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The secret of Minecraft (2014)

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Re: The secret of Minecraft (2014)

#211

Post by hot_gril »

Version467 wrote: post #59
fbdab103 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah. Microsoft did a great job handling Minecraft imo. I am still peeved that my lifetime license "mysteriously" broke during Microsoft's account transitions. Trillion dollar company lacks the manpower and technical capability to handle it? Or someone cannot be arsed to maintain "freeloader" customers.

Yeah, that's fair. That was just a shitty thing to do. I was more focusing on the creative development that Minecraft saw under Microsoft. Fandoms are often extremely nervous when a large corporation buys the rights to a beloved media ip, largely because this has gone wrong so many times, with poor adaptions or obvious cashgrabs milking a property until the fanbase turns away. This really hasn't happened to Minecraft…

I was at least ambivalent about a lot of the changes, but the combat update did ruin things.

Re: The secret of Minecraft (2014)

#212

Post by hot_gril »

simonw wrote: post #26
cedws wrote: post #2

Call me a hater but I think Microsoft ruined Minecraft. The "secret knowledge" that the author describes is no longer a thing. The game shows you all the recipes. There are way too many blocks now so there's not as much need for creativity in building. Simplicity made Minecraft a true sandbox. There was no real objective, just blocks and ways to arrange them. Now there's always an objective to get the next magic/powe…

Microsoft's stewardship of Minecraft has been fantastic. Simplicity has never been a key element of Minecraft - redstone circuits were added years before the acquisition. The sheer quantity of weird and delightful stuff they've added has kept Minecraft new and interesting for over a decade.

Redstone was simple. You had dust, torches, and repeaters. If Microsoft did it, it'd look like Tekkit.

Re: The secret of Minecraft (2014)

#214

Post by turboponyy »

ilaksh wrote: post #106

He makes a good point about "secret" knowledge, but I don't think that's the real secret. I believe almost everyone, including the author here, misunderstands what made Minecraft take off. It was NOT just the fact that you have creative control (which is what most people mistakenly assume is the main point) or that you need to learn how to craft to advance, or the procedural generation. It was the _combination_ of al…

Minecraft was immensely popular before you could starve, but I agree.

Re: The secret of Minecraft (2014)

#215

Post by hot_gril »

kaba0 wrote: post #154
kevinsync wrote: post #86

Microsoft didn't ruin Minecraft -- all they did was graciously allow the Java version (moddable) to continue to exist and improve while making Bedrock work consistently cross-platform (way more important than you may realize, so many kids are introduced via phones and tablets) and be the place where branded IP / predictable content goes. My 12 year old son has been playing since he was 6 I think, and is an unbelievab…

Maybe they would have been better off by simply trying to make it run on mobiles as is? It’s java, there is no reason why it couldn’t just work - some people do play the java version on ipads even.

iPads and lots of other systems can't run Java, that's why they made Bedrock. Also maybe cause Java is slow.

Re: The secret of Minecraft (2014)

#216

Post by Tijdreiziger »

rightbyte wrote: post #173
iforgotpassword wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But maybe a bit of happy coincidence, or luck? Like, yes he made the final decision to use the music made by C418, but I really think you couldn't have made anything better. So, lucky those two got together? But then again, deciding to only occasionally start playing a song definitely was a great decision by notch. I'm really someone paying attention to soundtracks. I care and think about the music people put into ga…

The music nails it. The first time you play, it is magical. Like, I was swept away. I think the music was really important for the emotional state.

You may enjoy this cover: https://youtube.com/watch?v=gVYjlmB81Hc

Re: The secret of Minecraft (2014)

#217

Post by hot_gril »

hot_gril wrote: post #206
kevinsync wrote: post #86

Microsoft didn't ruin Minecraft -- all they did was graciously allow the Java version (moddable) to continue to exist and improve while making Bedrock work consistently cross-platform (way more important than you may realize, so many kids are introduced via phones and tablets) and be the place where branded IP / predictable content goes. My 12 year old son has been playing since he was 6 I think, and is an unbelievab…

Microsoft ruined Minecraft by permanently locking a ton of existing users out of their accounts.

* Mostly the long-time players who bought the game in alpha or beta

Re: The secret of Minecraft (2014)

#218

Post by lynndotpy »

hot_gril wrote: post #207
lynndotpy wrote: post #152

Something else vital is that it ran on almost everything. Even before it expanded to every smartphone and console available, you could get it to run on a cheap and old laptop. Even 10fps was serviceable if you played on peaceful :) I actually got into Minecraft during classic, and I chased performance optimizations all the way to Linux. Even with all the feature additions, by the time it hit beta, it ran better on my…

My brother played on an iMac G5, while hosting a server on it too.

Fun fact, ever since 1.3.1 (twelve years ago!) Minecraft used client-server architecture, even in singleplayer mode :)

Re: The secret of Minecraft (2014)

#219

Post by hot_gril »

Besides the lack of an ingame manual, a few things about Minecraft that might seem bad actually made it successful since the alpha:

- time-consuming resource collection

- lack of objectives

- low-res graphics, even though the engine is capable of high-res

- one-click sword combat mechanics

- no official multiplayer server

- Java (not common for games at the time)

- glitches that don't completely break the game

The most interesting one is resource collection. It actually encourages building by forcing players to think about what resources to use and making it more impressive in multiplayer to see large/expensive structures.

Re: The secret of Minecraft (2014)

#220

Post by instagraham »

hot_gril wrote: post #208
instagraham wrote: post #191

This secret knowledge is common to older competitive games like Counter Strike. The game does not explicitly tell you about recoil control, or economy, or any of the other aspects that are crucial to surviving even entry-level ranked play. I've mixed feelings about it - deploying secret knowledge almost feels like cheating (a staggering amount of casual players don't do basic recoil control like 'pull mouse down', so…

Competitive video games shouldn't have secret knowledge imo. Counter-Strike gets a pass because the game is simple enough to begin with. Like obviously since you feel the gun walking up, you'll try pulling down. The "king" of knowledge-based gameplay is AoE2:DE (modern remake of Age of Empires 2). The old game was complex, but people learned it once. Now they keep adding or modifying civs to add in gimmicky mechanics…

> Like obviously since you feel the gun walking up, you'll try pulling down.

It seems more common behaviour today, but remember CS came out in the era of zero-recoil arena shooters.

I once made my friends play UT after several rounds of CS and then they struggled to play CS again due to UT's friendlier recoil (complete lack thereof)

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