyline represents a small group of nihilistic individuals that griefs and annoys others just for the sake of it.

But unlike real life, in Minecraft, there’s no consequence. You can just keep breaking the rules over, and over again, and the only thing that can stop you is a ban from a moderator. There are two problems with this method. Firstly, it centralize the responsibility of law and order to the moderators.

This means if you are not a moderator of the server, you don’t really have power over a faction or territory. Secondly, anything done through commands takes away immersion from the game, especially plugins. Minecraft is a game with no implied moral values. There’s no punishment or rewards for making the right or wrong decision.

Thus, I think players should have the freedom to decide if they want to be an anarchist or a law-abiding citizen when they join a server. But if they do decide to take part in a society, they should abide by the laws imposed by the owner of that territory.

But how can we enforce arbitrary laws imposed by landlords? For starters, we can add consequences for dying. What if you need to wait for a period of time before you can respawn? Or what if you can’t touch anything for a while after you respawned?

This greatly increases the cost of not listening to the ones with power. Besides that, we can increase the control players have over each other. What if players do not die immediately after being defeated? Instead, they can either be saved, killed, or restrained using the new chain item.

Maybe the restrained players can then be brought to jails, where the jail cells are constructed using the blocks used for the castle walls. Or how about letting players access each other’s inventory either when both parties agree to do so, or when one party defeats the other?

I understand that most of the suggestions above are quite flawed and unbalanced, and I don’t expect it to be implemented without extensive playtesting and balancing. But let’s indulge in this ridiculous proposition and think of it as a thought experiment.

Simply by giving players the power to enforce law and order, players have to be careful as to how they want their society structured. Do they want to set up a monarchical society at the risk of electing a tyrant?

Or do they want to set up a democratic society at the cost of setting up a complex societal structure with low administrative efficiency? This certainly raises many interesting questions. Lastly, we can discuss the potential of a finite world.

A world where resources and land are limited, and no, I don’t mean using world border, I mean a world that is round (or square). Imagine a server with 1000 players daily, and all the players have scattered through every parts of the world. Will there be civilizations just like real life?

Or will there be nothing left in the overworld but lava and debris? Will civilizations be forced into nether or the end to look for alternative resources? From an environmental standpoint, this could be an educational experience for all players involved. Maybe this imaginative version of a completely unrelated sandbox game sound horrible and

Takes away the core of a free and simple sandbox game, but I would argue that in this imagined version of a sandbox game, the players themselves determine how they want to play the game, and the game simply provide the tools for them to do so.

Simple, peaceful, supportive, manipulative, violent, nihilistic, good or evil, the players decide the type of game they want to play. A game that gives players the freedom and tools to do whatever they want, now that to me sounds like a great sandbox game.