[NARRATOR] Secrets. We all have them. Like how I secretly thought I was auditioning to be in Minecraft. And told all my friends that I was going to be in Minecraft. And now they’re not speaking to me. Greetings. My name is Narrator. They say it takes a village to raise a child. That’s Why it’s actually a good thing that I spent my childhood being constantly abandoned in villages. And I’m Marilla. Also known as Banksy…..I’ve said too much. Let’s talk about Minecraft NPCs. Did you say NFTs? (Laughs) Absolutely not. [NARRATOR] Villagers were added in 2011, but you couldn’t trade with them, And they didn’t even make any sounds. That’s a Minecraft debut almost as pathetic as mine. [MARILLA] Minecraft’s plenty morbid already without a bunch of abandoned towns depressing up the joint. So initially, villagers were added just to make villages a bit more lively. The dilemma we faced was giving villagers something to do That wouldn’t take away agency from the player. Even a lazy, untalented player like myself. A man too lazy to proof-read these scripts before reading lines like that aloud. [MARILLA] To give meaning to their empty lives, we gave villagers the ability to trade with you. Originally, the plan was that you would drop something, The villager would pick that something up, and then throw something new at you in return. The only problems with this trading system were that it was kind of hard to know what you were buying until you received it, and how much it cost. Oh, and the crippling head injuries I suppose. We had to come up with a way of teaching the player how trading worked in-game. But giving the villagers dialogue was an option Mojang Studios never considered. After giving me the ability to talk, they for some reason never wanted to make something that could speak ever again. We considered thought bubbles, like this one. But these proved hard to implement, and we consider circles in Minecraft blasphemy. And, do you really want to have a direct window into the twisted mind of a villager? Some things humanity just wasn’t meant to know. [MARILLA] We eventually figured out trading. And in 2019, introduced the Wandering Trader. Let’s see some early designs. This villager has managed to escape the confines of a village, and explore the overworld. Still a trader though, so I suppose the loving steel grip Of the free market truly is inescapable. Hooray! Let’s see what they’re offering. Anyone wanna trade me a sword, so I can teach this rip-off merchant a sharp lesson? The Wandering Trader’s wares are the result of three design choices. Firstly, They were meant to offer items from biomes that players might not have access to. [MARILLA] Oh, really. This one in the desert tried to sell me sand! And successfully sold *you* sand. Yes well that’s the “fun” of randomly-generated world design. Perhaps you just encountered them in the middle of scavenging sand to sell elsewhere. And I’d appreciate you not bringing up some of my questionable investment decisions on the show. Give me all your sand, and I’ll think about it. Deal! Wandering Traders were also designed to be a way for pacifist players to Buy items that would otherwise be challenging to gain peacefully. Like gunpowder. Because there’s nothing suspicious about a pacifist wanting to obtain gunpowder. Wandering Traders have also become a way of us putting new items in the game that don’t have a final location decided upon yet. So these traders basically travel the world hawking homeless Minecraft items. There are worse ways to make a living. Like what we do. [NARRATOR] Yeah… [MARILLA] To be clear, villagers are not a design compromise. They don’t talk for the same reason they don’t build. They’re a blank, Hrmming canvas. Because we want the players to use them to tell and craft their own stories. [NARRATOR] Like the story I often role-play, where I live in a town full of people that don’t immediately move away when I arrive. [MARILLA] The Village and Pillage Update finally packed the villagers’ lives with purpose, By giving them a wide variety of jobs. Jobs like “butcher” and “fisherman”, you know, the kinds of jobs an elitist snob like myself would never do. I can’t believe we’re not getting another series. We’re so likeable and relatable. Indubitably. Which reminds me – if you’re a villager watching this, get back to work! Hi there, friends! Come to congratulate me on being so much richer than you? No! Stop! Leave my beautiful money alone! I need that to buy more sand! Video Information
This video, titled ‘The Secrets of Minecraft Villagers’, was uploaded by Minecraft on 2022-05-06 15:00:05. It has garnered 823205 views and 44846 likes. The duration of the video is 00:05:41 or 341 seconds.
Hrrm? Hrrrm. Hrrrm! Oh, don’t speak Villager-ese? Sorry! Let us make it up to you with mind blowing revelations about the origins of Villager trading, how we eventually realised it’s wrong to throw things at people, and why the Wandering Trader keeps ripping you off. Hrrrm! We mean, enjoy!
00:00 Intro 00:44 Original NPCs 01:23 Trading 02:32 Wandering Traders 04:19 Villager Jobs
The awesome painting “Skull on Fire” used with permission of and thanks to Kristoffer Zetterstrand: https://zetterstrand.com/