I would like to take the time to discuss some issues I've had with the game over the last two years that I have tolerated until this point, and I'm interested to see if we can get the support to peak the interest of Mojang into making some much needed changes.
I would also like to take the time to first thank Mojang for their efforts, I know it's hard to take a computer game and make it console worthy. I love Minecraft and was very excited to play it on the Xbox 360, but there are some features that are long overdue that need addressing.
It's nice that we get all these updates that bring it closer to the computer version, but why is there not a way to join a random open session? I'd like to just be able to play with other people, playing the game alone gets very boring and there isn't a good way to meet new Minecraft players unless you join a forum, which I think is absolutely ridiculous when the internet version has a plethora of options for joining random open seeds.
When the game updates, why is it that my old seeds don't update with new minerals or features like "The End" but my seeds biome changes, and never for the better. I spent almost a full year on developing a map with a castle, altering beaches to make rivers for waterway travel, it was very impressive and I was quite proud of it. When the game updated my biome had changed to snow...almost the entire map changed to snow, when before I only had a very small square of it at the bottom of my map. You cannot know the amount of frustration and anger I had from that. I didn't play the game for months because I felt betrayed, because when I emailed and complained about it, I was basically told "too bad" and that was that. I understand that this is just a game, but I spent a lot of my time on that, I'm willing to bet over 2 months time out of a year easily just to have it ruined by snow.
To summarize my frustrations, it would be really nice if the fans of the game were taken into consideration more than general updates. The game has been out for over 2 years and there is still no way to join other people without somehow knowing them or have made random contact with someone in a previous game that happens to be playing an open Minecraft session. It's too difficult, and there is no reason for it to be this way.
You can't join random games because it would boil down to either almost every world being griefed or joiners not being able to do anything.
Go in, wreck stuff for five minute, get kicked, force the world to reload or be cleaned up, find a new world with privileges, repeat. Knowing who joins and when prevents mass-griefing.
As for the biome shifts, that's not in 4J's control--you either get shifted or don't get new biomes in the updates, and that's that.
I understand the biom situation, that's life and it is what it is but I truly believe that the majority of players who still play Minecraft on the 360 are serious players, and it should be an option to those that want it.
It was my understanding that you can make your game available to other players online? Is that not the case now?
not exactly. You can expose your game to your direct friends and "friends of friends"
If I were to do so, you would still not see my world if we don't have the same friends in common.
ultimately, the griefing problem was such that most people are wise enough to never expose their world to anybody, and instead use Invite Only.
The world joining/publishing is quite different than the PC version, partly due to how Xbox Live works, partly due to trying to solve the griefing problem differently (and without mods).
1) Xbox Live is different than the general internet... so the game was designed to involve play among friends (on your Xbox friends list), which does make it a little more "secure" for younger children to play. As a result, the Xbox Edition does not utilize actual servers, but uses the host player's console itself. Therefore, that console has to be on and the host player playing the game for the session to be available. This precludes truly "open" sessions from existing. At one time, 4J was looking into setting up rental servers for people to host more open sessions; however, nothing has come of it yet... and I doubt that it will happen on the Xbox 360 (given the hardware limitations of this now essentially obsolete console)... maybe someday on the Xbox One. However, since people around here seem to gripe about paying a measly $1 for a texture pack, I really doubt they'd actually be willing to pay a rental fee for a server just to open up an Xbox360-sized Minecraft world for the general public to play.
2) Even on the PC, old worlds do not "update" with new blocks. All explored areas (i.e. once the terrain is generated the first time) are locked in on both systems. New blocks will form only in previously unexplored/ungenerated sections of maps. The weather may change (since some updates add biomes, which means that the biome code has to change to accommodate the new biomes and the formulas calculating the weather also, by necessity, change then). This "biome shift" happens also on the PC... and yes, it can be frustrating... but think about it... climate change happens in the real world too. and some people have also been asking for the addition of "natural" disasters to the game. Why not just enjoy the "natural disaster" of climate change (brought on by biome shift) instead?
Also, some fans have already posted their suggestions to the suggestions forum... why not support their already created threads instead of demanding that the "fans" support your "special" rant, hmmm?... or is that just "too difficult" too?
This thread is going downhill fast, it's essentially a suggestion thread in the first place, and is based on the mistaken premise that 4J makes business decisions based on how many replies a MCF thread gets. In light of those factors, I'm locking it.
I would also like to take the time to first thank Mojang for their efforts, I know it's hard to take a computer game and make it console worthy. I love Minecraft and was very excited to play it on the Xbox 360, but there are some features that are long overdue that need addressing.
It's nice that we get all these updates that bring it closer to the computer version, but why is there not a way to join a random open session? I'd like to just be able to play with other people, playing the game alone gets very boring and there isn't a good way to meet new Minecraft players unless you join a forum, which I think is absolutely ridiculous when the internet version has a plethora of options for joining random open seeds.
When the game updates, why is it that my old seeds don't update with new minerals or features like "The End" but my seeds biome changes, and never for the better. I spent almost a full year on developing a map with a castle, altering beaches to make rivers for waterway travel, it was very impressive and I was quite proud of it. When the game updated my biome had changed to snow...almost the entire map changed to snow, when before I only had a very small square of it at the bottom of my map. You cannot know the amount of frustration and anger I had from that. I didn't play the game for months because I felt betrayed, because when I emailed and complained about it, I was basically told "too bad" and that was that. I understand that this is just a game, but I spent a lot of my time on that, I'm willing to bet over 2 months time out of a year easily just to have it ruined by snow.
To summarize my frustrations, it would be really nice if the fans of the game were taken into consideration more than general updates. The game has been out for over 2 years and there is still no way to join other people without somehow knowing them or have made random contact with someone in a previous game that happens to be playing an open Minecraft session. It's too difficult, and there is no reason for it to be this way.
Go in, wreck stuff for five minute, get kicked, force the world to reload or be cleaned up, find a new world with privileges, repeat. Knowing who joins and when prevents mass-griefing.
As for the biome shifts, that's not in 4J's control--you either get shifted or don't get new biomes in the updates, and that's that.
Stay fluffy~
not exactly. You can expose your game to your direct friends and "friends of friends"
If I were to do so, you would still not see my world if we don't have the same friends in common.
ultimately, the griefing problem was such that most people are wise enough to never expose their world to anybody, and instead use Invite Only.
The world joining/publishing is quite different than the PC version, partly due to how Xbox Live works, partly due to trying to solve the griefing problem differently (and without mods).
2) Even on the PC, old worlds do not "update" with new blocks. All explored areas (i.e. once the terrain is generated the first time) are locked in on both systems. New blocks will form only in previously unexplored/ungenerated sections of maps. The weather may change (since some updates add biomes, which means that the biome code has to change to accommodate the new biomes and the formulas calculating the weather also, by necessity, change then). This "biome shift" happens also on the PC... and yes, it can be frustrating... but think about it... climate change happens in the real world too. and some people have also been asking for the addition of "natural" disasters to the game. Why not just enjoy the "natural disaster" of climate change (brought on by biome shift) instead?
Also, some fans have already posted their suggestions to the suggestions forum... why not support their already created threads instead of demanding that the "fans" support your "special" rant, hmmm?... or is that just "too difficult" too?
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