not a rant or a flame. this is a genuine request for the Mojang company to start developing Minecraft in a more organized and professional manner. there appears to be a serious lack of ambition from mojang regarding the Minecraft project. Minecraft is far beyond one man's project with some random additional help. It has become a phenomenon in the video game culture. Given that, a full-time TEAM of developers should be working on the game constantly. and more reliable methods of communicating the development process to the beta testers is required.
the personal nature of Notch's tweets is sort of nice but having to sift through someone's personal messages just to get info on a public game is actually pretty ridiculous to be honest.
and "the word of notch" offers little information or updates at all.
it can also be a pretty disorganized process to sort through all the forums to find official statements from mojang regarding the game
the most recent events following 1.6.x have really shown just how "off the ball" mojang is with minecraft. Notch wasnt even aware of the numerous game-breaking bugs present after checking in a very bugged bug fixing patch followed immediately by 2 subsequent bugged bug fixing patches. and it took over 24 hours for word to get back to him.
a QA team is what is really needed. and some additional dedicated development staff. props to notch for being honest with his tweet that states he didnt even know the bugs were so severe. but the development process is really far from "best practices", which is really a shame. seems like notch is taking the whole "indie game" thing a but too literally.
im starting to think notch doesnt realize what hes actually created here. this is an entirely new genre we're dealing with. one with amazing potential and appeal. i know the guy is working hard but Mojang as a company is really not snatching up a great opportunity here.
sure, the bugs will be fixed in time, and yes notch is a visionary, and of course beta will be littered with bugs, but its the company's way of handling the development process of a video game that is alarming. with over 2 million copies of the beta SOLD there should at least be a sense of obligation to do things as absolutely professional as possible
so please, Mojang, lets get some additional professionals at work on this game that is pulling people away from their block-buster AAA titles to dig holes in nostalgic 1990 style rendered dirt for hours and days on end. Because you can bet that if you dont take the minecraft concept seriously someone else will.
I once thought he was going to disappear from the Internet and live with the amazing amount of money he's gotten.
Other than that, I completely agree with your argument.
Even so, Mojang doesn't seem to be paying enough attention to Minecraft, rather than sitting at home watching Tom & Jerry and having 2-day parties at Disco Clubs. If they never do anything, hope Minecraft get's bought.
You said it all taukarrie, a completely valid and well spoken critique and voicing of concern for a Game that you love and a developer that you like.
The fulfillment of your concerns was essentially, I believe, the stated purpose behind creating the company 'Mojang' after all. It's understandable to be alarmed when the creation of that company does not appear to fulfill any of the original purpose that it was meant for.
Hopefully at some point they will be shocked awake and learn to reorganize their priorities and efforts in a more constructive way that benefits both them and their customers. This is spoken out of concern for a game and developer that we all care about and can see so much potential for.
Or, they could just be deliberately keeping Minecraft at a stand-still until the mobile versions are caught up...Which could mean that they might end up gettin very conservative in what features they start adding again so that it will still run on a cellphone. I would dearly hate for the games potential to end up being nerfed for the sake of platforming.
I'm pretty sure minecraft has only sold as much as it has because it's indie. Notch is a friggin genius keeping the company small. People like small companies making games and trying to compete against the massive corporations. Trust me, Mojang becoming a full sized company would kill them at this point.
It is annoying that Mojang doesn't get too much done (lack of manpower, not competence), but they're still making a great game.
I can't speak for what Mojang has done, or if they have used their time wisely. It's obvious to anyone that Minecraft is their primary property, and the one that has brought them the most fame and income. He tweeted recently that Aron and Jens have been working (nearly entirely) on Minecraft Portable, which indicates they've been spending their time developing a side project altogether. I'm also under the impression that a lot of work goes into Scrolls and the as of yet unnamed third project.
It just seems like Minecraft, their core product, is mostly ignored. It seems to me that they are also spreading themselves thin. I've no idea how they could have possibly missed and failed to notice just how broken the 1.6 patch is overall - my performance has rocketed straight down (a loss of over 150 FPS) and I get occasional hiccups. The multiplayer server I run is badly glitched - anyone who joins rockets the CPU cycles up all the way - and most things he has implemented don't work at all. More or less, updating to 1.6 has made me unable to play the game.
I've been playing for almost a week... Obsessively. So obviously I'm enjoying and the prospect of mods after the proper game gets old is great. Anyway, it's already apparent to me and surprisingly not apparent to others that Notch seems to be treating this as a side project, millions be damned. Or perhaps millions to blame? Development is snails pace. Releases are buggy as hell. Yeah it's beta, but more in name than anything. 2+ million paid for users in a forever beta that barely gets developed? See where this is going? I think it may be time to clean up the code, finish up the API, set it free for the mod developers and be done with it.
I once thought he was going to disappear from the Internet and live with the amazing amount of money he's gotten.
Other than that, I completely agree with your argument.
Even so, Mojang doesn't seem to be paying enough attention to Minecraft, rather than sitting at home watching Tom & Jerry and having 2-day parties at Disco Clubs. If they never do anything, hope Minecraft get's bought.
They seem to not even read the forums for bugs. :x
I can't speak for what Mojang has done, or if they have used their time wisely. It's obvious to anyone that Minecraft is their primary property, and the one that has brought them the most fame and income. He tweeted recently that Aron and Jens have been working (nearly entirely) on Minecraft Portable, which indicates they've been spending their time developing a side project altogether. I'm also under the impression that a lot of work goes into Scrolls and the as of yet unnamed third project.
It just seems like Minecraft, their core product, is mostly ignored. It seems to me that they are also spreading themselves thin. I've no idea how they could have possibly missed and failed to notice just how broken the 1.6 patch is overall - my performance has rocketed straight down (a loss of over 150 FPS) and I get occasional hiccups. The multiplayer server I run is badly glitched - anyone who joins rockets the CPU cycles up all the way - and most things he has implemented don't work at all. More or less, updating to 1.6 has made me unable to play the game.
Notch said himself he didn't care for Minecraft too much. Also, they have another game, an RPG, which is Notch's style.
I'm pretty sure minecraft has only sold as much as it has because it's indie. Notch is a friggin genius keeping the company small. People like small companies making games and trying to compete against the massive corporations. Trust me, Mojang becoming a full sized company would kill them at this point.
It is annoying that Mojang doesn't get too much done (lack of manpower, not competence), but they're still making a great game.
i agree that if mojang blew up to Blizzard proportions it would be bad. However, hiring a pair of interns for 10 bucks an hour just to test new patches before they go public would only be about 50,000 for a year out of the 20 or so million that minecraft has made so far.
also, the recent focusing of their resources on making a mobile version of minecraft is cearly a strategy to increase revenue which i can appreciate from a buisness perspective, but the real minecraft still desperately needs to be supported better.
They seem to not even read the forums for bugs. :x
Kinda puts the whole "We're the beta-testers" notion in perspective doesn't it? If they aren't even paying one person to communicate with the "official" "beta-testers" on a consistent and regular basis, much less not even providing an official method/form for submitting bug reports that can be tracked and audited.. Then there is NO beta-testing program at all, and we are NOT beta-testers. I certainly was not ever given a way to sign-up as a beta tester.
Every dev company does it's own internal testing first, in hopes of nothing getting out. Unfortunately bugs do still get out but that does not mean that the paying end-users are the "Official" bug-testers. Even if they are being used that way.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
- The Cubic Chunks Mod is back! Be a part of it's rebirth and Development.
-- Robinton's Mods: [ Mirror ] for some of his Mods incl Cubic Chunks Mod, due to DropBox broken links.
Agree 100%. Totally worth the money. Just trying to keep it real though. There is a lot of potential lurking under the surface.
I would agree too, if I could play the game.
My SP map has been corrupted by 1.6 and SMP is completely useless.
The lack of content is one thing, but releasing a buggy as update and leaving like that for a whole day without no idea how bad it is is just poor form.
What was he paying attention to? Oh yeah, Terraria. :sleep.gif:
My feelings could easily be reversed if they just got their act together and focused on what is financing all their other projects at the moment.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
CPU: Intel 2500K @ 3.9Ghz[]Memory: 16GB Corsair 1600[]GPU: ASUS 560 Ti TOP[]Running Win 7
Aye, Generally I side with Notch in these arguments, but the sheer game breaking of the new patch is driving me insane. In NO way should a full durability iron sword break in one swing. I hope he can get it done within a week or two.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“Patience up to a point. Know your time, but work your wyrd always.”
Don't care. Im enjoying the game, they can do what they want. Just chill.
thats a perfectly acceptable position to take. but i guess the point im trying to make here is that if they dont start developing Minecraft properly there eventually wont be anything to enjoy until a more serious developer rolls out their own version of the concept.
Notch's stigma regarding big buisness game developers is blinding him here. i wish he would understand that he can hire personel and implement best or even just standard practices while retaining complete ownership of the project.
Before you you flame/call me dumb think about them not yourself all the time.
The MineCraft team probably has other games to make/update it cant be all about Minecraft. I honestly think they take this seriously. Another thing is that they need to come up with something new (or simple 'modifications' that could help). What if you had a job like notch or the other coders, everyday going to work on Minecraft. Maybe they are just taking a break because they are spending most of their day on Minecraft. Ever thought of that? There is more reasons I'm sure.
I must say this is the first thread Ive seen here with intelligent adult conversation....
that being said,
I agree with the "we should all just chill" stance as this thing is in Beta and we are testing it. Im not a programmer, but ive done enough of it to know what a cool thing this game is and its the first time there is a game where its very creation is left in the hands of the player, and lets them use their own imagination decide what they are going to do with it... which makes it hard for me to understand some of the complaints of the features some people have.
Before you you flame/call me dumb think about them not yourself all the time.
The MineCraft team probably has other games to make/update it cant be all about Minecraft. I honestly think they take this seriously. Another thing is that they need to come up with something new (or simple 'modifications' that could help). What if you had a job like notch or the other coders, everyday going to work on Minecraft. Maybe they are just taking a break because they are spending most of their day on Minecraft. Ever thought of that? There is more reasons I'm sure.
you are right, they indeed have other projects. but, although they should be free to develop whatever software they like, their other projects are kind of part of the problem.
Without Minecraft Mojang would not exist. and without minecraft's continued survival and growth they may cease to exist. If they cant properly support the development of their primary project how efficiently can they develop their side projects? and for that matter, if the player base of minecraft declines as a result of poor support how will they even fund development of other projects? honestly, how many of you are at all interested in Scrolls, minecraft mobile, or anything else coming out of Mojang's studios right now?
and arguing that Notch needs a break is kind of missing the point here. I agree that the guy has earned an easy life. but more staff and better practices would offer him that break AND keep minecraft above water.
the personal nature of Notch's tweets is sort of nice but having to sift through someone's personal messages just to get info on a public game is actually pretty ridiculous to be honest.
and "the word of notch" offers little information or updates at all.
it can also be a pretty disorganized process to sort through all the forums to find official statements from mojang regarding the game
the most recent events following 1.6.x have really shown just how "off the ball" mojang is with minecraft. Notch wasnt even aware of the numerous game-breaking bugs present after checking in a very bugged bug fixing patch followed immediately by 2 subsequent bugged bug fixing patches. and it took over 24 hours for word to get back to him.
a QA team is what is really needed. and some additional dedicated development staff. props to notch for being honest with his tweet that states he didnt even know the bugs were so severe. but the development process is really far from "best practices", which is really a shame. seems like notch is taking the whole "indie game" thing a but too literally.
im starting to think notch doesnt realize what hes actually created here. this is an entirely new genre we're dealing with. one with amazing potential and appeal. i know the guy is working hard but Mojang as a company is really not snatching up a great opportunity here.
sure, the bugs will be fixed in time, and yes notch is a visionary, and of course beta will be littered with bugs, but its the company's way of handling the development process of a video game that is alarming. with over 2 million copies of the beta SOLD there should at least be a sense of obligation to do things as absolutely professional as possible
so please, Mojang, lets get some additional professionals at work on this game that is pulling people away from their block-buster AAA titles to dig holes in nostalgic 1990 style rendered dirt for hours and days on end. Because you can bet that if you dont take the minecraft concept seriously someone else will.
Other than that, I completely agree with your argument.
Even so, Mojang doesn't seem to be paying enough attention to Minecraft, rather than sitting at home watching Tom & Jerry and having 2-day parties at Disco Clubs. If they never do anything, hope Minecraft get's bought.
The fulfillment of your concerns was essentially, I believe, the stated purpose behind creating the company 'Mojang' after all. It's understandable to be alarmed when the creation of that company does not appear to fulfill any of the original purpose that it was meant for.
Hopefully at some point they will be shocked awake and learn to reorganize their priorities and efforts in a more constructive way that benefits both them and their customers. This is spoken out of concern for a game and developer that we all care about and can see so much potential for.
Or, they could just be deliberately keeping Minecraft at a stand-still until the mobile versions are caught up...Which could mean that they might end up gettin very conservative in what features they start adding again so that it will still run on a cellphone. I would dearly hate for the games potential to end up being nerfed for the sake of platforming.
- The Cubic Chunks Mod is back! Be a part of it's rebirth and Development.
-- Robinton's Mods: [ Mirror ] for some of his Mods incl Cubic Chunks Mod, due to DropBox broken links.
- Dungeon Generator for the Open Cubic Chunks Mod
- QuickSAVE-QuickLOAD for the Open Cubic Chunks Mod
It is annoying that Mojang doesn't get too much done (lack of manpower, not competence), but they're still making a great game.
YUM YUM YUM!
It just seems like Minecraft, their core product, is mostly ignored. It seems to me that they are also spreading themselves thin. I've no idea how they could have possibly missed and failed to notice just how broken the 1.6 patch is overall - my performance has rocketed straight down (a loss of over 150 FPS) and I get occasional hiccups. The multiplayer server I run is badly glitched - anyone who joins rockets the CPU cycles up all the way - and most things he has implemented don't work at all. More or less, updating to 1.6 has made me unable to play the game.
Agree 100%. Totally worth the money. Just trying to keep it real though. There is a lot of potential lurking under the surface.
They seem to not even read the forums for bugs. :x
Notch said himself he didn't care for Minecraft too much. Also, they have another game, an RPG, which is Notch's style.
i agree that if mojang blew up to Blizzard proportions it would be bad. However, hiring a pair of interns for 10 bucks an hour just to test new patches before they go public would only be about 50,000 for a year out of the 20 or so million that minecraft has made so far.
also, the recent focusing of their resources on making a mobile version of minecraft is cearly a strategy to increase revenue which i can appreciate from a buisness perspective, but the real minecraft still desperately needs to be supported better.
Kinda puts the whole "We're the beta-testers" notion in perspective doesn't it? If they aren't even paying one person to communicate with the "official" "beta-testers" on a consistent and regular basis, much less not even providing an official method/form for submitting bug reports that can be tracked and audited.. Then there is NO beta-testing program at all, and we are NOT beta-testers. I certainly was not ever given a way to sign-up as a beta tester.
Every dev company does it's own internal testing first, in hopes of nothing getting out. Unfortunately bugs do still get out but that does not mean that the paying end-users are the "Official" bug-testers. Even if they are being used that way.
- The Cubic Chunks Mod is back! Be a part of it's rebirth and Development.
-- Robinton's Mods: [ Mirror ] for some of his Mods incl Cubic Chunks Mod, due to DropBox broken links.
- Dungeon Generator for the Open Cubic Chunks Mod
- QuickSAVE-QuickLOAD for the Open Cubic Chunks Mod
I would agree too, if I could play the game.
My SP map has been corrupted by 1.6 and SMP is completely useless.
The lack of content is one thing, but releasing a buggy as update and leaving like that for a whole day without no idea how bad it is is just poor form.
What was he paying attention to? Oh yeah, Terraria. :sleep.gif:
My feelings could easily be reversed if they just got their act together and focused on what is financing all their other projects at the moment.
“Patience up to a point. Know your time, but work your wyrd always.”
TOMORROW?! Yes you should feel horrible.
*facepalm* uh, yes.
thats a perfectly acceptable position to take. but i guess the point im trying to make here is that if they dont start developing Minecraft properly there eventually wont be anything to enjoy until a more serious developer rolls out their own version of the concept.
Notch's stigma regarding big buisness game developers is blinding him here. i wish he would understand that he can hire personel and implement best or even just standard practices while retaining complete ownership of the project.
The MineCraft team probably has other games to make/update it cant be all about Minecraft. I honestly think they take this seriously. Another thing is that they need to come up with something new (or simple 'modifications' that could help). What if you had a job like notch or the other coders, everyday going to work on Minecraft. Maybe they are just taking a break because they are spending most of their day on Minecraft. Ever thought of that? There is more reasons I'm sure.
that being said,
I agree with the "we should all just chill" stance as this thing is in Beta and we are testing it. Im not a programmer, but ive done enough of it to know what a cool thing this game is and its the first time there is a game where its very creation is left in the hands of the player, and lets them use their own imagination decide what they are going to do with it... which makes it hard for me to understand some of the complaints of the features some people have.
This is far from a beta testing. There are no official Mojang forums set up for us to report bugs to for starters.
Apart from the fact that its called beta, this is just a really early release of the unfinished game.
you are right, they indeed have other projects. but, although they should be free to develop whatever software they like, their other projects are kind of part of the problem.
Without Minecraft Mojang would not exist. and without minecraft's continued survival and growth they may cease to exist. If they cant properly support the development of their primary project how efficiently can they develop their side projects? and for that matter, if the player base of minecraft declines as a result of poor support how will they even fund development of other projects? honestly, how many of you are at all interested in Scrolls, minecraft mobile, or anything else coming out of Mojang's studios right now?
and arguing that Notch needs a break is kind of missing the point here. I agree that the guy has earned an easy life. but more staff and better practices would offer him that break AND keep minecraft above water.