yay! new account! lulz
anyway, hope no one takes this the wrong way, i know everyone has their preferences on play style and progressions etc. but, you've all downloaded someone else's work, a pack that is designed to be a challenge, that takes a level of mod understanding to really "get" the pack. The beauty of minecraft mods is finding a way around the problems, why not stop crying about not being able to make grout/silky jewels and just go explore the city as the pack intends? too hard to dominate the whole city in one run through early game? that seems to be the point! why would you want to make the pack so easy that you can beat the whole quest tree in one sitting? (i know im not the only one lame enough to sit down at my PC for 18 hours worth of minecraft). it seems like many are missing out on the fun of trial and error, they want everything to work the way they want it to work. like i said, the beauty of mods is finding a work around for a problem, so find a work around! go grab some early smeltry stuff from the city and then dupe out your seared bricks with cobble and seared stone. no biggie. you get the challenge (operative word, this pack is supposed to be hard for f***'s sake) of exploring the city to find the beginnings of a smeltry in the late-early game stage, and can move on from there with no issue. if you die exploring the city, you must need to re-evaluate the plan. if all you want is tech progression, whats the point of playing a pack that's equally about survival as it is advancement. why not play monster or some ATlauncher tech pack?
to summarize, if the plan you had doesn't work out, get a new plan, (in my best red foreman voice) "dumb*ss".
not trying to be a grouch or be insulting, but man, if you dont like the pack, dont play it, or go make your own! then you'll have total creative control and you can stop hassling this guy for trying to make a unique and challenging minecraft experience, when all you really want is for all the things you did to make the game easy in Beta builds to still work. If this was the first release, you wouldn't even know any better. SO WHAT if progression takes longer than you wanted, you're a minecraft geek just like me with nothing better to do than spend endless hours playing the game. If you really enjoy it, the length and difficulty should be something that adds enjoyment. (insert back in my day you couldn't save your game and dying meant starting over reference here, yay nostalgia, boo cheating)
I for one hope even more changes are made in 1.1.3 so i HAVE to reevaluate my early, mid, and end game strategies. Not like i didn't have to do it a dozen times already. Learning what works and what doesn't is part of the fun for me.
Anyway great work with the pack dev(s). I hope for everyone on here that is crying over the difficulty there is at least one person who is actually enjoying being challenged in minecraft for once.
If i get blackballed from this forum for this, so be it. toodle-oo!