Okay. So I've been playing Minecraft almost 10 years now at this point, with my 10th anniversaries coming next year on Christmas of 2022, for Minecraft as a whole, and January 1st 2023, for my introduction to the original PC edition of Minecraft. (It's that way because an error was made with my old account using my mother's email that prevented me from logging in into the PC Java edition at all; I've should've guessed better or otherwise reset my password.)
While I've had my good experiences with the original Java Edition, there's good reason as to why I will always prefer the new default Bedrock Edition over its original Java cousin. (The default Bedrock Edition is also known as the Better Together Update, which introduced the ability to play cross-platform.)
I'll be listing in a numbered list why, with "higher" numbers representing higher reasons why. In light of all that, here we go.
Minecraft might not even be around today had it not been for the Microsoft buyout.
Okay. I know this seems like mutiny for what people call a "scummy" company to take over a smaller studio like Mojang, but back in 2014, at the time of Java Edition Release 1.8, The Bountiful Update, numerous errors, bugs and glitches, and other nasty happenings (such as TheMogMiner getting fired over harsh and frankly ugly comments)--along with Mojang themselves DMCA'ing Bukkit--really could've sealed their fate as one of the failed and forgotten games of their times--in the same ballpark as those like Video Game Tycoon and RIDE! Carnival Tycoon. I mean, I've once heard from The Sandlot forum that a main admin (Neoarc?) mentioned that were it not for huge servers like Mineplex and Orespawn, Minecraft would've fizzled out and died all those years ago. I mean, people were practically leaving Minecraft in droves following the Adventure Update (although some stuck around), and even though I'm merely getting all of this from an outside source, if you think about it, it makes perfect sense!!
With Microsoft at the helm, a more professional setup is incurred.
Could you imagine all that could've not been had Microsoft not taken over? We wished for stuff like Lanterns and Lecterns, and we finally got all that thanks to Microsoft. We got The Update Aquatic. We even got cross-platform play! Stuff like this had not come out for years while Mojang was still all on their own. Now, we have them. Shouldn't we be grateful? Oh, and if you feel like that Microsoft has no control over Mojang and thus Minecraft, well, I'm pretty sure it's motivated Mojang to truly go further along with anything and everything. Whatever that might be. Ha ha.
Its features are fine the way they are--and frankly, even better.
This seems just like a moot point, and really, it's less of an answer to my original question than anything. But personally, I see the other side to Mojang/Microsoft "overloading" Minecraft itself with new features instead of refining the ones already present. For one, you don't want to alter the base game too much! I'm personally fine with it the way it is. Secondly, they have refined features already present. For one, they revamped the water system in The Update Aquatic. Plus, with Caves And Cliffs, they not only altered world generation (at least that's coming up in a future update/snapshot), but even introduced a taller world height to the game world itself, ranging from -64y all the way up to 320y. Finally, even though some refinements are exclusive to the Java Edition, they are still worth mentioning nonetheless. Examples included the changed-up combat system in 1.9 and crouching in 1.14(?). Enough said.
It's got a Marketplace where more professional additional Add-ons are available besides the user-made mods for Java Edition.
Although, admittedly, I was meaning to get around to trying this feature out, but never bothered spending the money on Minecoins for them all; I've always seen more potential in the Add-ons of Bedrock Edition than the mods of Java Edition. For one, they're less buggy and more polished. Secondly, they should provide more features and functionality than your average Java Edition mod, which while I do understand and applaud their endeavors, don't really see any promise of them finishing or delivering, if at all. Oh, and for those wishing to rant against me for saying the same thing about my Order of the Stone mod (link in signature! )--this is different. This is meant to be a fork of Minecraft for what it could've been had it actually been developed by more professional developers and producers.
Overall, it's more able to fulfill than Mojang alone ever was.
The title should speak for itself, but things would've most certainly been different, if not worse, had Mojang just remained alone instead of being bought out by Microsoft themselves. We've seen a whole lot more come out of Minecraft in the few years that Microsoft had owned Mojang than we've ever seen with Mojang alone. And don't forget: this decade (the 2020s) is a special one, since in September of 2024, it will have been 10 years since Microsoft bought out Mojang.
I will even admit that although I may have sounded a bit harsh here and there, especially to independent creators, let me just say this right now: I have nothing against the original Java Edition of Minecraft or independent creators just looking to create a project for themselves. I'm just saying that overall, I can see the reasons for why the Bedrock Edition of Minecraft itself would be better than Java Edition ever was. But, hey, this is ultimately just my opinion; who knows? Maybe you'll strongly and completely disagree with me, but I'll most certainly respect your own opinion here and then.
And this, my friends, is why I prefer the Bedrock Edition over Java Edition.
Bye for now.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Order of the Stone - A mod idea of what Minecraft could've been had it been developed by a team with more expertise; by professional developers and producers.
Content parity as well as bug fixes is all I ask for with bedrock edition for the time being
It is great that Minecraft bedrock edition has crossplay with more devices than Java edition does however,
that's a good way to sell your game when you tell people they can play with their friends on Playstation, when another person uses, Nintendo Switch, Windows PC or Xbox.
I don't need mods, although I don't have a problem with people who use them, as long as they're careful about what they are downloading.
I agree with you in saying aquatic update was great though, don't forget End update which added so much more cool stuff and more reasons to explore End after Ender Dragon's defeat, it wasn't just some simple minded update that added in intrusive nerfs, it did something different for a change and it proved you can make a game more fun or engaging without resorting to breaking people's redstone builds. It's a misconception, that nerfs is always the way to improve a game or fix them, sometimes nerfs are necessary as was the case with the Notch apple, but a lot of the time nerfs suck because it basically means your work gets ruined or griefed, and then you're left to deal with the fallout and rethink your strategies or cancel a planned project.
But so much more can be done with bedrock edition if it had all the features of Java edition, it would also mean you could use free texture packs conveniently and choose them while your world was already loaded, we can already use custom skins on the fly, but with texture packs you'd need to log out of your world before you could switch them, in Java edition you don't need to, so Minecraft bedrock edition loses in this category imo.
and supposing it can even be done, it would be great if bedrock edition could officially support Java dedicated servers, as well as be able to flawlessly convert world files from bedrock to Java edition and back again. At this time, MCToolchest lets you convert world files, but not perfectly, and it has some quirks that need weeding out.
I don't see how most of what you've said is specific to Bedrock or Java, which are both getting all the features you've described, and in fact Bedrock was originally released in 2011 as "Pocket Edition", long before Microsoft came into play:
A video of an early prototype was released on Twitter, showing the game on the Xperia PLAY. The Alpha version was later released, and was released for different platforms on October 7, 2011
Also, I highly disagree that "add-ons" can ever be superior to mods, especially since you can make your own mods for java - I myself have a "my own vision of the game" mod which I've been developing for over 7 years and you should just see how much effort I put into each feature to make sure it is optimized and as bug-free as possible (this is one reason why the next version, TMCWv5, has been in development for 4 years now; when it does come out you'd be forgiven if you thought some of its features were added due to updates like 1.17-1.18 but in fact I added them years ago, such as stalagmites (aka "dripstone"), as evidenced by the dates of the texture files. I also spent about a year on a complete refactor of much of the rendering, world generation, and game logic). Java mods also have the major advantage in that you can do literally anything you want to the game, not just what an API exposes (in particular, adding actual new content, not just altering existing content via resource/behavior/data packs) - unless Bedrock is made open-source I do not see it ever approaching the same level of moddability (Java is technically not open-source but it may as well be due to the ease of decompiling Java, plus Mojang even releases obfuscation mappings).
They can even fix bugs; I've fixed many bugs long before Mojang fixed them - including many bugs still present as of 1.18 (for example, I just love how they add "fabulous" graphics without doing anything about the hideous "smooth" lighting, which has actually gotten worse with newer updates, or make a "cave update" without making dark caves actually pitch black. Even worse is when they nerf or remove features due to "unfixable" bugs or "performance issues", such as big oak trees, which were mostly removed from world generation in 1.7 (restored several versions later), while I fixed them (and other trees) by adding more logs and even added a "Big Oak Forest" biome consisting entirely of big oak trees as a memorial).
I also blame the current development team (which is still Mojang, not Microsoft) for many of the issues modern Java versions have, which are extraordinarily, ridiculously resource-intensive compared to older versions (mods have this issue as well but I blame the way Forge and other "injection" modloaders work, as opposed to "jar" mods which are directly integrated into the game's code; I've seen no increase whatsever in memory/CPU usage despite adding hundreds of features - in fact, TMCW, even the developmental version (check out the changelog), uses less resources than vanilla 1.6.4). Interestingly, part of this seems to be due to implementing coding practices from Bedrock which are not suitable for Java (it is important to minimize object creation and GC activity for a real-time application like a game, yet for some reason Mojang thought it was a good idea to make all coordinates use a immutable "blockpos" object, which is also used in Bedrock but the C++ compiler optimizes it out).
I don't see how most of what you've said is specific to Bedrock or Java, which are both getting all the features you've described, and in fact Bedrock was originally released in 2011 as "Pocket Edition", long before Microsoft came into play:
Also, I highly disagree that "add-ons" can ever be superior to mods, especially since you can make your own mods for java - I myself have a "my own vision of the game" mod which I've been developing for over 7 years and you should just see how much effort I put into each feature to make sure it is optimized and as bug-free as possible (this is one reason why the next version, TMCWv5, has been in development for 4 years now; when it does come out you'd be forgiven if you thought some of its features were added due to updates like 1.17-1.18 but in fact I added them years ago, such as stalagmites (aka "dripstone"), as evidenced by the dates of the texture files. I also spent about a year on a complete refactor of much of the rendering, world generation, and game logic). Java mods also have the major advantage in that you can do literally anything you want to the game, not just what an API exposes (in particular, adding actual new content, not just altering existing content via resource/behavior/data packs) - unless Bedrock is made open-source I do not see it ever approaching the same level of moddability (Java is technically not open-source but it may as well be due to the ease of decompiling Java, plus Mojang even releases obfuscation mappings).
They can even fix bugs; I've fixed many bugs long before Mojang fixed them - including many bugs still present as of 1.18 (for example, I just love how they add "fabulous" graphics without doing anything about the hideous "smooth" lighting, which has actually gotten worse with newer updates, or make a "cave update" without making dark caves actually pitch black. Even worse is when they nerf or remove features due to "unfixable" bugs or "performance issues", such as big oak trees, which were mostly removed from world generation in 1.7 (restored several versions later), while I fixed them (and other trees) by adding more logs and even added a "Big Oak Forest" biome consisting entirely of big oak trees as a memorial).
I also blame the current development team (which is still Mojang, not Microsoft) for many of the issues modern Java versions have, which are extraordinarily, ridiculously resource-intensive compared to older versions (mods have this issue as well but I blame the way Forge and other "injection" modloaders work, as opposed to "jar" mods which are directly integrated into the game's code; I've seen no increase whatsever in memory/CPU usage despite adding hundreds of features - in fact, TMCW, even the developmental version (check out the changelog), uses less resources than vanilla 1.6.4). Interestingly, part of this seems to be due to implementing coding practices from Bedrock which are not suitable for Java (it is important to minimize object creation and GC activity for a real-time application like a game, yet for some reason Mojang thought it was a good idea to make all coordinates use a immutable "blockpos" object, which is also used in Bedrock but the C++ compiler optimizes it out).
When I tested the addons in bedrock edition on a creative server they function nothing like the mods in Java edition.
In Java edition you can add in new blocks and it wouldn't replace existing items or change how they worked unless it was specifically designed to do so.
I don't really care for mods anyway. As a vanilla survival player I prefer to play the official game, but I do want content parity so that bedrock edition players can have the option to lock Minecraft versions so they can block unwanted updates from removing features they like.
Microsoft isn't the developer, this is true, but Microsoft do own the intellectual property and because of their Xbox Live policy, it's going to be hard for Mojang to give players a true sandbox experience with bedrock edition. Microsoft holds a lot of the blame, not for sloppy programming, but how they implemented bedrock edition, forcing updates on people to play online also means mods break or become incompatible, this is part of the reason why it is so hard to mod Minecraft bedrock edition, if it ever worked, don't expect it to last long, they've already made this version of their game incompatible with custom shaders. In any other type of game, mandated updates would've made sense, but this is a sandbox, players should be allowed to customize their experience, in this case the only mandated updates that should exist are bug fixes or patches for security vulnerabilities.
Another issue with bedrock edition is how unstable it tends to be, sometimes Ender Pearls would get you stuck inside of terrain, a suffocation hazard and potentially can get players killed in lava or fall into Void, which is complete nonsense, it has not just happened to me but also a friend who plays on my world, he got stuck inside of a tree one time. Ender pearls are a standard feature of Minecraft that have existed since the Adventure update 1.8, yet somehow Mojang still manage to mess this up. Even Riptide tridents, while not as old as Endermen and Ender pearls, I've seen players go through terrain with these on more than one occasion and even phase through Ocean Monuments!
Bedrock edition has a lot of positives, but I can't overlook the huge flaws it has and they do need to be called out in my opinion.
Although AntVenom has gone into detail about this topic, and he did mention that if you travel millions of blocks out from the center, you can fall through terrain and die, and there is no invisible barrier preventing players from going out of bounds to protect them in survival, performance also degrades the further out in the Overworld you go, a problem not present on Java edition.
So I do see why some people play on Java edition and I can't fault them for doing so,
it's more customizable and it's the least buggy version of the game. I just hate how Minecraft Java edition (vanillla) has a tendency to lag spike on PC's, even powerful ones just for using a 32 chunk render distance, when on bedrock edition that problem is virtually non existent under normal conditions. It would be more understandable if lag spikes occurred at beyond 64 chunk render distances, but at less, it's inexcusable imo.
Okay. So I've been playing Minecraft almost 10 years now at this point, with my 10th anniversaries coming next year on Christmas of 2022, for Minecraft as a whole, and January 1st 2023, for my introduction to the original PC edition of Minecraft. (It's that way because an error was made with my old account using my mother's email that prevented me from logging in into the PC Java edition at all; I've should've guessed better or otherwise reset my password.)
While I've had my good experiences with the original Java Edition, there's good reason as to why I will always prefer the new default Bedrock Edition over its original Java cousin. (The default Bedrock Edition is also known as the Better Together Update, which introduced the ability to play cross-platform.)
I'll be listing in a numbered list why, with "higher" numbers representing higher reasons why. In light of all that, here we go.
I will even admit that although I may have sounded a bit harsh here and there, especially to independent creators, let me just say this right now: I have nothing against the original Java Edition of Minecraft or independent creators just looking to create a project for themselves. I'm just saying that overall, I can see the reasons for why the Bedrock Edition of Minecraft itself would be better than Java Edition ever was. But, hey, this is ultimately just my opinion; who knows? Maybe you'll strongly and completely disagree with me, but I'll most certainly respect your own opinion here and then.
And this, my friends, is why I prefer the Bedrock Edition over Java Edition.
Bye for now.
Order of the Stone - A mod idea of what Minecraft could've been had it been developed by a team with more expertise; by professional developers and producers.
Content parity as well as bug fixes is all I ask for with bedrock edition for the time being
It is great that Minecraft bedrock edition has crossplay with more devices than Java edition does however,
that's a good way to sell your game when you tell people they can play with their friends on Playstation, when another person uses, Nintendo Switch, Windows PC or Xbox.
I don't need mods, although I don't have a problem with people who use them, as long as they're careful about what they are downloading.
I agree with you in saying aquatic update was great though, don't forget End update which added so much more cool stuff and more reasons to explore End after Ender Dragon's defeat, it wasn't just some simple minded update that added in intrusive nerfs, it did something different for a change and it proved you can make a game more fun or engaging without resorting to breaking people's redstone builds. It's a misconception, that nerfs is always the way to improve a game or fix them, sometimes nerfs are necessary as was the case with the Notch apple, but a lot of the time nerfs suck because it basically means your work gets ruined or griefed, and then you're left to deal with the fallout and rethink your strategies or cancel a planned project.
But so much more can be done with bedrock edition if it had all the features of Java edition, it would also mean you could use free texture packs conveniently and choose them while your world was already loaded, we can already use custom skins on the fly, but with texture packs you'd need to log out of your world before you could switch them, in Java edition you don't need to, so Minecraft bedrock edition loses in this category imo.
and supposing it can even be done, it would be great if bedrock edition could officially support Java dedicated servers, as well as be able to flawlessly convert world files from bedrock to Java edition and back again. At this time, MCToolchest lets you convert world files, but not perfectly, and it has some quirks that need weeding out.
I don't see how most of what you've said is specific to Bedrock or Java, which are both getting all the features you've described, and in fact Bedrock was originally released in 2011 as "Pocket Edition", long before Microsoft came into play:
Also, I highly disagree that "add-ons" can ever be superior to mods, especially since you can make your own mods for java - I myself have a "my own vision of the game" mod which I've been developing for over 7 years and you should just see how much effort I put into each feature to make sure it is optimized and as bug-free as possible (this is one reason why the next version, TMCWv5, has been in development for 4 years now; when it does come out you'd be forgiven if you thought some of its features were added due to updates like 1.17-1.18 but in fact I added them years ago, such as stalagmites (aka "dripstone"), as evidenced by the dates of the texture files. I also spent about a year on a complete refactor of much of the rendering, world generation, and game logic). Java mods also have the major advantage in that you can do literally anything you want to the game, not just what an API exposes (in particular, adding actual new content, not just altering existing content via resource/behavior/data packs) - unless Bedrock is made open-source I do not see it ever approaching the same level of moddability (Java is technically not open-source but it may as well be due to the ease of decompiling Java, plus Mojang even releases obfuscation mappings).
They can even fix bugs; I've fixed many bugs long before Mojang fixed them - including many bugs still present as of 1.18 (for example, I just love how they add "fabulous" graphics without doing anything about the hideous "smooth" lighting, which has actually gotten worse with newer updates, or make a "cave update" without making dark caves actually pitch black. Even worse is when they nerf or remove features due to "unfixable" bugs or "performance issues", such as big oak trees, which were mostly removed from world generation in 1.7 (restored several versions later), while I fixed them (and other trees) by adding more logs and even added a "Big Oak Forest" biome consisting entirely of big oak trees as a memorial).
I also blame the current development team (which is still Mojang, not Microsoft) for many of the issues modern Java versions have, which are extraordinarily, ridiculously resource-intensive compared to older versions (mods have this issue as well but I blame the way Forge and other "injection" modloaders work, as opposed to "jar" mods which are directly integrated into the game's code; I've seen no increase whatsever in memory/CPU usage despite adding hundreds of features - in fact, TMCW, even the developmental version (check out the changelog), uses less resources than vanilla 1.6.4). Interestingly, part of this seems to be due to implementing coding practices from Bedrock which are not suitable for Java (it is important to minimize object creation and GC activity for a real-time application like a game, yet for some reason Mojang thought it was a good idea to make all coordinates use a immutable "blockpos" object, which is also used in Bedrock but the C++ compiler optimizes it out).
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
When I tested the addons in bedrock edition on a creative server they function nothing like the mods in Java edition.
In Java edition you can add in new blocks and it wouldn't replace existing items or change how they worked unless it was specifically designed to do so.
I don't really care for mods anyway. As a vanilla survival player I prefer to play the official game, but I do want content parity so that bedrock edition players can have the option to lock Minecraft versions so they can block unwanted updates from removing features they like.
Microsoft isn't the developer, this is true, but Microsoft do own the intellectual property and because of their Xbox Live policy, it's going to be hard for Mojang to give players a true sandbox experience with bedrock edition. Microsoft holds a lot of the blame, not for sloppy programming, but how they implemented bedrock edition, forcing updates on people to play online also means mods break or become incompatible, this is part of the reason why it is so hard to mod Minecraft bedrock edition, if it ever worked, don't expect it to last long, they've already made this version of their game incompatible with custom shaders. In any other type of game, mandated updates would've made sense, but this is a sandbox, players should be allowed to customize their experience, in this case the only mandated updates that should exist are bug fixes or patches for security vulnerabilities.
Another issue with bedrock edition is how unstable it tends to be, sometimes Ender Pearls would get you stuck inside of terrain, a suffocation hazard and potentially can get players killed in lava or fall into Void, which is complete nonsense, it has not just happened to me but also a friend who plays on my world, he got stuck inside of a tree one time. Ender pearls are a standard feature of Minecraft that have existed since the Adventure update 1.8, yet somehow Mojang still manage to mess this up. Even Riptide tridents, while not as old as Endermen and Ender pearls, I've seen players go through terrain with these on more than one occasion and even phase through Ocean Monuments!
Bedrock edition has a lot of positives, but I can't overlook the huge flaws it has and they do need to be called out in my opinion.
Although AntVenom has gone into detail about this topic, and he did mention that if you travel millions of blocks out from the center, you can fall through terrain and die, and there is no invisible barrier preventing players from going out of bounds to protect them in survival, performance also degrades the further out in the Overworld you go, a problem not present on Java edition.
So I do see why some people play on Java edition and I can't fault them for doing so,
it's more customizable and it's the least buggy version of the game. I just hate how Minecraft Java edition (vanillla) has a tendency to lag spike on PC's, even powerful ones just for using a 32 chunk render distance, when on bedrock edition that problem is virtually non existent under normal conditions. It would be more understandable if lag spikes occurred at beyond 64 chunk render distances, but at less, it's inexcusable imo.