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The Minecraft Generation

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Re: The Minecraft Generation

#21

Post by kefka »

_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.

An FTP server is perfectly fine for anonymous logins, assuming it was configured server side to be running as a low permissioned user.

But yes, once you start taking user credentials, you need to move to something like FTPS or SFTP (urgh... double standards).

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#22

Post by WillPostForFood »

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…

Roblox is designed like an MMO. But that also has drawbacks. They charge like an MMO (monthly subscription), and you are beholden to their system/servers.

I don't think I've ever gotten more value from a software purchase than buying Minecraft for €9.95 in 2010.

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#23

Post by zanny »

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…

The idea of a corporate for-profit proprietary video game being the centerpiece of a generation's learning is horrifying and dystopian to me.

It is the same problem the last generation had, in large part, with the public schooling Microsoft monoculture. Kids grew up on Windows 95 and Office and are now indoctrinated into Microsoft tooling, probably for life, as loyal customers. A very valuable investment on Microsoft's part to capture the computer knowledge of a large portion of a generation.

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#24

Post by Filligree »

jshelly wrote: post #20
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.

Did you look at the modded Minecraft experience at all, before doing that?

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#25

Post by Filligree »

noobie wrote: post #14
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-orient…

You should definitely look at Electrical Age as well.

I mean... I'm biased, because I'm one of the (non-core) devs, but it's a reasonably accurate DC electrical simulator, in Minecraft! What's not to love?

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#26

Post by Jtsummers »

peeky wrote: post #15
Terr_ wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This bothers me. How are people interviewing for (presumably) admin positions without this knowledge?

When I interviewed for my first real job they included a programming "test". It was basic C stuffs (really, more C pointer focused). Things like 4 swap functions, each incorrectly implemented, what are the resulting values of a and b after running swap(a,b) or swap(&a,&b), etc.

Apparently, I found out after getting hired on, I was the only one to have ever gotten every question correct (note: I was not their only hire, the code there made sense once I heard this, I'm not there anymore). So I guess I shouldn't be surprised that sys admin jobs see similar problems. But it still really bothers me for some reason. This is fairly basic knowledge (telnet/ssh for admins, C and pointers for embedded systems programmers).

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#27

Post by dividuum »

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…

Haven't head of that game before. I looked at a few minutes of game play on Youtube and their website. This feels a lot like Second Life: A blank world were everything has to be developed in order to do anything meaningful. I might be totally wrong with my first impression so I'm curious it's comparable.

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#28

Post by k-mcgrady »

zanny wrote: post #23
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…

The idea of a corporate for-profit proprietary video game being the centerpiece of a generation's learning is horrifying and dystopian to me. It is the same problem the last generation had, in large part, with the public schooling Microsoft monoculture. Kids grew up on Windows 95 and Office and are now indoctrinated into Microsoft tooling, probably for life, as loyal customers. A very valuable investment on Microsoft…

>> "It is the same problem the last generation had, in large part, with the public schooling Microsoft monoculture. Kids grew up on Windows 95 and Office and are now indoctrinated into Microsoft tooling, probably for life, as loyal customers. A very valuable investment on Microsoft's part to capture the computer knowledge of a large portion of a generation."

I don't think this is as big of an issue as you think. I would be part of that generation. Almost everyone I know (and I mean regular people, I don't have many tech nerd friends) has switched to OS X in work and personal life. A few are on Chromebooks too. Most use a mixture of MS Office (when required for work/college) and Google Docs. So although I agree that there was an MS monoculture when growing up through the 90's/00's I disagree that has led to lifelong loyal custom.

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#29

Post by Jtsummers »

zanny wrote: post #23
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…

The idea of a corporate for-profit proprietary video game being the centerpiece of a generation's learning is horrifying and dystopian to me. It is the same problem the last generation had, in large part, with the public schooling Microsoft monoculture. Kids grew up on Windows 95 and Office and are now indoctrinated into Microsoft tooling, probably for life, as loyal customers. A very valuable investment on Microsoft…

If it were teaching them history, philosophy, science, math, literature, etc. then maybe it'd be disconcerting. But these things seem more focused on algorithmic thinking, programming, maybe math (though not necessarily higher math), logic and a bit more.

MS produced tools, lots of people use them. MS didn't write the textbooks and explain to students that Windows was the be-all-end-all of operating systems, the rest are heathens.

A video game like this, to be successful, requires a well-structured volunteer base (hard), or profit. And it's hardly a monoculture, anyone who wants to put in the time and money is able to produce a competing game.

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#30

Post by SquareWheel »

noobie wrote: post #14
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-orient…

Just a quick correction. Mojang hasn't hired the guy that created Forge. They hired Dinnerbone and grum, two guys from Bukkit (a server plugin API). They also hired developers from MCP (Searge and Professor Mobius), which enables Forge to do what it does.

Forge's early contributors have mostly moved on from the modding scene, but the current maintainers are cpw and LexManos. They've worked with Mojang on a few issues, such as the block model format, but haven't been hired by them.

Additionally, I'm not sure if you meant it this way, but the mods you mentioned aren't by Japanese developers. There is a significant modding scene in Japan, but there's little overlap with the more common mods such as you listed above. Some notable mods from that community are StarMiner[1], RealTrainMod[2], and Helicopter Mod[3].

[1] http://forum.minecraftuser.jp/viewtopic.php?t=17975

[2] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0yAsWJZxkLFrogH1Rfa8EA/vid...

[3] http://forum.minecraftuser.jp/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=14837

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