Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Minecraft Generation

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 110 posts

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#31

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#32

Post by sjm-lbm »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #28
zanny wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wo…

As an alternative point of view, I've always heard that HP calculators were killed by TI giving free calculators to schools - which lead to an entire generation that had no desire to learn RPN, even if it has some serious advantages in a lot of areas.

The counterexamples you provide (OSX and Chromebooks) follow basically the same UI paradigms as the Windows machines they replaced (even if some of those might have been copied from earlier Macs). There still may be less overall diversity in the computers we use, even if there are now a number if different logos on the box.

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#33

Post by noobie »

SquareWheel wrote: post #30
noobie wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

By "modding API" in my first edit I was actually referring to MCP. I couldn't think of a better description.

The mods I mentioned aren't indeed by Japanese developers but I can now see how my wording is wrong. I meant to say that the Japanese modding community is also active and doing wonders. Thank you.

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#34

Post by noobie »

Filligree wrote: post #25
noobie wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Sold! I haven't played around in a while but I definitely will. Thanks!

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#35

Post by vonmoltke »

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…

> the public schooling Microsoft monoculture

My school district has been an Apple monoculture from the time they got their first Apple ][Es in the early 80s to the present day. Other than occasionally playing with a Win 3.1 machine in Sears or something I never touched a Microsoft product until I got my first computer at home when I was 17.

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#36

Post by badloginagain »

sdenton4 wrote: post #17
_asummers wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It doesn't help that you have either FTPS or SFTP depending on the platform. I call it FTP as a generalization, but if I ever saw it as an actual FTP implementation I'm outta there.

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#37

Post by mjevans »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #22
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.

If your data isn't in a free format that you can open and work with on your own then you don't own it.

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#38

Post by Jtsummers »

mjevans wrote: post #37
WillPostForFood wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If your data isn't in a free format that you can open and work with on your own then you don't own it.

Being a free format helps. But it isn't necessary. The main thing is that you can access the data reliably even if the original software or servers disappear (may require you to make your own periodic backups).

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#39

Post by mjevans »

david927 wrote: post #19

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.

When there's a vacation or something I recommend trying out mods for it.

TerraFirmaCraft is a total overhaul mod that is 'more realistic' (not fully, but more so) and teaches a general outline of how to progress from the stone age to the ages of metals (different packs also exist that add other mods to extend that up through, say, the (steam) Industrial Age).

If automation and distributed systems are a topic you want to cover the automation you setup in something like FTB's recently released Infinity Skyblock pack/map (there are numerous letsplays and streamers doing that now) is pretty fun, if extremely time consuming. I would not play this without a dedicated server (it is VERY nice to leave chunks loaded overnight...).

Re: The Minecraft Generation

#40

Post by lazerwalker »

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…

Is this different, do you think, than equally-proprietary physical construction kits like Lego or K'nex?
Post reply on HN