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It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play are over

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Re: It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play are over

#201

Post by junon »

flawn wrote: post #170
kragen wrote: post #41

Minetest is probably the best Minecraft alternative; it's free and open source software, which avoids the danger associated with centralized retaliation systems like the one Microsoft is operating. Also, it's easier to write mods for, partly because mods are written in Lua, and you don't have to install mods on the client, just the server. https://www.minetest.net/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6Fyav6FiIs The vide…

This all doesn't make any sense if the MC servers aren't compatible with Minetest.

My IRC client can't connect to MSN messenger. But that doesn't make sense either.

Re: It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play are over

#202

Post by PragmaticPulp »

jaarse wrote: post #116
ckemere wrote: post #94

It's apparently a minority voice opinion here on HN, but I for one appreciate what Microsoft is trying to do. As a parent of a 6 and 9 year old who have really gotten into Minecraft during COVID, I appreciate them basically deciding "We want Minecraft to be a game for kids and an online community that is nice." I get why people are frustrated, but I also like the idea of a global decision that forces servers open to…

I think the issue is the ease of getting users banned, and the lack of actual moderating at all that is the problem. It literally is as easy as fill out the form, user is automatically banned, no verification required. Microsoft is not actually enforcing anything. My son is 10 and has been playing Minecraft for most of his life. I would consider him quite good at it. I sometimes watch. Every couple of months one of h…

> Every couple of months one of his friends will get banned for no reason.

I know you want to trust your child’s friends, but “it happened for no reason” is exactly what kids say when they don’t want to own up to the consequences of their actions. Obviously, you can only monitor your own child’s gameplay and not what their friends are doing on their own time. I strongly suspect there’s more going on than you realize.

> It literally is as easy as fill out the form, user is automatically banned, no verification required. Microsoft is not actually enforcing anything.

I highly doubt this. The Minecraft FAQ has this to say about it:

> Will I get banned without my case being reviewed by a human?

> No. Our team of human moderators handle player reports. This team is dedicated to Minecraft, and familiar with the community, platform, and lore. Our team reviews every report before any action is taken.

Re: It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play are over

#203

Post by asddubs »

tylerhou wrote: post #175
jaarse wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the issue is the ease of getting users banned, and the lack of actual moderating at all that is the problem. It literally is as easy as fill out the form, user is automatically banned, no verification required. Microsoft is not actually enforcing anything. My son is 10 and has been playing Minecraft for most of his life. I would consider him quite good at it. I sometimes watch. Every couple of months one of h…

> It literally is as easy as fill out the form, user is automatically banned, no verification required. Source? https://help.minecraft.net/hc/en-us/articles/7317376541197-M... says otherwise.

they might be referring to bedrock edition, although I'm not sure how it works there, but they've had global moderation from the start AFAIK

Re: It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play are over

#204

Post by StopHammoTime »

ckemere wrote: post #94

It's apparently a minority voice opinion here on HN, but I for one appreciate what Microsoft is trying to do. As a parent of a 6 and 9 year old who have really gotten into Minecraft during COVID, I appreciate them basically deciding "We want Minecraft to be a game for kids and an online community that is nice." I get why people are frustrated, but I also like the idea of a global decision that forces servers open to…

The problem is not that the feature exists - the problem is that you are locked into it, can’t easily opt out, and if it goes wrong you lose access to a product you’ve paid for.

A good system would cater for everyone adequately.

Re: It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play are over

#206

Post by Liquix »

armchairhacker wrote: post #56

I strongly disagree with Microsoft's stance. But I also think the issue is way overblown. You can simply mod servers so that they don't have this chat reporting. If everyone in the Minecraft community is so opposed, just create and exclusively join modded servers. Does not matter if they get labeled "Not Secure" if 90% of well-known popular servers have it, and there are tools and tutorials everywhere which make it s…

>barely legal (revoking people's access to what they bought ...)

Kind of like when Microsoft bought Mojang and locked one of the world's most popular online experiences behind talking to M$ servers? There is no way to play the game you paid for - even offline - if you are not interested in creating a Microsoft account. They don't seem too concerned with the whole "terrible idea which is barely legal" thing when there's an opportunity to force people into giving them data.

Re: It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play are over

#207

Post by asddubs »

ckemere wrote: post #94

It's apparently a minority voice opinion here on HN, but I for one appreciate what Microsoft is trying to do. As a parent of a 6 and 9 year old who have really gotten into Minecraft during COVID, I appreciate them basically deciding "We want Minecraft to be a game for kids and an online community that is nice." I get why people are frustrated, but I also like the idea of a global decision that forces servers open to…

IMO the best way would have been to enforce it for realms, maybe have a way for privately run servers to opt-in, and let parents toggle some switch that only lets their kids play on moderated servers. but microsoft was completely unwilling to make any sort of compromise in that direction.

Adults tend to generally prefer to play with other adults, and they might also use profanity on adult-only private servers. Unfortunately adults can also be just as petty as kids and may report other adults just to get back at them for something or other. plus we know any moderation system run by a megacorp will inevitably result in some percentage of completely random bans.

Re: It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play are over

#208

Post by dasil003 »

autoexec wrote: post #107
dasil003 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, this take it just conflating unrelated historical talking points about Microsoft without regard to how specific things actually happen. A better question is: what incentive does Microsoft have to alienate its playerbase this way? The answer is much more mundane corporate decision making dynamics: an online game played by children is ripe for abuse by predators, and someone representing PR or Legal won the argume…

> A better question is: what incentive does Microsoft have to alienate its playerbase this way? It does continue to condition the peasant-consumer class, especially the young ones, that the products they pay for can be taken from them on the whims of their corporate overlords. That they should expect to censor themselves and each other to appease their betters. Xbox users learned this already ( https://www.ign.com/ar…

Absolutely.

I'm not endorsing the decision, I'm just saying this is how things happen in the corporate world. It has nothing to do with embrace/extend strategy, and it's not a product of Microsoft acquisition per se, it's just the way corporate decisions are made.

Keep in mind the people involved are no less smart than you or me, but they are responsible for single concerns, and the winning concern will be the one with the best narrative and metrics to back it up, because the tie-breaking executive will not have bandwidth to understand either side deeply. If we want to effect change, we first must understand this dynamic.

Re: It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play are over

#210

Post by BeefWellington »

ShowalkKama wrote: post #181
vermilingua wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you propose MS/Mojang determine who is and is not an actual child? Require parents to provide legal documents of their children? Photographic confirmation? Time and time again it has been proven that attempts to segregate the internet into adult/child zones will fail.

opt-in "self flagging". Logic is a parent can report the date of birth of the child at time of purchase (maybe set up an email to receive a confirmation in case you want to disable the kid mode).

Ah, but then you have adults "self flagging" as children to be awful.
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