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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

#241

Post by tylerhou »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #23
yodon wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you seriously arguing that Microsoft is intentionally trying to "extinguish" it's own IP? I realize that "Embrace, extend, extinguish" is a hopelessly tired and outdated meme, but trying to freshen it up by arguing they've now reached a level where they are intentionally trying to kill their OWN products as part of some grand and 30-year-in-the-past EEE "plan" is simply absurd.

I don't follow Minecraft or this issue closely, this is pure speculation, but MS could be trying to extinguish self hosted servers and would prefer all players playing on official Mincraft servers.

If Microsoft wanted to extinguish self-hosted servers, all they would have to do is stop releasing the server jars and/or turn off authentication for non-Microsoft servers. They wouldn't spend so much time and energy pushing a controversial chat monitoring feature.

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

#242

Post by hooby »

Microsoft lost my copy of the game during the account transfer.

Despite me having an account, that had both re-downloaded the game and played it just a few weeks earlier, had a custom character skin stored in it, and other stuff - they claimed I didn't actually ever own Minecraft, and demanded I provide proof of purchase.

I provided as much as I could - including security questions+answers (which I had stored in my KeePass database, together with the password) - but I could not provide the original purchase email, since I lost access to that email years earlier.

Their support was quite hostile with just the thinnest veneer of superficial politeness on top. They refused to tell me why they believed I don't own the game. They refused to tell me what I could do to get my copy back (other than providing that email, that I no longer had).

Basically I was considered guilty unless I could proof my innocence - and they wouldn't accept any other proof than the original confirmation email.

And that's how - after nearly 10 years - I stopped being a Minecraft player. There's no way I'm going to repurchase the game and play again - not after being treated like that.

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

#243

Post by doodlesdev »

openfuture wrote: post #21
amiga-workbench wrote: post #6

I think now is the time for people to be putting their energies into something like Minetest[1] so they can't have the rug pulled on them. There are already some mods available, but it would be great to see more ported. [1] https://www.minetest.net/

No. Not yet. First we must(!) address the incentive problem in free software (and society) then things like minetest will outcompete things like minecraft naturally. The only reason it doesn't already is because developers can only get paid working on less valuable (read: closed) software. See: https://datalisp.is .

I'm a huge advocate of free software, but I've never actually seen a _true_ solution to the incentive problem when it comes to developing free software. Sure, there are ways to monetize free software projects, but honestly, if you want to make a lot of money, grow a company, hire developers and grow a huge user base, then closed source only benefits you (unfortunately).

I'm not really sure how we can change that, specially because of the already widespread perception that free software must also be free as in beer (which I guess will always be true, and it's exactly the reason so many companies choose closed source).

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

#244

Post by creatonez »

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

Are they seeing the exact same screen as the one in the original post? There are two separate systems at play, each individual server has moderation by those who host the server (wherein they can ban anyone for any reason) and there is now a global moderation system introduced very recently, which is run by paid moderators hired by Microsoft.

You said "every couple of months" but this system did not exist before last month, at least on the Java edition of the game.

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

#245

Post by Guthur »

This is really a result of "you shall hurt no one's feelings" that has permeated through out our society and part of the broader top down push for Economic Social Governance. This is going to be major disaster like all central social governance, it will be brought via tyranny as it always must be, no matter how well intentioned.

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

#247

Post by doodlesdev »

hooby wrote: post #242

Microsoft lost my copy of the game during the account transfer. Despite me having an account, that had both re-downloaded the game and played it just a few weeks earlier, had a custom character skin stored in it, and other stuff - they claimed I didn't actually ever own Minecraft, and demanded I provide proof of purchase. I provided as much as I could - including security questions+answers (which I had stored in my K…

Quoting the original creator [0]: "Just pirate it".

[0]: https://twitter.com/notch/status/157261795139125248

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

#248

Post by dijit27 »

kimmeld wrote: post #76
bisby wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft profits off Bedrock ("Minecraft for WIndows") because they can charge for basically everything, because there are no mods (addons). Java edition is where the mods are. Which is why hypixel/skyblock are on java edition. Ive seen speculation that Microsoft is adding this to have a process for banning java edition players. And then they just... stop selling java edition. Then there are no new java players ever…

Sounds like they learned from Apple pretty well.

What did Microsoft learn from Apple here?

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

#249

Post by voxic11 »

doodlesdev wrote: post #247
hooby wrote: post #242

Microsoft lost my copy of the game during the account transfer. Despite me having an account, that had both re-downloaded the game and played it just a few weeks earlier, had a custom character skin stored in it, and other stuff - they claimed I didn't actually ever own Minecraft, and demanded I provide proof of purchase. I provided as much as I could - including security questions+answers (which I had stored in my K…

Quoting the original creator [0]: "Just pirate it". [0]: https://twitter.com/notch/status/157261795139125248

Quoting the original creator [0]: "buy it".

[0]: https://twitter.com/notch/status/157261795139125248

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

#250

Post by catach »

arboles wrote: post #221
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…

Minetest seems hardcoded to have much smaller worlds than Minecraft (32,000 vs 30,000,000 blocks in width)

I believe it makes up for that quite usefully by having a similar depth/height limit as width.
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