I also think that people need to welcome change in the ideas of the developer instead of thinking that this is their game. This is his game, his vision. While the player is important, I feel that the community treats him worse then what he deserves for his actions.
While I do say that he has moments that makes me ... I have seen worse developers do stupider things.
But yeah this is one of the whiniest communities I have ever seen on the internet. :sad.gif:
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Don't have much to say that hasn't already, so I'll just note that this is quite possibly now my favorite thread. I hope it doesn't die too terribly soon, because discovering that there are intelligent people on this forum who aren't the one time postin' lurker squad or mods has made me quite happy.
Mr. OP, glad to see one more intelligent young teen come out of the gen after my own.
:smile.gif: My boyfriend is a game designer. Making games is a passion. Part of why he wants to make games is so he can make the games HE wants to make because he knows what he wants to see in a game and he thinks that it could be good for a big community. He wants things that are different than the norm--and if he did an open beta like this, some people would probably get the wrong impression.
It's like thinking you're about to drink water when it's actually orange juice. It's gonna freak you out, you might almost spit out the drink--Even if orange juice is your favorite drink! But you were EXPECTING water and so the change was a shock and created a reaction. The point is, the drink was always going to be orange juice, but in our heads from previous experiences drinking from this cup it had been water. Maybe you just want water, or maybe you want apple juice. That's where mods come in. :biggrin.gif: I think so at least.
But from a game design standpoint I do think the demands made by the players here are silly. The majority of customers are extremely pleased with minecraft--especially the people who stay away from the forums. The people who maybe don't play much, but when they do get on they are ecstatic to see an update! They join their local friend server and play around and make inside jokes and have a blast making snow golem armies. It's fun and silly and just a new feature to mess around with! But there are some people really unhappy with the changes, and that just comes with change in general.
Notch is making his dream game, a passion and a hobby that is fun and he wants to share with others. He wants to share HIS joy--HIS game. He created with the help of his community giving him ideas and expanding his world in ways he couldn't have imagined(I'm sure all the redstone things are amazing to look at for him!). But it is his game. We aren't making it--so it might not be exactly everything we imagined. A lot of it is still excellent--there is a reason we bought the game after all, and none of that has been removed(I'm still building castles on every flat place I can find), but it's adding the features he has wanted to make as well. :biggrin.gif: He wants a cheesy, cliche, fun fantasy game that's based around building!
I think listening to the community is one thing, but it's different when it comes to the amount of demands and what people want. Wanting to add a new item that had never been thought of is one thing, but some of the expectations people had were probably just never really planned or abandoned quickly. It's like a Halo beta saying they are going to have alien invasions and everyone makes mods about it with green big headed monsters. Maybe someone makes something incredible with in-depth interesting aliens with unique abilities. Everyone gets one idea in their heads.. Suddenly the real aliens are released and everyone is mad. From those thinking they were copied from the mods to others thinking they were uglier than the mods to those thinking they shouldn't even be in the game--even though they were the original plan.
But yeah, things change in game making. I think Notch really might have had a different idea for skylands, but as the adventure update came out he had a better idea. You know the game psychonauts? In the original plot for the story you were an insane ostrich. Not even kidding. It changed to a completely new story about a psychic summer camp where you are a human boy. Even in mid game whole parts of the story were changed and the original character design was just completely scrapped.
I don't know. I've never had a game that I was 100% pleased with. 99% yes. Maybe I loved the game but it loaded too slow and was inefficient, or I didn't like one character's voice acting, or one level was just too hard. But maybe someone else loved that level and voice actor but hated the rest of the game. It's hard to please everyone. We all have our own tastes. That's where the people who want to make videogames get their passion from. They don't think "What will please 99.9% of the community?", they think "I want to make a game like THIS, because I want to PLAY that kind of game!!"
Considering how much most games cost that I spend less than a week playing(no/little replay value), Minecraft is AMAZINGLY cheap. I got it in Beta 1.2 :smile.gif: Actually the day 1.2 came out! I had to pay more than alpha players, but that's okay. Because I recently spent like 60 dollars on a game and I finished it in two days and don't expect to play it again. Minecraft..I can see myself playing it for a lot longer. :biggrin.gif:
OP you are awesome. I'm 13 and think myself as matureish (at least on these forums :tongue.gif:) and find it really annoying that the moment I say it to someone they completely ignore me and think that I can't speak maturely. I'm finally glad to see other people realizing that we teenagers can be mature.
Also you make lots of good points.
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"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
I think the biggest issue is that people don't understand what a beta truly is.
Beta testing is used to generally find bugs by the community, it takes some of the work off of the devs because they don't need to hunt the bugs down themselves. Betas may also include updates with new content, ie Minecraft or a lot of MMOs.
What the minecraft community seems to think is that beta is ***** and moan until something is add/changed/removed. When such a thing happens, the other side of the community proceeds to ***** and moan. Beta testing has never been about telling the devs how the game should be made, it's giving constructive feedback on what you like/dislike and bugs that you run into.
I'm not saying that there hasn't been any constructive feedback, because there has been. But those threads are normally destroyed by fanboys saying "Well it's beta, deal with it."
In my eyes, as long as the user has legitimate concerns about items, they should raise their voice and talk about it. If they don't want a concept to be added simply because they don't like, well that's just silly.
All in all, yes we can't tell Notch and Jeb_ how to develop minecraft; we can however, tell them what we like and dislike and the reasons behind it.
Speaking of frustration, don't take this personally SneakySeal but, I've seen way too many posts like this on the boards and it's frustrating me enough to make me comment on it.
I think your representation of Negative and Constructive is flawed and kinda confusing. Do mean to say that people who write short sentences are Negative and people who write long sentences are constructive. Or do you mean that people who don't like Endermen at all are Negative and people who do like them a bit are constructive?
Did you mean:
Negative: Endermen aren't a good mob. Their block removing ability sounds like a good idea but in practice it is terrible. All they do is to ruin your constructions and mess up the environment. The block moving ability really should be removed since it serves no real purpose and just messes things up.
Constructive: OMG!!! Endermen destroy block when killed!!!111!! I kill Enderman with diamond block and it disappear!!! >:C They should build also not jsut move randomly. We NEED Endermen changed!
Or did you mean it the other way around?
I think both opinions are perfectly valid. It's perfectly fine to voice an opinion that says that a feature should be removed when feature appears to have no redeeming qualities.
Equally, you can express a more moderate opinion and sound like a complete ****. But better spelling and grammar don't make a constructive or negative comment. I could write a horribly negative comment using impeccable grammar.
You just confuse the issue that you're trying to illustrate when you illustrate it using examples that differ in more ways than the one you're trying to illustrate the difference between.
I see that perhaps my comment might be flawed, and not correct at all, but that is how I see it, in my convulted and hard to understand way. I guess I was trying to say that not liking something and demanding (as in do it even if I'm the only person that wants it that way) a fix that suits my personalised opinion is negative. But saying something along the lines of "this is flawed, I dont like it, you dont have to change it, but I would like it if you did" is more positive.
Voicing your opinion and possible solutions to the problem is always good (well, depending on the situation it is), but expecting things you dont like to be removed/"fixed" just because YOU dont like it is NOT good. (If that makes sense...)
Then again, that is just me, with my meanings being horribly hard to understand, even for myself.
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English is not my native language, typos will occur. Randomness and No-Sense-Making will also occur. -Insert clever remark here-
As much as the final say is NOT up to the players, it is open beta for a reason. That reason is for community feedback and testing of ideas. If something is a terrible idea, and enough people raise a fuss, it could be left out of the game. NOW, do I agree with "complaining", no. People should bring ideas forward maturely in understanding that it's only their opinion, and that no idea created by the developers is 'stupid'.
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It's a party in your mouth and everyone's painful.
This topic is so refreshing after all the complaint threads. You're obviously quite intelligent and articulate and you get your points across well. It won't get rid of all the complaint threads out there, but it's just nice to know that there are other people that feel that a lot of the topics in this forum aren't going about their Minecraft complaints the right way.
Obviously, people can state their opinions - after all, this is a Minecraft Forum. But I think the best way to post criticism topics is to pretend that the new Minecraft feature you don't like is a topic in the suggestions forum and you're leaving a comment on it. Maybe offer some constructive criticism, say what you like about the new feature rather than just what you don't like.
But most of all, don't take yourself too seriously. I know this is ironic, seeing as I'm leaving this serious post on a serious topic, but when you're talking about a new feature, remember - it's just a game. If you really love Minecraft and are annoyed about the feature, fair enough, but put things in perspective.
Also, think what it's like to be Notch - how would you feel if you were trying to develop a game and every new feature was bitched about and most people didn't even offer any constructive criticism?
A particular example is The End. It's just a fun new feature that Notch thought we'd enjoy. It's not like he tried to make a feature that everyone would hate. Personally, I really like The End and I think that it's a much better idea than the Sky Dimension, which is way too similar to The Aether. Once mod support is added, we'll be able to enjoy all these things that we think Notch should add, as there's a good chance that there's a mod for them.
tl;dr: The OP is right: Notch is just trying to make Minecraft fun, and you shouldn't take the new features to seriously and should offer constructive criticism.
America is a country that babies its citizens for way too long.
As an American, I totally agree with this.
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If you have ask "Is using X cheating?", the answer is most likely yes. Being a sandbox game doesn't change the fact you are cheating in it, regardless of what people say. However, the question you should be asking is "Does it matter?" The answer to that question is no.
This is the first "This is my opinion thread" I've seen that seems to have a sense of logic and hasn't made me facepalm. I agree with OP, so I'm just gonna sit back, relax, and wait for Mojang to polish off this game. :cool.gif:
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Let your anger be as a monkey in a piñata... hiding amongst the candy... hoping the kids don't break through with the stick!
We are what we eat and we are who we meet. These are not mutually exclusive.
It doesn't. I for one think we are lucky to have the amount of influence we do with Mojang, and I've seen some people act like it's a right. Honestly, think about it. Not all games have Open Betas, and hell, Minecraft had an Open Indev! And for the games that don't have open betas
QFT. Mojang is the only game company that I have seen that listens to the community. I've seen Notch and Jeb listen to something, and change it right away (pressure plates on fence posts for tables, pig snouts, etc). I have never seen other games do this. Open beta or not.
Things in beta/ alpha or any pre-release development are subject to change for 2 reasons:
1- bugs,
2- improving things because of tester feedback. While I do agree people shouldn't complain for small things, it's our job to say some feature needs to be improved. That's the point of beta: improving things to make a perfect release. But by logic, not by moaning over some features.
Edit: realized I basiccaly reinforced what Mistify said:
While I agree, a lot of it is immature complaining, people should be providing feedback. Thats part of the point of open development, so they can see how people are reacting to new features, so we can find things that need improving. People just need to fidn the right balance so its feedback and not complaining. and yes, you can have negative feedback without complaining.
I know that they're more golem than snowman...But it just seems easier to say :smile.gif: and If we are able to make more types of Golems in the future, then That would totally make alot more since to call them Snow Golems. I don't know, does anyone here know Swedish? because again, it might some out easier in another language.
THANK YOU. That entire post was very interesting and well thought out, and gave me another perspective. That quote in particular is what I really feel people don't understand...
I think the biggest issue is that people don't understand what a beta truly is.
-snip-
All in all, yes we can't tell Notch and Jeb_ how to develop minecraft; we can however, tell them what we like and dislike and the reasons behind it.
Definitely. I'm still not entirely sure what a Beta encompasses. And if all people discussed the reasons instead of just Raging, I think we'd all be better off :biggrin.gif:
The only reason I complain sometimes is due to pure disappointment. The "Adventure" update was planned to have "So much stuff" in it, but I was bored of it all after about half an hour. It doidn't give me any drive to explore whatsoever. 1,9's going down the same route - though I am fond of potions. I would like something similar to custom paintings, as the code is already there (maps).
Well maybe that just means you need to give it a rest for a bit...I know what you mean, I go through the same thing. I get bored of Minecraft after a while, but If I take a break and play something else, I really enjoy coming back to it.
I agree with this thread and this is not immature complaining. People dont just provide feedback though like normal people. I dont think you have noticed but you rarely see on the minecraft forums CONSTRUCTIVE CRTISISM, but instead RAGE, RAGE, RAGE. All these people on the forums are probably not over the age of 12 and thats who this guys audience is that hes relating to. I know you for one are one of the only people I see on this forums page that actually have something sensible to say......
The Topic of constructive criticism seems to be the main direction this convo is going... and for good reason: We aren't seeing much of it from the community! :ohmy.gif:
As much as the final say is NOT up to the players, it is open beta for a reason. That reason is for community feedback and testing of ideas. If something is a terrible idea, and enough people raise a fuss, it could be left out of the game. NOW, do I agree with "complaining", no. People should bring ideas forward maturely in understanding that it's only their opinion, and that no idea created by the developers is 'stupid'.
Yeah...alot of times threads will have this tone in them that makes it seem like they KNOW the direction minecraft needs to go into, rather than what they THINK.
But most of all, don't take yourself too seriously. I know this is ironic, seeing as I'm leaving this serious post on a serious topic, but when you're talking about a new feature, remember - it's just a game. If you really love Minecraft and are annoyed about the feature, fair enough, but put things in perspective.
-snip-
YES. I really think people take things to seriously sometimes...I understand the fact that they payed for it...but again it's for RECREATION. There's no point in it if all you do is complain...
QFT. Mojang is the only game company that I have seen that listens to the community. I've seen Notch and Jeb listen to something, and change it right away (pressure plates on fence posts for tables, pig snouts, etc). I have never seen other games do this. Open beta or not.
And the Eggs...He took the idea for throwing them STRAIGHT from a suggestion.
While I do say that he has moments that makes me ... I have seen worse developers do stupider things.
But yeah this is one of the whiniest communities I have ever seen on the internet. :sad.gif:
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Mr. OP, glad to see one more intelligent young teen come out of the gen after my own.
Also, go Homestuck.
It's like thinking you're about to drink water when it's actually orange juice. It's gonna freak you out, you might almost spit out the drink--Even if orange juice is your favorite drink! But you were EXPECTING water and so the change was a shock and created a reaction. The point is, the drink was always going to be orange juice, but in our heads from previous experiences drinking from this cup it had been water. Maybe you just want water, or maybe you want apple juice. That's where mods come in. :biggrin.gif: I think so at least.
But from a game design standpoint I do think the demands made by the players here are silly. The majority of customers are extremely pleased with minecraft--especially the people who stay away from the forums. The people who maybe don't play much, but when they do get on they are ecstatic to see an update! They join their local friend server and play around and make inside jokes and have a blast making snow golem armies. It's fun and silly and just a new feature to mess around with! But there are some people really unhappy with the changes, and that just comes with change in general.
Notch is making his dream game, a passion and a hobby that is fun and he wants to share with others. He wants to share HIS joy--HIS game. He created with the help of his community giving him ideas and expanding his world in ways he couldn't have imagined(I'm sure all the redstone things are amazing to look at for him!). But it is his game. We aren't making it--so it might not be exactly everything we imagined. A lot of it is still excellent--there is a reason we bought the game after all, and none of that has been removed(I'm still building castles on every flat place I can find), but it's adding the features he has wanted to make as well. :biggrin.gif: He wants a cheesy, cliche, fun fantasy game that's based around building!
I think listening to the community is one thing, but it's different when it comes to the amount of demands and what people want. Wanting to add a new item that had never been thought of is one thing, but some of the expectations people had were probably just never really planned or abandoned quickly. It's like a Halo beta saying they are going to have alien invasions and everyone makes mods about it with green big headed monsters. Maybe someone makes something incredible with in-depth interesting aliens with unique abilities. Everyone gets one idea in their heads.. Suddenly the real aliens are released and everyone is mad. From those thinking they were copied from the mods to others thinking they were uglier than the mods to those thinking they shouldn't even be in the game--even though they were the original plan.
But yeah, things change in game making. I think Notch really might have had a different idea for skylands, but as the adventure update came out he had a better idea. You know the game psychonauts? In the original plot for the story you were an insane ostrich. Not even kidding. It changed to a completely new story about a psychic summer camp where you are a human boy. Even in mid game whole parts of the story were changed and the original character design was just completely scrapped.
I don't know. I've never had a game that I was 100% pleased with. 99% yes. Maybe I loved the game but it loaded too slow and was inefficient, or I didn't like one character's voice acting, or one level was just too hard. But maybe someone else loved that level and voice actor but hated the rest of the game. It's hard to please everyone. We all have our own tastes. That's where the people who want to make videogames get their passion from. They don't think "What will please 99.9% of the community?", they think "I want to make a game like THIS, because I want to PLAY that kind of game!!"
Considering how much most games cost that I spend less than a week playing(no/little replay value), Minecraft is AMAZINGLY cheap. I got it in Beta 1.2 :smile.gif: Actually the day 1.2 came out! I had to pay more than alpha players, but that's okay. Because I recently spent like 60 dollars on a game and I finished it in two days and don't expect to play it again. Minecraft..I can see myself playing it for a lot longer. :biggrin.gif:
Also you make lots of good points.
Well said. I agree completely.
Beta testing is used to generally find bugs by the community, it takes some of the work off of the devs because they don't need to hunt the bugs down themselves. Betas may also include updates with new content, ie Minecraft or a lot of MMOs.
What the minecraft community seems to think is that beta is ***** and moan until something is add/changed/removed. When such a thing happens, the other side of the community proceeds to ***** and moan. Beta testing has never been about telling the devs how the game should be made, it's giving constructive feedback on what you like/dislike and bugs that you run into.
I'm not saying that there hasn't been any constructive feedback, because there has been. But those threads are normally destroyed by fanboys saying "Well it's beta, deal with it."
In my eyes, as long as the user has legitimate concerns about items, they should raise their voice and talk about it. If they don't want a concept to be added simply because they don't like, well that's just silly.
All in all, yes we can't tell Notch and Jeb_ how to develop minecraft; we can however, tell them what we like and dislike and the reasons behind it.
I see that perhaps my comment might be flawed, and not correct at all, but that is how I see it, in my convulted and hard to understand way. I guess I was trying to say that not liking something and demanding (as in do it even if I'm the only person that wants it that way) a fix that suits my personalised opinion is negative. But saying something along the lines of "this is flawed, I dont like it, you dont have to change it, but I would like it if you did" is more positive.
Voicing your opinion and possible solutions to the problem is always good (well, depending on the situation it is), but expecting things you dont like to be removed/"fixed" just because YOU dont like it is NOT good. (If that makes sense...)
Then again, that is just me, with my meanings being horribly hard to understand, even for myself.
Obviously, people can state their opinions - after all, this is a Minecraft Forum. But I think the best way to post criticism topics is to pretend that the new Minecraft feature you don't like is a topic in the suggestions forum and you're leaving a comment on it. Maybe offer some constructive criticism, say what you like about the new feature rather than just what you don't like.
But most of all, don't take yourself too seriously. I know this is ironic, seeing as I'm leaving this serious post on a serious topic, but when you're talking about a new feature, remember - it's just a game. If you really love Minecraft and are annoyed about the feature, fair enough, but put things in perspective.
Also, think what it's like to be Notch - how would you feel if you were trying to develop a game and every new feature was bitched about and most people didn't even offer any constructive criticism?
A particular example is The End. It's just a fun new feature that Notch thought we'd enjoy. It's not like he tried to make a feature that everyone would hate. Personally, I really like The End and I think that it's a much better idea than the Sky Dimension, which is way too similar to The Aether. Once mod support is added, we'll be able to enjoy all these things that we think Notch should add, as there's a good chance that there's a mod for them.
tl;dr: The OP is right: Notch is just trying to make Minecraft fun, and you shouldn't take the new features to seriously and should offer constructive criticism.
As an American, I totally agree with this.
Let your anger be as a monkey in a piñata... hiding amongst the candy... hoping the kids don't break through with the stick!
We are what we eat and we are who we meet. These are not mutually exclusive.
QFT. Mojang is the only game company that I have seen that listens to the community. I've seen Notch and Jeb listen to something, and change it right away (pressure plates on fence posts for tables, pig snouts, etc). I have never seen other games do this. Open beta or not.
1- bugs,
2- improving things because of tester feedback. While I do agree people shouldn't complain for small things, it's our job to say some feature needs to be improved. That's the point of beta: improving things to make a perfect release. But by logic, not by moaning over some features.
Edit: realized I basiccaly reinforced what Mistify said:
Why do people insist on spelling my name with an i?
I know that they're more golem than snowman...But it just seems easier to say :smile.gif: and If we are able to make more types of Golems in the future, then That would totally make alot more since to call them Snow Golems. I don't know, does anyone here know Swedish? because again, it might some out easier in another language.
THANK YOU. That entire post was very interesting and well thought out, and gave me another perspective. That quote in particular is what I really feel people don't understand...
Definitely. I'm still not entirely sure what a Beta encompasses. And if all people discussed the reasons instead of just Raging, I think we'd all be better off :biggrin.gif:
Well maybe that just means you need to give it a rest for a bit...I know what you mean, I go through the same thing. I get bored of Minecraft after a while, but If I take a break and play something else, I really enjoy coming back to it.
The Topic of constructive criticism seems to be the main direction this convo is going... and for good reason: We aren't seeing much of it from the community! :ohmy.gif:
Yeah...alot of times threads will have this tone in them that makes it seem like they KNOW the direction minecraft needs to go into, rather than what they THINK.
YES. I really think people take things to seriously sometimes...I understand the fact that they payed for it...but again it's for RECREATION. There's no point in it if all you do is complain...
And the Eggs...He took the idea for throwing them STRAIGHT from a suggestion.