MC-121148Polar bears are required in "Monster hunter" advancement, but are not completely hostile
Obtaining the "Monster hunter" advancement requires the player to kill a polar bear, along with many other hostile mobs. But technically, polar bears can only be considered partially hostile, since they're naturally peaceful and only become hostile if attacked (the so-called "passive" mobs). The same happens for wolves, which are not included in the advancement.
As described in this comment in this Reddit post, this is aggravated by the fact that polar bears are a vulnerable population, and as such it is not correct to reward the player for successfully killing them (even if along with other mobs). This can be compared with the removal of the ability to feed parrots with cookies – even if it's just intended to be a joke, and even if it's just inside a videogame, encouraging this behavior in real life must be avoided.
Additionally, from a gameplay perspective it is just counter-intuitive to include such mob in the advancement, and may often require players to look up the required mobs instead of figuring them out on their own. None of the other required mobs are real-life creatures; all of them are fictional to some extent – some, such as zombies or skeletons, can be seen in other fictional universes; some are Minecraft-specific, such as blazes or ghasts; but none of them are real creatures. As such, having a real-world animal be part of the advancement doesn't fit its pattern (at least in it's current arrangement, which may change in the future).
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Polar bears are required in "Monster hunter" advancement, but are not completely hostile
Obtaining the "Monster hunter" advancement requires the player to kill a polar bear, along with many other hostile mobs. But technically, polar bears can only be considered partially hostile, since they're naturally peaceful and only become hostile if attacked (the so-called "passive" mobs). The same happens for wolves, which are not included in the advancement.
As described in this comment in this Reddit post, this is aggravated by the fact that polar bears are a vulnerable population, and as such it is not correct to reward the player for successfully killing them (even if along with other mobs). This can be compared with the removal of the ability to feed parrots with cookies – even if it's just intended to be a joke, and even if it's just inside a videogame, encouraging this behavior in real life must be avoided.
Additionally, from a gameplay perspective it is just counter-intuitive to include such mob in the advancement, and may often require players to look up the required mobs instead of figuring them out on their own. None of the other required mobs are real-life creatures; all of them are fictional to some extent – some, such as zombies or skeletons, can be seen in other fictional universes; some are Minecraft-specific, such as blazes or ghasts; but none of them are real creatures. As such, having a real-world animal be part of the advancement doesn't fit its pattern (at least in it's current arrangement, which may change in the future).
Obtaining the "Monster hunter" advancement requires the player to kill a polar bear, along with many other hostile mobs. But technically, polar bears can only be considered partially hostile, since they're naturally peaceful and only become hostile if attacked (the so-called "passive" mobs). The same happens for wolves, which are not included in the advancement.
As described in this comment in this Reddit post, this is aggravated by the fact that polar bears are a vulnerable population, and as such it is not correct to reward the player for successfully killing them (even if along with other mobs). This can be compared with the removal of the ability to feed parrots with cookies – even if it's just intended to be a joke, and even if it's just inside a videogame, encouraging this behavior in real life must be avoided.
Additionally, from a gameplay perspective it is just counter-intuitive to include such mob in the advancement, and may often require players to look up the required mobs instead of figuring them out on their own. None of the other required mobs are real-life creatures; all of them are fictional to some extent – some, such as zombies or skeletons, can be seen in other fictional universes; some are Minecraft-specific, such as blazes or ghasts; but none of them are real creatures. As such, having a real-world animal be part of the advancement doesn't fit its pattern (at least in it's current arrangement, which may change in the future).
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In line with MC-121148, wolves shouldn't be on the list.
Polar bears are neutral mobs, similarly to zombie pigmen and endermen. The monster hunter advancement requires neutral mobs to be killed.
Why aren't wolves required then? For me it still makes more sense that polar bears are removed from the requirements, rather than wolves added, but either way, there is an inconsistency at the moment.
I agree, videogames, even more so for the young audience, has been proven by studies to be very influencing into their real life, and as environmentalist (including inside MC for the above reason) I find this as some sort of "rolemodel"-example important to be changed as well.
As the OP already said, same goes for Parrots with cookies (chocolate) which had been changed, which maybe some children would have done in real life, as for "parroting" literally the game's content.
Confirmed for 18w30b
Confirmed for 18w32a
Confirmed for 1.13.1.
Still in 18w50a
I'm glad they "fixed" this (really it's a feature request but whatever), but I just want to point out that both Spider and Zombie Pigman are neutral mobs too and their inclusion on the list is intended. So the argument "neutral mobs aren't supposed to be on the list" doesn't work.
The arguments for why Polar Bear specifically shouldn't be on the list are spot on though.