They've always been lazy in my opinion, look at what modders can do... And then look at what Mojang does...
They are always on Twitter or playing Minecraft...
My server recently converted to Forge. With only a small handful of mods, the game is finally what it always should have been. We have all given up on the "developers" and have converted entirely to the modding side.
What mods? Does it still feel like Minecraft when playing? That's usually a big problem I had with mods.
They've always been lazy in my opinion, look at what modders can do... And then look at what Mojang does...
Fewer than 40 Mojang people work for Mojang.
Something like 15 million people have bought Minecraft for the PC.
40 versus 15,000,000
Now, if we assume only 1/10 of 1% of those people actually create mods, that's still 15,000 people making mods.
Further, if we consider Sturgeon's Law (90% of everything is crud) and eliminate 90% of those, we still get 1,500 people working on good mods.
We can assume for the sake of argument that Mojang employees spend 40 hours a week working on mods, and player mod-makers spend only a couple hours a day max, 8 hours a week (this accounts for both the people who hack at a mod once in a while and the people who spend every moment they're not asleep or at work/school modding). So in terms of modder-hours, those 1,500 people only really equate to 300 full-time people.
It's 300 people-equivalents versus 40 people.
And then we have to figure that of the 40 Mojang employees, at least 1/4 are working on their two other games, answering phones at the office, and all those other things that go into being a company. So we'll say that they have 30 people working full-time on Minecraft. (even though they don't; it's probably much lower)
300 people versus 30 people.
This is still ten times as many man-hours being put into really good modding as there are into game development. Ten times as many hours. The equivalent of 10 companies the size of Mojang working solely on creating mods. And that's with me making the most generous assumptions possible. Of course there are going to be more, and more extensive, mods -- there are thousands of people working on them, as opposed to a handful adding to Minecraft itself.
There's another factor, too: stability. If a mod doesn't work right, or randomly crashes Minecraft, or does something else annoying, the community response is, by and large, "well, whaddya expect, it's just a mod." If Minecraft itself has a game-breaking bug, approximately 14.99 million of those 15 million people will freak out and scream all over this and other forums, all over Twitter, all over everything, possibly including hiring airplanes to tow banners over Stockholm declaring "U R DUM MC HAZ BUGZ!!!" So the Minecraft devs have a lot more at stake, and need to do much, much more extensive quality assurance testing, than most mod makers.
Furthermore, there's the question of just what someone wants Minecraft to be. One of the reasons there are so many mods is that there are just about as many combinations of preferred mods are there are people installing them. Some people want guns. Some people want bees. Some people want rocketships. Some people want two or more of these. Some people want none of them. If Mojang decides to add, say, guns to Minecraft, they'll make the people who want guns happy -- but they'll really, really tick off all the people who don't want guns. Heck, look at the number of people who had -- and in some cases are still having -- screaming fits about horses in the game. Horses. Farm animals you can completely ignore (or just kill) if you don't like them. And there are people, a year later, throwing fits about the fact that they exist at all. If something as trivial as horses provokes that much anger and outrage, what would a major game change do? Nothing good for Mojang, that's for sure.
As for the "It's their job" line of reasoning: Their job is to produce a game we want to buy. For 15 million of us, they've clearly succeeded. They did their job; we decided we liked the results, and bought it. That's where the transaction ends. Mojang has absolutely no obligation to do anything further for us, for free, if they don't feel like it. None whatsoever. They already made a game, and we already bought the game. It's done. They don't owe us any more programming, and we don't owe them any more money. It's not like an MMO where the publisher collects a monthly subscription fee and needs to do something to justify it (or at least keep people paying). It's a one-time transaction, and that transaction has been completed.
Now, it can be beneficial to Mojang to keep improving Minecraft. It gets more people to play the game. It keeps people playing longer and recruiting their friends to play. It gets people like me to buy Minecraft T-shirts and little plastic creepers and other bric-a-brac, all of which generates licensing fees for Mojang. There are reasons for them to tinker with Minecraft.
But "because they owe us!" is not one of those reasons. They don't owe us anything. And they're not being "lazy" because they're not giving us things for free. "I want!" only works in the toy store, not in the real world. They created a game; we bought it. End of transaction. And the fact that a modding community equivalent to at least ten companies the size of Mojang is turning out all sorts of mods for the game doesn't change that equation at all.
ONE teenager making a mod after High School, producing higher quality and More content in a shorter amount of time makes SIX professional developers look like tools.
THIS is the problem.
Have you tried asking Mojang about it? So far as I can tell, no one ever says anything like this to them, they just ramble about wanting more content.
It's impossible to contact them directly. You can try twitter or reddit, but you have about a 1/1,000,000 chance of getting through due to the sheer number of spam/sucking up posts.
ONE teenager making a mod after High School, producing higher quality and More content in a shorter amount of time makes SIX professional developers look like tools.
THIS is the problem.
Your exaggerations are getting rather stale, you should write new material one of these days. Not that it was funny to begin with though.
It is true that Mojang are undermanned given the size and success of the game but they don't appear to underperform with the resources they do have. Mojang's programmers need to worry about the entire game and all of its sub-systems, modders only need to worry about code and assets relevant to their mod, there is a pretty significant difference there. Not to mention Mojang's programmers have this as a job and thus only work on it at set times (x hours a day, y days a week, with free days or shorter days here and there), while modders may or may not put more hours into their mods each day since it is a voluntary effort.
I second writing to them on twitter or other public web place, by the way. If you feel so passionate about the subject, call them out on it in places they actually read, instead of wasting your time keeping this unproductive, endless loop of a thread going. Your excuse for not doing it earlier reeks of, hmm, laziness maybe?
I'm popping in once more to check replies, but another D@mn bug that is STILL around, and they could of easily fixed or adjusted by now is covering daylight sensors turns them on at like midnight, then off right before dawn. either add moonlight sensors so we can finally have automated streetlights, change daylight sensors so they work as they should, or adjust them so they turn on when covered at dusk before monsters spawn, and turn off right at dawn after monsters, despawn. Its not that hard, and something that should of been fixed a year or more ago.
"Strong Pokémon. Weak Pokémon. That is only the selfish perception of people. Truly skilled Trainers should try to win with the Pokémon they love best."
I'm popping in once more to check replies, but another D@mn bug that is STILL around, and they could of easily fixed or adjusted by now is covering daylight sensors turns them on at like midnight, then off right before dawn. either add moonlight sensors so we can finally have automated streetlights, change daylight sensors so they work as they should, or adjust them so they turn on when covered at dusk before monsters spawn, and turn off right at dawn after monsters, despawn. Its not that hard, and something that should of been fixed a year or more ago.
That is more a design thing than an outright bug. You could write these thoughts in minecraftsuggestions sub-reddit, the Mojang team does roam that place looking for ideas. There's also bugs.mojang.com but this report would probably get closed quickly with "Works as intended".
Then it's called unity of the internet. Which is the same as world peace happening.
Or it's called proper planning. Which I know is a frequent thing on the internet, and yet everyone around here just doesn't seem to care enough to actually make the effort. Why are you guys calling out Mojang for being lazy when you've done pretty much nothing to get their attention from the looks of the threads I've seen?
Or if you're not even willing to do teamwork, at the very least do what that guy with the colored glass did: something unique and frequent that gets their attention because it's something that stands out and happens every day for them.
I think the issue is that people have posted on their threads, but they have either been: A) very rude and viewed as trolling or the team has been defensive about the stuff they have done. The larger issue, is that the team has several Systems developers, but not Content developers. Jeb wears a dozen hats including working on ports and other games. By his own admission, he hasn't added anything to Minecraft in a while until working on the latest underwater blocks. Chances are if you see a new block, it is because Jeb worked on it. That said, people have suggested to them that they need to hire and the response has been that they have hired people (just not content developers) and, much like the Bukkit team's argument, it is hard to find people that are a good fit for the team. That said, it is hard to believe that they couldn't find and hire 1 or 2 dedicated content developers unless they are simply not looking. My guess is that they think expansive content is for the Modding Community to add.
At this point it is just best to expect only a limited amount of new content with the updates when Jeb has time between projects (not talking about systems changes or command oriented changes). The modding community has several individuals who can, and do, a better job at developing content. Even after the mod API is finally released, updates will likely have a significant amount of time dedicated to expanding its' capabilities, rather than a sudden explosion of new biomes, blocks, items or mobs.
I suspect Mojang will be doing more content-oriented updates after 1.8 or 1.9, when all the rewrites are done, lots of bugs squashed and the plugin interface is well on its way or even ready. Adding lots of new stuff to a game that is in the middle of an overhaul can become counter-productive.
Of course Mojang is getting lazy. The latest snapshots had pretty much nothing useful in them. 1.8 is going to be the update that takes the most amount of time to be released, yet it will not contain very much additions.
Of course Mojang is getting lazy. The latest snapshots had pretty much nothing useful in them. 1.8 is going to be the update that takes the most amount of time to be released, yet it will not contain very much additions.
Nothing useful? I'm sure tons of commands would be useful to map makers. Those slime blocks open up a new world to Redstone. Builders are going to love those new stone variants. Lapis Lazuli finally has a decent use. Villager trading is a somewhat decent thing to do now.
And the update definitely seems like it will contain a lot. Jeb has been focusing on underwater content for the past few weeks (New structures, hostile mob, blocks, uses for sponge), Dinnerbone still has some big plan involving Ender stuff, and TheMogMiner has been working on another mob. Then of course there is a ton of code rewrite for optimization and preparation for the Plugin API (Which is why this update is taking so long)
There's nothing to be concerned about in terms of content for 1.8. I'd rather have Mojang take longer instead of a bug riddled update.
Of course Mojang is getting lazy. The latest snapshots had pretty much nothing useful in them. 1.8 is going to be the update that takes the most amount of time to be released, yet it will not contain very much additions.
On the contrary, bunnies, new ocean materials, more commands, an unfinished endermite,new stone, and slime blocks. Pretty intense if you ask me. Although Mojang is still lazy. Ah well they do a much better job than what I could ever do.
Need designs?
Just ask Me!
IGN: wackedmind
They are always on Twitter or playing Minecraft...
Fewer than 40 Mojang people work for Mojang.
Something like 15 million people have bought Minecraft for the PC.
40 versus 15,000,000
Now, if we assume only 1/10 of 1% of those people actually create mods, that's still 15,000 people making mods.
Further, if we consider Sturgeon's Law (90% of everything is crud) and eliminate 90% of those, we still get 1,500 people working on good mods.
We can assume for the sake of argument that Mojang employees spend 40 hours a week working on mods, and player mod-makers spend only a couple hours a day max, 8 hours a week (this accounts for both the people who hack at a mod once in a while and the people who spend every moment they're not asleep or at work/school modding). So in terms of modder-hours, those 1,500 people only really equate to 300 full-time people.
It's 300 people-equivalents versus 40 people.
And then we have to figure that of the 40 Mojang employees, at least 1/4 are working on their two other games, answering phones at the office, and all those other things that go into being a company. So we'll say that they have 30 people working full-time on Minecraft. (even though they don't; it's probably much lower)
300 people versus 30 people.
This is still ten times as many man-hours being put into really good modding as there are into game development. Ten times as many hours. The equivalent of 10 companies the size of Mojang working solely on creating mods. And that's with me making the most generous assumptions possible. Of course there are going to be more, and more extensive, mods -- there are thousands of people working on them, as opposed to a handful adding to Minecraft itself.
There's another factor, too: stability. If a mod doesn't work right, or randomly crashes Minecraft, or does something else annoying, the community response is, by and large, "well, whaddya expect, it's just a mod." If Minecraft itself has a game-breaking bug, approximately 14.99 million of those 15 million people will freak out and scream all over this and other forums, all over Twitter, all over everything, possibly including hiring airplanes to tow banners over Stockholm declaring "U R DUM MC HAZ BUGZ!!!" So the Minecraft devs have a lot more at stake, and need to do much, much more extensive quality assurance testing, than most mod makers.
Furthermore, there's the question of just what someone wants Minecraft to be. One of the reasons there are so many mods is that there are just about as many combinations of preferred mods are there are people installing them. Some people want guns. Some people want bees. Some people want rocketships. Some people want two or more of these. Some people want none of them. If Mojang decides to add, say, guns to Minecraft, they'll make the people who want guns happy -- but they'll really, really tick off all the people who don't want guns. Heck, look at the number of people who had -- and in some cases are still having -- screaming fits about horses in the game. Horses. Farm animals you can completely ignore (or just kill) if you don't like them. And there are people, a year later, throwing fits about the fact that they exist at all. If something as trivial as horses provokes that much anger and outrage, what would a major game change do? Nothing good for Mojang, that's for sure.
As for the "It's their job" line of reasoning: Their job is to produce a game we want to buy. For 15 million of us, they've clearly succeeded. They did their job; we decided we liked the results, and bought it. That's where the transaction ends. Mojang has absolutely no obligation to do anything further for us, for free, if they don't feel like it. None whatsoever. They already made a game, and we already bought the game. It's done. They don't owe us any more programming, and we don't owe them any more money. It's not like an MMO where the publisher collects a monthly subscription fee and needs to do something to justify it (or at least keep people paying). It's a one-time transaction, and that transaction has been completed.
Now, it can be beneficial to Mojang to keep improving Minecraft. It gets more people to play the game. It keeps people playing longer and recruiting their friends to play. It gets people like me to buy Minecraft T-shirts and little plastic creepers and other bric-a-brac, all of which generates licensing fees for Mojang. There are reasons for them to tinker with Minecraft.
But "because they owe us!" is not one of those reasons. They don't owe us anything. And they're not being "lazy" because they're not giving us things for free. "I want!" only works in the toy store, not in the real world. They created a game; we bought it. End of transaction. And the fact that a modding community equivalent to at least ten companies the size of Mojang is turning out all sorts of mods for the game doesn't change that equation at all.
Have you tried asking Mojang about it? So far as I can tell, no one ever says anything like this to them, they just ramble about wanting more content.
If you are planning to make a suggestion, please read this.
If you want to know more, you can read this.
For those who complain about post-Beta generation, you might want to see this.
What if everyone did it at once?
If you are planning to make a suggestion, please read this.
If you want to know more, you can read this.
For those who complain about post-Beta generation, you might want to see this.
Your exaggerations are getting rather stale, you should write new material one of these days. Not that it was funny to begin with though.
It is true that Mojang are undermanned given the size and success of the game but they don't appear to underperform with the resources they do have. Mojang's programmers need to worry about the entire game and all of its sub-systems, modders only need to worry about code and assets relevant to their mod, there is a pretty significant difference there. Not to mention Mojang's programmers have this as a job and thus only work on it at set times (x hours a day, y days a week, with free days or shorter days here and there), while modders may or may not put more hours into their mods each day since it is a voluntary effort.
I second writing to them on twitter or other public web place, by the way. If you feel so passionate about the subject, call them out on it in places they actually read, instead of wasting your time keeping this unproductive, endless loop of a thread going. Your excuse for not doing it earlier reeks of, hmm, laziness maybe?
That is more a design thing than an outright bug. You could write these thoughts in minecraftsuggestions sub-reddit, the Mojang team does roam that place looking for ideas. There's also bugs.mojang.com but this report would probably get closed quickly with "Works as intended".
Or it's called proper planning. Which I know is a frequent thing on the internet, and yet everyone around here just doesn't seem to care enough to actually make the effort. Why are you guys calling out Mojang for being lazy when you've done pretty much nothing to get their attention from the looks of the threads I've seen?
Or if you're not even willing to do teamwork, at the very least do what that guy with the colored glass did: something unique and frequent that gets their attention because it's something that stands out and happens every day for them.
If you are planning to make a suggestion, please read this.
If you want to know more, you can read this.
For those who complain about post-Beta generation, you might want to see this.
At this point it is just best to expect only a limited amount of new content with the updates when Jeb has time between projects (not talking about systems changes or command oriented changes). The modding community has several individuals who can, and do, a better job at developing content. Even after the mod API is finally released, updates will likely have a significant amount of time dedicated to expanding its' capabilities, rather than a sudden explosion of new biomes, blocks, items or mobs.
This would have to count to in that case, from page 5 of this thread:
Nothing useful? I'm sure tons of commands would be useful to map makers. Those slime blocks open up a new world to Redstone. Builders are going to love those new stone variants. Lapis Lazuli finally has a decent use. Villager trading is a somewhat decent thing to do now.
And the update definitely seems like it will contain a lot. Jeb has been focusing on underwater content for the past few weeks (New structures, hostile mob, blocks, uses for sponge), Dinnerbone still has some big plan involving Ender stuff, and TheMogMiner has been working on another mob. Then of course there is a ton of code rewrite for optimization and preparation for the Plugin API (Which is why this update is taking so long)
There's nothing to be concerned about in terms of content for 1.8. I'd rather have Mojang take longer instead of a bug riddled update.
They have to deal with corporate stuff that mod makers do not. They have to deal with getting sued over things like endermen.
They started taking community ideas recently and look what we are getting: New mobs, Bunnies, tons of commands, new world options.
They are just taking time to unsure quality.
Plus they have other games too.
1) Scrolls
2) Cobalt
3) Cliffhorse