How about actual terraforming on a bigger scale than placing blocks? Leaving aside the RPG elements, skills, powers and features yet to come…it could be awesome if one was able to terraform a terrain chunk slightly, similar to the landscape building in “Sim City 4”. Adjusting elevation, climate and creating water out of thin air 😉
You could tie this to mechanics like a power, a certain prerequisite or even as an upgradeable feature of the beacons.
Generally I like the idea of starting low with the Minecraft-ish mechanics, but with increasing powers, skills, xp, time (whatever you have in mind here) the building mechanics could become more comfortable and allow more adjustments. Creating shapes, maybe even saving objects for copy & paste, terraforming, weather…
In MC and similar games people are limited by their creativity. Well, though creativity is a great thing, *everything’s* been built eventually – I think there should be a *progress* in both, the ideas what to build but also the mechanics tied to the building procedures. Just a thought.
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