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Bookshelves are unexciting. Let’s fix that

In this post, I want to discuss some ideas I have for reworking bookshelves in Minecraft. Admittedly, bookshelves are not broken or internally inconsistent at all – they work perfectly fine – but there is still room for improvement.

  • Change the bookshelf recipe to one that does not include books – for example, six wooden planks and three wooden slabs. Make the bookshelf craftable in all six wood types, and introduce different textures accordingly.
  • Add a GUI to bookshelves. When opened, the GUI should have three item slots that the player can fill with one each of a book, an enchanted books, or a written books. (Newly crafted bookshelves would be empty.) The texture of the bookshelf should change according to the number of books inside it, much like a brewing stand.
  • Each slot of naturally spawned bookshelves (found in village libraries, stronghold libraries, and woodland mansions) should now spawn with either nothing, a regular book, or an enchanted book (all enchantments equally probable, any level of the enchantment equally probable).
  • The number of enchanted books included in the bookshelves surrounding one’s enchanting table should have a positive effect on the probability of getting multiple enchantments on any item enchanted at that enchantment table.

These changes would have an impact on several things in Minecraft.

  • Builders would enjoy having the texture of bookshelves change in accordance with the wood type used, because it would make bookshelves fit better into a wider range of builds.
  • Exploring would be positively affected. Imagine the thrill of searching a village’s library for enchanted books to steal! And finding a stronghold library would turn into a veritable treasure hunt for enchanted books as you rummage through each bookshelf with hopes of getting something amazing.
  • Enchanting would also be impacted. With the above changes, creating a good enchanting setup would become a gradual process of adding more and more enchanted books to your bookshelves. This would give a use for enchanted books that a player might otherwise find useless. And in return for the effort, a late-game player would be much less likely to be disappointed by their enchantment sessions.

Thank you very much for reading my idea!

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  • 113
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    You could also get books, some readable, some not. There would also be very rare guide books for lucky players.

  • 27
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    @GoldenGamer9870 That sounds interesting, do you mean you could put written books inside bookshelves as well?

  • 51
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    MacchuPicchu96, First, I love this idea. However, I'm a little confused about the interface your suggesting. So, if this comment is what you are suggesting, please disregard... with the exception of the changing texture based on number of books, which I don't think you mentioned. 

    What I am envisioning is an empty bookshelf with all wood variants as you describe that has a UI similar to that of the dropper and dispenser (which is the portion that I think is a little unclear).

    The empty bookshelf could have two rows of three empty slots, to correspond to the two "shelves" visible on the current bookshelf texture, or maybe it could have three rows of three instead because that UI already exists in the game in the form of droppers and dispensers.

    This is the part I think might be an addition to your post --> The texture of the block could change slightly based on the number of books, enchanted books, or other written books in the bookshelf. That way a library full of books would look different from a library without any books, which could further allow builders to make their builds more detailed and immersive. Minecraft has a few examples of blocks that change texture based on items in the UI, most notably, the texture of brewing stands with and without bottles, and the texture of furnaces showing or not showing flames.

    Finding the random enchanted books in a library as you suggest could be as simple as opening the UI and actually searching through the books in the bookshelf, or breaking the bookshelf with an axe, which would drop all of the books therein.

  • 26
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    @LawPilot First of all, thank you so very much for the detailed feedback!

    So, for my original post, I initially felt that discussing the texture this in-depth would be a distraction from the real material. However, I was indeed envisioning a texture similar in style to the brewing stand, whereby the textures would be slightly different depending on if the bookshelf has one book, two books, three books, or is empty. By extension, perhaps each slot in naturally generated bookshelves should have a chance to spawn empty, which would vary the look of naturally generated libraries a fair bit.

    The GUI as I imagined it would consist of nothing more than three slots, each of which hold exactly one book. This is simply to parallel the current crafting recipe for bookshelves, and so as to not drastically affect the cost of making a full enchantment setup. I'd be open to arguments in favor of a different GUI - it's not the most crucial component of my post.

    Again, thank you so much for the feedback. I'd very much value this kind of feedback on my other ideas if you happen to have the time.

  • 15
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    I like this, with a few edits.  It should initially be two empty shelves, and it can be filled with items.  There could be 4 items per shelf, one in each corner.  The items would lay flat on the shelf, and it would work like an item frame.  A book placed on the shelf would look like a section of bookshelf.  An enchanted book would have the purple sheen.  Same for a written book.

  • 8
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    @BilboBaggins Thanks for the support! Your items idea sounds hard to code but it would be pretty cool to have. I'm also okay with an enchantment gleam for enchanted books but the reason I didn't add it in the original post is because brewing stands don't glow when they are full of real potions, and I wanted to parallel the two as much as possible.

  • 21
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    Also, it defeats the point of hidden treasures if you can easily spot them just by looking at the bookshelves. As for their use in enchanting, what if books with a specific enchantment on them, when placed in bookshelves around the enchanting table, increase the odds of that enchantment showing up? This would give a viable method for something that players have wanted for a while, a way to control the enchantments they get, and since it takes a long time to reach that goal, it fits in well with game progression.

  • 10
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    Aaron, thanks for the reminder about the enchantment glow, that was indeed the initial reason I didn't add that in.

    I do like your other idea; however, it sounds a bit hard to code in. Also, by the time someone has enough enchanted books with, say, Sharpness on them, it seems to me that they no longer would need to get a Sharpness enchant on their next sword, because they already have the books for it. Also, your idea would no longer encourage people to put "garbage" enchanted books to good use in their enchanting setups, as I would like.

    Thank you for all of the excellent feedback on my posts!

  • 4
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    It was a good idea in theory, but you are absolutely right on the points you made. I'm not too sure on it being hard to code, it would just have a count of each enchantment type and base their weights in the random chance on the total count of the corresponding enchantment, but it's a moot point now considering the idea was a bust. I'm fine with the system the way you have it setup anyway, it's very reasonable and gives an incentive to enchant more.

  • 2
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    Nice idea. I love it!

  • 12
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    Adding onto Golden Gamer's idea, I think that some books would actually be logs kept by villagers, which would give us in-depth perspective on a Villager's life. You may also be able to find logs or journals that were left by previous players, the chosen players possibly chosen at a MineCon event. 

  • 22
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    Here's my take on why we need BOOKS in BOOKSHELVES :)

    Bookshelves have been around for a long time. We love them. But their name does not reflect what they do, and what they potentially COULD do, in our game. Let's fix this!

    Bookshelves should hold and store our books for us! Like real bookshelves, they beg to be filled with written books! From an EDU point of view, I have seen that children are more interested in writing into their book and quill when they know they have a safe place for them. We can then create libraries in our game, share our stories, and learn from one another. It could be pretty awesome!

    How could we make this change? It's simple! Our bookshelf doesn't change at all, but when you right-click it, it opens-up an inventory, just like our chests do, but they ONLY accept written books and enchanted books. Yep. It's THAT simple. 

    My prediction? It would be a game-changer for thousands of kids out there with 'written-output' difficulties. I've seen if first-hand. We have used a plugin on our Vanilla servers (and on some of our earlier modded ones) to encourage children to express themselves and become the story-tellers they never knew they were. These books have became archives of their early lives, and their time spent with us here at MCKids. 

    So let's do this ... across all of our Minecraft games. Please :)

    Thank-you!
    Anna 'Momibelle' Belluz
    Vancouver, Canada

  • 3
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    I really like this idea, though I think a good add on would be the option to fill a shelf with bottles too.

  • 5
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    I agree with the different wood idea. The other stuff would also be nice but i am mostly wishing we could use *wood* book shelves to blend in with walls of the same type of wood instead of having to use oak all the time.

     

  • 4
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    Have bookshelfs that power redstone

     

  • 4
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    A bookshelf recipe should also yield more than one shelf. I mean, if you think about it, one bookshelf is the same size as one plank, yet it takes six planks to make one bookshelf? Maybe the recipe should make more like 6 bookshelves, as, even without the books in the crafting recipe, they would still be kind of expensive.

  • 5
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    I came to the feedback site to make a suggestion about Making the Bookshelf Functional, Minecraft wanted me to find out if the suggestion was already made, and here I am.

    1.  On the crafting recipe - no issues with modification suggestion

    2.  On the GUI - My suggestion was going to be that the Minecraft Bookshelves be made functional just like real life bookshelves, in that they can hold things (like books, but also other things).  This functionality would be the exact same functionality as the current Fishing Barrel.  This should be pretty easy to code.....just make a fishing barrel that looks like a Bookshelf!

    Providing this functionality:

        a. allows players to store items in their villagers library that they are using to trade with those librarians.  We currently use either trunks or barrels (barrels LOOK better, but the downside is they get claimed and you have a bunch of fishermen inside your library....we just assume they're reading) to store these items (paper, books, leather to make books, etc), as well as items that we have bought from the librarians (lanterns, etc.), and emeralds that we will likely use to trade with them again.

         b.  allows players to store items in their own library, that would normally be kept in a library/bookshelf....such as enchanted books that we fish out of our pond/sea, Lapis used for crafting, paper used to make books, leather used to make books, etc.

    3.  naturally spawned bookshelves - No issues with this point either, as long as the naturally spawned bookshelves have as many slots as a barrel has.  3 is not enough.

    4. Enchanting Table effects - totally agree with this.  if the current configuration is considered the 'base', and any enchanted books placed around the table increases chances from that base point, then this is a great idea!!

     

  • 5
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    with this idea of individual book placements, perhaps there could be redstone application for it like the lectern. maybe the amount of books within a shelf could output various signal strength or even the individual slots within had different levels of output.

  • 2
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    Я читал лишь саму идею, поэтому все кто её комментировал не судите строго. Я думаю что книжные полки должны иметь от 3 до 5 слотов в каждом из которых можно было бы хранить одну книгу. Когда игрок нажмёт на заполненную полку с неё могут выпасть: часто; книга 1-4, бумага 1-8, перо 3-5, редко; чернила 5-10, книга с пером 1-3, зачарованная книга ( любоё зачарованние ). Насчёт текстуры из разных видов дерева и текстур заполнения согласен. Ещё несколько особенностей; после её опустошения полку можно забрать и перенести не создавая её ещё раз, пустую полку можно заполнить всеми видами книг которые потом можно будет забрать, заполненние и сбор книг должно проходит без интерфейса поскольку тогда полки будут похожи на сундук для книг и особого смысла это не добавит.

  • 0
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    Cool idea, but I really like getting books easily by just breaking bookshelves, and the current texture is fine, but the one you suggest seems wrong. Also, how would the enchantment levels work? Would the shelves need books in them?

  • 6
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    It shouldn't have a gui, that would be annoying and unnecessary. It should act like a composter or something, where you just right click the shelf with your books to fill it, and then again with a empty hand to remove/collect the books.

  • 4
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    It would be really good for map makers and for book storage

  • 3
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    I really like this idea! What if the bookshelves could also hold maps? I’m not sure how that would affect the texture of the shelf though.

  • 6
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    I would LOVE to see this in minecraft. It would be awesome having a place to store books without using chest or shulkers

  • 4
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    The bookshelves should also drop themselves when broken instead of 6 wood planks and 3 books.

  • 7
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    I love this idea! A few things I'd like to add to it:
    I think the GUI should consist of 6 slots (2 rows of 3). This would be for consistensy with the design of the book shelf, and giving the player more storage for their books.
    Regarding Enchanting, you would only need 3 slots to be filled for the full effect, with the other 3 slots just for decoration / storage. (the 3 books could be chosen based on level)
    Redstone wise, I think it'd be really cool for these to give out a signal strength.
    There are 2 ways I have in mind for this:
    1st (probably the most likely) It gives out a signal strength based on how many books are in it.
    2nd It gives a signal strength based on the first empty slot. This would allow for things like hiding secret passages that are revealed by taking out a certain book, which I think would be really cool.
    Also, Hoppers should be able to give and take books from Book Shelves.

  • 10
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    I like the idea of storing books, but I feel like it should be done in a tactile manner, such as how players can put food on a campfire, no GUI required. Just aim at the left, middle, or right of the block to get the desired book. Also, all the planks variants would be nice to have as bookshelves.

  • 6
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    To the people suggesting that bookshelves shouldn't have a UI, that works for Campfires and Armor stands because the items placed on them stand out from each other. Visually there would be no way of knowing which book you're looking at until you've grabbed it.
    That being said, if it worked like Item frames, where it showed the name of the book when you look at it (if it's enchanted or renamed) then that could probably work.

  • 2
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    MacchuPicchu96, Dear sir, I like first of all the idea of different textures for bookshelves depending on wood type. That is a great offer.
    I would like to mention that there are new types of nether wood. Are there any ideas of textures for them?

    Also there is an important issue concerning the slots for bookshelves: for builders it would be much more tough to fulfil the big amounts of bookshelves with books (imagine, you are building a giant library in survival). Maybe, there should be a variant to craft a full bookshelf, using an empty one and three books (of different types)?

    Also, you should mention that librarians sell bookshelves. Do you want to change this somehow?

    And I didn't get the idea of changing the enchantment mechanics. You want the quantity of books impacts on the probability of multiple enchantments. But do you want the enchantment be somehow customizable with the help of books in the bookshelves? Could you clear it once more, please?

  • 0
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    This good idea!!!!!