Now, please understand, I am NOT raging. I am NOT qq'ing. I love MC, and in 3 months have probably spent over 300 hours on it (at least) enjoying it greatly. My views here are purely speculation, and speculative fears of what COULD happen, and what I do not wish to happen (of course).
Now, let's be blunt. The game since the halloween update has been in all senses, a mess. The lag, the light bug, leaf decay (which is finally working, yay!), and all that fun stuff. Not only this, we basically got given half-assed updated. Nether! Cool! Oh, right, forgot to tell you guys at the last very second, the Nether won't work on SMP and yea... I MIGHT add it in before release of the game. Or the removal of torch decay, and mob depth difficulty, and hasn't been heard about since.
Then there's all the updates as of recent (which is to bring the game to beta, a more stable version) and instead of doing this, it caused a whole slurry of problems and bugs, so many of which if you simply played for 20 seconds, you would SEE these bugs. This HORRIBLE (non-existent) lack of testing of Notch's own work has really put me in doubt in his capabilities. I am not insulting him, bugs will happen, it is beta, etc etc, yada yada.
But come on... he does not test his work for 5 minutes, or get another staff member to do so, so he can fix these issues right there instead of releasing a buggy, screwed up version that will just **** off 800,000+ people because HE was too lazy to test the damn game for five minutes. That's a terrible way to run a game such as minecraft, which is getting to the point of my post.
Notch can't handle it. He built minecraft as a hobby, never expecting it to become huge. He expected to sit back and chill, do his thing at his pace and fix his bugs as he went along sharing it with a few thousand people who played, nothing serious... and now it's a massive multi-million dollar business, and he is still treating it like just that: a hobby.
I ask you now, why is it when he has accumulated over THIRTEEN MILLION DOLLARS(!), he has no other programmers? Why is the only other programmer he has hired, working on ANOTHER GAME entirely, when Minecraft clearly is the money maker?
I have been looking at the mods like Mo's creatures, and various other mods, and go 'holy ***t these people are f'ing brilliant! Minecraft would be amazing if Notch worked with them!' but no. I have seen modders openly offer to work with him and provide him their work, to help him without any cost or such, saving him so much time and effort, and making minecraft so much more magically, yet... he refuses. From what I have seen of his views it's basically like this.
'No. This is MY Game, I want to do everything MY way, and no one else can touch it!' and I don't mean that childishly. I mean he hasn't, or rather won't realize he is hurting his game by refusing. I understand SOME mods' would not work at all. But things like hey0 have proven INCREDIBLY popular because it OFFERS versatility, it offers features people yearn for, but are not game altering.
I ask you why... why does he not have at least 2-3 programmers working on minecraft while he directs their efforts? He has the money. Even at say 50,000$ a year each, that's not even TICKLING his funds at all...
I see this ending in three ways:
- Notch snaps out of this, and realizes finally this is a big thing, he has to take a step back and prioritize himself, and his way of running Minecraft.
- He continues this poor, sloppy path and we continue to hope he stops and improves.
- Minecraft is sold to a big company, who then turns on us and stuffs fees down our throats for 'expansions', and commercials minecraft, ruining the charm it once had.
And yes, I know the 'fanboi's' will come screaming 'OMG, LIAR, WHINER, ETC ETC ETC' and kiss notch's ass like it's gold, but all I ask is everyone who reads step back, look at this scenario, and think about it logically, understand where my fear is coming from. I will continue to hold my hope this is just that, a fear and not a reality to come.
P.S
Sorry for the messy write, kind of a off the top of my head slap-down :tongue.gif:
Dude, just appreciate the game. It's still great, is it not?
I never said I didn't appreciate the game, so please read my views properly, as I never stated I didn't, I clearly stated I DO enjoy it, and I am playing it as I speak. :smile.gif:
I think everyone will be dissapointed with the final product.
Once Notch steps back and says "It's all done guys and girls", people will suddenly realise not everything they wanted the game to be has materialised.
Come January, he should be on the home straight. His company is all setup and he should be refreshed from Christmas/ New Year. I wouldn't be surprised if this game hits final release in 2 to 3 months (Yes there are sure to be a couple of patches after that).
Have a bit of faith in the man, but not in your own expectations of what the finished product may look like.
See, you can be disappointed with Minecraft at release, but it's not done. Minecraft will continue to have content added, and mods will continue to add more and more to the game, meaning if there's something you wished was there, it will very likely be there eventually :smile.gif:
I truly hope he does go 'ok! Let's get the ball rolling!' and throws down, hires a few programmers, and hammers out the game at a terrifying pace. I truly do hope.
I have 0 expectations in what the finished product will be. I never stated any views, so you're reading something wrong. :tongue.gif:
I was just about writing a post like that...
I see what you mean and understand you.
Ive never seen so much potential to a game as MineCraft has, and it seems Notch doing nothing about it.
I understand that its Christmas but couldnt he even write something about it in his blog?
I realy hope that Notch will make all these new updates that will both fix bugs and add new things to the game, but I start to think that it will never happen.
Notch, please surprise us for good :smile.gif:
We believe in you!
Exactly! Minecraft has the potential to become something never seen before, some of legends if done right. Something that 50 years later when you're an old person, you'll remember it fondly as something you loved and enjoyed for many years expressing your creativity and imagination with friends and enemies alike.
He will do updates. Problem is, how fast, will they destroy the game again, and will he continue to do sloppy, half finished updates... :sad.gif:
for you OP. Take a stroll through the mod section, i can see at least 4-5 that could be rolled together, trimmed and sent with an update.
as for the end product not looking like we want? one word...MODS.
just get us to that point, we'll take care of the rest notch.
Yep. Well, Mods should stand alone, I meant some of the CONCEPTS in mods should be basic game functionality. Mods should add or change things to peoples taste. Hey0 is a good example of things that should be base in game, as it doesn't deter or change anything of the core, but offers versatility which is always good.
I agree as well, I feel Notch just isn't professional. He talks about playing black ops on his twitter, he always put things off until the next day and always gives us false hope of things to come.
I read this whole forum and every single post in it. I just hope Notch pulls things together, or else I'll have to play my ps3 full time, because as of now, nothing is getting done.
Well, time for red dead redemption :S/
Yep. He didn't expect to become the head of a huge company, and he still hasn't stepped up to that role. That false hope is especially annoying to me... he treats his job like a hobby still, which is my main problem :/
All we can do is have faith he'll snap into it and step up!
I've had all the same thoughts, Sabby, and yes you're basically right, and we can only hope that Notch will eventually pull everything together (I'm sure with enough time anything is possible, unless he just cuts and runs)
I highly doubt he would cut and run. That would be INCREDIBLY stupid. Who would cut and run from a million dollar game? I mean... really. x.x
umm, when you purchase a game, no matter the quality or level of completion, you are INVESTING into that company. when you buy a product, such as toothpaste, you are INVESTING within that toothpaste company for them to continue to make the toothpaste you just bought. just sayin.
if we go that route, since the latest beta patch, notch has made half a million dollars...thats $500,000 towards another update? that we still haven't gotten >.> pretty expensive update if you ask me.
Exactly. We are investing our money by buying the product, as we enjoy the product and expect it to continue to improve with the funds we provide, and not stagnate.
With just five easy minutes, he could test his own product, but he doesn't.
You think he hits F5 and then yells "It compiles, ship it!"
You don't think that maybe, just maybe, debugging is harder work than you think?
LOL :tongue.gif: I actually pictured that exact same thing myself :smile.gif: Programmers do that to me (I work in QA, and the stuff we get makes me cry at how horribly buggy it is, like they closed their eyes while doing their brief testing of it before sending it to us).
Dude, just appreciate the game. It's still great, is it not?
It is. However, Notch's quality of work lately isn't. He let the success get to his head. We used to have amazing updates when the game was small, but now, the last good update we got was the Halloween one.
That's exactly it. he's gotten stressed and worn out, he cannot do all of this by himself. He NEEDS help, but he is too stubborn to do so (so far at least), so let's hope he realizes this soon. A crazy Dutch man is a scary sight x.x
so, how long did it take you to figure out that leaf decay slowed your system to the point of stupidity? 2, maybe 3 minutes? did Notch say "wait a tic, leaf decay is broken! halt! we must fix this atrocity!" ...he forced us all to update, and then fixed it 3 days later? 10 minutes of playing the game and having fun would have found the worst bugs. i think someone failed to test.
Ding ding ding! One of my largest complaints. This is GAME BREAKING, not a problem, not an inconvenience, but it totally ruined the game play of nearly a MILLION people because he was too lazy to spend ten minutes of work. Instead, he took a weekend off leaving the game crippled, and ruining three days of fun for over a million people. That is NOT good business decisions, as people will only take so much before they begin to say 'to heck with this' and stop.
IMHO: The OP pretty much hit the nail on the head. Unfortunately, what people don't understand (at least those who aren't software engineers or etc) is that this was indeed a hobby originally. And any coder of ANY SORT worth his salt re-uses code. He re-uses as much code as he possibly can.
Then, a designer(or some random person on the forums who thinks of themself as such) comes along at the later stages of development and says "Why is adding a new feature like this taking so long and introducing so many new bugs?". Simply put, it is because the original code-base was never meant to do any of these new features.
You see, a coder(indie or otherwise) focuses on *features*. As much as you may say "but he's a designer, who also codes", I answer "no, he's trying to do it all". Because he is. And it is completely understandable, as he is an indie dev.
But then, he made 13 million dollars.
So we have these two groups of people; coders, and designers. Obviously, he's combined them into the single role that is himself. Sure, he's looking for dedicated testers, but who's going to re-write code? Him. And is he going to do it? No, because as I stated, he's a coder, and he will re-use as much code as possible. A few tweaks to some code != a re-write. That, combined with the fact that besides people on the forums there is no one to tell him what's wrong and why, and that he has no one to co-ordinate all this info, and that he is likely using A TON of old code not meant to do what it *is* doing, has caused these problems.
And it can all be fixed by hiring a team of a few software engineers, a designer or two, and a team leader all working together to re-write the original code-base so that he's not dealing with welding scraps of code into an old base. And when you CURRENTLY have made 13 mil+ at a BETA stage, that is no problem whatsoever.
Brilliantly well said. Brilliant and informative. :smile.gif:
And it can all be fixed by hiring a team of a few software engineers, a designer or two, and a team leader all working together to re-write the original code-base so that he's not dealing with welding scraps of code into an old base. And when you CURRENTLY have made 13 mil+ at a BETA stage, that is no problem whatsoever.
If I were him that's exactly what I wouldn't do.
The game has sold close to 1 million copies. The overwhelming majority of these customers will never ever pay Notch another dime due to them either being Alpha customers or simply losing interest if they happen to be Beta customers.
How many more copies can he sell? Well, that's unknown, but what is known is that at some point market saturation is reached. Minecraft was nicely hyped up in public and social media, which lead to a bunch of sales. There won't be another Minecraft story in the media that will equally lead to another 1 million sales, the story has played out. Now it's down to advertising and some word of mouth.
Because of the buggyness and it being Java he won't get a deal with say Microsoft or Dell to distribute the game with the OS or hardware. For the same reason and due to licensing he can't get it into Lolnix distros.
Bottom line is that it may very well be that the income stream has peaked and going out now and spending the money on a new team is completely unnecessary and really ill advised. From a business perspective he may be approaching the point where he simply releases the code into the wild and walks away from it before it eats up all his profits. I know that's something I would seriously consider.
Your logic is completely and utterly Flawed. Why?
Well... you're assuming that only sales will=revenue. With the rise of micro transactions, minecraft is a prime candidate for just that. That includes expansions. Say 25$, and 500,000 sells. Do the math, one per year. Not counting other revenues of financial gains.
Entirely unrelated but dang, Saby, you're on a roll. When I'd first posted I'd wondered if you were coming back to the discussion. I guess that answers that question! :smile.gif:
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This forum ticked me off so much I went to random.org and set my password to something I'll never be able to remember, then switched my password reset to a throwaway.
Throwing Wiki links at me means it's right... correct? It will slow production in the short term, but in the long term, it will be required.
I'm just questioning the patience of the complainers. Someone else here mentioned that Notch had hired an art person in October and we haven't seen anything... it's been two months.
And yes, the rest of your post is a fanboi trollfest
I could say the same (well, the 'trollfest' part) of your initial post. I'll thank you to leave name-calling out of this.
To your first point, pixel art that is block based really wouldn't take too much 'adaptation' to begin work on, especially seeing that guys incredibly complex work, minecraft blocks are laughably easy. We hope he is simply working on stuff behind the scenes for the future though.
And you were launching a personal attack on me in the second half your previous post, so it wasn't 'name calling' rather stating facts from what I saw :smile.gif:
Entirely unrelated but dang, Saby, you're on a roll. When I'd first posted I'd wondered if you were coming back to the discussion. I guess that answers that question! :smile.gif:
Hahaha, was up late posting this last night, woke up, ran out to work, got stuck on a bus that crashed, and got home an hour ago and popped by to see THREE bloody pages of posts >.< finally done!
And you were launching a personal attack on me in the second half your previous post, so it wasn't 'name calling' rather stating facts from what I saw :smile.gif:
Nah, a personal attack would be something along the lines of "You lie, make shoddy work, and don't bother checking it" :wink.gif:
Edited to add: I do mean this mostly in jest; upon re-reading my initial post I was a lot harsher than I meant to sound. I'd mistaken you for one of the 'notch is lazy' brigade when you're more leaning toward 'notch is in over his head'
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This forum ticked me off so much I went to random.org and set my password to something I'll never be able to remember, then switched my password reset to a throwaway.
I didn't have to read it at all, as the sarchasm you fell into is applicable any time at any place on this forum.
This game costs as much as Bejeweled. Think about that. You get an INFINITE WORLD to do with as you choose.
People aren't getting bored. There's no such thing. There's only being boring.
Boy if we were all like you we'd be pushing our cars around because we'd have only half-finished producing the gas, they'd also be on rock wheels since we half finished the tires, while we're at it the cars would probably just be in our imagination because we half finished designing them.
If you don't get the point, just because the game is good doesn't mean it can't be better. Notch has a couple million dollars to make it better, nobody is asking much.
I understand what the OP is saying, and agree that many things (especially QA) could be done better.
That said, I still have some faith in Notch. Considering, e.g., this blog post, he seems to be learning from his mistakes. I suspect Notch simply wasn't prepared for Minecraft to get as popular as it did, and that the current issues are just a phase until he gets used to it. Only time will tell whether my suspicions were well-founded.
Don't get me wrong, I still have faith, and hold to it. I am simply stating what I see, and what I fear MIGHT happen and what I truly do not wish to happen to minecraft.
Fair enough. My intended impression was that, assuming that Notch implements the modified release schedule mentioned in his blog, this whole mess with untested updates will most likely become a thing of the past.
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Disclaimer: user may not actually be apathetic. ApatheticMods (Toggle Blocks, Secret Switches, Sign Edit)
Well i have been lurking on the forums for quite some time and havent posted anything on here however this topic made me want to post.
I bought alpha so i could test it out and had no expectations of it becoming better. However when i was used to all the bugs such as leaf decay etc. however when they were fixed it brought on an entire slew of new bugs and problems. The nether patch was *alright* i don't love it and i don't go to nether at all in fact all of my worlds only 1 of them has a portal and that is my test world for my personal mods and things and such. Now i have always recommended minecraft to people if they wanted to try a new game however i no longer recommend it to anybody.
In the past few weeks it has grown to be so laggy i can barely play it. Now i don't expect my money back or expect to see better things in the future but notch has managed by adding a few things and trying to fix other things to cause some major problems.
The Only thing i hope for is that he will fix the problems he has caused and from now on with his patches he actually tests them for a few hours or at least get a few people to test it with him.
I never said I didn't appreciate the game, so please read my views properly, as I never stated I didn't, I clearly stated I DO enjoy it, and I am playing it as I speak. :smile.gif:
See, you can be disappointed with Minecraft at release, but it's not done. Minecraft will continue to have content added, and mods will continue to add more and more to the game, meaning if there's something you wished was there, it will very likely be there eventually :smile.gif:
I truly hope he does go 'ok! Let's get the ball rolling!' and throws down, hires a few programmers, and hammers out the game at a terrifying pace. I truly do hope.
I have 0 expectations in what the finished product will be. I never stated any views, so you're reading something wrong. :tongue.gif:
Exactly! Minecraft has the potential to become something never seen before, some of legends if done right. Something that 50 years later when you're an old person, you'll remember it fondly as something you loved and enjoyed for many years expressing your creativity and imagination with friends and enemies alike.
He will do updates. Problem is, how fast, will they destroy the game again, and will he continue to do sloppy, half finished updates... :sad.gif:
Yep. Well, Mods should stand alone, I meant some of the CONCEPTS in mods should be basic game functionality. Mods should add or change things to peoples taste. Hey0 is a good example of things that should be base in game, as it doesn't deter or change anything of the core, but offers versatility which is always good.
Yep. He didn't expect to become the head of a huge company, and he still hasn't stepped up to that role. That false hope is especially annoying to me... he treats his job like a hobby still, which is my main problem :/
All we can do is have faith he'll snap into it and step up!
I highly doubt he would cut and run. That would be INCREDIBLY stupid. Who would cut and run from a million dollar game? I mean... really. x.x
Exactly. We are investing our money by buying the product, as we enjoy the product and expect it to continue to improve with the funds we provide, and not stagnate.
LOL :tongue.gif: I actually pictured that exact same thing myself :smile.gif: Programmers do that to me (I work in QA, and the stuff we get makes me cry at how horribly buggy it is, like they closed their eyes while doing their brief testing of it before sending it to us).
That's exactly it. he's gotten stressed and worn out, he cannot do all of this by himself. He NEEDS help, but he is too stubborn to do so (so far at least), so let's hope he realizes this soon. A crazy Dutch man is a scary sight x.x
Ding ding ding! One of my largest complaints. This is GAME BREAKING, not a problem, not an inconvenience, but it totally ruined the game play of nearly a MILLION people because he was too lazy to spend ten minutes of work. Instead, he took a weekend off leaving the game crippled, and ruining three days of fun for over a million people. That is NOT good business decisions, as people will only take so much before they begin to say 'to heck with this' and stop.
Brilliantly well said. Brilliant and informative. :smile.gif:
Your logic is completely and utterly Flawed. Why?
Well... you're assuming that only sales will=revenue. With the rise of micro transactions, minecraft is a prime candidate for just that. That includes expansions. Say 25$, and 500,000 sells. Do the math, one per year. Not counting other revenues of financial gains.
To your first point, pixel art that is block based really wouldn't take too much 'adaptation' to begin work on, especially seeing that guys incredibly complex work, minecraft blocks are laughably easy. We hope he is simply working on stuff behind the scenes for the future though.
And you were launching a personal attack on me in the second half your previous post, so it wasn't 'name calling' rather stating facts from what I saw :smile.gif:
Hahaha, was up late posting this last night, woke up, ran out to work, got stuck on a bus that crashed, and got home an hour ago and popped by to see THREE bloody pages of posts >.< finally done!
Nah, a personal attack would be something along the lines of "You lie, make shoddy work, and don't bother checking it" :wink.gif:
Edited to add: I do mean this mostly in jest; upon re-reading my initial post I was a lot harsher than I meant to sound. I'd mistaken you for one of the 'notch is lazy' brigade when you're more leaning toward 'notch is in over his head'
Boy if we were all like you we'd be pushing our cars around because we'd have only half-finished producing the gas, they'd also be on rock wheels since we half finished the tires, while we're at it the cars would probably just be in our imagination because we half finished designing them.
If you don't get the point, just because the game is good doesn't mean it can't be better. Notch has a couple million dollars to make it better, nobody is asking much.
Fair enough. My intended impression was that, assuming that Notch implements the modified release schedule mentioned in his blog, this whole mess with untested updates will most likely become a thing of the past.
ApatheticMods (Toggle Blocks, Secret Switches, Sign Edit)
I bought alpha so i could test it out and had no expectations of it becoming better. However when i was used to all the bugs such as leaf decay etc. however when they were fixed it brought on an entire slew of new bugs and problems. The nether patch was *alright* i don't love it and i don't go to nether at all in fact all of my worlds only 1 of them has a portal and that is my test world for my personal mods and things and such. Now i have always recommended minecraft to people if they wanted to try a new game however i no longer recommend it to anybody.
In the past few weeks it has grown to be so laggy i can barely play it. Now i don't expect my money back or expect to see better things in the future but notch has managed by adding a few things and trying to fix other things to cause some major problems.
The Only thing i hope for is that he will fix the problems he has caused and from now on with his patches he actually tests them for a few hours or at least get a few people to test it with him.
-C3