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The Minecraft Generation

nytimes.com

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Re: The Minecraft Generation

#11

Post by Aelinsaar »

Retric wrote: post #6
vvanders wrote: post #4

It really does feel like Minecraft is the Doom/Quake/Half-Life of this generation. I'd almost thought that modding had disappeared due to the complexity involved in AAA games but nice to see it alive and well in Minecraft.

Skyrim and Starcraft 2 are recent examples with huge mod scenes. They are arguably far less flexible than Half-Life, but subjectively mods like Requiem can completely change the style of game-play. Hell, Requiem is a few hundred MB's. IMO, the real shift is you don't need to mod an existing game to make significantly different games. Further, AAA games are simply huge now so it's hard for a small group to change ever…

To be fair, less flexible than Half-Life still leaves a lot of a room for something to be flexible. What you're saying about AAA games in general though, is a good point. The days of being able to unpack Quake are over, and some of these games are pretty hard even for their creators to manage from update to update.

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#12

Post by ben_jones »

newobj wrote: post #5
vvanders wrote: post #4

It really does feel like Minecraft is the Doom/Quake/Half-Life of this generation. I'd almost thought that modding had disappeared due to the complexity involved in AAA games but nice to see it alive and well in Minecraft.

Minecraft is the Lego, Crayons, Doom, Tag, and BBS of this generation.

Don't forget toxic youtube comments.

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#13

Post by Aelinsaar »

I like the expectation Minecraft sets up in players, that the world is going to respond to them in some kind of meaningful way. I hope that expectation drives broader development over time.

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#14

Post by noobie »

vvanders wrote: post #4

It really does feel like Minecraft is the Doom/Quake/Half-Life of this generation. I'd almost thought that modding had disappeared due to the complexity involved in AAA games but nice to see it alive and well in Minecraft.

The Minecraft modding scene is amazing! The Japanese have been doing wonders. You'd be amazed not only by the content but also by the visual effects of some of the mods.

Some examples (Not Japanese):

ComputerCraft: adds programmable computers in Lua. With in game applications; programmable robots called turtles.

Botania and Thaumcraft are two magical mods with stunning visuals.

Buildcraft and AE2 are logistics-oriented mods.

All in all, vanilla Minecraft is definitely unplayable once you try it with mods.

Edit: Probably worth mentioning that Mojang hired the guy who created the modding API. (See SquareWheel's comment below for correction/details)

Edit: Just finished reading the article (I check the comments first). They mentioned the Redstone logic. Probably worth mentioning as well that a 16-year-old built a scientific calculator using Redstone. https://youtu.be/wgJfVRhotlQ

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#15

Post by peeky »

Terr_ wrote: post #9
danielvf wrote: post #2

This is a good article. I couldn't help but laugh though: "telnet, a command-­line tool often used by professionals to manage servers."

Working in a startup circa 2008, we had a trial-run hire who apparently had some old experience and was trying to get back into things... He was confused why he couldn't telnet anywhere, and I had to explain what SSH was and why nobody used telnet anymore.

I interview people like this all the time. I'm long enough in the tooth to have been using telnet regularly, and it terrifies me that so many people doing what I was doing 20 years ago have found a path to obsolescence in an industry with such a critical skills shortage.

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#16

Post by markbnj »

Great article, and I loved the mooshroom in a pen with pressure plates hack. That is indeed very creative thinking. But this ...

>> “My art teacher always says, ‘No games are creative, except for the people who create them.’ But she said, ‘The only exception that I have for that is Minecraft.’ ”

I guess his art teacher didn't play many computer games. If she was familiar only with board and party games then perhaps this comment would make sense, but "builders" have been a part of computer gaming for a long time, as any obsessed fan of Railroad Tycoon or Civilization can attest to. In Fallout 4, a relatively new title, you can build entire towns.

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#17

Post by sdenton4 »

_asummers wrote: post #7
wtbob wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that one got me too. I really hope these servers just call them telnet admins and don't actually use telnet in 2016.

I dunno man, the amount of people who say "FTP server" with a straight face, not realizing that credentials are transmitted in plaintext, is alarming.

Yeah, I generally give people the benefit of the doubt on that one, given that the new way is sftp... FTP is still a reasonable shorthand.

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#18

Post by joezydeco »

These days I'm a bit more intrigued by Roblox. My 11 year-old son and his friends have completely abandoned Minecraft for it.

Roblox is designed for MMO play from the start, but worlds (or whatever they're called) are completely open to modification with their free editor. Then you can script things in Lua. Lua!

The other night my son was antsy at the dinner table. So I asked him why the rush. He said he "had a flight to catch". Turns out he's joined a group that operates an "airplane" that has scheduled flights in and out of an airport that someone has created. He interviewed to become the first officer on the flight.

It's messier than Minecraft, but the players seem to understand the potential. They're hiring, actually. (no I don't work for them). The stats on this page are interesting too:

http://corp.roblox.com/careers

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#19

Post by david927 »

Last year my daughter, then nine, discovered Minecraft and fell in love with it. The wonderful and surprising result was that it seemed to make her fall in love with problem-solving and architecture in general. Suddenly programming wasn't boring, it was empowering.

I was skeptical at first; now we have it on every device in our house and we have a family server that we share with my sister and dad.

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#20

Post by jshelly »

joezydeco wrote: post #18

These days I'm a bit more intrigued by Roblox. My 11 year-old son and his friends have completely abandoned Minecraft for it. Roblox is designed for MMO play from the start, but worlds (or whatever they're called) are completely open to modification with their free editor. Then you can script things in Lua. Lua! The other night my son was antsy at the dinner table. So I asked him why the rush. He said he "had a fligh…

Agreed, my kids (10) gave up on Minecraft a while ago and have been completely focused on Roblox for the past year.
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