Coterie Craft:(Basically the history of it all and a little bit about myself)
It all started with the
Quandary Texture Pack, created by ExtraNoise, he set the baseline for this pack. ExtraNoise was quite big within the texture pack community, widely known in the days of Minecraft Alpha for "sprucing up the default textures" and his
assortment of seasons, by which changed the grass and foliage color to look coherent to the designated month and/or season type within the year. He would also contribute some of his textures to Rhodox, author of the
Painterly Pack, such as the feather sprite to name one. But not too long after I got my Minecraft account, awarded through an honorable mention in the
2010 WoM Halloween Contest, I felt that his textures could be improved upon, or to at least have them look good in my Minecraft.
Thus, in the late December of 2010, was born the
Best of Quandary Texture Pack. It wasn't much to be honest, but it had a purpose. Apparently ExtraNoise became unresponsive by this time, updates in his pack no longer came... and I decided to step into the scene to some degree. Bonemouse, a major contributor to Quandary for his outstanding mob textures (currently the author of his own pack,
Isabella), supported my work, even if it was made rather simply through the basic mechanisms of "copy" and "paste." But then again it wasn't all that bad, I did some recoloring and knew how to apply smoothness... so I guess it was an 'OK' compilation at the time. Again, bonemouse was supportive and so were other members within ExtraNoise's thread on the Minecraft Forums, I respectfully gained supporters over time and met many great contributors as well as nice people, no longer on the forums now, but dearly remembered.To mention one of these people, with varying fascination towards each one of them, Morgus was the first to comment on my topic. But what was almost ironic about the matter was that ExtraNoise sponsored one of Morgus' comments as a kind of technique in presenting one's own content with words outside your own; he said, "Love it! [...] Many subtle changes while preserving the original atmosphere." Morgus then says to my pack, "Nothing to improve imho. I am using this with great pleasure." (probably using
this version at the time) So I was kinda proud to have that initially positive feedback from the get-go. By this time I had already created my own quandary-style armor models based on the sprites that Quandary had... and it was a good update; bonemouse approved.
Another person I'd like to mention, Axapez! He, along with many other contributors, had presented me with honest, unrestrained and well-appreciated, constructive criticism that helped this pack grow to greater demand. Eventually we joked about this "Axapez standard," whereas he would always have something to say for the better improvement of the pack, always giving me something to do as it would seem, and it was this standard that many appreciated when I upheld it, especially Master7432 and i_r_everyday_azn. As more and more improvements were made, the Best of Quandary Pack became less of a compilation and more of a revival of Quandary, considering ExtraNoise was gone for such a long time. The pack was then called
Quandary Reborn, but the name was only fitting for so long.
Eventually many of my old-time contributors began to fade, but new contributors came in the process, for whom were many fans of Quandary. ExtraNoise also came back after such a long time, and later incorporated my armor models into his newer version of
Quandary, but with much unwanted change, such as his new cobblestone, it had many of his fans find a distaste in the newer Quandary and sought to it that Quandary Reborn would retain the old Quandary as they remembered it.My edits to the pack were entitled towards preserving Quandary, at least to the eyes of those who found my pack with much expectation, then to their disappointment. While many of my long-time contributors looked for ways to improve their Minecraft however way they felt necessary through the constructive criticism that they have always offered, my pack grew apart from the old Quandary look that many had desired and continued to take on a more independent role in fulfilling the needs of others who wanted an improved vanilla Minecraft look, so to speak. Two factions came out of this situation, but there was a way to resolve it.
The name Quandary Reborn was no longer an accurate name for the pack it was, for it had grown more independent as I kept pouring more of my originality into the mix by making all kinds of edits to it's original foundation; all to their liking. Names were debatable at the time, and I tend to be very picky when it comes to names, but we found one that fit. The word "Coterie," by definition, was to represent a group of people who shared a similar interest, such as my fellow contributors at the time, then the word "Craft" was traditional generic for a texture pack name, but it fit nicely when it came together - Coterie Craft.As was the new and current name of Coterie Craft, established in the early March of 2011, fully independent from it's original counterpart with goal to provide Minecraft's "New Default" by improving the gameplay and fervor of Minecraft, the Quandary name, on the other hand, is still a good one but has often been confused and wrongfully ridiculed due to my pack's similarities and surpassing success over time. A similar story can also be said about
Dusty's Textures being used by
Gerudoku, except no one has really given Dusty any noticeable credit for all the item sprites he made, whereas I hope that ExtraNoise's work, along with any other sources that I may use, are credited properly and noticeably, so that they may be supported for their efforts. Moreover, I hope this excerpt on my pack's history will serve some justice in providing evidence to the past and well-being for the future.
Coterie Craft RPG:
Many months before the RPG pack's official alpha release, there was much inquiry and thought towards upgrading the structure of this topic, the project was called the "New OP" as in the "New Original Post." I wondered whether or not I could devise an interactive, eye-pleasing, and well-organized interface while utilizing the BBC code that everyone is entitled to use within the topic creation and discussion on the MC Forums. The process would involve laying out an assortment of images with certain links attached to them at various intended locations, almost like a website page. But in order to this, I had to acknowledge the limitations, such as that the maximum image width for the topic page is 728 pixels and that a row of images had to be within the same height in order to retain seamlessness, so essentially... the layout had to be planned out in a sequence that didn't obstruct itself while being simple enough to maintain over time.But while this design was new and somewhat clever, it wasn't really important, nor was it needed. Information wasn't as malleable when it was condensed into a collection of images linked to one another... nor was it user-friendly to some degree, considering that one would not be able to copy and paste text encoded on a series of images or be able to translate it to their preferred language... it was a total waste of time to begin with.
So instead, I invested my time elsewhere from personal entertainment to texture pack development, but often preferred after all my school projects and AP exams were out of the way, by which was no longer the case when summer vacation began and/or within the prevalence of procrastination.Eventually, my work ethic had reanimated onto the development of Coterie Craft RPG, with equal contribution made by my youngest brother (8 months younger than me), with whom does not orient himself within the Minecraft community and prefers that I do all the talking. Originally, the goal for this new texture pack was to bring a "New Doku," as opposed to the goal of Coterie Craft in bringing a "New Default," but that goal had quickly changed over time in exchange for a more refined sense of eclecticism, a concept that I've utilized whenever I had formulated ideas that would pave the way to progress and concurrent innovations, not always oriented itself within pixel art, but certainly worth a shot.Coinciding with ambition, we did more research on other RPG-oriented texture packs as well as RPG-oriented artwork from certain video games, while considering Doku's work as a foundational standard for most of the terrain.
More importantly, any and all textures that fit the RPG-theme to a decent degree would be improved upon to the greatest of it's capability when it was to be implemented into the pack - never do we want to settle for "copy and paste" compilations, unless the texture was intended as a placeholder, that's the only exception. So when it came down to it, the true purpose of Coterie Craft RPG was to bring forth an eye-pleasing RPG, often through detesting the gloomy and somewhat stale darkness of other RPGs and altering them into a more appealing color palette and design.After making a few more notable touches, such as the inclusion of user-stat gauges(health, stamina, experience), a nice TNT texture and artwork by JunkBoy, it was worthy for a formal release. Coterie Craft RPG, in it's alpha stage, was released on July 5th, 2012. Although this pack feels more like a beta release, I felt it was more necessary to establish it at an alpha stage so that all permissions and criticisms would be notified more smoothly, similar to the early stages of Coterie Craft. Until all permissions have been acknowledged along with the establishment of permanent textures, mainly grass, dirt, and stone, then it should approach beta. Should further development be made, such as the replacement of nearly all placeholder textures for more original ones, then beta will consequently advance to a more stable, official release. Any and all progress that is to be made can be improved upon with the courtesy and honesty of constructive criticism (speak your mind!), as it has always been in the Coterie Craft name.
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