Especially nice if mobs have a "threat rating" kinda deal where they decide on what to attack depending on the target's threat rating. A player running around wouldn't be too much of a threat (but they'd still try to attack you). However, if you actively hit another mob, then suddenly the player's "threat rating" skyrockets- mobs will then try to work together to kill you. The more you hit/kill mobs, the more of a threat they see you as.
Yeah, this is exactly on my line of thinking. And this could also work for passive mobs - If a cow sees you kill another cow, the cows would give you a higher "threat rating". This cow could then, say, pass on the word to other cows, and then all the cows in the area would give the player a higher "threat rating". Since, of course they can't fight back, the higher the threat rating would probably make them be more skittish and scared of you, to the point where if your "threat rating" is high enough, they'll just outright run away from you. And then you could lower their threat levels with, say, wheat. Either you could make a lure out of it, or you could just hold it out to them and their "threat level" would drop. And, you could only breed animals that have a low threat level of you.
Also, passive mobs should naturally have some movement patterns, i.e some "herds" of animals would be more nomadic and move around more around the area, and other herds should be 'hefted', or just naturally staying in one area. And, of course, that you could 'heft' animals to a different area yourself, y'know, for farming reasons, to keep 'em in the same area without having to fence 'em in. Passive mobs, I think, have even worse AI than the hostile monsters.
I think you underestimate the human mind and imagination. Minecrafts success is built on the freedom it gives us rather than forcing us to do certain things. I still haven't been to the End, even so long after it's release. Forcing me to go there would not make Minecraft a better game. It might make it more of a game in a traditional sense, but that doesn't mean it will be better.
You are not the first to wish that Minecraft was different from what we have now. I think even Notch had different plans when he started, but something happened along the way. A youtuber calling himself X (davidr64yt) managed to make a good stir with a blog post about 1 years ago. He wrote about what Minecraft should or could have been. A lot of his ideas were good and well received by the community, but Notchs reply was very dismissive.
The problem wasn't the ideas themselves, but the presentation. If you read through the blog post now you might even come to believe that some of the ideas have been adopted. I'm sure even Notch at some level shared many of the ideas presented by X and that is why you can now glimpse a few similarities.
Notchs original plan was to make Minecraft into a Roguelike game. That would, at least to me, mean significantly more focus on survival and RPG elements, more magic and character leveling, but as Minecraft grew it got a life of its own. Notch found his hands tied as he suddenly couldn't turn Minecraft into the game he wanted. Minecraft had become too popular the way it was.
Can you say for certain that you would have spent more hours on Minecraft than you have to date if it was a Rogulike game instead? Think about the hours you have spent on Minecraft and compare it to more traditional sandbox games. How long do they usually last? What happens when you have "figured it out"?
Don't dismiss mods. One day the Minecraft you see now will be just one of many mods you can pick and choose from with an in game menu. It'll all blend together and you wont know the difference other than the little text at the bottom of the title screen giving you a short list of authors in addition to Mojang. What then dear Insurrection!
Now I'm going to point out the obvious - you do know where Minecraft "came from", right?
It came from the experience Notch had with Infiniminer and how he wanted to improve it.
For all of the work you've done on these "problems" and "solutions", I do not see a prototype of a new game with all of these features that would make Minecraft so much better. Clearly, if all of these drastic changes would all make it so very much better, then you're not very bright for not bothering to create a new game from it all.
No offense intended, but it's a painfully obvious point: honestly think the game could be executed so much better?
Then do it.
???
Profit!
Alternate plan
Complain on the internet
???
Accomplish nothing
PS - I thought it was just the forum rendering funny at first, but it seems you've decided that center justifying everything is a good idea? That's absolutely horrid. Stop it.
I had a mix of disagreement and agreement with some of your opinions as outlined in the OP and certainly have no problem with you expressing them and appreciate your effort to keep the discussion calm and rational.
I think these kinds of posts speak to how much enjoyment a great many of us have received from minecraft and how we all see potential for it to grow and improve. I think a lot of us though sometimes forget about how minecraft has gotten to this point. This is an indie game that up until about a year ago was developed for the most part by a single person. It's not been published by a big publisher or funded in Kickstarter. Even now the development team is still relatively small but when compared to how large the team was just a year ago the growth in the team is huge. My point by mentioning this is that I think our expectations/criticisms while valid are not in line with what has been realistically possible to be reached up to this point.
Ultimately though minecraft is going to become what the Mojang team envisions and in some things (or many things depending on our own personal vision) will fall short of our expectations. This is where the modding community comes into play. People with different visions for minecraft can mod the game to meet their vision and thus customize the game to suit their style. This is actually very healthy for minecraft and can influence the development team more than posts like this. We have examples in the past where the development team liked a mod idea well enough and how the community embraced it to include it or a version of the idea into the game. In this sense I don't think we realize just how fortunate we are with just how personable and direct our contact with the Mojang team can be. I don't know how many times I've seen people say I tweeted jeb or dinnerbone and got a response.
I think most of the development to date in minecraft has been to put in place a large basic framework of content that still has a lot of potential. Recent changes the current dev team have already made expanded the the map height and the number of block id's available, both will have huge potential when talking about future content development. Right now they are working on revising some fundamental structures that will greatly influence the future of minecraft. While I personally have to wonder if they may be biting off more than they can chew, I can appreciate that if they succeed, it will make minecraft a better game. They have already proven (to me at least) that adding new content will happen very quickly once they get over these huge backend changes they are working on.
To summarize my points. We've gotten about as much as we can reasonably expect from Minecraft development up to this point. More people are working on the development than ever before. This games developers still have a strong connection to the community. We can expect a content explosion to start perhaps as soon as next year. Until then lets test what they are working on, give feedback as we can, and be a bit more patient.
The old idea that everything should be contained within the game is slowly phasing out in my opinion.
I didn't suggest that everything be contained in the game, though. I suggested they give you a proper starting point within the game so you don't need to consult a wiki/video for really basic things. If you're given the basics, you can safely ignore the whole of the wiki and explore the game properly, to be honest. Otherwise, you need to wade through quite a lot to find explanations on the basics.
Also, the wiki would still exist for the specifics of things, so yeah.
a tutorial also has negative repucussions. Minecraft is very much about discovery and the feeling of being alone in a vast world. A tutorial may change those to the negative.
Again, this is fine for not explaining a creeper, or not explaining the Nether, or etc. It's not fine for explaining very basic mechanics like recipe's, the fact that you can tame things, or etc. Again, a proper tutorial (not an all-encompassing ingame wiki) would just explain the basic mechanics of the game- not give you intimate details on every aspect of the game.
On that note, I'd like to ask something- what's the difference between an avoidable tutorial, and an avoidable wiki? Assuming the tutorial did contain as much info as the wiki (which it, ideally, would not).
Each new player that steps foot into a minecraft seed for the first time is filled with excitement, confusion, fear, and determination. We should not infringe upon the dramatic entrance Minecraft gives us.
That feeling can still be maintained with a proper tutorial. Again, it wouldn't explain everything. Especially if more content was added- there would be a lot more to the game than just mastering immensely simple mechanics. I understand the idea you're talking about- but I have to say, it's not so much intentional or aided with anything in the current game. It's a bare-bones lack of content. You can not only maintain this feeling, but make it even more pronounced with actual game mechanics. Which I intend to do.
If I were to add my own idea of a tutorial as a compromise I would suggest adding random recipes to the villager's selling list.
I wouldn't mind some books for some random details on things dipped in lore (See: The Elder Scrolls), but this doesn't work so well for a tutorial given that you don't spawn in a village.
I think some people are just a bit too used to having aims spelt out for them - just telling them what to start with rather than how in any detail would probably be enough. They'd figure out the rest themselves I think.
Yeah, I don't want some lame quest arrow with some tacked on red [ ! ] that you need to click in order to get some poorly explained goal to achieve. Just some explanations on the basics, then the player can figure out the rest. Basically, give the player the fishing rod, but not the fish, so to speak.
Games always become quite easy and procedural once you've sussed exactly what to do and how.
This is actually the fault of the developers if this happens. If their game relies solely upon you not knowing things to enjoy it, that's very poorly designed.
To get a point of reference what I mean, look at Castlevania 2 for an example of how lack of information/misinformation is an awful game design choice. Especially when, upon actually knowing everything there is to know, the game actually becomes really linear, despite being "open".
Even when mobs aren't a concern though it still gives you enough to think about in terms of logistics, not overextending yourself and maintaining your bearings.
...until you realize that you need to simply aim at a zombie and click rapidly to kill it.
As for features that aren't explicitly named though, I actually think that's the real beauty of the games simpler mechanics. They're complex enough to allow experimentation without being so complex as to make it too daunting. You see people doing things with redstone that no doubt defy the original expectations of mojang. I'm sure notch never expected people to build full on computers and calculators in-game, but they do. Perhaps not a feature as such, but still content, user created content. That's the real meat and veg of MC; setting yourself a project from the bowels of your imagination, then going and doing it.
I agree with this (at least that dynamic concepts that are essentially balls of clay is a good thing), but redstone is one of the only things that actually works like that. The entire game doesn't operate on such a basis- really, redstone is about the only thing like that. Mobs, mob interaction, equipment- it's all immensely simple.
Furthermore, like everything, it can be expanded. There can be way more forms of mob interaction, way more dynamic equipment, more dynamic terrain- everything.
Agreed though, a bit more procedurally generated 'landmarks' might be nice, in the same vein as the new temples. Things like the mausoleums suggested in another recent thread aren't a bad idea. At the same time though, while extra variety would be nice I think the current spacing is bang on. Wouldn't want them to overpopulate the world maps. I like that remote unexplored feeling.
The current temples are pretty bad, actually. They just stuff the game with more of the same without being any actual content- it's just "Here! MORE stuff to fill the map!". I think that's the problem with things like abandoned mineshafts and the like- they contain maybe one worthwhile thing... while filling the map with tons of tedious, monotonous generation.
It'd be better if it all served some kind of purpose, and you couldn't just "skip to the end" whenever you want.
Yeah, this is exactly on my line of thinking. And this could also work for passive mobs - If a cow sees you kill another cow, the cows would give you a higher "threat rating". This cow could then, say, pass on the word to other cows, and then all the cows in the area would give the player a higher "threat rating". Since, of course they can't fight back, the higher the threat rating would probably make them be more skittish and scared of you, to the point where if your "threat rating" is high enough, they'll just outright run away from you. And then you could lower their threat levels with, say, wheat. Either you could make a lure out of it, or you could just hold it out to them and their "threat level" would drop. And, you could only breed animals that have a low threat level of you.
This would be pretty fantastic. It'd also mean you'd have to make it so that you actually lead a cow somewhere away from the other cows to slaughter it (Prodding a cow without hurting it wouldn't increase threat rating). It's a little silly that they just stand there all <_> MROO even though you just killed their parents right in front of them.
Also, passive mobs should naturally have some movement patterns, i.e some "herds" of animals would be more nomadic and move around more around the area, and other herds should be 'hefted', or just naturally staying in one area. And, of course, that you could 'heft' animals to a different area yourself, y'know, for farming reasons, to keep 'em in the same area without having to fence 'em in. Passive mobs, I think, have even worse AI than the hostile monsters.
I love the idea of nomadic mobs. Buffalo or the like would be really cool, and just add to the feel of the game. Especially if the food system were properly overhauled, so you could have more varieties of food for more useful animals.
I would add only two things- sticks are no longer craftable- you get them from leafblocks (40% drop)
I remember Terrafirma Craft did this. I'm not sure if it's an entirely good idea just on its own, but I wouldn't mind designing other mechanics around the idea of needing to get sticks from trees (as well as alternatives). Perhaps a way to craft them later on, but early on it's easiest to just get 'em from trees?
Also, trees need to have branches. Just logs and leaves is laaaame.
I think you underestimate the human mind and imagination. Minecrafts success is built on the freedom it gives us rather than forcing us to do certain things.
I'm not implying they need to "force" the player to do too much, though. Just that they remove unnecessary mechanics (mid-game difficulty switching, etc), and create much more content. The only thing they should "force" in survival is require the player to actually survive (it tries to do this but falls pretty flat on its face- so please don't say "it was never about actually surviving!").
Forcing me to go there would not make Minecraft a better game. It might make it more of a game in a traditional sense, but that doesn't mean it will be better.
I'm not forcing it, though. None of the game would be "forced", ideally. I HATE the idea of push-alongs, believe me. I'd just like to see more rewards for progressing through the game, exploring, and etc. Not necessary rewards ("You must get the key of souls from the Nether to unlcok this chest!"), but things that just add more to the game instead of being more of the same (Access to more potion types, etc).
Furthermore, it's easy to see it already forces you to progress in a sense- levels are only used for enchanting, and in order to get an enchanting table, you need to progress through the game, etc. There's many examples of this. So please don't say "It doesn't force you to do anything!" because it totally does (even more than it would under my ideal system).
You are not the first to wish that Minecraft was different from what we have now. I think even Notch had different plans when he started, but something happened along the way. A youtuber calling himself X (davidr64yt) managed to make a good stir with a blog post about 1 years ago. He wrote about what Minecraft should or could have been. A lot of his ideas were good and well received by the community, but Notchs reply was very dismissive.
...
Holy ****. I didn't even know about this. This makes me extremely frustrated. This flat out proves that Notch dismisses criticism and suggestions. Hooly ****.
The problem wasn't the ideas themselves, but the presentation. If you read through the blog post now you might even come to believe that some of the ideas have been adopted. I'm sure even Notch at some level shared many of the ideas presented by X and that is why you can now glimpse a few similarities.
Notch flat out said he would only do the game his way. That was his response. Any similarities between these are entirely coincidental- unless Notch is flat out lying and did take ideas from him (while dismissing his ideas in the process and making him feel like crap), there is no way one can believe he later decided "Oh alright, I'll consider his ideas because I am a nice guy".
Notchs original plan was to make Minecraft into a Roguelike game. That would, at least to me, mean significantly more focus on survival and RPG elements, more magic and character leveling, but as Minecraft grew it got a life of its own.
No, it didn't. It stopped proper content development, and just remained as it was with minor additions here and there.
Notch found his hands tied as he suddenly couldn't turn Minecraft into the game he wanted. Minecraft had become too popular the way it was.
This is my whole point about 7a. They've become afraid, and feel their hands are tied. BUT THEY AREN'T. They can still develop the game- they won't get shot because some 12 year old kid doesn't like the new changes.
Think about the hours you have spent on Minecraft and compare it to more traditional sandbox games. How long do they usually last? What happens when you have "figured it out"?
I've spent more hours playing Morrowind, I'd say. If I had more money, I'd be playing the crap out of GTA: San Andreas, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, and if I had a better computer, other TES games and GTA games would be up there, too.
I've "figured out" games before, but that doesn't suddenly make them uninteresting. In fact, a truly good game allows you to understand everything, but still offer plenty of fun despite that. It's like checkers- you get the idea of it, because it's very simple. However, it has enough dynamics to create an enjoyable experience.
Minecraft is not as "simple" in the ways it should be (easy to learn, etc), but in fact, is only "simple" in the sense that it lacks content.
One day the Minecraft you see now will be just one of many mods you can pick and choose from with an in game menu. It'll all blend together and you wont know the difference other than the little text at the bottom of the title screen giving you a short list of authors in addition to Mojang. What then dear Insurrection!
Who's to say it will? Chances are likely, even the mod creators will leave Minecraft for a better game. And I guarantee you- better games will come around. Unless Notch & co get their act together, Minecraft will die. Because they refuse to accept criticism.
I'm so ****ing mad about them ignoring that blog post I can't even put it into words. Notch is officially the videogame equivalent of George Lucas.
For all of the work you've done on these "problems" and "solutions", I do not see a prototype of a new game with all of these features that would make Minecraft so much better. Clearly, if all of these drastic changes would all make it so very much better, then you're not very bright for not bothering to create a new game from it all.
I'm in the process of doing that, actually. Granted, I'm doing it from the perspective of a mod to the game, but eventually I plan to branch out and make my own videogames afterwards. I currently lack the experience to create a game from scratch, unfortunately.
Alternate plan
Complain on the internet
???
Accomplish nothing
I'm not just complaining- I'm offering suggestions, and encouraging discussion. It's also actually accomplishing something- I'm getting the necessary support to help kickstart a proper mod.
Did you have trouble following it? I'll repeat it - Minecraft was inspired by other games and Notch not being happy with the features available. So he created his own version with the features he wanted. Similarly, you are clearly not happy with the current state of Minecraft - so create your own version with the features you want.
I'm in the process of doing that, actually. Granted, I'm doing it from the perspective of a mod to the game, but eventually I plan to branch out and make my own videogames afterwards. I currently lack the experience to create a game from scratch, unfortunately.
I'm not just complaining- I'm offering suggestions, and encouraging discussion. It's also actually accomplishing something- I'm getting the necessary support to help kickstart a proper mod.
Sounds awesome. Do you have anything up yet? Like a home page with a design goal or anything similar that we can follow? Twitter feed? Anything we can interact with now?
I'm interested when the Mod API completes as to what we could do with it. Maybe the possibility of a fork or paid mod could happen. Sounds like you have a pretty good start on this!
PS - I bet the time it took you to draft out the above and the replies was probably enough time to make it through the first chapter(s) of a Java/C++/C#/JavaScript/WebGL book.
I think these kinds of posts speak to how much enjoyment a great many of us have received from minecraft and how we all see potential for it to grow and improve.
Yeah. There seems to be a misconception that I'm simply raging because I hate this game. No, I'm raging because I like(d) what this game has to offer. However, it has SO much potential- so many possibilities, and yet none of them are being fulfilled. Not due to something understandable like a lack of time or money (they get paid a lot to work on the game), either. They just... aren't.
I think a lot of us though sometimes forget about how minecraft has gotten to this point. This is an indie game that up until about a year ago was developed for the most part by a single person.
I understand this very well, actually. I also understand that they've made millions and have the ability to get people to work on it fairly easily.
It's not been published by a big publisher or funded in Kickstarter. Even now the development team is still relatively small but when compared to how large the team was just a year ago the growth in the team is huge. My point by mentioning this is that I think our expectations/criticisms while valid are not in line with what has been realistically possible to be reached up to this point.
I dunno- some things I can understand not being implemented right away (like vastly improved AI), but can you really say it's immensely tough to come up with a system for more sensible biome generation? Or making trees taller? Or reducing the maximum allowed light level for mobs to spawn? Or making slimes spawn aboveground in certain biomes?
(all of these things I've personally done, and within 1 week of modding Minecraft while learning how to mod at the same time).
Also, them not being published by a big publisher means they have more freedom... yet they seem to restrain themselves from doing really creative things so they don't upset anyone.
Ultimately though minecraft is going to become what the Mojang team envisions and in some things (or many things depending on our own personal vision) will fall short of our expectations.
It's not just about expectations and them living up to them- it's about them not actually making the game better. This wasn't as big of a deal until Notch literally dismissed someone's rant and suggestions, said he "has plans", and then straight up quits developing Minecraft so that Jeb can take hold of things. They have absolutely no excuse to not improve the game.
This is where the modding community comes into play. People with different visions for minecraft can mod the game to meet their vision and thus customize the game to suit their style. This is actually very healthy for minecraft and can influence the development team more than posts like this.
There are thousands of mods, but they don't really take most of them into consideration, it seems. They take really small ones, butcher them, then add them in (see: Wolves, Pistons, etc). I don't think they've ever taken a massive idea/mod and put them in.
We have examples in the past where the development team liked a mod idea well enough and how the community embraced it to include it or a version of the idea into the game.
The fact that it took them 7 months add in something as mind bogglingly simple as Ender Chests. Yes, we have examples of that- we also have plenty of examples of them not being very good at adding things that add to gameplay.
In this sense I don't think we realize just how fortunate we are with just how personable and direct our contact with the Mojang team can be. I don't know how many times I've seen people say I tweeted jeb or dinnerbone and got a response.
And then they dismiss people like davidr64... so they can respond to "Hello how is your day?".
I think most of the development to date in minecraft has been to put in place a large basic framework of content that still has a lot of potential.
Which was fine for alpha and the early half of beta- but 1.0 was a buggy mess of things, and had very little to actually offer to the game. It's a game, not an engine they're developing. They still have yet to really add a massive amount of content- and when they DO add content, it's usually very very buggy, incomplete, and/or imbalanced (Enderdragon, Temples, etc). And it takes them months.
Recent changes the current dev team have already made expanded the the map height and the number of block id's available, both will have huge potential when talking about future content development. Right now they are working on revising some fundamental structures that will greatly influence the future of minecraft.
...but they don't do anything with these changes. They just take a long time to make them, then leave it as is. They haven't made use of the increased map height, and they haven't even made use of the current block ID limit.
I appreciate their efforts toward expanding the framework, but they've given very little to actually appreciate in terms of the actual game.
While I personally have to wonder if they may be biting off more than they can chew, I can appreciate that if they succeed, it will make minecraft a better game. They have already proven (to me at least) that adding new content will happen very quickly once they get over these huge backend changes they are working on.
I'm convinced that content creation from Mojang will grind to a halt once 1.4 comes out, then they will let the modding community do almost all of their work for them. Which would be fine if they'd accept the good ideas, but they've not proven they're very capable of understanding what makes a game good. They just add things to add things, because it'd be "fun" and "cool".
To summarize my points. We've gotten about as much as we can reasonably expect from Minecraft development up to this point.
Again, no- we haven't. The amount of changes they can very easily make towards improving the game have yet to be put in. They're more content adding more stairs, more decoration blocks, and horribly imbalanced and map-cluttering temples.
More people are working on the development than ever before. This games developers still have a strong connection to the community. We can expect a content explosion to start perhaps as soon as next year. Until then lets test what they are working on, give feedback as we can, and be a bit more patient.
I really hope they do, but I'm not going to hold my breath. I also want to make sure that the content they add is good content- you can fill a game with content, but that in of itself is not necessarily a good thing. They need to listen to the more critical side of things to get a feeling of what type of content they should add. Not the content-less complainers, not the whiny 12 year old kids, not the people who suggest they add in "super TNT"- the people who actually have a vision for this game, and the people who have seen this game grow from at least alpha (if not before alpha).
You're digging yourself into a hole, then- this is the epitome of ignorance. How on Earth does this qualify you to say I'm wrong on anything when you're flat out being ignorant?
It's full of the same old crap. "I don't like this and it should be this way" - so make it that way.
Firstly, how can you know that if you haven't actually read it? It might appear that way if you skim it, but it's not. There's actual content to it all- points, logical suggestions, facts, etc. Yes, some of the suggestions might not be so well thought out (the Endermen thing), but instead of just saying "no it's crap", suggest better ones instead of being contrary.
Secondly, it actually isn't- it's not just "I don't like this". There's quite a bit of objective analysis on what aspects are flaws, and gives out some various ideas (that can be discussed and worked on) on how to fix said flaws.
If you had read the post, you'd know this. I make it insanely clear that my intentions are to point out the problems with the game past simply my own opinions, and intend to get good ideas going- not just what I think are good ideas.
Minecraft was inspired by other games and Notch not being happy with the features available. So he created his own version with the features he wanted. Similarly, you are clearly not happy with the current state of Minecraft - so create your own version with the features you want.
I thought you were just pointing out how he had taken inspiration from other games, without much of a point attached. As I said, though, I am working on improving the game, so I didn't figure you were pointing to that... still, yeah, I'm working on making a mod out of it. I'm not that senselessly cynical.
Sounds awesome. Do you have anything up yet? Like a home page with a design goal or anything similar that we can follow? Twitter feed? Anything we can interact with now?
Somewhat- I'm in the process of getting everything together right now. I have a group of people who are helping me work on the general design/concepts of things, and I want to make sure it's pretty high quality before hyping people up. Still, I DO have a blog:
It doesn't have very much, but it's there. Once 1.4 comes out and I can actually add content (without fear of having holes punched in development due to updates), you'll see more than just a dinky little blog.
PS - I bet the time it took you to draft out the above and the replies was probably enough time to make it through the first chapter(s) of a Java/C++/C#/JavaScript/WebGL book.
I've read a fair bit on C++, and am still learning Java, but I also like to learn as I go along. Don't worry, I'm still learning- I'm just also garnering support along the way so I can have more people working on this than just me. And it's working pretty well, so yeah.
You're digging yourself into a hole, then- this is the epitome of ignorance. How on Earth does this qualify you to say I'm wrong on anything when you're flat out being ignorant?
Firstly, how can you know that if you haven't actually read it? It might appear that way if you skim it, but it's not. There's actual content to it all- points, logical suggestions, facts, etc. Yes, some of the suggestions might not be so well thought out (the Endermen thing), but instead of just saying "no it's crap", suggest better ones instead of being contrary.
I skim pretty thoroughly.....
It's not a matter of being ignorant - it's a matter of being wise enough to know that there are another 4 million people out there with ideas that sound nearly parallel to yours. Some of them go on to make new creations. The majority go on to.... uh... watch TV for a few days, I guess. I don't really know what they do.....
I'm not here to oppose your ideas - they sound great. Many of them are echoes of the same complaints, but they still sound great. I'd much rather see some action taken than more discussion about the same old boring topics......
If you had read the post, you'd know this. I make it insanely clear that my intentions are to point out the problems with the game past simply my own opinions, and intend to get good ideas going- not just what I think are good ideas.
Yes - you pointed out the problems. Everyone can be a critic. Good job?
Getting good ideas going and actually shipping something (that is, to actually publish another game or mod) is entirely different. I'm asking you to be one of the people that actually ships something especially if you think so highly of your analysis.
Somewhat- I'm in the process of getting everything together right now. I have a group of people who are helping me work on the general design/concepts of things, and I want to make sure it's pretty high quality before hyping people up. Still, I DO have a blog:
It doesn't have very much, but it's there. Once 1.4 comes out and I can actually add content (without fear of having holes punched in development due to updates), you'll see more than just a dinky little blog.
I've read a fair bit on C++, and am still learning Java, but I also like to learn as I go along. Don't worry, I'm still learning- I'm just also garnering support along the way so I can have more people working on this than just me. And it's working pretty well, so yeah.
Stop center justifying things. It's horrible to read.
The blog says you've created a mod that added a new biome, new blocks and new NPC behavior - where's the download link?
I'm going to assume you'll be using Java if you intend to mod Minecraft.... if you stick with it, make sure to look up topics like the LWJGL and OpenGL.
Being familiar with them will both help create a new game as well as work with the existing Minecraft client and server.
I'm not going to sit here and argue points about how bad the mobs are - we all know how bad they are. But if you want a hand figuring out what a piece of Java does or a kick in the ass for more action, less talk - just let me know.
Well, I'm looking forward to when this mod comes out.
Another question I have, though, is that I don't recall very much talk about the Nether here. I saw in the blog's changelog that Ghasts now drop much more experience points - something I look forward to - but otherwise nothing's really came up about it, that I remeber.
Do you have any plan at all about altering the Nether? I think honestly there still can be a lot done about it. Like, what AI systems would Pigmen get, or Ghasts, or Blazes? Will there be more introduced there? I think that for a Hellscape it has a lot of potential to it, if it's done right.
It's not a matter of being ignorant - it's a matter of being wise enough to know that there are another 4 million people out there with ideas that sound nearly parallel to yours.
There may be tons of people who think something, but it's another thing to offer an analysis as to why. That's not to say my ideas are some special snowflake- they're certainly not. But I'd place them above the majority of other ideas, yes. Plenty of people can suggest something like a new water mob (which I agree with), but I don't think many people try to tie it into other apsects of the game- they just want to see a water mob. I feel differently- I'd like to see things like a water mob actually serve more of a purpose than just "being a water mob". I'd like to see more cohesion and gameplay flow.
Yes - you pointed out the problems. Everyone can be a critic. Good job?
You're right, but not in the way you may think- yes, everybody can be a critic. However, that doesn't mean everyone is a critic.
A person who complains about something without having any merit or logic behind their complaints is not a "critic". A person who complains about something without thinking of how it can be better (regardless of whether or not they list said improvements) is not a "critic". A person who gives a 9.5 to an objectively bad game then calls gamers entitled because they dislike day one DLC is not a "critic".
A critic is someone who critically reviews something- someone who gives a lot of insight, and bases their thoughts in facts. They have at least a vague grasp of how to improve something, and understand that anything can be improved. They're the types of people who can ultimately say "X is bad", but can be looked to as different from the hordes who also say "X is bad" because they have a huge amount of content in their words to back up their claims. They're the types of people who can say things that are really obvious, yet be considered above their peers because of how they said it- not just their "tone" or how "nice" they were, but because of the amount of facts and arguments they have on their side.
For an example of what I mean, look at Red Letter Media's "Plinkett Reviews"- sure, a lot of people have said the Star Wars prequel movies are bad, but RLM manages to stand out from the crowd. Not just because their Plinkett character is funny as hell (which he is), but because they give one of the best analysis of the movies that can be referenced to for future discussions. They bring about many points you may not have considered, yet are very "obvious".
This is what separates a critic from everybody else- they actually are a critic, not just someone who claims they're a critic.
Getting good ideas going and actually shipping something (that is, to actually publish another game or mod) is entirely different. I'm asking you to be one of the people that actually ships something especially if you think so highly of your analysis.
Yeah, I get where you're coming from- a lot of people can rage against something but never contribute anything to prove their point. Don't worry- I hate those types of people, too. I don't intend to be one of them.
Stop center justifying things. It's horrible to read.
Is it? I always felt it looked nice, since paragraphs don't get so bunched together, but maybe that's just me (I'm an odd person). I'll stop doing that.
The blog says you've created a mod that added a new biome, new blocks and new NPC behavior - where's the download link?
Not going to provide a DL to my mod until I'm well enough along to release something good- quality over quantity of releases, and such. Also, like I said- waiting for 1.4, haha.
I'm going to assume you'll be using Java if you intend to mod Minecraft.... if you stick with it, make sure to look up topics like the LWJGL and OpenGL.
Yeah. I don't intend on becoming a master Java coder- I'd rather stick with C++ for actual creation. So I'm content with learning java enough to just code the things I want to code. I'm not very fond of Java, otherwise, so I won't waste my time learning things I don't need to learn. That might seem ignorant, but really, why slow potential development for things you won't really use?
I'm not going to sit here and argue points about how bad the mobs are - we all know how bad they are. But if you want a hand figuring out what a piece of Java does or a kick in the ass for more action, less talk - just let me know.
When 1.4 comes out and I need an army of coders, I'll probably PM you. I can always use people to help with coding.
EDIT: JSSarfin posted while I was typing that, whoop.
Do you have any plan at all about altering the Nether? I think honestly there still can be a lot done about it. Like, what AI systems would Pigmen get, or Ghasts, or Blazes? Will there be more introduced there? I think that for a Hellscape it has a lot of potential to it, if it's done right.
Yeah, I'd love for the Nether to be expanded. I want to make it more varied, too- things like Nether biomes, more structures (both in the "buildings" sense and the coding sense), more stuff like nether-exclusive ores, and etc.
Who's to say it will? Chances are likely, even the mod creators will leave Minecraft for a better game. And I guarantee you- better games will come around. Unless Notch & co get their act together, Minecraft will die. Because they refuse to accept criticism.
I'm so ****ing mad about them ignoring that blog post I can't even put it into words. Notch is officially the videogame equivalent of George Lucas.
All games die, or at least fade away from memory. Is Pacman or Tetris dead? Is Morrowind dead? Game developers have different time perspectives when developing games. A flash game developed for the Winter Olympics isn't intended to last as long as a new mmo.
You make it sound like Minecraft is already doomed, while all sales figures tells us otherwise. Minecraft is already a blooming success and I believe it'll last at least another 2-3 years. A lot of people will leave, but that is the nature of things. As long as new blood comes rushing in, then Minecraft will be very much alive.
I find it amusing when someone that has been playing e.g. WoW for 5 years appear on the forum and calls it dead. There is a limit to how many times you can read a good book or watch a good movie. The tenth time isn't as interesting as the first and eventually you get tired of the story. You find a new book, a new game or a new hobby to entertain you, but that doesn't mean it's dead for everyone.
The most interesting part to this discussion is your fight to "save" Minecraft. It's not often that you get that attached to a game, but until you relax a little bit and start presenting you ideas in a more organized manner and not as the only solution to Minecrafts survival, I can't take you as serious as I think you want us to.
I stated some facts and humble opinions that I am aware of. That is the whole point of debate. And I happen to know that A.I.'s sometimes do things that can be described as outside the box. Sure I can sit down and pour over code for months on end looking for how its all happening and I can turn up empty handed and have to scrap the whole darn thing. Computers can be a little more intelligent than we give them credit for. Also don't assume I'm ignorant simply because I don't conform to your ideas. I am giving you the respect of acknowledging your opinion(s) so please do the same for mine. In no way, shape, or form am I flaming/trolling at anybody on this. I simply feel that this stands to be debated, and you may end up with better ideas than the one you had before. It's happened before. Once again I am focusing on the section on ai changes, not the bits and pieces spread throughout.
I can't count the times when I was mining in a straight line, met a creeper, had the creeper blow up, and then drop me into a pit of lava it opened up. Strange as it may sound its happened before, along with digging right up into a lava pit. I don't claim to be the best player in the world cause I'm not. The most I like to do is sail around in zeppelins mod and ooh/ahh at the scenery below. However I feel the random generation of terrain has made things difficult enough as it is, what with lava essentially restarting you. I have also drowned while mining in the past. It's not something I'm proud of but it also does happen.
Finally the whole idea on the mob system is based on minecraft being a fighting game. It isn't.
Usually such games as these are described as fighting games with mining elements. This is the reverse of the norm. That is why the mobs are so dumb and can actually be shut off by setting to peaceful mode. It was never about the mobs, it was about the sand box. Players can do/be whatever they want in the game, especially on servers. If I want mob items I don't even need to kill mobs, i can just make a mob grinder and be done with it. Fighting is only nescessary when the situation forces it, such as a few skeletons coming at you and you can't escape, or getting exp for enchanting. Thus this all renders any major changes to mobs, which may happen or not, kinda at the back of the line. Mojang still has other things to fix such as lighting glitches, crappy looking biomes, and other such nonesense. We can talk about it all we want but it won't happen no matter how much some of us may want it to.
Now I am not saying the idea isn't sound. I can think of a few games which could stand to gain from it. However as it stands minecraft is fine as is as far as the mobs are concerned. They are still difficult enough to challenge me and that's absolutely fine. I can barely handle them as it is, and I tend to spend long hours cleaning the landscape up. I can even utilize stoopid creepers in base raiding on servers. Making the mobs smart would make a lot more radical changes than some might think.
Finally the whole idea on the mob system is based on minecraft being a fighting game. It isn't.
I'm not sure you went with the right genre there. Minecraft will never be a fighting game. Action RPG or something, sure, even FPS. Never a fighting game. Ever.
Usually such games as these are described as fighting games with mining elements. This is the reverse of the norm. That is why the mobs are so dumb and can actually be shut off by setting to peaceful mode. It was never about the mobs, it was about the sand box. Players can do/be whatever they want in the game, especially on servers. If I want mob items I don't even need to kill mobs, i can just make a mob grinder and be done with it. Fighting is only nescessary when the situation forces it, such as a few skeletons coming at you and you can't escape, or getting exp for enchanting. Thus this all renders any major changes to mobs, which may happen or not, kinda at the back of the line. Mojang still has other things to fix such as lighting glitches, crappy looking biomes, and other such nonesense. We can talk about it all we want but it won't happen no matter how much some of us may want it to.
Here's where any discussion on improvements in mobs gets a little shakey:
If the purpose was to be solely creative, you're really playing the wrong game. Minecraft itself is so basic it's nearly laughable when compared to any number of newer products (and older products - Source SDK, anyone?). This isn't a jab at Minecraft - this is the way the industry works. Doom is better than Wolfenstein, Quake is better than Doom, etc. The early adopters generally have fewer features, were designed at a time when many things were inferior (development team ability, time, computer requirements, etc), and may not exactly have had the clearest of goals set initially. This, again, isn't a jab at Minecraft - this is any game.
Notch himself (this is paraphrased, of course) has stated he wanted to create a game with an end, traditional goals, etc. That's the opposite of a completely open sandbox game. You can see achievements and The End as obvious proof of implementation on these design goals. Anyone that states that Minecraft was meant to be a simple voxel building environment is absolutely wrong and is most definitely using the wrong game for the goal they imply.
Mob grinders, as mentioned, are another topic that is clearly "not as designed" - since there is an effort to prevent this from happening. While mob grinders are fun from an engineering perspective, it was never intended to allow players to achieve ridiculous amounts of XP by abusing the mob AI and spawning mechanics. Improved AI, reduced wander rates, Endermen teleporting on contact of water (a traditional canal trap), etc have all set back grinder builds but only momentarily. Hopefully, when we have 1.3 and XP gain from normal tasks, we can move away from this very terrible player created mechanic of grinders.
Peaceful mode and Creative were features requested through feedback. Not in the original design.
The improvements to AI may sound more challenging, but I doubt you would be very impacted if mobs suddenly learned they can't walk on signs or opened trap doors. More aggressive mobs with better AI would only increase the immersion of the world as a visitor surviving in this foreign world. Many of the suggestions that Insurrection and others have made could drastically improve the game as a whole, adding to the adventure and survival aspects while still allowing players to express their creativity and problem solving abilities.
There is little compromise - if you want no risk and full reward.... that's not a game. If you want nothing but risk with only the reward of knowing you could "out click it" - that's not necessarily a game, either. At least, certainly not great ones, anyway.
All games die, or at least fade away from memory. Is Pacman or Tetris dead? Is Morrowind dead? Game developers have different time perspectives when developing games. A flash game developed for the Winter Olympics isn't intended to last as long as a new mmo.
Right, and my point is that Minecraft will eventually die out miserably. It will eventually peak, then slowly crash and burn. See: Bioware, Blizzard, etc. Their pandering and content-with-themselves attitude will be the death of them.
You make it sound like Minecraft is already doomed, while all sales figures tells us otherwise.
I'm saying that it will be doomed if it continues the way it is. It might be a great base for modders, but as a game itself? Yeah nah. If I have to accept that mods will have to take the development team's place, fine. I'll lead the charge in making the game as good as it should be myself. But I'm not going to just accept this right now, while there's still hope left for the development team to actually get their act together.
Minecraft is already a blooming success and I believe it'll last at least another 2-3 years. A lot of people will leave, but that is the nature of things. As long as new blood comes rushing in, then Minecraft will be very much alive.
Sales figures don't exactly say much for the longevity nor quality of the game. I'm not so much as talking about the amount of people playing/buying the game, by the way- I'm talking of the quality of their development. Which has slowed significantly. Really, what was the last truly good, game changing update? Even villager trading is ill thought out, and still requires work.
I find it amusing when someone that has been playing e.g. WoW for 5 years appear on the forum and calls it dead. There is a limit to how many times you can read a good book or watch a good movie. The tenth time isn't as interesting as the first and eventually you get tired of the story. You find a new book, a new game or a new hobby to entertain you, but that doesn't mean it's dead for everyone.
Really? A good, quality form of entertainment can cause the reader/viewer/player/etc to come back to it time and time again- simply because it's such quality. I can enjoy watching Cowboy Bebop, playing Half Life and Half Life 2, and so on over and over again- not consecutively, mind you, but after periods of time. Minecraft isn't one of those games- it's continually extending the stick that holds the carrot on the string (as is WoW). It's insulting. Eventually, we'll get more tiers of items beyond diamond, and that'll be my (and many others') breaking point.
The most interesting part to this discussion is your fight to "save" Minecraft. It's not often that you get that attached to a game, but until you relax a little bit and start presenting you ideas in a more organized manner
...How are they not organized? I presented the flaws first, explained why they're flaws, then went into detail on how to fix it. I used differently colored text, paragraphs, and etc. That's pretty organized.
And I happen to know that A.I.'s sometimes do things that can be described as outside the box.
Yes, but again, they don't "sometimes" do things that are outside of the box. They either do or don't, and the amount of "sometimes" can be very much so defined by the programmer (random functions, etc).
Computers can be a little more intelligent than we give them credit for.
...yes, assuming you underestimate what it is computers actually do. Similarly, unless you somehow expect the AI to do things you didn't tell it to do, you'd be overestimating what it actually does.
The thing that makes the mobs difficulty isn't special abilities, or brains (hee hee see what I did there?), but the sheer freaking number of the things that spawn into the world.
The point I am attempting to make is that it is very difficult to fiddle with mob A.I.'s without giving the A.I. enough power to over come its own rules.
...all of which were ignorant and/or flat out wrong statements.
It was also in response to you claiming I/we had been criticizing you for a "harsh" tone, which we did not. We criticized you for having an ignorant tone.
I simply feel that this stands to be debated, and you may end up with better ideas than the one you had before. It's happened before.
Yes, which I already said was perfectly ok. You've not provided much in the ways of progressing these ideas- you've simply shot them down without providing superior ideas. I even asked everyone in the thread not to do that. That's further evidence of ignorance.
I can't count the times when I was mining in a straight line, met a creeper, had the creeper blow up, and then drop me into a pit of lava it opened up. Strange as it may sound its happened before, along with digging right up into a lava pit. I don't claim to be the best player in the world cause I'm not. The most I like to do is sail around in zeppelins mod and ooh/ahh at the scenery below. However I feel the random generation of terrain has made things difficult enough as it is, what with lava essentially restarting you. I have also drowned while mining in the past. It's not something I'm proud of but it also does happen.
Then that's your own personal anecdote of failure- it doesn't speak very highly of the difficulty in the game.
That is why the mobs are so dumb and can actually be shut off by setting to peaceful mode.
There is literally no correlation between Minecraft "not being a fighting game" and "mobs being so dumb and can be shut off by setting to peaceful mode"
It was never about the mobs, it was about the sand box.
...So that's why the creeper is the most iconic part of Minecraft, why Notch intended for Endermen to be creepy and threatening, why mobs exist in the first place, and so on? Because it "was never about the mobs"?
Come now. The mobs exist because they were meant to be a part of the game- yes, they weren't meant to be the focus (although even that could be argued...), but they still exist. Therefore, they can be better.
Players can do/be whatever they want in the game, especially on servers.
Can you fly? Can you break blocks instantly? Can you get any item instantly?
No? Then survival mode doesn't give players the freedom to "do/be whatever they want in the game". There are limitations- challenges, and so on. Survival mode was obviously intended to give the player limitations and challenges.
You know what DOES give you a lot of freedom and where the focus IS about the sandbox aspect? Creative mode.
Thus this all renders any major changes to mobs, which may happen or not, kinda at the back of the line.
...unless, y'know, you make it so that mobs ARE more necessary to fight in certain situations. Which is what I somewhat suggested. Which is what you obviously ignored, or else you wouldn't be making this argument...
Mojang still has other things to fix such as lighting glitches, crappy looking biomes, and other such nonesense. We can talk about it all we want but it won't happen no matter how much some of us may want it to.
Glitches should be fixed regardless. And I even suggested they fix the biomes thing- you'd know this if you had read my post. Just because you're focusing on the AI bit doesn't mean I am. I'm saying it's a part of the problem. A part. A part that should be fixed.
Please don't just shoot down all the things proposed in this thread, then never suggest better ideas. If you're going to defend the current vanilla survival mode, at least state how it compares to the suggestions proposed in this thread, and why they trump the proposed ideas. Simply saying "Because it already works" really isn't a good enough response- don't make me state why "It's always been this way, therefore it is fine" is a poor defense.
I'm getting rather tired of having to quote what's already in the first 1\10ths of my post.
They are still difficult enough to challenge me and that's absolutely fine.
Just because it's fine for you doesn't mean it's good enough quality. I've gone over why subjectivity<objectivity when it comes to discussing the quality of a game.
Doom is better than Wolfenstein, Quake is better than Doom, etc. The early adopters generally have fewer features, were designed at a time when many things were inferior (development team ability, time, computer requirements, etc), and may not exactly have had the clearest of goals set initially. This, again, isn't a jab at Minecraft - this is any game.
I would normally agree with this, but there is something that people need to understand- Minecraft is constantly in development. It has the potential to continually surpass itself, as it's not really a "final" game. Therefore, it's rather shameful of Mojang to not try and really one-up themselves constantly with every update, to be honest.
The improvements to AI may sound more challenging, but I doubt you would be very impacted if mobs suddenly learned they can't walk on signs or opened trap doors. More aggressive mobs with better AI would only increase the immersion of the world as a visitor surviving in this foreign world. Many of the suggestions that Insurrection and others have made could drastically improve the game as a whole, adding to the adventure and survival aspects while still allowing players to express their creativity and problem solving abilities.
Exactly. I don't intend on turning Minecraft into HURR DURR HARDCORE, but rather into a more immersive, enjoyable experience.
There is little compromise - if you want no risk and full reward.... that's not a game. If you want nothing but risk with only the reward of knowing you could "out click it" - that's not necessarily a game, either. At least, certainly not great ones, anyway.
Yeah. I hate when people see things in such a black-or-white way like this. Believe it or not, it's very possible to have a proper balance between risk and reward.
I'm not sure you went with the right genre there. Minecraft will never be a fighting game. Action RPG or something, sure, even FPS. Never a fighting game. Ever.
Here's where any discussion on improvements in mobs gets a little shakey:
If the purpose was to be solely creative, you're really playing the wrong game. Minecraft itself is so basic it's nearly laughable when compared to any number of newer products (and older products - Source SDK, anyone?). This isn't a jab at Minecraft - this is the way the industry works. Doom is better than Wolfenstein, Quake is better than Doom, etc. The early adopters generally have fewer features, were designed at a time when many things were inferior (development team ability, time, computer requirements, etc), and may not exactly have had the clearest of goals set initially. This, again, isn't a jab at Minecraft - this is any game.
Notch himself (this is paraphrased, of course) has stated he wanted to create a game with an end, traditional goals, etc. That's the opposite of a completely open sandbox game. You can see achievements and The End as obvious proof of implementation on these design goals. Anyone that states that Minecraft was meant to be a simple voxel building environment is absolutely wrong and is most definitely using the wrong game for the goal they imply.
Mob grinders, as mentioned, are another topic that is clearly "not as designed" - since there is an effort to prevent this from happening. While mob grinders are fun from an engineering perspective, it was never intended to allow players to achieve ridiculous amounts of XP by abusing the mob AI and spawning mechanics. Improved AI, reduced wander rates, Endermen teleporting on contact of water (a traditional canal trap), etc have all set back grinder builds but only momentarily. Hopefully, when we have 1.3 and XP gain from normal tasks, we can move away from this very terrible player created mechanic of grinders.
Peaceful mode and Creative were features requested through feedback. Not in the original design.
The improvements to AI may sound more challenging, but I doubt you would be very impacted if mobs suddenly learned they can't walk on signs or opened trap doors. More aggressive mobs with better AI would only increase the immersion of the world as a visitor surviving in this foreign world. Many of the suggestions that Insurrection and others have made could drastically improve the game as a whole, adding to the adventure and survival aspects while still allowing players to express their creativity and problem solving abilities.
There is little compromise - if you want no risk and full reward.... that's not a game. If you want nothing but risk with only the reward of knowing you could "out click it" - that's not necessarily a game, either. At least, certainly not great ones, anyway.
In the first paragraph you said exactly the same thing as me. I said minecraft is not a fighting game. "Finally the whole idea on the mob system is based on minecraft being a fighting game. It isn't."
Minecraft is a sand box game with a twist. Yes I suppose if you wanted to you can whack an enderman and get a ender pearl off him then make it into a eye of ender to get to the end. Yes you can do that.
But Minecraft, whether intended or not, is way more than just that. Aside from that one goal there are no goals, no rules. If you meant achievements then ya thats good right up until you complete them all and then you can replay and never worry about them. A sand box game is defined as being a game were you can do anything you want without being required to end the game any where.
"An open world is a type of video gamelevel design where a player can roam freely through a virtual world and is given considerable freedom in choosing how or when to approach objectives.[1]"
"The term "free roam" is also used, as is "sandbox" and "free-roaming";[2][3]. "Open world and "free-roaming suggest the absence of artificial barriers,[4] in contrast to the invisible walls and loading screens that are common in linear level designs."
Last I checked minecraft had only as much limitations world wise as your computer does. In a server I can play for years and never encounter an end to the game. I can play in single player mode for years as well and never run out of things to do. Whether Notch likes it or not Minecraft meets the defintion and requirements to be a sand box video game. Thats the end of that discussion as far as I am concerned.
For years game developers have bickered amongst one another on how "Smart" an A.I. should be. Should it be able to learn from player input? Should it be so stupid as to be laughable? What exactly is the defining point on a good A.I.? Sadly no answer has been reached so we continue to get a broad spectrum of game A.I.'s. A good example is the video game Starcraft made roughly twenty years ago for the PC.
Starcraft's A.I. was smart up until a point. If it wasn't given defined objectives it simply had no motivation to do anything and sat still until it died. If it was told to kill the player it proceeded to achieve that directive as much as possible. However even in this the A.I., after a lot of testing I put it through myself, had many issues when reacting to events. It would proceed to continue whatever it was doing at the time while it's base was blow to bits, or its units were harassed. The only way the game developers could even make it half a challenge was give the computer a resource boost, and to enable it to see anything the player did. This was determined after setting up bases in strategic points on the map, and then putting bases in random locations. In all cases the computer refused to scout and simply set a whole force out to destroy base, clear evidence that it knew ahead of time that the base was there. This was further reinforced when the map revealing cheat was inputted, and the computer was seen to dispatch forces to bases as they were being built.
Other games such as left for dead deployed A.I.s that were more like ballistic missiles. The A.I. saw the player and gunned for him at full speed regardless to what was in the way. This was good because the sheer number of "mobs" made it difficult to cope with the rush technique. Still other games such as Eve online preferred A.I.s that were more strategic and reactive, making Eve one of my favorite online games. With a few faults it's A.I. system was smart enough to cause me some trouble on more than one occasion and it ensured that every battle was unique in it's own ways.
The point I am attempting to make is that for a game that was never intended to be a full fledged fighting game, minecrafts A.I. is still capable of presenting a challenge in certain situations. It is possible for the A.I. to achieve its directive to destroy the player in any way it can. That doesn't mean the A.I. is smart and that frankly making it smart enough to avoid even half the player traps would take a large amount of restructuring to make it a learning A.I. which would inevitably make the game impossible to play. As it stands we lack the technology and know how to make something like that on a low cost budget, and even if we could additional time would have to be taken to code the computer to limit its ability to learn. This is simply not a feasible tactic. The point of minecraft is to build and mine away.
Even if mob grinders are considered to be "cheating" or "evil" creations, and even if peaceful mode was implemented after the initial release of this game, the very fact that they are part of the game means they can not be ruled out in good concious. The bad, as they say, must be taken with the good in equal measures. As it stands the A.I. is good enough to fulfill the task that is required of it. That does not mean that minecraft doesn't have its problems including asthetic glitching and a few other bugs. However for a measly 30 bucks for a lifetime subscription I am willing to say that minecraft is more than worth it's weight.
Edit:
Adding into my lengthy post cause I noticed page ten. XD
Ok I will try to explain this over. Again.
First off just because the games Icon is a creeper don't assume its all about da creepers. The sole goal of the creeper is to effectively delete player creations, hence the blowing up blocks aspect. It is supposed to back the player. I have largely considered the various craters around the world to be a side affect of this fact.
Second off if looked at in a objective position this game does not in any way shape or form scream at me "Kill Da Monsters!" The creatures of this game appear only at night, and half of them are effectively erased at the end of night time. The rest can be largely avoided if a player knows what he is doing.
Also writing off mob grinders simply because they were never meant to be is a bad idea. Players rarely ever stick to the defined rules that the creator envisioned. I can site several instances, (Eve Online to name one) were the players simply did not conform the creators ideas. Did it make for a better game? Well that depends on who you ask.
Mob grinders exist so players don't have to fight mobs. If I throw the game into peaceful mode that works, but then I can't get several important mob only items that I need to get around. No bones to tame wolves, no easy access to string for bows and fishing poles, and no spider eyes for brewing. No ender pearls for the end of the game as well.
Also the idea that "It's fine for me," being worth diddly is another gross misconception. This game was meant to sell and earn money. Thus, like any investor, the fact that I bought into the game gives me a entitlement to a honest opinion. I am not trying to say that it being fine for me means don't change it. I am simply saying that it looks good as is from my perspective. Recall that we didn't make the game. Jeb currently has the over all say in the game, and we can't begin to guess what is going through his mind at this time unless one of us develops mind reading powers.
I will agree that the fact that Mojang refuses to make any ground breaking updates makes for a complete waste of time when minecraft updates itself. The most it does is make a bug fix, and cause map makers/modders to get very pissed off when they have to put out update releases almost biweekly. How ever I must admit that Mojangs height limit increase, introduction of a new biome, and some introduction of new mobs should be considered big ground breaking updates since those things were not ever in the game.
Also mobs are already nescessary to fight in various situations. The player has the choice to shut mobs off, however no mob grinder exists that can grind out ender pearls. That means if you need to get to the end you have to go fighting endermen. Also if you are digging in a cave and get surprised by some mobs, unless you shut off the mobs via the difficulty, you have to fight them or try and evade them. Enough players are challenged by these situations. Why is it that Mojang only just release the mob A.I. fix? It simply isn't an issue to them although I may yet be proved wrong via the next update.
I'm sure you did post some other fixes in the post. God knows you listed a lot of them. But if you want to prioritize I can gaurantee this isn't even remotely on the top of the list, although I'll feel really dumb if they prove me wrong with another mob release.
So before I go post a full game review I will leave with this bit of insight. Minecraft is a game that lets you be what you want to be. That is the definition of sand box. Yes obviously you can't fly or make lighting fall out of the sky if you stick purely vanilla, but the only difference between creative and survival is that creative lets you zip around can construct your building faster. I've made a pretty passable castle with red stone circuits and everything in survival mode by collecting the materials. It takes a hell of a lot longer but the very fact that I can if I put the time into it rules out the assumption that this game is only sand box in creative.
Err... Computers are _not_ intellegent. Intelligence requires novel and original thought processes. Turing Tests rate how well a computer simulates human intellect. Furthermore, computer controlled opponents are not subject to human error. They do not faulter, mis-scroll, press the wrong button, et cetera. Humans in starcraft-at their quickest-can only manage one screen at a time. The computer is able to micro-manage ALL of the units at the same time.
Minecraft is an Engine. It is raw and there are no overall goals. You can still impliment new mechanics and mobs into the game where it still keeps the make-your-own-goal style of whatever you make out of it.
Insurrection,
I've been keeping an eye on this thread. If you need any assistance I will do what I can. I may not be able to do much but I am creative and come up with rather different approaches to keep minecraft in the same style of minecraft. I have lots of ideas.
zerieth,
Please don't quote the entire post like that. It's a waste of space and doesn't really help to highlight which of 1,000 words you're actually replying to.
My replies to you are in the spoiler - it's a huge, semi-off-topic reply that I felt should probably get crunched into a tag.....
In the first paragraph you said exactly the same thing as me. I said minecraft is not a fighting game. "Finally the whole idea on the mob system is based on minecraft being a fighting game. It isn't."
I'm not trying to be rude, but do you know what a fighting game is? The actual genre is a series of games that generally only have two characters on a screen in some sort of battle that ends in a KO or death of a single (or small team) of characters. Street Fighter, Soul Calibur, Mortal Kombat, King of Fighters, Tao Feng and more are all examples of fighting games. There isn't any sane way you could possibly compare that genre to Minecraft. Unless you've somehow managed to animate your blocks into some weird version of The King of Monsters - that would be pretty cool.
Trying to relate Minecraft to something like Skyrim would make much more sense, as that's more of an action RPG. The Fallout 3 games barely scrape by (well, according to me) as Action RPGs. Borderlands, Quake, etc are all First Person Shooters (FPS). You can't compare Fallout 3 to Mortal Kombat in any sensible way.
Minecraft is a sand box game with a twist. Yes I suppose if you wanted to you can whack an enderman and get a ender pearl off him then make it into a eye of ender to get to the end. Yes you can do that.
Again, I'm not trying to be rude, but to me what I'm saying sounds somewhat condescending if you are actually aware of the comparisons you're making. Borderlands, Skyrim, Crackdown, Saints Row, GTA and more are all recent sandbox games. You can do whatever you feel like doing for literally years without ever scratching the surface of an objective driven story. Compared to a series like Mass Effect (2 and 3 mostly), those games have more in common with Minecraft than they do with a typical linear game.
Minecraft has done nothing new. It has only rearranged the same concepts into something you think is a new configuration and that you enjoy. Argue with that if you want, but I hope you realize how ridiculous it would be.
FYI, you'll need a lot more than a single Endermen to reach The End.
But Minecraft, whether intended or not, is way more than just that. Aside from that one goal there are no goals, no rules. If you meant achievements then ya thats good right up until you complete them all and then you can replay and never worry about them. A sand box game is defined as being a game were you can do anything you want without being required to end the game any where.
That's incorrect. A sandbox game is not defined as just doing whatever you feel like doing without an end. They can be played without achieving an end, but they are not defined as games with simply "no end." The notepad program has no end - I can't necessarily call that a sandbox game. If I hand you a standard deck of playing cards and proceeded to tell you about this new "game" where I spread all the cards out and stared at them..... well, I would hope you would find medical attention for me. There is no possible definition of a game in a scenario of staring at cards with no risk, no winning, no losing, etc. That is simply not a game - that's an afternoon of thorazine.
If you play Minecraft to sculpt together boxes then you're simply using the wrong tool. There are plenty of very creative programs out there that will let you sculpt voxels as if you were making sand castles. There are no mobs, no characters, no lifebars to worry about. For even more fun, go try Gary's Mod for Source. You can actually create 3D physics and much nicer geometry than anything you'll ever get out of Minecraft. Even better, Gary's Mod only has mobs as you define them - no need to worry about those pesky over-controlling game developers forcing them upon you. If you've really got a huge crush on the whole voxel thing, then you should try FortressCraft - no angry mobs, you automatically get infinite blocks that you can create very, very complex structures with and it has this really great feature that allows you to make your very own custom blocks.
How can you possibly continue to argue the "point" of Minecraft (which, by your own definition of a sandbox game has no definable purpose) is to build junk? Again, there is a huge supply of programs that will allow me to do that infinitely.
Every single game has an implied goal (or many goals) that the user perceives. Sometimes, they're pretty obvious and creators go to great lengths to force you to want to complete a specific goal. Other times, the line isn't very clear - let's use Left 4 Dead as an example. Why are the survivors trying to escape? At first glance, you might consider it a stupid question and begin to vomit answers like, "because they'll die!", "they need to find food!" or "they miss their cats!" None of that is relevant to the game as defined by the rules of the game itself. If the goal was to survive, you'd never leave the safe room...... there is no starving mechanic or similar to force you out of the safe room. You have "won" the game if your perceived goal is to survive - unfortunately, regardless of your perception, your implied goal and your own motivation to complete the goals the game has set in front of you.... the "game" simply isn't played that way. It is very obvious the purpose in the experience the designers wanted to give you was to care for the characters and want to get them out alive (even though you never really know where the heck they go).
The goals that I personally place on my Minecraft experiences are not to simply hold the left mouse button until I hit bedrock, then take all the cobblestone I've just mined and build a giant letter 'Q' to live in. Yours can be - that's fine, the game allows you that freedom. But it does contain it's own set of motivating elements (survive, complete achievements, reach The End, kill the Dragon) in addition to the ones you decide make your playing experience more enjoyable (add a mod and ride in a Zeppelin, make the best Redstone creation ever, light Pigmen on fire and dance to 80s music with them). None of this is wrong. Enjoy your experience. You certainly don't need to convince me your way to play is superior - do what you like.
Individuals like Insurrection and many others (uh, including the original creator and the design team) want to turn Minecraft into a more enjoyable action and adventure RPG. You can already see the elements taking place - experience points, a possible skill and leveling system, interactable NPCs and more. Fight against it if you'd like - hell, do us all a favor and make a better product that more matches the way you want to play Minecraft. More products = more competition = more quality and innovation.
I would normally agree with this, but there is something that people need to understand- Minecraft is constantly in development. It has the potential to continually surpass itself, as it's not really a "final" game. Therefore, it's rather shameful of Mojang to not try and really one-up themselves constantly with every update, to be honest.
I don't agree that Minecraft is going to "fizzle out" for a ton of reasons we can cover later. There are huge gaps that Minecraft currently fills and will continue to fill for the foreseeable future whether Mojang murders the whole thing to work on 0x10c or make amazing changes - it's all the same, the product still fills a need.
Any IP has a goal to "one up" themselves - whether it be in a version update or a sequel. Sometimes, they clearly don't. Expectations aren't met, glitches are found, gameplay is watered down and weak, etc, etc, etc. Mojang already has that pressure placed on them - you can't shame them for something they're already achieving. Want a metric for the achievement? Look at the sales. Even half-implemented and broken mechanics are successful.
0x10c, scrolls, etc are going to the mark of success for Mojang by proving they are a capable game studio that didn't "accidentally all the sales" on a fluke success. Personally, I think the absolute best next step for Minecraft is for the whole thing to simply be released to the public as a free client (not necessarily open sourced, but that's a different subject and a different promise). Mojang could create a "Minecraft Marketplace" and allow people to sell paid content through a trusted channel that was created with a well-made API. If they want more money they could license the server itself, fees for the market, charge for hosting or even license the SDK. The last few things would be horrible ideas, but..... I can't imagine it wouldn't at least be a brief success.
In the first paragraph you said exactly the same thing as me. I said minecraft is not a fighting game. "Finally the whole idea on the mob system is based on minecraft being a fighting game. It isn't."
I'm going to be brutally honest here for a moment.
You're using a straw man argument. A straw man argument is when someone says something, and you respond to their argument using a superficial argument that isn't actually what they said as if it WERE what they said.
It is a logical fallacy. It is wrong. It offers nothing to the discussion. It is precisely what you are doing by claiming anything about Minecraft being a "fighting game".
On that alone, this completely disqualifies you from discussing... basically anything, until you actually realize the faults of using such an argument. However, I'm going to be nice and continue on.
A sand box game is defined as being a game were you can do anything you want without being required to end the game any where. <wikipedia quote>
Yes, I know what a sandbox game is. As you even just said yourself, Minecraft is not just a Sandbox game. Therefore, why does it need to stick to the definition of it?
Whether Notch likes it or not Minecraft meets the defintion and requirements to be a sand box video game.
...and it can be even more. This is my point. It can be more than just a sandbox game. It can make use of its intentions- it can actually be an enjoyable game past just "building".
For years game developers have bickered amongst one another on how "Smart" an A.I. should be. Should it be able to learn from player input? Should it be so stupid as to be laughable? What exactly is the defining point on a good A.I.? Sadly no answer has been reached so we continue to get a broad spectrum of game A.I.'s.
We get a broad spectrum because of the variety of developers, the variety of actual games, and etc. It's not because "No one knows how to actually make a good AI".
The point I am attempting to make is that for a game that was never intended to be a full fledged fighting game,
Quote from Insurrection »
Pointing out what Notch, Jeb, and/or Mojang "intended" is rather irrelevant. Even if you provide proof of where they actually said what their intentions are, this thread is a criticism of flaws. Generally speaking, no one ever intends to create flaws. That's why they're called flaws- why they're synonymous with accidents. Most of the time, flaws are unintentional. However, if it's an intentional flaw, then it needs to be changed even more.
If you want to argue on whether or not something is a flaw, feel free. That's what this thread is for- to figure out what is and isn't flawed. Just be sure to be objective about it- simply because you enjoy the flaw doesn't mean it's perfectly fine. That goes against the whole idea of criticism and objective analysis.
I'm starting to get annoyed with needing to quote things I've already said. Please actually read the first two posts.
So... you understand my point, right? That just because they can beat you doesn't mean they're smart?
I'd also like to say that just because they can beat you doesn't mean they're a challenge. A challenge implies they have some form of difficulty with fighting them- I've explained (in detail...) how they are not difficult. If you disagree with my assessment of difficulty and its application to Minecraft, please- respond to those points (instead of just ignoring them) so we can come to an understanding.
and that frankly making it smart enough to avoid even half the player traps would take a large amount of restructuring to make it a learning A.I. which would inevitably make the game impossible to play.
...this is assuming I'm saying they should "make it a learning AI". I've not even said much about how to make the AI better- aside from giving it some more abilities (and of course making them use said abilities). Again, strawman argument...
Pointing out what Notch, Jeb, and/or Mojang "intended" is rather irrelevant. Even if you provide proof of where they actually said what their intentions are, this thread is a criticism of flaws. Generally speaking, no one ever intends to create flaws. That's why they're called flaws- why they're synonymous with accidents. Most of the time, flaws are unintentional. However, if it's an intentional flaw, then it needs to be changed even more.
If you want to argue on whether or not something is a flaw, feel free. That's what this thread is for- to figure out what is and isn't flawed. Just be sure to be objective about it- simply because you enjoy the flaw doesn't mean it's perfectly fine. That goes against the whole idea of criticism and objective analysis.
Even if mob grinders are considered to be "cheating" or "evil" creations, and even if peaceful mode was implemented after the initial release of this game, the very fact that they are part of the game means they can not be ruled out in good concious.
Quote from Insurrection »
Please don't just shoot down all the things proposed in this thread, then never suggest better ideas. If you're going to defend the current vanilla survival mode, at least state how it compares to the suggestions proposed in this thread, and why they trump the proposed ideas. Simply saying "Because it already works" really isn't a good enough response- don't make me state why "It's always been this way, therefore it is fine" is a poor defense.
First off just because the games Icon is a creeper don't assume its all about da creepers.
I said that it's indicitive of its intentions- mobs are obviously a part of this game. They were intended to be a part of this game. I didn't say it's all about the mobs. I said that they were obviously intended to be a threat. They are, as I argue, not.
Second off if looked at in a objective position this game does not in any way shape or form scream at me "Kill Da Monsters!"
-You need to kill mobs in order to progress through the game (it does have progression, hence "The End")
-You need to kill mobs to get certain materials (TNT, etc)
-The game is (poorly) built around the idea of fighting mobs, as well as building.
The creatures of this game appear only at night, and half of them are effectively erased at the end of night time. The rest can be largely avoided if a player knows what he is doing.
...so being around for effectively half the game (more than that due to caves) mean it's "not in any way shape or form" a goal to beat them?
Furthermore, just because it is doesn't mean it should.
Also writing off mob grinders simply because they were never meant to be is a bad idea. Players rarely ever stick to the defined rules that the creator envisioned. I can site several instances, (Eve Online to name one) were the players simply did not conform the creators ideas. Did it make for a better game? Well that depends on who you ask.
Ask someone who wants to have an artificial leg up on other people, they'll always defend their unintended "game mechanics" to the death (See: GunZ, Command and Conquer: Renegade, every fighting game ever, a large majority of MMORPG's, etc). They have almost no logic behind their claims, aside from "well it works, so it should stay" (which isn't logic, in reality).
Ask any logical person, and they'll say no, it doesn't necessarily make it a better game. Especially when the end result is very much so arguably bad (which in this case, it most certainly is).
Mob grinders exist so players don't have to fight mobs.
Mobs exist so players have something to fight and have fun with, and are rewarded for their time. This is killed by the idea of mob grinders. They contradict eachother.
If I throw the game into peaceful mode that works, but then I can't get several important mob only items that I need to get around. No bones to tame wolves, no easy access to string for bows and fishing poles, and no spider eyes for brewing. No ender pearls for the end of the game as well.
...That is the definition of cheating. It is a shortcut. Something to give you an advantage.
It is also a very defining trait in videogame imbalance- something that effectively makes other developed aspects of the game effectively useless.
Also the idea that "It's fine for me," being worth diddly is another gross misconception.
Based on that merit alone, it is. It's purely subjective, and speaks nothing for the quality. It is worth nothing when concerning the quality of a game. Which is what I want improved.
Thus, like any investor, the fact that I bought into the game gives me a entitlement to a honest opinion.
It doesn't. It simply gives you access to the game. Furthermore, it especially doesn't give you an "entitlement to a honest opinion" on discussions of the actual game and its general design. Facts, logic, and objectivity are what entitle you to discuss such things.
I am not trying to say that it being fine for me means don't change it. I am simply saying that it looks good as is from my perspective.
...Then what's the point of everything you're saying? What should I, the reader, take from everything you're saying? That I should re-consider my ideas solely to appeal to you? That I should consider other people's opinions? If you're not opposing change, why are you arguing against change?
How ever I must admit that Mojangs height limit increase, introduction of a new biome, and some introduction of new mobs should be considered big ground breaking updates since those things were not ever in the game.
Modders have added all of these changes prior to them being in the game. "Ground breaking" typically means it hasn't been done before.
Also if you are digging in a cave and get surprised by some mobs, unless you shut off the mobs via the difficulty, you have to fight them or try and evade them.
The fact that you can shut off the mobs means that you DON'T need to fight them.
Enough players are challenged by these situations.
That speaks absolutely nothing for the quality of the game, though. Just because a million people walk head first into a vat of acid doesn't mean the acid is "challenging".
Minecraft is a game that lets you be what you want to be.
In the same way that a box is a videogame because you can pretend it's a spaceship... yes, great for kids, but you'd probably be pretty upset if you paid money for something that claimed it'd take you to the moon and it was only just a box (and if you complained, people would just retort with "Use your imagination!").
the only difference between creative and survival is that creative lets you zip around can construct your building faster.
...and that you can break blocks instantly, and that you get any block in the game right away, and that you don't need to eat food, and that you can't die, and so on. Those are pretty big changes at a very core level.
I've been keeping an eye on this thread. If you need any assistance I will do what I can. I may not be able to do much but I am creative and come up with rather different approaches to keep minecraft in the same style of minecraft. I have lots of ideas.
I appreciate it. If I need any more people to consult with for ideas, I'll let you know. For right now, we've got a pretty good thought train going.
I don't agree that Minecraft is going to "fizzle out" for a ton of reasons we can cover later. There are huge gaps that Minecraft currently fills and will continue to fill for the foreseeable future whether Mojang murders the whole thing to work on 0x10c or make amazing changes - it's all the same, the product still fills a need.
I dunno- I see a lot of parallels between Minecraft/Mojang and various MMORPG's, and developers such as Bioware, Blizzard, and so on. Especially since a lot of people are jumping on the voxel-based bandwagon. Cube World is looking pretty good, honestly.
I suppose it's quite a stretch to say it's doooomed because I know they'll continue to grow and make money. However, they can't sustain quality if they are to continue going as they are. One could easily argue they've lacked quality for a long time now...
Any IP has a goal to "one up" themselves - whether it be in a version update or a sequel. Sometimes, they clearly don't. Expectations aren't met, glitches are found, gameplay is watered down and weak, etc, etc, etc.
Yes, and I'm here to try and ensure they don't fall into the pit of that terrible, terrible mixture of watered down quality and insane acceptance by their community. The idea of constant progression means that they have the ability to retain, and even improve on quality. I want to ensure this actually happens.
If it doesn't, though... at least we'll have my mod as a last refuge. ;_;
Mojang already has that pressure placed on them - you can't shame them for something they're already achieving. Want a metric for the achievement? Look at the sales. Even half-implemented and broken mechanics are successful.
Again, sales and etc don't account for a product's quality. Please don't make me cite examples.
The last few things would be horrible ideas, but..... I can't imagine it wouldn't at least be a brief success.
Exactly. It's quality vs success. I don't care about success, and considering that Mojang has made more money in a few years than most people have in a lifetime, I would imagine that they would opt for quality now that they've achieved success. Otherwise, it is pure and utter greed of the highest level- sacrificing quality for money.
Yeah, this is exactly on my line of thinking. And this could also work for passive mobs - If a cow sees you kill another cow, the cows would give you a higher "threat rating". This cow could then, say, pass on the word to other cows, and then all the cows in the area would give the player a higher "threat rating". Since, of course they can't fight back, the higher the threat rating would probably make them be more skittish and scared of you, to the point where if your "threat rating" is high enough, they'll just outright run away from you. And then you could lower their threat levels with, say, wheat. Either you could make a lure out of it, or you could just hold it out to them and their "threat level" would drop. And, you could only breed animals that have a low threat level of you.
Also, passive mobs should naturally have some movement patterns, i.e some "herds" of animals would be more nomadic and move around more around the area, and other herds should be 'hefted', or just naturally staying in one area. And, of course, that you could 'heft' animals to a different area yourself, y'know, for farming reasons, to keep 'em in the same area without having to fence 'em in. Passive mobs, I think, have even worse AI than the hostile monsters.
You are not the first to wish that Minecraft was different from what we have now. I think even Notch had different plans when he started, but something happened along the way. A youtuber calling himself X (davidr64yt) managed to make a good stir with a blog post about 1 years ago. He wrote about what Minecraft should or could have been. A lot of his ideas were good and well received by the community, but Notchs reply was very dismissive.
The problem wasn't the ideas themselves, but the presentation. If you read through the blog post now you might even come to believe that some of the ideas have been adopted. I'm sure even Notch at some level shared many of the ideas presented by X and that is why you can now glimpse a few similarities.
Notchs original plan was to make Minecraft into a Roguelike game. That would, at least to me, mean significantly more focus on survival and RPG elements, more magic and character leveling, but as Minecraft grew it got a life of its own. Notch found his hands tied as he suddenly couldn't turn Minecraft into the game he wanted. Minecraft had become too popular the way it was.
Can you say for certain that you would have spent more hours on Minecraft than you have to date if it was a Rogulike game instead? Think about the hours you have spent on Minecraft and compare it to more traditional sandbox games. How long do they usually last? What happens when you have "figured it out"?
Don't dismiss mods. One day the Minecraft you see now will be just one of many mods you can pick and choose from with an in game menu. It'll all blend together and you wont know the difference other than the little text at the bottom of the title screen giving you a short list of authors in addition to Mojang. What then dear Insurrection!
I skimmed through most of it. Good job.
Now I'm going to point out the obvious - you do know where Minecraft "came from", right?
For all of the work you've done on these "problems" and "solutions", I do not see a prototype of a new game with all of these features that would make Minecraft so much better. Clearly, if all of these drastic changes would all make it so very much better, then you're not very bright for not bothering to create a new game from it all.
No offense intended, but it's a painfully obvious point: honestly think the game could be executed so much better?
Then do it.
???
Profit!
Alternate plan
Complain on the internet
???
Accomplish nothing
PS - I thought it was just the forum rendering funny at first, but it seems you've decided that center justifying everything is a good idea? That's absolutely horrid. Stop it.
I think these kinds of posts speak to how much enjoyment a great many of us have received from minecraft and how we all see potential for it to grow and improve. I think a lot of us though sometimes forget about how minecraft has gotten to this point. This is an indie game that up until about a year ago was developed for the most part by a single person. It's not been published by a big publisher or funded in Kickstarter. Even now the development team is still relatively small but when compared to how large the team was just a year ago the growth in the team is huge. My point by mentioning this is that I think our expectations/criticisms while valid are not in line with what has been realistically possible to be reached up to this point.
Ultimately though minecraft is going to become what the Mojang team envisions and in some things (or many things depending on our own personal vision) will fall short of our expectations. This is where the modding community comes into play. People with different visions for minecraft can mod the game to meet their vision and thus customize the game to suit their style. This is actually very healthy for minecraft and can influence the development team more than posts like this. We have examples in the past where the development team liked a mod idea well enough and how the community embraced it to include it or a version of the idea into the game. In this sense I don't think we realize just how fortunate we are with just how personable and direct our contact with the Mojang team can be. I don't know how many times I've seen people say I tweeted jeb or dinnerbone and got a response.
I think most of the development to date in minecraft has been to put in place a large basic framework of content that still has a lot of potential. Recent changes the current dev team have already made expanded the the map height and the number of block id's available, both will have huge potential when talking about future content development. Right now they are working on revising some fundamental structures that will greatly influence the future of minecraft. While I personally have to wonder if they may be biting off more than they can chew, I can appreciate that if they succeed, it will make minecraft a better game. They have already proven (to me at least) that adding new content will happen very quickly once they get over these huge backend changes they are working on.
To summarize my points. We've gotten about as much as we can reasonably expect from Minecraft development up to this point. More people are working on the development than ever before. This games developers still have a strong connection to the community. We can expect a content explosion to start perhaps as soon as next year. Until then lets test what they are working on, give feedback as we can, and be a bit more patient.
by c0yote
I tried it with terrible results. I gave my wife my glasses for a second, a creeper showed up and now my wife is pregnant.
Stupid 3D..
I didn't suggest that everything be contained in the game, though. I suggested they give you a proper starting point within the game so you don't need to consult a wiki/video for really basic things. If you're given the basics, you can safely ignore the whole of the wiki and explore the game properly, to be honest. Otherwise, you need to wade through quite a lot to find explanations on the basics.
Also, the wiki would still exist for the specifics of things, so yeah.
It's one thing to be a "part", but another to basically be necessary to properly play it.
Again, this is fine for not explaining a creeper, or not explaining the Nether, or etc. It's not fine for explaining very basic mechanics like recipe's, the fact that you can tame things, or etc. Again, a proper tutorial (not an all-encompassing ingame wiki) would just explain the basic mechanics of the game- not give you intimate details on every aspect of the game.
On that note, I'd like to ask something- what's the difference between an avoidable tutorial, and an avoidable wiki? Assuming the tutorial did contain as much info as the wiki (which it, ideally, would not).
That feeling can still be maintained with a proper tutorial. Again, it wouldn't explain everything. Especially if more content was added- there would be a lot more to the game than just mastering immensely simple mechanics. I understand the idea you're talking about- but I have to say, it's not so much intentional or aided with anything in the current game. It's a bare-bones lack of content. You can not only maintain this feeling, but make it even more pronounced with actual game mechanics. Which I intend to do.
I wouldn't mind some books for some random details on things dipped in lore (See: The Elder Scrolls), but this doesn't work so well for a tutorial given that you don't spawn in a village.
Yeah, I don't want some lame quest arrow with some tacked on red [ ! ] that you need to click in order to get some poorly explained goal to achieve. Just some explanations on the basics, then the player can figure out the rest. Basically, give the player the fishing rod, but not the fish, so to speak.
To get a point of reference what I mean, look at Castlevania 2 for an example of how lack of information/misinformation is an awful game design choice. Especially when, upon actually knowing everything there is to know, the game actually becomes really linear, despite being "open".
I agree with this (at least that dynamic concepts that are essentially balls of clay is a good thing), but redstone is one of the only things that actually works like that. The entire game doesn't operate on such a basis- really, redstone is about the only thing like that. Mobs, mob interaction, equipment- it's all immensely simple.
Furthermore, like everything, it can be expanded. There can be way more forms of mob interaction, way more dynamic equipment, more dynamic terrain- everything.
The current temples are pretty bad, actually. They just stuff the game with more of the same without being any actual content- it's just "Here! MORE stuff to fill the map!". I think that's the problem with things like abandoned mineshafts and the like- they contain maybe one worthwhile thing... while filling the map with tons of tedious, monotonous generation.
It'd be better if it all served some kind of purpose, and you couldn't just "skip to the end" whenever you want.
This would be pretty fantastic. It'd also mean you'd have to make it so that you actually lead a cow somewhere away from the other cows to slaughter it (Prodding a cow without hurting it wouldn't increase threat rating). It's a little silly that they just stand there all <_> MROO even though you just killed their parents right in front of them.
I love the idea of nomadic mobs. Buffalo or the like would be really cool, and just add to the feel of the game. Especially if the food system were properly overhauled, so you could have more varieties of food for more useful animals.
I remember Terrafirma Craft did this. I'm not sure if it's an entirely good idea just on its own, but I wouldn't mind designing other mechanics around the idea of needing to get sticks from trees (as well as alternatives). Perhaps a way to craft them later on, but early on it's easiest to just get 'em from trees?
Also, trees need to have branches. Just logs and leaves is laaaame.
Yeah- this is being discussed as we speak, but I definitely like the idea of needing to work towards farming mobs.
I'm not implying they need to "force" the player to do too much, though. Just that they remove unnecessary mechanics (mid-game difficulty switching, etc), and create much more content. The only thing they should "force" in survival is require the player to actually survive (it tries to do this but falls pretty flat on its face- so please don't say "it was never about actually surviving!").
I'm not forcing it, though. None of the game would be "forced", ideally. I HATE the idea of push-alongs, believe me. I'd just like to see more rewards for progressing through the game, exploring, and etc. Not necessary rewards ("You must get the key of souls from the Nether to unlcok this chest!"), but things that just add more to the game instead of being more of the same (Access to more potion types, etc).
Furthermore, it's easy to see it already forces you to progress in a sense- levels are only used for enchanting, and in order to get an enchanting table, you need to progress through the game, etc. There's many examples of this. So please don't say "It doesn't force you to do anything!" because it totally does (even more than it would under my ideal system).
...
Holy ****. I didn't even know about this. This makes me extremely frustrated. This flat out proves that Notch dismisses criticism and suggestions. Hooly ****.
Notch flat out said he would only do the game his way. That was his response. Any similarities between these are entirely coincidental- unless Notch is flat out lying and did take ideas from him (while dismissing his ideas in the process and making him feel like crap), there is no way one can believe he later decided "Oh alright, I'll consider his ideas because I am a nice guy".
No, it didn't. It stopped proper content development, and just remained as it was with minor additions here and there.
This is my whole point about 7a. They've become afraid, and feel their hands are tied. BUT THEY AREN'T. They can still develop the game- they won't get shot because some 12 year old kid doesn't like the new changes.
If it had more roguelike elements? Actually, yeah, probably.
I've spent more hours playing Morrowind, I'd say. If I had more money, I'd be playing the crap out of GTA: San Andreas, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, and if I had a better computer, other TES games and GTA games would be up there, too.
I've "figured out" games before, but that doesn't suddenly make them uninteresting. In fact, a truly good game allows you to understand everything, but still offer plenty of fun despite that. It's like checkers- you get the idea of it, because it's very simple. However, it has enough dynamics to create an enjoyable experience.
Minecraft is not as "simple" in the ways it should be (easy to learn, etc), but in fact, is only "simple" in the sense that it lacks content.
Who's to say it will? Chances are likely, even the mod creators will leave Minecraft for a better game. And I guarantee you- better games will come around. Unless Notch & co get their act together, Minecraft will die. Because they refuse to accept criticism.
I'm so ****ing mad about them ignoring that blog post I can't even put it into words. Notch is officially the videogame equivalent of George Lucas.
Read through it instead of just skimming.
Yes. Your point?
I'm in the process of doing that, actually. Granted, I'm doing it from the perspective of a mod to the game, but eventually I plan to branch out and make my own videogames afterwards. I currently lack the experience to create a game from scratch, unfortunately.
I'm not just complaining- I'm offering suggestions, and encouraging discussion. It's also actually accomplishing something- I'm getting the necessary support to help kickstart a proper mod.
Uh... No.
It's full of the same old crap. "I don't like this and it should be this way" - so make it that way.
Did you have trouble following it? I'll repeat it - Minecraft was inspired by other games and Notch not being happy with the features available. So he created his own version with the features he wanted. Similarly, you are clearly not happy with the current state of Minecraft - so create your own version with the features you want.
Sounds awesome. Do you have anything up yet? Like a home page with a design goal or anything similar that we can follow? Twitter feed? Anything we can interact with now?
I'm interested when the Mod API completes as to what we could do with it. Maybe the possibility of a fork or paid mod could happen. Sounds like you have a pretty good start on this!
PS - I bet the time it took you to draft out the above and the replies was probably enough time to make it through the first chapter(s) of a Java/C++/C#/JavaScript/WebGL book.
Yeah. There seems to be a misconception that I'm simply raging because I hate this game. No, I'm raging because I like(d) what this game has to offer. However, it has SO much potential- so many possibilities, and yet none of them are being fulfilled. Not due to something understandable like a lack of time or money (they get paid a lot to work on the game), either. They just... aren't.
I understand this very well, actually. I also understand that they've made millions and have the ability to get people to work on it fairly easily.
I dunno- some things I can understand not being implemented right away (like vastly improved AI), but can you really say it's immensely tough to come up with a system for more sensible biome generation? Or making trees taller? Or reducing the maximum allowed light level for mobs to spawn? Or making slimes spawn aboveground in certain biomes?
(all of these things I've personally done, and within 1 week of modding Minecraft while learning how to mod at the same time).
Also, them not being published by a big publisher means they have more freedom... yet they seem to restrain themselves from doing really creative things so they don't upset anyone.
It's not just about expectations and them living up to them- it's about them not actually making the game better. This wasn't as big of a deal until Notch literally dismissed someone's rant and suggestions, said he "has plans", and then straight up quits developing Minecraft so that Jeb can take hold of things. They have absolutely no excuse to not improve the game.
There are thousands of mods, but they don't really take most of them into consideration, it seems. They take really small ones, butcher them, then add them in (see: Wolves, Pistons, etc). I don't think they've ever taken a massive idea/mod and put them in.
The fact that it took them 7 months add in something as mind bogglingly simple as Ender Chests. Yes, we have examples of that- we also have plenty of examples of them not being very good at adding things that add to gameplay.
And then they dismiss people like davidr64... so they can respond to "Hello how is your day?".
Which was fine for alpha and the early half of beta- but 1.0 was a buggy mess of things, and had very little to actually offer to the game. It's a game, not an engine they're developing. They still have yet to really add a massive amount of content- and when they DO add content, it's usually very very buggy, incomplete, and/or imbalanced (Enderdragon, Temples, etc). And it takes them months.
...but they don't do anything with these changes. They just take a long time to make them, then leave it as is. They haven't made use of the increased map height, and they haven't even made use of the current block ID limit.
I appreciate their efforts toward expanding the framework, but they've given very little to actually appreciate in terms of the actual game.
I'm convinced that content creation from Mojang will grind to a halt once 1.4 comes out, then they will let the modding community do almost all of their work for them. Which would be fine if they'd accept the good ideas, but they've not proven they're very capable of understanding what makes a game good. They just add things to add things, because it'd be "fun" and "cool".
Again, no- we haven't. The amount of changes they can very easily make towards improving the game have yet to be put in. They're more content adding more stairs, more decoration blocks, and horribly imbalanced and map-cluttering temples.
I really hope they do, but I'm not going to hold my breath. I also want to make sure that the content they add is good content- you can fill a game with content, but that in of itself is not necessarily a good thing. They need to listen to the more critical side of things to get a feeling of what type of content they should add. Not the content-less complainers, not the whiny 12 year old kids, not the people who suggest they add in "super TNT"- the people who actually have a vision for this game, and the people who have seen this game grow from at least alpha (if not before alpha).
You're digging yourself into a hole, then- this is the epitome of ignorance. How on Earth does this qualify you to say I'm wrong on anything when you're flat out being ignorant?
Firstly, how can you know that if you haven't actually read it? It might appear that way if you skim it, but it's not. There's actual content to it all- points, logical suggestions, facts, etc. Yes, some of the suggestions might not be so well thought out (the Endermen thing), but instead of just saying "no it's crap", suggest better ones instead of being contrary.
Secondly, it actually isn't- it's not just "I don't like this". There's quite a bit of objective analysis on what aspects are flaws, and gives out some various ideas (that can be discussed and worked on) on how to fix said flaws.
If you had read the post, you'd know this. I make it insanely clear that my intentions are to point out the problems with the game past simply my own opinions, and intend to get good ideas going- not just what I think are good ideas.
I thought you were just pointing out how he had taken inspiration from other games, without much of a point attached. As I said, though, I am working on improving the game, so I didn't figure you were pointing to that... still, yeah, I'm working on making a mod out of it. I'm not that senselessly cynical.
Somewhat- I'm in the process of getting everything together right now. I have a group of people who are helping me work on the general design/concepts of things, and I want to make sure it's pretty high quality before hyping people up. Still, I DO have a blog:
http://abetterminecraft.blogspot.com/
It doesn't have very much, but it's there. Once 1.4 comes out and I can actually add content (without fear of having holes punched in development due to updates), you'll see more than just a dinky little blog.
I've read a fair bit on C++, and am still learning Java, but I also like to learn as I go along. Don't worry, I'm still learning- I'm just also garnering support along the way so I can have more people working on this than just me. And it's working pretty well, so yeah.
I skim pretty thoroughly.....
It's not a matter of being ignorant - it's a matter of being wise enough to know that there are another 4 million people out there with ideas that sound nearly parallel to yours. Some of them go on to make new creations. The majority go on to.... uh... watch TV for a few days, I guess. I don't really know what they do.....
I'm not here to oppose your ideas - they sound great. Many of them are echoes of the same complaints, but they still sound great. I'd much rather see some action taken than more discussion about the same old boring topics......
Yes - you pointed out the problems. Everyone can be a critic. Good job?
Getting good ideas going and actually shipping something (that is, to actually publish another game or mod) is entirely different. I'm asking you to be one of the people that actually ships something especially if you think so highly of your analysis.
Stop center justifying things. It's horrible to read.
The blog says you've created a mod that added a new biome, new blocks and new NPC behavior - where's the download link?
I'm going to assume you'll be using Java if you intend to mod Minecraft.... if you stick with it, make sure to look up topics like the LWJGL and OpenGL.
http://www.lwjgl.org/
Being familiar with them will both help create a new game as well as work with the existing Minecraft client and server.
I'm not going to sit here and argue points about how bad the mobs are - we all know how bad they are. But if you want a hand figuring out what a piece of Java does or a kick in the ass for more action, less talk - just let me know.
Another question I have, though, is that I don't recall very much talk about the Nether here. I saw in the blog's changelog that Ghasts now drop much more experience points - something I look forward to - but otherwise nothing's really came up about it, that I remeber.
Do you have any plan at all about altering the Nether? I think honestly there still can be a lot done about it. Like, what AI systems would Pigmen get, or Ghasts, or Blazes? Will there be more introduced there? I think that for a Hellscape it has a lot of potential to it, if it's done right.
There may be tons of people who think something, but it's another thing to offer an analysis as to why. That's not to say my ideas are some special snowflake- they're certainly not. But I'd place them above the majority of other ideas, yes. Plenty of people can suggest something like a new water mob (which I agree with), but I don't think many people try to tie it into other apsects of the game- they just want to see a water mob. I feel differently- I'd like to see things like a water mob actually serve more of a purpose than just "being a water mob". I'd like to see more cohesion and gameplay flow.
I would say not as many people do this.
You're right, but not in the way you may think- yes, everybody can be a critic. However, that doesn't mean everyone is a critic.
A person who complains about something without having any merit or logic behind their complaints is not a "critic". A person who complains about something without thinking of how it can be better (regardless of whether or not they list said improvements) is not a "critic". A person who gives a 9.5 to an objectively bad game then calls gamers entitled because they dislike day one DLC is not a "critic".
A critic is someone who critically reviews something- someone who gives a lot of insight, and bases their thoughts in facts. They have at least a vague grasp of how to improve something, and understand that anything can be improved. They're the types of people who can ultimately say "X is bad", but can be looked to as different from the hordes who also say "X is bad" because they have a huge amount of content in their words to back up their claims. They're the types of people who can say things that are really obvious, yet be considered above their peers because of how they said it- not just their "tone" or how "nice" they were, but because of the amount of facts and arguments they have on their side.
For an example of what I mean, look at Red Letter Media's "Plinkett Reviews"- sure, a lot of people have said the Star Wars prequel movies are bad, but RLM manages to stand out from the crowd. Not just because their Plinkett character is funny as hell (which he is), but because they give one of the best analysis of the movies that can be referenced to for future discussions. They bring about many points you may not have considered, yet are very "obvious".
This is what separates a critic from everybody else- they actually are a critic, not just someone who claims they're a critic.
Yeah, I get where you're coming from- a lot of people can rage against something but never contribute anything to prove their point. Don't worry- I hate those types of people, too. I don't intend to be one of them.
Is it? I always felt it looked nice, since paragraphs don't get so bunched together, but maybe that's just me (I'm an odd person). I'll stop doing that.
Not going to provide a DL to my mod until I'm well enough along to release something good- quality over quantity of releases, and such. Also, like I said- waiting for 1.4, haha.
Yeah. I don't intend on becoming a master Java coder- I'd rather stick with C++ for actual creation. So I'm content with learning java enough to just code the things I want to code. I'm not very fond of Java, otherwise, so I won't waste my time learning things I don't need to learn. That might seem ignorant, but really, why slow potential development for things you won't really use?
When 1.4 comes out and I need an army of coders, I'll probably PM you. I can always use people to help with coding.
EDIT: JSSarfin posted while I was typing that, whoop.
Yeah, I'd love for the Nether to be expanded. I want to make it more varied, too- things like Nether biomes, more structures (both in the "buildings" sense and the coding sense), more stuff like nether-exclusive ores, and etc.
All games die, or at least fade away from memory. Is Pacman or Tetris dead? Is Morrowind dead? Game developers have different time perspectives when developing games. A flash game developed for the Winter Olympics isn't intended to last as long as a new mmo.
You make it sound like Minecraft is already doomed, while all sales figures tells us otherwise. Minecraft is already a blooming success and I believe it'll last at least another 2-3 years. A lot of people will leave, but that is the nature of things. As long as new blood comes rushing in, then Minecraft will be very much alive.
I find it amusing when someone that has been playing e.g. WoW for 5 years appear on the forum and calls it dead. There is a limit to how many times you can read a good book or watch a good movie. The tenth time isn't as interesting as the first and eventually you get tired of the story. You find a new book, a new game or a new hobby to entertain you, but that doesn't mean it's dead for everyone.
The most interesting part to this discussion is your fight to "save" Minecraft. It's not often that you get that attached to a game, but until you relax a little bit and start presenting you ideas in a more organized manner and not as the only solution to Minecrafts survival, I can't take you as serious as I think you want us to.
I stated some facts and humble opinions that I am aware of. That is the whole point of debate. And I happen to know that A.I.'s sometimes do things that can be described as outside the box. Sure I can sit down and pour over code for months on end looking for how its all happening and I can turn up empty handed and have to scrap the whole darn thing. Computers can be a little more intelligent than we give them credit for. Also don't assume I'm ignorant simply because I don't conform to your ideas. I am giving you the respect of acknowledging your opinion(s) so please do the same for mine. In no way, shape, or form am I flaming/trolling at anybody on this. I simply feel that this stands to be debated, and you may end up with better ideas than the one you had before. It's happened before. Once again I am focusing on the section on ai changes, not the bits and pieces spread throughout.
I can't count the times when I was mining in a straight line, met a creeper, had the creeper blow up, and then drop me into a pit of lava it opened up. Strange as it may sound its happened before, along with digging right up into a lava pit. I don't claim to be the best player in the world cause I'm not. The most I like to do is sail around in zeppelins mod and ooh/ahh at the scenery below. However I feel the random generation of terrain has made things difficult enough as it is, what with lava essentially restarting you. I have also drowned while mining in the past. It's not something I'm proud of but it also does happen.
Finally the whole idea on the mob system is based on minecraft being a fighting game. It isn't.
Usually such games as these are described as fighting games with mining elements. This is the reverse of the norm. That is why the mobs are so dumb and can actually be shut off by setting to peaceful mode. It was never about the mobs, it was about the sand box. Players can do/be whatever they want in the game, especially on servers. If I want mob items I don't even need to kill mobs, i can just make a mob grinder and be done with it. Fighting is only nescessary when the situation forces it, such as a few skeletons coming at you and you can't escape, or getting exp for enchanting. Thus this all renders any major changes to mobs, which may happen or not, kinda at the back of the line. Mojang still has other things to fix such as lighting glitches, crappy looking biomes, and other such nonesense. We can talk about it all we want but it won't happen no matter how much some of us may want it to.
Now I am not saying the idea isn't sound. I can think of a few games which could stand to gain from it. However as it stands minecraft is fine as is as far as the mobs are concerned. They are still difficult enough to challenge me and that's absolutely fine. I can barely handle them as it is, and I tend to spend long hours cleaning the landscape up. I can even utilize stoopid creepers in base raiding on servers. Making the mobs smart would make a lot more radical changes than some might think.
I'm not sure you went with the right genre there. Minecraft will never be a fighting game. Action RPG or something, sure, even FPS. Never a fighting game. Ever.
Here's where any discussion on improvements in mobs gets a little shakey:
If the purpose was to be solely creative, you're really playing the wrong game. Minecraft itself is so basic it's nearly laughable when compared to any number of newer products (and older products - Source SDK, anyone?). This isn't a jab at Minecraft - this is the way the industry works. Doom is better than Wolfenstein, Quake is better than Doom, etc. The early adopters generally have fewer features, were designed at a time when many things were inferior (development team ability, time, computer requirements, etc), and may not exactly have had the clearest of goals set initially. This, again, isn't a jab at Minecraft - this is any game.
Notch himself (this is paraphrased, of course) has stated he wanted to create a game with an end, traditional goals, etc. That's the opposite of a completely open sandbox game. You can see achievements and The End as obvious proof of implementation on these design goals. Anyone that states that Minecraft was meant to be a simple voxel building environment is absolutely wrong and is most definitely using the wrong game for the goal they imply.
Mob grinders, as mentioned, are another topic that is clearly "not as designed" - since there is an effort to prevent this from happening. While mob grinders are fun from an engineering perspective, it was never intended to allow players to achieve ridiculous amounts of XP by abusing the mob AI and spawning mechanics. Improved AI, reduced wander rates, Endermen teleporting on contact of water (a traditional canal trap), etc have all set back grinder builds but only momentarily. Hopefully, when we have 1.3 and XP gain from normal tasks, we can move away from this very terrible player created mechanic of grinders.
Peaceful mode and Creative were features requested through feedback. Not in the original design.
The improvements to AI may sound more challenging, but I doubt you would be very impacted if mobs suddenly learned they can't walk on signs or opened trap doors. More aggressive mobs with better AI would only increase the immersion of the world as a visitor surviving in this foreign world. Many of the suggestions that Insurrection and others have made could drastically improve the game as a whole, adding to the adventure and survival aspects while still allowing players to express their creativity and problem solving abilities.
There is little compromise - if you want no risk and full reward.... that's not a game. If you want nothing but risk with only the reward of knowing you could "out click it" - that's not necessarily a game, either. At least, certainly not great ones, anyway.
Right, and my point is that Minecraft will eventually die out miserably. It will eventually peak, then slowly crash and burn. See: Bioware, Blizzard, etc. Their pandering and content-with-themselves attitude will be the death of them.
I'm saying that it will be doomed if it continues the way it is. It might be a great base for modders, but as a game itself? Yeah nah. If I have to accept that mods will have to take the development team's place, fine. I'll lead the charge in making the game as good as it should be myself. But I'm not going to just accept this right now, while there's still hope left for the development team to actually get their act together.
Sales figures don't exactly say much for the longevity nor quality of the game. I'm not so much as talking about the amount of people playing/buying the game, by the way- I'm talking of the quality of their development. Which has slowed significantly. Really, what was the last truly good, game changing update? Even villager trading is ill thought out, and still requires work.
Really? A good, quality form of entertainment can cause the reader/viewer/player/etc to come back to it time and time again- simply because it's such quality. I can enjoy watching Cowboy Bebop, playing Half Life and Half Life 2, and so on over and over again- not consecutively, mind you, but after periods of time. Minecraft isn't one of those games- it's continually extending the stick that holds the carrot on the string (as is WoW). It's insulting. Eventually, we'll get more tiers of items beyond diamond, and that'll be my (and many others') breaking point.
...How are they not organized? I presented the flaws first, explained why they're flaws, then went into detail on how to fix it. I used differently colored text, paragraphs, and etc. That's pretty organized.
"Troll brigade"?
Yes, and I pointed out the flaws in said "facts"... which actually is the whole point of debate.
Yes, but again, they don't "sometimes" do things that are outside of the box. They either do or don't, and the amount of "sometimes" can be very much so defined by the programmer (random functions, etc).
...yes, assuming you underestimate what it is computers actually do. Similarly, unless you somehow expect the AI to do things you didn't tell it to do, you'd be overestimating what it actually does.
I'm not. I called you ignorant due to:
...all of which were ignorant and/or flat out wrong statements.
It was also in response to you claiming I/we had been criticizing you for a "harsh" tone, which we did not. We criticized you for having an ignorant tone.
I'm "acknowledging" them, but I'm also proving you wrong. That's the point of debate. What do you believe "respect" to be? Agreement? Not disagreeing?
Yes, which I already said was perfectly ok. You've not provided much in the ways of progressing these ideas- you've simply shot them down without providing superior ideas. I even asked everyone in the thread not to do that. That's further evidence of ignorance.
Then that's your own personal anecdote of failure- it doesn't speak very highly of the difficulty in the game.
wat
Where on earth are fighting games mentioned? Stop using strawman arguments.
Games such as what..?
What "norm"? Furthermore, why should this "norm" be followed?
There is literally no correlation between Minecraft "not being a fighting game" and "mobs being so dumb and can be shut off by setting to peaceful mode"
...So that's why the creeper is the most iconic part of Minecraft, why Notch intended for Endermen to be creepy and threatening, why mobs exist in the first place, and so on? Because it "was never about the mobs"?
Come now. The mobs exist because they were meant to be a part of the game- yes, they weren't meant to be the focus (although even that could be argued...), but they still exist. Therefore, they can be better.
Can you fly? Can you break blocks instantly? Can you get any item instantly?
No? Then survival mode doesn't give players the freedom to "do/be whatever they want in the game". There are limitations- challenges, and so on. Survival mode was obviously intended to give the player limitations and challenges.
You know what DOES give you a lot of freedom and where the focus IS about the sandbox aspect? Creative mode.
...because of an ill thought out AI that allows this to happen. They've made efforts to curb mob grinders, even.
Yes, exactly. This is a problem- it is a flaw. It was obviously not intended to be this way.
...unless, y'know, you make it so that mobs ARE more necessary to fight in certain situations. Which is what I somewhat suggested. Which is what you obviously ignored, or else you wouldn't be making this argument...
Glitches should be fixed regardless. And I even suggested they fix the biomes thing- you'd know this if you had read my post. Just because you're focusing on the AI bit doesn't mean I am. I'm saying it's a part of the problem. A part. A part that should be fixed.
I'm getting rather tired of having to quote what's already in the first 1\10ths of my post.
Just because it's fine for you doesn't mean it's good enough quality. I've gone over why subjectivity<objectivity when it comes to discussing the quality of a game.
I would normally agree with this, but there is something that people need to understand- Minecraft is constantly in development. It has the potential to continually surpass itself, as it's not really a "final" game. Therefore, it's rather shameful of Mojang to not try and really one-up themselves constantly with every update, to be honest.
Exactly. I don't intend on turning Minecraft into HURR DURR HARDCORE, but rather into a more immersive, enjoyable experience.
Yeah. I hate when people see things in such a black-or-white way like this. Believe it or not, it's very possible to have a proper balance between risk and reward.
In the first paragraph you said exactly the same thing as me. I said minecraft is not a fighting game. "Finally the whole idea on the mob system is based on minecraft being a fighting game. It isn't."
Minecraft is a sand box game with a twist. Yes I suppose if you wanted to you can whack an enderman and get a ender pearl off him then make it into a eye of ender to get to the end. Yes you can do that.
But Minecraft, whether intended or not, is way more than just that. Aside from that one goal there are no goals, no rules. If you meant achievements then ya thats good right up until you complete them all and then you can replay and never worry about them. A sand box game is defined as being a game were you can do anything you want without being required to end the game any where.
"An open world is a type of video game level design where a player can roam freely through a virtual world and is given considerable freedom in choosing how or when to approach objectives.[1]"
"The term "free roam" is also used, as is "sandbox" and "free-roaming";[2][3]. "Open world and "free-roaming suggest the absence of artificial barriers,[4] in contrast to the invisible walls and loading screens that are common in linear level designs."
Last I checked minecraft had only as much limitations world wise as your computer does. In a server I can play for years and never encounter an end to the game. I can play in single player mode for years as well and never run out of things to do. Whether Notch likes it or not Minecraft meets the defintion and requirements to be a sand box video game. Thats the end of that discussion as far as I am concerned.
For years game developers have bickered amongst one another on how "Smart" an A.I. should be. Should it be able to learn from player input? Should it be so stupid as to be laughable? What exactly is the defining point on a good A.I.? Sadly no answer has been reached so we continue to get a broad spectrum of game A.I.'s. A good example is the video game Starcraft made roughly twenty years ago for the PC.
Starcraft's A.I. was smart up until a point. If it wasn't given defined objectives it simply had no motivation to do anything and sat still until it died. If it was told to kill the player it proceeded to achieve that directive as much as possible. However even in this the A.I., after a lot of testing I put it through myself, had many issues when reacting to events. It would proceed to continue whatever it was doing at the time while it's base was blow to bits, or its units were harassed. The only way the game developers could even make it half a challenge was give the computer a resource boost, and to enable it to see anything the player did. This was determined after setting up bases in strategic points on the map, and then putting bases in random locations. In all cases the computer refused to scout and simply set a whole force out to destroy base, clear evidence that it knew ahead of time that the base was there. This was further reinforced when the map revealing cheat was inputted, and the computer was seen to dispatch forces to bases as they were being built.
Other games such as left for dead deployed A.I.s that were more like ballistic missiles. The A.I. saw the player and gunned for him at full speed regardless to what was in the way. This was good because the sheer number of "mobs" made it difficult to cope with the rush technique. Still other games such as Eve online preferred A.I.s that were more strategic and reactive, making Eve one of my favorite online games. With a few faults it's A.I. system was smart enough to cause me some trouble on more than one occasion and it ensured that every battle was unique in it's own ways.
The point I am attempting to make is that for a game that was never intended to be a full fledged fighting game, minecrafts A.I. is still capable of presenting a challenge in certain situations. It is possible for the A.I. to achieve its directive to destroy the player in any way it can. That doesn't mean the A.I. is smart and that frankly making it smart enough to avoid even half the player traps would take a large amount of restructuring to make it a learning A.I. which would inevitably make the game impossible to play. As it stands we lack the technology and know how to make something like that on a low cost budget, and even if we could additional time would have to be taken to code the computer to limit its ability to learn. This is simply not a feasible tactic. The point of minecraft is to build and mine away.
Even if mob grinders are considered to be "cheating" or "evil" creations, and even if peaceful mode was implemented after the initial release of this game, the very fact that they are part of the game means they can not be ruled out in good concious. The bad, as they say, must be taken with the good in equal measures. As it stands the A.I. is good enough to fulfill the task that is required of it. That does not mean that minecraft doesn't have its problems including asthetic glitching and a few other bugs. However for a measly 30 bucks for a lifetime subscription I am willing to say that minecraft is more than worth it's weight.
Edit:
Adding into my lengthy post cause I noticed page ten. XD
Ok I will try to explain this over. Again.
First off just because the games Icon is a creeper don't assume its all about da creepers. The sole goal of the creeper is to effectively delete player creations, hence the blowing up blocks aspect. It is supposed to back the player. I have largely considered the various craters around the world to be a side affect of this fact.
Second off if looked at in a objective position this game does not in any way shape or form scream at me "Kill Da Monsters!" The creatures of this game appear only at night, and half of them are effectively erased at the end of night time. The rest can be largely avoided if a player knows what he is doing.
Also writing off mob grinders simply because they were never meant to be is a bad idea. Players rarely ever stick to the defined rules that the creator envisioned. I can site several instances, (Eve Online to name one) were the players simply did not conform the creators ideas. Did it make for a better game? Well that depends on who you ask.
Mob grinders exist so players don't have to fight mobs. If I throw the game into peaceful mode that works, but then I can't get several important mob only items that I need to get around. No bones to tame wolves, no easy access to string for bows and fishing poles, and no spider eyes for brewing. No ender pearls for the end of the game as well.
Also the idea that "It's fine for me," being worth diddly is another gross misconception. This game was meant to sell and earn money. Thus, like any investor, the fact that I bought into the game gives me a entitlement to a honest opinion. I am not trying to say that it being fine for me means don't change it. I am simply saying that it looks good as is from my perspective. Recall that we didn't make the game. Jeb currently has the over all say in the game, and we can't begin to guess what is going through his mind at this time unless one of us develops mind reading powers.
I will agree that the fact that Mojang refuses to make any ground breaking updates makes for a complete waste of time when minecraft updates itself. The most it does is make a bug fix, and cause map makers/modders to get very pissed off when they have to put out update releases almost biweekly. How ever I must admit that Mojangs height limit increase, introduction of a new biome, and some introduction of new mobs should be considered big ground breaking updates since those things were not ever in the game.
Also mobs are already nescessary to fight in various situations. The player has the choice to shut mobs off, however no mob grinder exists that can grind out ender pearls. That means if you need to get to the end you have to go fighting endermen. Also if you are digging in a cave and get surprised by some mobs, unless you shut off the mobs via the difficulty, you have to fight them or try and evade them. Enough players are challenged by these situations. Why is it that Mojang only just release the mob A.I. fix? It simply isn't an issue to them although I may yet be proved wrong via the next update.
I'm sure you did post some other fixes in the post. God knows you listed a lot of them. But if you want to prioritize I can gaurantee this isn't even remotely on the top of the list, although I'll feel really dumb if they prove me wrong with another mob release.
So before I go post a full game review I will leave with this bit of insight. Minecraft is a game that lets you be what you want to be. That is the definition of sand box. Yes obviously you can't fly or make lighting fall out of the sky if you stick purely vanilla, but the only difference between creative and survival is that creative lets you zip around can construct your building faster. I've made a pretty passable castle with red stone circuits and everything in survival mode by collecting the materials. It takes a hell of a lot longer but the very fact that I can if I put the time into it rules out the assumption that this game is only sand box in creative.
Minecraft is an Engine. It is raw and there are no overall goals. You can still impliment new mechanics and mobs into the game where it still keeps the make-your-own-goal style of whatever you make out of it.
Insurrection,
I've been keeping an eye on this thread. If you need any assistance I will do what I can. I may not be able to do much but I am creative and come up with rather different approaches to keep minecraft in the same style of minecraft. I have lots of ideas.
Please don't quote the entire post like that. It's a waste of space and doesn't really help to highlight which of 1,000 words you're actually replying to.
My replies to you are in the spoiler - it's a huge, semi-off-topic reply that I felt should probably get crunched into a tag.....
I'm not trying to be rude, but do you know what a fighting game is? The actual genre is a series of games that generally only have two characters on a screen in some sort of battle that ends in a KO or death of a single (or small team) of characters. Street Fighter, Soul Calibur, Mortal Kombat, King of Fighters, Tao Feng and more are all examples of fighting games. There isn't any sane way you could possibly compare that genre to Minecraft. Unless you've somehow managed to animate your blocks into some weird version of The King of Monsters - that would be pretty cool.
Trying to relate Minecraft to something like Skyrim would make much more sense, as that's more of an action RPG. The Fallout 3 games barely scrape by (well, according to me) as Action RPGs. Borderlands, Quake, etc are all First Person Shooters (FPS). You can't compare Fallout 3 to Mortal Kombat in any sensible way.
Again, I'm not trying to be rude, but to me what I'm saying sounds somewhat condescending if you are actually aware of the comparisons you're making. Borderlands, Skyrim, Crackdown, Saints Row, GTA and more are all recent sandbox games. You can do whatever you feel like doing for literally years without ever scratching the surface of an objective driven story. Compared to a series like Mass Effect (2 and 3 mostly), those games have more in common with Minecraft than they do with a typical linear game.
Minecraft has done nothing new. It has only rearranged the same concepts into something you think is a new configuration and that you enjoy. Argue with that if you want, but I hope you realize how ridiculous it would be.
FYI, you'll need a lot more than a single Endermen to reach The End.
That's incorrect. A sandbox game is not defined as just doing whatever you feel like doing without an end. They can be played without achieving an end, but they are not defined as games with simply "no end." The notepad program has no end - I can't necessarily call that a sandbox game. If I hand you a standard deck of playing cards and proceeded to tell you about this new "game" where I spread all the cards out and stared at them..... well, I would hope you would find medical attention for me. There is no possible definition of a game in a scenario of staring at cards with no risk, no winning, no losing, etc. That is simply not a game - that's an afternoon of thorazine.
If you play Minecraft to sculpt together boxes then you're simply using the wrong tool. There are plenty of very creative programs out there that will let you sculpt voxels as if you were making sand castles. There are no mobs, no characters, no lifebars to worry about. For even more fun, go try Gary's Mod for Source. You can actually create 3D physics and much nicer geometry than anything you'll ever get out of Minecraft. Even better, Gary's Mod only has mobs as you define them - no need to worry about those pesky over-controlling game developers forcing them upon you. If you've really got a huge crush on the whole voxel thing, then you should try FortressCraft - no angry mobs, you automatically get infinite blocks that you can create very, very complex structures with and it has this really great feature that allows you to make your very own custom blocks.
How can you possibly continue to argue the "point" of Minecraft (which, by your own definition of a sandbox game has no definable purpose) is to build junk? Again, there is a huge supply of programs that will allow me to do that infinitely.
Every single game has an implied goal (or many goals) that the user perceives. Sometimes, they're pretty obvious and creators go to great lengths to force you to want to complete a specific goal. Other times, the line isn't very clear - let's use Left 4 Dead as an example. Why are the survivors trying to escape? At first glance, you might consider it a stupid question and begin to vomit answers like, "because they'll die!", "they need to find food!" or "they miss their cats!" None of that is relevant to the game as defined by the rules of the game itself. If the goal was to survive, you'd never leave the safe room...... there is no starving mechanic or similar to force you out of the safe room. You have "won" the game if your perceived goal is to survive - unfortunately, regardless of your perception, your implied goal and your own motivation to complete the goals the game has set in front of you.... the "game" simply isn't played that way. It is very obvious the purpose in the experience the designers wanted to give you was to care for the characters and want to get them out alive (even though you never really know where the heck they go).
The goals that I personally place on my Minecraft experiences are not to simply hold the left mouse button until I hit bedrock, then take all the cobblestone I've just mined and build a giant letter 'Q' to live in. Yours can be - that's fine, the game allows you that freedom. But it does contain it's own set of motivating elements (survive, complete achievements, reach The End, kill the Dragon) in addition to the ones you decide make your playing experience more enjoyable (add a mod and ride in a Zeppelin, make the best Redstone creation ever, light Pigmen on fire and dance to 80s music with them). None of this is wrong. Enjoy your experience. You certainly don't need to convince me your way to play is superior - do what you like.
Individuals like Insurrection and many others (uh, including the original creator and the design team) want to turn Minecraft into a more enjoyable action and adventure RPG. You can already see the elements taking place - experience points, a possible skill and leveling system, interactable NPCs and more. Fight against it if you'd like - hell, do us all a favor and make a better product that more matches the way you want to play Minecraft. More products = more competition = more quality and innovation.
I don't agree that Minecraft is going to "fizzle out" for a ton of reasons we can cover later. There are huge gaps that Minecraft currently fills and will continue to fill for the foreseeable future whether Mojang murders the whole thing to work on 0x10c or make amazing changes - it's all the same, the product still fills a need.
Any IP has a goal to "one up" themselves - whether it be in a version update or a sequel. Sometimes, they clearly don't. Expectations aren't met, glitches are found, gameplay is watered down and weak, etc, etc, etc. Mojang already has that pressure placed on them - you can't shame them for something they're already achieving. Want a metric for the achievement? Look at the sales. Even half-implemented and broken mechanics are successful.
0x10c, scrolls, etc are going to the mark of success for Mojang by proving they are a capable game studio that didn't "accidentally all the sales" on a fluke success. Personally, I think the absolute best next step for Minecraft is for the whole thing to simply be released to the public as a free client (not necessarily open sourced, but that's a different subject and a different promise). Mojang could create a "Minecraft Marketplace" and allow people to sell paid content through a trusted channel that was created with a well-made API. If they want more money they could license the server itself, fees for the market, charge for hosting or even license the SDK. The last few things would be horrible ideas, but..... I can't imagine it wouldn't at least be a brief success.
I'm going to be brutally honest here for a moment.
You're using a straw man argument. A straw man argument is when someone says something, and you respond to their argument using a superficial argument that isn't actually what they said as if it WERE what they said.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawman_argument
It is a logical fallacy. It is wrong. It offers nothing to the discussion. It is precisely what you are doing by claiming anything about Minecraft being a "fighting game".
On that alone, this completely disqualifies you from discussing... basically anything, until you actually realize the faults of using such an argument. However, I'm going to be nice and continue on.
This is precisely my point- it is much more than just a sandbox. Therefore, why should it stick solely to the rules of just "being a sandbox game"?
I never said anything about achievements. Frankly, achievements are a cheap method of extending gameplay.
Yes, I know what a sandbox game is. As you even just said yourself, Minecraft is not just a Sandbox game. Therefore, why does it need to stick to the definition of it?
Actually, it has as much limitations "world wise" as the Java platform (which is around the size of Neptune, or something).
...and it can be even more. This is my point. It can be more than just a sandbox game. It can make use of its intentions- it can actually be an enjoyable game past just "building".
We get a broad spectrum because of the variety of developers, the variety of actual games, and etc. It's not because "No one knows how to actually make a good AI".
Just because one game does something wrong does not mean another has to.
I'm starting to get annoyed with needing to quote things I've already said. Please actually read the first two posts.
That doesn't mean the AI is-
oh
So... you understand my point, right? That just because they can beat you doesn't mean they're smart?
I'd also like to say that just because they can beat you doesn't mean they're a challenge. A challenge implies they have some form of difficulty with fighting them- I've explained (in detail...) how they are not difficult. If you disagree with my assessment of difficulty and its application to Minecraft, please- respond to those points (instead of just ignoring them) so we can come to an understanding.
...this is assuming I'm saying they should "make it a learning AI". I've not even said much about how to make the AI better- aside from giving it some more abilities (and of course making them use said abilities). Again, strawman argument...
As of writing this, 6,398,492 people bought Minecraft.
What?
I said that it's indicitive of its intentions- mobs are obviously a part of this game. They were intended to be a part of this game. I didn't say it's all about the mobs. I said that they were obviously intended to be a threat. They are, as I argue, not.
It only blows up when the player is near it. Otherwise, it would blow up everything regardless of the player being around.
"supposed to back the player"? What?
-You need to kill mobs in order to progress through the game (it does have progression, hence "The End")
-You need to kill mobs to get certain materials (TNT, etc)
-The game is (poorly) built around the idea of fighting mobs, as well as building.
...so being around for effectively half the game (more than that due to caves) mean it's "not in any way shape or form" a goal to beat them?
Furthermore, just because it is doesn't mean it should.
Ask someone who wants to have an artificial leg up on other people, they'll always defend their unintended "game mechanics" to the death (See: GunZ, Command and Conquer: Renegade, every fighting game ever, a large majority of MMORPG's, etc). They have almost no logic behind their claims, aside from "well it works, so it should stay" (which isn't logic, in reality).
Ask any logical person, and they'll say no, it doesn't necessarily make it a better game. Especially when the end result is very much so arguably bad (which in this case, it most certainly is).
I would rather listen to a logical person.
Mobs exist so players have something to fight and have fun with, and are rewarded for their time. This is killed by the idea of mob grinders. They contradict eachother.
...That is the definition of cheating. It is a shortcut. Something to give you an advantage.
It is also a very defining trait in videogame imbalance- something that effectively makes other developed aspects of the game effectively useless.
Based on that merit alone, it is. It's purely subjective, and speaks nothing for the quality. It is worth nothing when concerning the quality of a game. Which is what I want improved.
...if a product is made solely to make money, it is an awful product. Do I really need to explain the concept of greed, and why it's bad?
It doesn't. It simply gives you access to the game. Furthermore, it especially doesn't give you an "entitlement to a honest opinion" on discussions of the actual game and its general design. Facts, logic, and objectivity are what entitle you to discuss such things.
...Then what's the point of everything you're saying? What should I, the reader, take from everything you're saying? That I should re-consider my ideas solely to appeal to you? That I should consider other people's opinions? If you're not opposing change, why are you arguing against change?
Modders have added all of these changes prior to them being in the game. "Ground breaking" typically means it hasn't been done before.
wat
The fact that you can shut off the mobs means that you DON'T need to fight them.
That speaks absolutely nothing for the quality of the game, though. Just because a million people walk head first into a vat of acid doesn't mean the acid is "challenging".
Because they felt other things were much more important.
Things like...
...uh...
colored wool
and stuff
yeah
...So you've been speaking for this length of time on how my suggested changes aren't necessary and you have yet to actually read my suggestions?!
This, in of itself, is a problem, then.
In the same way that a box is a videogame because you can pretend it's a spaceship... yes, great for kids, but you'd probably be pretty upset if you paid money for something that claimed it'd take you to the moon and it was only just a box (and if you complained, people would just retort with "Use your imagination!").
...and that you can break blocks instantly, and that you get any block in the game right away, and that you don't need to eat food, and that you can't die, and so on. Those are pretty big changes at a very core level.
Where was this said, again?
I appreciate it. If I need any more people to consult with for ideas, I'll let you know. For right now, we've got a pretty good thought train going.
I dunno- I see a lot of parallels between Minecraft/Mojang and various MMORPG's, and developers such as Bioware, Blizzard, and so on. Especially since a lot of people are jumping on the voxel-based bandwagon. Cube World is looking pretty good, honestly.
I suppose it's quite a stretch to say it's doooomed because I know they'll continue to grow and make money. However, they can't sustain quality if they are to continue going as they are. One could easily argue they've lacked quality for a long time now...
Yes, and I'm here to try and ensure they don't fall into the pit of that terrible, terrible mixture of watered down quality and insane acceptance by their community. The idea of constant progression means that they have the ability to retain, and even improve on quality. I want to ensure this actually happens.
If it doesn't, though... at least we'll have my mod as a last refuge. ;_;
Again, sales and etc don't account for a product's quality. Please don't make me cite examples.
Exactly. It's quality vs success. I don't care about success, and considering that Mojang has made more money in a few years than most people have in a lifetime, I would imagine that they would opt for quality now that they've achieved success. Otherwise, it is pure and utter greed of the highest level- sacrificing quality for money.