I know this comment is gonna get a crapload of hate, but screw it, I'm entitled to my own opinion.
Minecraft 'clones' will never be as popular, nor as fun. Minecraft came out before the clones, more people play Minecraft, and because Minecraft is just more popular overall. I seriously don't get why people do that, without crediting Minecraft for the idea. Yes, i DO know that Minecraft was inspired by Infiniminer, but I don't know why these companies are making games that just basically rip off Minecraft. I'm not talking about EVERY game inspired by MC, just a whole lotta them. If someone makes a game that is a cultural phenomenon, you can't expect your game to have nearly as many buyers.
I do love Terraria, by the way. The only thing it has in common with Minecraft is its graphics and basic "build/survive" thingie.
Minecraft is not the first voxel sandbox game. There is nothing to credit. That would be like crediting world of Warcraft for being the first mmo just because it was the most popular.
There's some pretty good clones out there. You have to remember than MC is only first version. There's nothing wrong with someone looking at the first version of something and putting their own spin/improvements on it. If that didn't happen we'd still be standing in front of our car and turning a big crank to start it.
I wish MC had some of the features of the clones!
Minecraft is not the first voxel sandbox game. There is nothing to credit. That would be like crediting world of Warcraft for being the first mmo just because it was the most popular.
It IS one of the first block based sandbox voxel games.
Minecraft did NOT come in 2010 or 11.It came in 2009.
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Hope all of you are having an awesome day!
My awesome dragons!
Take a look at my achievements!
97% of teenagers would cry if they saw Justin Bieber on top of a tower about to jump. If you're the 3% who is sitting there with popcorn screaming "DO A BACKFLIP", copy and paste this as your signature.
Well it's because they saw the success the Mojang and Notch made with Minecraft, saw the money it made and wanted that kind of money for themselves.
There's nothing wrong with making money, it's how you make it that determines if you are doing it the right way or not. Most Minecraft ripoffs are very poorly coded, made and frankly even steal all of the blocks and mechanics in the game, which the developers claim as "their own". It's stealing and copying another's work in hopes of drawing in a quick buck on a guy who can't get Minecraft, but isn't smart enough to know that the knockoffs are bad.
Minecraft wasn't the first sandbox game, it still is the most popular one and frankly the best one (in my and many others' opinions). None of the knock offs really stand up to it in content, quality and originality.
As it has been said before, it's all about being a douche and taking a brand name, copying it, half-baked, and making a quick buck off of it.
Minecraft is such a hit now that a lot of indie developers are making stupid minecraft clones (especially for mobile devices). I mean SERIOUSLY, just type the word craft in the app store and you'll see what i mean.
Minecraft is such a hit now that a lot of indie developers are making stupid minecraft clones (especially for mobile devices). I mean SERIOUSLY, just type the word craft in the app store and you'll see what i mean.
Yeah, one of my least favorite rip offs is not even and app, it's really popular!
Freaking roblox any way...
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I wish I had spelled my name right all that time ago...
Use the Ring Luke, he who controls the Ring controls the raptors~ Dumbledore
Doing something for money is not a bad thing. Michelangelo painted the Sistine chapel for money.
It is when you make no commitment to quality, and you do the absolute bare minimum to get that money that is the problem. If Michelangelo had painted stick people on the Sistine Chapel's ceiling, he would have fulfilled the contract- so why didn't he?
Because he took pride in his craft. He didn't take shortcuts. His goal was not to get more money in his pocket. His goal was to create something breathtaking, something which caused people of the time- and even people of today, to look up in awe and say "wow".
When it comes to Minecraft clones, you have both kinds really.
To further that example- I write software for a living.
Do I just do the absolute bare minimum required to get paid? No. I don't use the software myself except for testing but I still try to make it work as damn well as I can. This cannot be said about a lot of the crap software and games that can be found. A lot of them are priced cheaply for one reason- if you find a .99 cent game doesn't meet your expectations you are unlikely to bother pursuing chargebacks. So it's a game. And it's not about the software quality- it's about tricking people into giving them money based on a promise, not delivering that promise, and counting on them simply checking their losses and moving on while you watch the numbers grow in your revenue. That is unscrupulous and unethical by any measure.
You should be passionate about what you are doing, not passionate about the money you can make from what you are doing.
Doing something for money is not a bad thing. Michelangelo painted the Sistine chapel for money.
It is when you make no commitment to quality, and you do the absolute bare minimum to get that money that is the problem. If Michelangelo had painted stick people on the Sistine Chapel's ceiling, he would have fulfilled the contract- so why didn't he?
Because he took pride in his craft. He didn't take shortcuts. His goal was not to get more money in his pocket. His goal was to create something breathtaking, something which caused people of the time- and even people of today, to look up in awe and say "wow".
When it comes to Minecraft clones, you have both kinds really.
To further that example- I write software for a living.
Do I just do the absolute bare minimum required to get paid? No. I don't use the software myself except for testing but I still try to make it work as damn well as I can. This cannot be said about a lot of the crap software and games that can be found. A lot of them are priced cheaply for one reason- if you find a .99 cent game doesn't meet your expectations you are unlikely to bother pursuing chargebacks. So it's a game. And it's not about the software quality- it's about tricking people into giving them money based on a promise, not delivering that promise, and counting on them simply checking their losses and moving on while you watch the numbers grow in your revenue. That is unscrupulous and unethical by any measure.
You should be passionate about what you are doing, not passionate about the money you can make from what you are doing.
I've made a few games with Stencyl for some people, no one paid me though, and when they offered I refused. Stencyl was fun!
I totally agree, copying isn't bad, it's when you put in barely any work into a copy of, say, Minecraft, to grab some quick cash from Minecraft's success.
People make "copies of Minecraft" because the concept of a randomly-generated, block-based world is a good one, but Minecraft has a lot of flaws. Even if it didn't, it has its own quirks, and as such, it'll never satisfy everyone. You can't just have one game of a given type, because it'll have certain specific qualities that will only appeal to some people. And...no, mods are not sufficient here.
At least, I assume that's the reason. I'm not even familiar with these copies everyone's talking about, so I can't say for sure.
Just to best explain exactly what a voxel is, really- It's effectively the 3-D equivalent of a pixel; a Pixel is a "Picture Element", and a Voxel is a "Volume Element". A lot of Video game engines support voxels.
As a good example, one can look at a mid-90's game, "Blood". This game used the BUILD engine, the same engine used by Duke Nukem 3D, and created by Ken Silverman. One of the features Blood used a lot of was the support for Voxel sprites. A Voxel sprite in terms of Blood is effectively a Sprite that consists of a set of voxels. Another game, using the same engine, was Shadow Warrior, which used them far more heavily, even.
HOWEVER: By definition, Minecraft is not really voxel-based, because Voxels do not have volume- they represent volume in groups, much as a pixel doesn't have a picture, it represents a picture only in groups. Therefore, I don't think we can really call Minecraft "Voxel based"; because while it does have volumetric elements (Blocks) those blocks are not indivisible- instead they typically consist of four textured faces (A Voxel, in contrast, is effectively a billboard sprite of a given size that appears at a specific coordinate grouped with a bunch of others, providing the illusion of depth as much as a picture provides the illusion of a face, person, or landscape.
Minecraft took the existing genre of software toys and surrounded it with basic rogue-like action gameplay and hoarding mechanics, creating a game that you could play 'forever' in the sense that you don't truly beat the game and reach an ending or run out of levels to play.
Just to best explain exactly what a voxel is, really- It's effectively the 3-D equivalent of a pixel; a Pixel is a "Picture Element", and a Voxel is a "Volume Element". A lot of Video game engines support voxels.
As a good example, one can look at a mid-90's game, "Blood". This game used the BUILD engine, the same engine used by Duke Nukem 3D, and created by Ken Silverman. One of the features Blood used a lot of was the support for Voxel sprites. A Voxel sprite in terms of Blood is effectively a Sprite that consists of a set of voxels. Another game, using the same engine, was Shadow Warrior, which used them far more heavily, even.
HOWEVER: By definition, Minecraft is not really voxel-based, because Voxels do not have volume- they represent volume in groups, much as a pixel doesn't have a picture, it represents a picture only in groups. Therefore, I don't think we can really call Minecraft "Voxel based"; because while it does have volumetric elements (Blocks) those blocks are not indivisible- instead they typically consist of four textured faces (A Voxel, in contrast, is effectively a billboard sprite of a given size that appears at a specific coordinate grouped with a bunch of others, providing the illusion of depth as much as a picture provides the illusion of a face, person, or landscape.
Minecraft took the existing genre of software toys and surrounded it with basic rogue-like action gameplay and hoarding mechanics, creating a game that you could play 'forever' in the sense that you don't truly beat the game and reach an ending or run out of levels to play.
Contradicting statements. How can a voxel be 3D but not have volume?
And if Minecraft isn't a voxel based game, then you may want to tell the rest of the internet that they are doing voxels wrong.
Contradicting statements. How can a voxel be 3D but not have volume?
I never said the voxel itself was 3D. I said it was the 3-D equivalent of a pixel, A Volume Element. I never said it was 3-D. Though I am thinking you have made a category mistake by implicating, effectively, that any object existing in a 3-D space has volume, since that is not the case. (Planes, circles, lines, triangles, etc. can all exist in 3-D space and have zero volume)
"And if Minecraft isn't a voxel based game, then you may want to tell the rest of the internet that they are doing voxels wrong."
Thing is, either the "voxels" we see today are not voxels, or the definition of voxel has changed. There is a substantial difference between the wikipedia article and the description of Voxels in textbooks like "Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice" (though perhaps it's own definition has been revised in later editions). So arguably, both are correct- The Build Engine uses the original Voxel definition (again, illusion/representation of volume), whereas games like Minecraft use some weird changed definition where it is no longer an indivisible element, and where the "voxel" really is just a box.
To me though, calling things like Minecraft blocks "voxels" is equivalent to calling tiles in a tile-based game like Super Mario Brothers "Pixels". It just doesn't make a lot of sense in that context. In Super Mario Brothers, except for sprites, nothing is smaller than a single tile, in terms of the data structures. Like in Minecraft- except for entities, nothing is smaller than a full block in terms of data structures- you cannot address anything smaller than a block. However, even so, this doesn't make those tiles "Pixels" anymore than, IMO, this same logic makes Minecraft blocks "Voxels".
I made no mistake. I know full well that 2 dimensional shapes have no volume.
As you said, voxels are the smallest unit and can not be divided. Same holds true in Minecraft. Naturally things had to be done so that we could actually manipulate them for the sake of the game, but fundamentally, it all still holds true to what a voxel is. Each block is a single, indivisible point in space.
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Cast aside your festive doylaks: dragon stuff is about to happen.
Multiplayer is lonely once you understand how it actually works.
Probably due to the lack of culling on the blocks. which is how Minecraft achieves its performance with hundreds of thousands of blocks being generated.
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Cast aside your festive doylaks: dragon stuff is about to happen.
Multiplayer is lonely once you understand how it actually works.
Minecraft 'clones' will never be as popular, nor as fun. Minecraft came out before the clones, more people play Minecraft, and because Minecraft is just more popular overall. I seriously don't get why people do that, without crediting Minecraft for the idea. Yes, i DO know that Minecraft was inspired by Infiniminer, but I don't know why these companies are making games that just basically rip off Minecraft. I'm not talking about EVERY game inspired by MC, just a whole lotta them. If someone makes a game that is a cultural phenomenon, you can't expect your game to have nearly as many buyers.
I do love Terraria, by the way. The only thing it has in common with Minecraft is its graphics and basic "build/survive" thingie.
Cast aside your festive doylaks: dragon stuff is about to happen.
Multiplayer is lonely once you understand how it actually works.
Alpha 1.0.4
Mods.
'Nuf said.
It IS one of the first block based sandbox voxel games.
Hope all of you are having an awesome day!
My awesome dragons!
Take a look at my achievements!
97% of teenagers would cry if they saw Justin Bieber on top of a tower about to jump. If you're the 3% who is sitting there with popcorn screaming "DO A BACKFLIP", copy and paste this as your signature.
I don't think you understand what voxels are... They ARE blocks.
Also, Platnum Arts: Sandbox is older than Minecraft.
http://www.sandboxgamemaker.com/
I actually contributed to it in its early early alpha back in 2008.
Cast aside your festive doylaks: dragon stuff is about to happen.
Multiplayer is lonely once you understand how it actually works.
Alpha 1.0.4
Cast aside your festive doylaks: dragon stuff is about to happen.
Multiplayer is lonely once you understand how it actually works.
Alpha 1.0.4
Use the Ring Luke, he who controls the Ring controls the raptors~ Dumbledore
v Scroll down for great GIFs! V
There's nothing wrong with making money, it's how you make it that determines if you are doing it the right way or not. Most Minecraft ripoffs are very poorly coded, made and frankly even steal all of the blocks and mechanics in the game, which the developers claim as "their own". It's stealing and copying another's work in hopes of drawing in a quick buck on a guy who can't get Minecraft, but isn't smart enough to know that the knockoffs are bad.
Minecraft wasn't the first sandbox game, it still is the most popular one and frankly the best one (in my and many others' opinions). None of the knock offs really stand up to it in content, quality and originality.
As it has been said before, it's all about being a douche and taking a brand name, copying it, half-baked, and making a quick buck off of it.
Yeah, one of my least favorite rip offs is not even and app, it's really popular!
Freaking roblox any way...
Use the Ring Luke, he who controls the Ring controls the raptors~ Dumbledore
v Scroll down for great GIFs! V
I've made a few games with Stencyl for some people, no one paid me though, and when they offered I refused. Stencyl was fun!
I totally agree, copying isn't bad, it's when you put in barely any work into a copy of, say, Minecraft, to grab some quick cash from Minecraft's success.
At least, I assume that's the reason. I'm not even familiar with these copies everyone's talking about, so I can't say for sure.
Just to best explain exactly what a voxel is, really- It's effectively the 3-D equivalent of a pixel; a Pixel is a "Picture Element", and a Voxel is a "Volume Element". A lot of Video game engines support voxels.
As a good example, one can look at a mid-90's game, "Blood". This game used the BUILD engine, the same engine used by Duke Nukem 3D, and created by Ken Silverman. One of the features Blood used a lot of was the support for Voxel sprites. A Voxel sprite in terms of Blood is effectively a Sprite that consists of a set of voxels. Another game, using the same engine, was Shadow Warrior, which used them far more heavily, even.
HOWEVER: By definition, Minecraft is not really voxel-based, because Voxels do not have volume- they represent volume in groups, much as a pixel doesn't have a picture, it represents a picture only in groups. Therefore, I don't think we can really call Minecraft "Voxel based"; because while it does have volumetric elements (Blocks) those blocks are not indivisible- instead they typically consist of four textured faces (A Voxel, in contrast, is effectively a billboard sprite of a given size that appears at a specific coordinate grouped with a bunch of others, providing the illusion of depth as much as a picture provides the illusion of a face, person, or landscape.
Minecraft took the existing genre of software toys and surrounded it with basic rogue-like action gameplay and hoarding mechanics, creating a game that you could play 'forever' in the sense that you don't truly beat the game and reach an ending or run out of levels to play.
Contradicting statements. How can a voxel be 3D but not have volume?
And if Minecraft isn't a voxel based game, then you may want to tell the rest of the internet that they are doing voxels wrong.
https://www.google.com/search?q=voxel&rlz=1C1MSIM_enUS618US618&espv=2&biw=1297&bih=918&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=VCPPVKjEAcG6ggSgp4SABQ&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&dpr=1
Cast aside your festive doylaks: dragon stuff is about to happen.
Multiplayer is lonely once you understand how it actually works.
Alpha 1.0.4
I never said the voxel itself was 3D. I said it was the 3-D equivalent of a pixel, A Volume Element. I never said it was 3-D. Though I am thinking you have made a category mistake by implicating, effectively, that any object existing in a 3-D space has volume, since that is not the case. (Planes, circles, lines, triangles, etc. can all exist in 3-D space and have zero volume)
"And if Minecraft isn't a voxel based game, then you may want to tell the rest of the internet that they are doing voxels wrong."
Thing is, either the "voxels" we see today are not voxels, or the definition of voxel has changed. There is a substantial difference between the wikipedia article and the description of Voxels in textbooks like "Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice" (though perhaps it's own definition has been revised in later editions). So arguably, both are correct- The Build Engine uses the original Voxel definition (again, illusion/representation of volume), whereas games like Minecraft use some weird changed definition where it is no longer an indivisible element, and where the "voxel" really is just a box.
To me though, calling things like Minecraft blocks "voxels" is equivalent to calling tiles in a tile-based game like Super Mario Brothers "Pixels". It just doesn't make a lot of sense in that context. In Super Mario Brothers, except for sprites, nothing is smaller than a single tile, in terms of the data structures. Like in Minecraft- except for entities, nothing is smaller than a full block in terms of data structures- you cannot address anything smaller than a block. However, even so, this doesn't make those tiles "Pixels" anymore than, IMO, this same logic makes Minecraft blocks "Voxels".
As you said, voxels are the smallest unit and can not be divided. Same holds true in Minecraft. Naturally things had to be done so that we could actually manipulate them for the sake of the game, but fundamentally, it all still holds true to what a voxel is. Each block is a single, indivisible point in space.
Cast aside your festive doylaks: dragon stuff is about to happen.
Multiplayer is lonely once you understand how it actually works.
Alpha 1.0.4
Really? Because I do recall minecraft began development in 2009...
Cast aside your festive doylaks: dragon stuff is about to happen.
Multiplayer is lonely once you understand how it actually works.
Alpha 1.0.4