You Dirty Rotten CHEATER!
I'll start off being blunt here. I hate cheating in Minecraft adventure maps! You may or may not feel the same. But I think for many players, cheating is a common practice. Since Minecraft is so easily altered, the player feels it's their right to enter a few lines of command. After all, the world file is in their Minecraft game. They can play a map any darn way they choose. And besides, they must know better than the person who built the map anyway. Right? Listen! This isn't your Survival world. This is my world! I make the rules. Why? Because I know how to make fun happen. You don't. If you did, you'd be playing your world. But instead, you're playing my world. Because you don't know how to have fun anymore. Okay okay. Enough bullying... First off, let's be clear. What is cheating? To make it simple, cheating is entering game commands, typically switching to Creative Mode, so the player can bust a few blocks and bypass a difficult segment of the map. And if I'm honest, I've done it too. Never without a guilty conscience, mind you, unless of course, that part was just too ridiculously stupid ;) But as maps contain higher quality, the trust in the mapmaker should be held. The mapmaker designed the gameplay experience for the player to enjoy. When cheating occurs, it's simply a way of the player declaring to the mapmaker "I don't trust you".
Let's take a glance at maps prior to September 2014. The VAST majority of adventure maps included the generic rule "No breaking or placing blocks". But why is this important to so many mapmakers? And now with Adventure Mode post 1.8, the game has been completely changed. This mode emulates the wishes of the majority of Minecraft mapmakers such at myself. As far as I'm concerned, in that gamemode, anything goes - so long as the player does not type commands. Now before we continue, I'd like to draw your attention to my good friend Ron Smalec (legendary mapmaker) and his video promoting reasons to cheat in Minecraft maps.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tzylb4nPLQw There are many reason I can see why someone may want to cheat in a Minecraft adventure map. Whether they lack the skill, they find a particular part boring, they believe some commands are not working, the mapmaker neglected to test something properly, or even Minecraft itself has a bug that prevents the map from working, players will cheat. And in many cases, there isn't a way around it. Unfortunately, cheating must occur in some instances to finish the map. But I feel these cases are fewer and fewer. First, to understand why cheating is a negative thing, you need to see the map from the perspective of the maker - a creation mindset rather than a playing mindset. A great map is designed to captivate and motivate the player into an entertaining experience. I personally, approach maps like game design. If I create a puzzle or a jumping section or a mob fight, I intend the player to accomplish those segments legitimately. If I thought the challenge would be too much, I wouldn't create it. I'm also looking to inspire other mapmakers. So with new maps, come new ideas. And new ideas are sometimes very challenging. Or, would players prefer a world of the same generic maps and the same traditional puzzles? Players need to keep in mind that there is no perfect map. There are always 100 better ways to do something. But what players don't usually grasp, is that the mapmaker has tried their best to give a solid gameplay experience. Sometimes comments can be very harsh. Players can be angry and make personal attacks against a mapmaker simply because they felt the design was not a good fit for them. And many times, mapmakers miss the mark. Intention is there, but it doesn't come off at all as they had hoped. Minecraft is a sandbox, but it doesn't mean when someone makes a creation from their sandbox, players are free to trample all over it. So keeping this in mind, here are 5 points from the other side of the iron bars:
1. Don't Break My Map! Most importantly, maps are fragile. So much can go wrong with them. Maps can be tested 100 times and down the road, someone will always find some mysterious bug the maker didn't think of. Gone are the days of miles of wiring and BUD switch maps. Command blocks have taken over, and by God, with the freedom of Creative Mode, every player thinks they know what's best. Players are typically not mapmakers. And even when they are, it's very easy to get lost in another mapmaker's command blocks. It's highly probable that if a player breaks a few blocks to move on, this ignorance can confuse a player from the proper direction of the map or worse, result in something game-breaking. When it comes right down to it, there's always a way to cheat a map. But cheating can literally stop the map itself. Avoid this possibility and trust the maker. 2. Accomplishment Is Its Own Reward By far, the most common reason players use to cheat, is to bypass something difficult. Granted, many maps are unfair. But more and more quality maps are coming out. With quality, comes a better gameplay experience. That 's really all we want. Mapmakers want to give players an amazing experience. Part of that experience is the feeling of accomplishment. Yes, something is going to be difficult. Perhaps it is simply beyond the player's ability. But what if? What if the player actually DID make that rage-quitting jump? What if the player actually DID solve that impossible puzzle? A proud moment! These are the moments mapmakers want the player to experience. No rules means no value to the goal. Boundaries are there to enhance the experience not stop it. Think about it. Would you feel better about yourself if you legitimately solved a Rubik's Cube, or if you ripped all the stickers off and stuck them back on according to the answer? Both ways lead the same result. But which journey is more meaningful? Trust the maker. 3. The Stupidity of Level Design When you stop thinking of Minecraft maps as block-by-block creations, and start thinking of them as actual games, it will shed some light on the idea of level design. If a puzzle exists in a map, there could be a hundred reasons why logically it wouldn't actually exist. But with level design, obstacles are an absolute necessity, otherwise the game is uninteresting. A player may think "it's stupid", but it's an idea from the mind of a creative person trying to create something fun. The intent is to simply challenge the player and give them an interactive experience. I don't believe for a second that all those strategically placed handholds would realistically exist around the castles in Prince of Persia, but they are there for the challenge. Why does Samus only get minor upgrades in the beginning of Metroid, when the designer could have just given the player everything in the start? Trust the maker. 4. Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain Do you like magic shows? Do you enjoy illusion? If so, don't touch the redstone! Mapmakers can do some really cool stuff. But the stuff isn't very cool if players know all the secrets. I am by no means saying that mapmakers don't want to share secrets of how they pull off what they do. In fact, most want to guide future mapmakers into the community and teach them everything they have learned. But during the playthrough process, players should respect their role. Mapmakers want to impress players and have them complete the challenges they feel are rewarding. When players look behind the curtain, the mapmaker's role becomes less, the effect is lost and the reward isn't meaningful. The player doesn't get to truly enjoy the atmosphere and the map suffers because it lost a part of its value. This may be a little harsh, but honestly, players NEED to leave the magic to the mapmakers. Enjoy the effect, learn about it later. Ignorance is bliss. As my friend Ron explains in the previous video, let the story unfold like a movie. While I see the reasoning, I'd argue this: The player isn't the director. They aren't to go mucking about the set and altering the experience to how they believe the end should unfold. The player is more like the leading role, there for the ride but respecting the vision of the overall experience. This isn't a free-build world. This is a game designed and tested to achieve the goal is has been programmed for. Trust the maker. 5. Edit Away Another big excuse for cheating in Minecraft maps, is for entertainment purposes. I am by no means a YouTube expert. But I feel I have a fair enough grasp of understanding what makes a map entertaining to film. Yes there could be boring parts. Is this really the fault of the mapmaker? If the map is responsible for the video content's entertainment, then only Minecraft channels who play interesting maps would be popular. The truth is, almost all viewers watch channels for the YouTubers rather than the content. I think we all know this. I've seen completely terrible maps become some of the most entertaining videos and I've seen amazing maps have the most boring or obnoxious videos. This is simply because of the personalities of the YouTubers themselves. But furthermore, if bits are boring, and YouTubers lack the ability to keep interest during those segments, the answer is editing. A great edit can make a video the best it can be. No reason to cheat to move on. YouTubers can edit the parts they feel don't work. Editing can be a lot of work, but it's a necessity of any YouTuber. And if cheating is a must, it should probably not be filmed. It takes away from the immersion of the viewer and draws their attention away from the intent of the mapmaker/game designer - ultimately giving the creator a distaste. All in all, it's about trust (have I mentioned that before?). Mapmakers spend countless hours thinking of the absolute best way to accomplish an entertaining experience for players. No one except Mojang/Microsoft themselves can truly prevent cheating in Minecraft. Players who cheat to get past an obstacle don't realize the amount of effort put into the thought process of why it exists in the first place. They don't realize that those jumps were specifically designed to give the player a feeling of accomplishment. They don't realize that puzzle was made because when it is finally solved, both the mapmaker and the player alike will cheer in unison over the victory of beating that stupid thing! So whether or not you agree, at least you have an idea of why mapmakers feel cheating is taking away from the map instead of simply advancing the player.
Remember, it's not about the destination, it's about the journey. Trust the maker. ;)