Slashdot Mirror
Minecraft Reaches Beta Status, Price Goes Up
Eric writes "After over a year of development, Minecraft has hit Beta status today. Minecraft was developed for about a week before its public release on May 17, 2009. With the new milestone, the price of the game has increased to €14.95; when Minecraft moves beyond beta status, it will sell for €20.00. The beta is more focused on polish and content. The aim is to add proper modding support via a stable API, some kind of non-intrusive narrative to help drive the game experience early on, and a late-game goal. Updates will be less frequent, so as to make sure stability is maintained thanks to more extended testing. Despite this, there have already been two beta releases: client and server Beta 1.0 followed quickly by client 1.0_01."
did they get their money back from PayPal?
The summary fails to mention the spectacular fail.
The release that was supposed to inaugurate the beta also created a bunch of bugs for both single- and multi-player modes, including dupe bugs, which he was trying to fix.
The patch that followed the beta release was supposed to fix those bugs, and didn't. Minecraft remains almost unplayable for me in single- or multi-player mode; my friends can't even connect to the server anymore.
I understand that "beta" is just a milestone, but this is really inauspicious.
http://www.tenjou.net/
Minecraft Reaches Beta Status, Price Goes Up
If there's one thing I don't do, it's buy software that isn't written yet. Maybe under some limited conditions in custom software both otherwise, let me know when you're done and what you're charging for it and I'll consider it.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Regardless of whether you blame Minecraft's success on luck or Notch's genius, he's a rather poor programmer. If you read through the release notes on his blog, he's apparently incapable of adding features without breaking lots of stuff on the way and waiting for him to fix basic functionality can take months.
I don't know if that's true or not, but I do know that programming 'under the spotlight' can be very distracting. What with twitter, blog comments, and forums there are far too many ways for the customer base to contact Notch 24/7. That's got to make fixing stuff hard if people are constantly shouting "FIX IT!" in your ear.
I bought the alpha a few months ago, and while I haven't played it recently due to time contraints, it is easily well worth the money that is being charged. I played it far more than games that cost three times as much, not to mention that when playing it, I was never frustrated, or angry, but thoroughly enjoying the experience, which is something I can't say about most games, not to mention ones that aren't even freaking finished yet!
I had no idea what I was getting in to when starting Minecraft. It is fun to start off knowing nothing about how the game is played, and just start building a castle or whatever.
It is amazing how this game far outshines other games that are much more graphic intensive.
Minecraft is your Utopia. You can do anything in Minecraft.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Wait a minute, that's not a swiss bank account number! :)
Paying for an alpha is not exactly paying for vapourware. It's more like half-condensed-ware or semisolidware. It's really been a fun game, and was (mostly) worth the money. Crashes every sunrise and sunset was annoying until a reinstall fixed that.
I'm played around with it a bit, but to me it just seems like a very limited type of Second Life minus all the social stuff, scripting, interaction, etc.
Am I missing some unique part of the game experience that makes this better?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Right now, Minecraft saves worlds by making a huge tree of directories that stores individual data chunks in various sub-directories. Even though the total amount of data is small (my server is only about 10 megs), any time a copy needs to be made to backup or test, it takes an eternity because there are literally over 10,000 files on the disk.
I'm hopelessly in love with the game, but with the frequent software updates, there is also a need for frequent backups to make sure I don't lose all the work of everyone on the server.
If you could promise me a relatively big supply of lego-blocks (about 4,080,576,000 bricks in 91 different colors, and add a few decorative items) for about 15 USD. And if you on top of that give me a vague promise for free new blocks in the future, you got yourself a deal!
The world of minecraft is complex enough to be Turing complete.
Prove it. No, really, that would be pretty interesting :)
I mean, I just read Mi*****ft, and I think "Wow, Windows is finnaly in beta, but the price is even more up?".
PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
Plaxinum is actually an AI built within Minecraft. Doesn't prove Turing Completeness, but hey... good enough for me.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
There is a mineral called redstone in the game that can be placed like circuitry, albeit with a 15-block activation distance. Redstone torches act like NOT gates, but can be combined into more complex logic gates.
Youtube is now littered with demos, but I think this is one of the better ones: Working 16-bit computer built inside Minecraft.
CPU implemented in minecraft
Ssssssssssssssss...
Leela: "Is all the work done by children?" Alien: "No, not the whipping."
You're way behind, Mr. Mopps. Behold: http://linnnk.com/awesome-minecraft-costume
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
To me it's like playing with cube-shaped Lego bricks in that the satisfaction comes from thinking of, planning, and building cool-looking stuff on an infinitely large green baseplate. Also like playing with Legos, sometimes you have to hunt through the pile to find that one block you need to make your tower go from cool to extra cool. And to take it a bit further, sometimes at night your little green brother who is totally annoying will come over and blow up the fishing cabin you were working on for the last 15 minutes.
(Or to take another tack, if you liked building cars and creatures more than playing the actual game in Spore you'd probably enjoy Minecraft.)
Only if you can first send some free blocks first. Limited in functionality like only single colored blocks. Only one lego-person. But Access to your community forum. I'll decide after I give it a try.
Oh, and don't forget the procedural lego kit design generator.
Ah yes, Geek-Sheik, the famous fashion movement characterised by pocket protectors and an impressive scholarship of Islam.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
There was a guy who created a working 16-bit ALU in Minecraft: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGkkyKZVzug&feature=player_embedded Don't know if an ALU is Turing complete, but as he mentions he will be working on the remaining parts.
That's interesting, I didn't know. I guess that's one of the advantages of running XFS on a SSD :p
(Yes, yes, TRIM is still not supported. I will either re-TRIM the disk manually or cycle it out if it really starts breaking)
You can make Turing machines with wires, water and lava. So it's actually Turing complete several times over :)
If we remember basic CS, a Turing machine does not have to be efficient, it just needs to be _able_ to do everything _in theory_.
There has been little official word on any api yet, except they want to make one. It is not included in the current beta release. The state of modding is currently decompiling the obfuscated java, making some changes, and recompiling it. kinda a hacky way to make changes.
It has in-game NOR gates. It is already known that you can build a turing-complete machine with NOR logic. Ergo, Minecraft is Turing complete. Kind of a cheat, really, it'd be interesting to know if you could do the same using just the physics.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
For me this game will always be just dwarf fortress fan art. The breath people are wasting on complaining about bugs for this game would be better spent chattering excitedly about the upcoming world wide real time trade and item tracking that is planned for the next DF release. Mind you minecraft works well for those without the patience or inclination for DF's vertical learning curve. For those who have climbed it however minecraft is a dim shadow cast by one of the greatest leaps (long treks?) forward in gaming history. Oh and DF is free.
It has in-game NOR gates.
I love short proofs. :)
Kind of a cheat, really, it'd be interesting to know if you could do the same using just the physics.
There are videos on Youtube from prior to the addition of Redstone (the stuff what lets you make NOR gates), that show adders and other logic implemented solely with the behavior of water and sand and regular torches. Unfortunately it's all single-use, and once the "circuit" runs once you have to set it all up again.
The enemies of Democracy are
As a DF/Roguelike purist I have to say you are both wrong. All this shiny bling pre atari 2600 graphics are way too shiny and pretty and detract from the pure gameplay aspect. Yes I am half joking. Only half.
I thought that too. Then I played it. It's very fun, it reminds me of GarrysMod (My friends and I can spend hours building things) but with more substance. There's enemies (that you didn't create) and it doesn't all die when you quit the game.
What's this plaxinum you speak of? I'm very curious.
"To pass through the jungle; silence, courtesy, ferocity, as the occasion demands." -- Kamau, "Proper Passage"
I've had a roughly similar idea for a game that keeps resurfacing last 15 years. With cloud computing catching & technology advances I might actually learn programming to build my game.
Minecraft is the closest game I know of that is about building blocks and huge worlds where players move around and change things. That is the foundation for my game & things differ much from there.
I bought four copies of Alpha & my in-laws bought 3 copies in Alpha & host a server for us.
It's fun now & we are all excited about future updates. The money was well spent.
Ah yes, Geek-Sheik, the famous fashion movement characterised by pocket protectors and an impressive scholarship of Islam.
THANK you. Chic, GP. The word is chic.
"All these years believing you're the signified monkey, only to find out you're just a big hunk of nobody cares."
If I could see those bricks right now, and they would be given to me immediately after our transaction, and I would be getting a fairly steady supply of new bricks as time went on for no additional price, then you would have a similar system to Minecraft's pre-order.
Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
Minecraft is one of those little homebrew projects that has taken on a life of its own.
Really - it's simple without being simplistic, and allows people fantastic expression of their creativity.
It's totally worth paying for, and supporting this programmer.
The next obvious step would be a more robust permanent world capability, along with the ability to lock ones' creations from the deliberate vandalism and destruction of others.
-Styopa
Goes to show that a lot of people like having a huge sandbox and tools to play with it & willing to pay for it.
Pretty much most game engines can do that. Making a mod for unreal tournament, quake, doom, team fortress 2, half life etc. to offer an in-game NOR gate is pretty trivial. Compare this to a platform like Second life, where you have in-game scripting capability that lets you build simple items like NOR gates, it's not really that impressive to me.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Yes, it is "that bad" although I don't really think it's fair to judge it in that manner. It's like playing with legos, scribbling in a sketch pad, singing to oneself, or writing poetry. Just a creative outlet for its own sake. So what if it's "just like a sandbox?" Nobody criticizes children for liking to play in a sandbox. It's fun and if it weren't so messy, I'm sure some adults would continue to do it. So why not create a game that allows for some of that sandbox experience?
Virtue finds and chooses the mean.
Aristotle, Ethica Nichomachea
I bought this game in Alpha stage because I saw videos of what people were doing with it on Youtube. The fact that this is a game which allows for so much creativity is what drew me to it. A kid who made a fully functional computer _inside_ the game is exactly why it's so appealing. I love the blocky graphics and the ethereal music. The generated worlds are full of surprises and interesting little crevices and caves to explore. My only complaint is that the game is written in Java. I understand why it was, but my true dream would be to have a version written in C maybe, in a tight little EXE. If they could do with Minecraft what was done with Kkrieger, I would be excited beyond measure. Because of what this game is, there is no reason I know of why it needs to hog resources and load up a huge Java environment. Kkrieger was done years ago, even.
Maybe. Are the lego Blocks in the shape of a world? can I build a castle from glass with them? powered mine cars? Have other people purchased from you and been happy? Can I play with a demo version of the blocks?
It's like you analogy is both wrong and stupid.
Just to be clear: Your analogy is both wrong and stupid.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
IF you need spoon fed goals and someone else to set up achievements and motivate you, then yeah it's bad.
OTOH if you like fining new things , building new things and having a digital area to play in, then it's awesome.
My son loves it. It was awesome watching him try to figure out how to make tracks, then a mine cart, and then figuring out how to make a powered mine cart. No one to tell him what to do, no preset goals. Just how creative he can be with the rules inside the minecraft world.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I suspect that if that poster had Lego as a kid they where all built to the instruction manual, then put back in the box and stored neatly on the shelf.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Playing it by yourself, yeah, it was pretty boring.
Starting up a server and playing with your friends is a ton of fun though, unless they have no creativity.
We've built a castle together. To help find it after being killed by random mobs, I've created a giant tower with a central pillar of lava.
That was our first weekend playing it. We just added a mod for creating magic symbols that create effects.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
Those were my thoughts before I actually watched a video of someone playing it.
In reality, it's about survival in a world where monsters come out at night. The sandbox mode is pretty boring to me, but if you start playing singleplayer survival mode, it gets much more interesting. Check out this, for example.
Clever signature text goes here.
He apparently has *millions* of dollars now.. why not hire a team of decent C programmers and convert the game? I imagine you could get it running on mobile platforms damn fast shortly afterwards and make even more money.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I suspect that if that poster had Lego as a kid they where all built to the instruction manual, then put back in the box and stored neatly on the shelf.
Not so bad. I knew a kid who would do that, but with the added step of disassembling methodically and reassembling it using glue to make it permanent. So not only did he not play with the kit any, no one else got to either.:\ Shoulda just upgraded to ships in bottles.
It's a misspelling of the name of the poster that mentioned that Minecraft is Turing complete. Cue the "How does the misspelling of the name of the poster make you feel?" posts
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
Nobody asked whether it impressed you.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
I forget where I saw it now, but I saw mention of Mojang considering the creation of a new team-based multiplayer mode that made use of security systems, griefing etc. in a similar fashion to the SourceForts HL2 mod (a truly excellent pre-TF2 mod that's sadly fallen by the wayside)
The idea was for teams to build fortresses and attempt to raid their opponents' using all their ingenuity, setting traps and pitfalls for each other while defending their bases as best they could. There wasn't any more detail than that, but I thought the notion sounded exceptionally fun, and would not require any hacks to the core game mechanic (possibly slightly more prolific mineral distribution, allowing for quicker building of steel defences/doors, circuits, TNT, diamond tools etc.) Distinct build/attack phases could be enforced (again similar to SourcForts) using the inherent day/night cycle to great advantage and enhancing the Survival-mode's need to be in-tune with daylight.
A distinct advantage over other team-based deathmatches would be the ease with which you could host 3 or more teams without worrying about uniquely tailored maps. The exact objective is maybe not clear, but I would think that CTF would work best (flag would have to be below sea-level to prevent unassailable sky-towers). I've seen Youtube clips of people building TNT-powered "cannons," hidden underwater bases and ingenious traps and escape mechanisms, which suggests to me that this niche is aching to be filled (fnarr.)
There are already unofficial game-modes being played - SPLEEF being a prime example - but there is real potential demand for unique, dedicated game modes, once Notch's new team is up to speed.
Meta will eat itself
Nobody asked for your response either. How inconsiderate of you!
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
You obviusly don't understand the point of technology, and Notch obviusly "get it".
Technology is at the service of awesomness, to make awesome things. Is not important if the netcode is awnfull, but what Notch did with it.
Also, you don't get what type of programmer seems Notch, he is a "jam creator", he create prototypes, original code very fast. This is important, because normally code is soo expensive and slow to crate, that by the time you have a idea implemented, everyone is already bored of the idea. He make real dreams while you are still sleeping.
-Woof woof woof!