Sra

Original article written by srentiln

History

Sra sits upon the ruins of srentiln's first map simply titled "sren_maze", which had also made it into the hardcore set. The use of the natural cave system and devious hidden pathways that forced players to go against minecraft common sense impressed the maze admin of the time. While deemed worthy at the time, it wasn't long before course runners started finding exploits to bypass just about everything. After weeks spent like a coder debugging poorly written code, srentiln requested his course be removed from the hardcore set and focused on building Savern.

With the addition of the FFA system, inspiration struck. The old map was demolished and reborn as Sra. From the dull gray of cobblestone came a blend of stone bricks and spruce logs and wood. From the beginning, Sra, was designed as a "choose your adventure" style map. With puzzles, a bit of parkour, and mazes, Sra was sent to the catch-all section of puzzle courses. However, the tendency for players to lead each other through a single pathway destroyed the intended vision.

Faced with the undermining of his course's difficulty, srentiln decided it was better to take away the actual choices then to have sections never get used. The addition of redstone circuits to each path branching point now sends each player along a different story arc.

Sra is a map of two interesting firsts for zero: Because the minecraft update that allowed nether travel in Survival Multi-Player (SMP) happened during Sra's construction, it is the first map to incorporate the nether as part of the course. Additionally, it is the first course that was intentionally submitted for addition to the FFA map set before being completed. Even as it sits in the Hardcore set, Sra is not a completed course. The use of an unfinished course is only possible because of the multiple pathway construction of Sra. As a new branch is finished, it is a simple matter of setting up a new intersection where it branches off.

Sra's continued construction allows for the testing of new ideas in a course that is in use rather than in a course that has never been tested before. This grants a unique advantage in comparing course techniques on the fly to get the best feel for the actual difficulty of the concept. It has additionally allowed for the development of new circuits specifically for maze mechanisms.

Rating

While Sra is a difficult course and has earned the prestige of being included in the Hardcore maze set, it has only gained an orange wool rating. While this still places it as a more difficult course, it pales in comparison to the red wool rating of Shri tra Savern. When asked what could be done to improve this rating, yeroc424 replied that it was the short length of the individual sections that held the course back the most.

Future

While jokingly deemed a course that will never be completed, Sra is closing in upon the completion of its final branch additions. The goal of a red wool rating will continue to drive course improvement. Each individual section of the course will be taken and reworked to improve its length and challenge.

Another work for the course planned for the future is to make a copy that does not award maze points. This version of the course will be fully open choice so that anyone who wishes to experience the paths they did not get sent down. Since it is planed for this course copy to not award points, it will likely be a blue+ only course.