Slashdot Mirror
Notch Expands On 0x10c, Microsoft and Quantum Computing
eldavojohn writes "Mojang's Marcus Persson (better known as 'Notch') has answered quite a few questions in an interview with PC Gamer about his new game 0x10c. Since its announcement, there's been very few details about game play aside from the DCPU-16 and art tests. But in this interview, Notch has revealed quite a bit about how the game will function and non-final ideas he has for either a monthly fee to play in a 'multiverse' or micropayments. He talks about a custom OS people are working on to load into the game's CPU as well as a an in-game 3D printer that will allow you to make virtual objects. When asked about Kickstarter and his Oculus dev kit, Notch said 'Definitely going to make it work in 0x10c no matter what' and his account of using the Oculus Rift sounds more than promising for the VR Device. When asked about Linux he said, '[Linux] is wonderful. I think we need to have it, and it's a shame that more people, including myself, don't use it. It's gotten easier and friendlier.' When asked about Microsoft he said, 'I use their OS – Windows 7 is an amazing operating system in my opinion and of course there's the Xbox, which I love. I'm sure Bing is going to take off and save them. [Editor's note: Notch is smiling mischievously as he says this.]'"
Bing will save us all!
The word is expounds. Not expands.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
0x10c sounds like a game that geeks (like me) would make if they didn't have financial constraints. I doubt it will reach any kind of mass market appeal and the hoards of minecraft fans hanging on Notch's every word will probably be dissapointed. But I'm looking forward to it.
Mojang is working on two games: Scrolls and 0x10c. You may remember Scrolls from when Bethesda sued them for the name. This story happens to be about the sparse details on 0x10c. Inside this game there will be a central processing unit emulated called the DCPU-16. You can find more information about that in the link to it but the game will center heavily around the user accomplishing tasks with that.
I am the submitter of this story and didn't think it was necessary to clutter the summary with the above information.
Yes - I know I could google these but seriously WTF - TFA reads like some circle jerk post in 4 chan that you need years of inside knowledge just to understand.
I don't think you read either the summary or the fucking article. The very first thing I wrote in the summary establishes who Notch is. The article talks about all the above -- no reason to Google, just click on the links I embedded in the summary.
My work here is dung.
So from the story part of the page you said you skimmed there were sleep chambers that screwed up little endian with big endian and put everyone to sleep for 1 0000 0000 0000 years and now it's 281 474 976 712 644 AD and the first people are starting to wake up. You've got an extremely sparse universe with black holes and lots of empty space.
Now according to the interview the first release will consist only of "you can build a ship and you can play with the computer components in it." And you can design the ship, lay it out more efficiently, etc. However, "Each ship has a generator capable of producing a fixed wattage, and everything you connect to it drains wattage. A cloaking field, for example, might require almost all the power from the generator, forcing you to turn off all computers and dim all lights in order to successfully cloak. The computer in the game is a fully functioning emulated 16 bit CPU that can be used to control your entire ship, or just to play games on while waiting for a large mining operation to finish." So you're going to have to manage your resources and Notch mentions Faster Than Light (a game I kickstarted and enjoyed).
He also alludes to the possibility of your ship flying around and searching for things, a 3D printer, planetary exploration and that kind of stuff. They're not too clear on how multiplayer will work but it sounds like it's going to mostly be a crew on the same ship. Notch talks about 'launching all nukes at space stations' when he's leading and so it sounds like you'll interact with things outside your ship (probably through your DCPU-16).
It sounds like a lot of these ideas are half baked like the 3D printer that he described:
The idea is that, with things like turrets, you have a 3D printer to build the shell, like a computer case shell, but you still have to put components in there. Players in the game aren’t really engineers – they’re more like pilots, so they can’t build those parts. You have to scavenge for those parts, and find abandoned ships and try to find a working CPU or something. And those could have slightly different attributes: you might find a CPU running at 105% and try to trade that. But you can also mine for basic resources, like if you want a gold computer case – we’ll see if we actually have different materials, but that’s what I want – you have to mine for gold and put it in the 3D printer.
But I'm really excited for this game, even if it is just a Faster Than Light type game where you build a spaceship and outfit it and attack or aid outside ships. You would fight intruders that beam into your ship or repair holes left by attacks/asteroids. You know there's a lot that could still be added or modified in this game and anything with this setting and emulation embedded really excites me.
My work here is dung.
Don't say that. I imagine there would eventually be an in game trade system which would allow anyone to buy ships and turrets with DCPU-16 software preinstalled.
The whole thing sounds to me like a scheme for transforming smart kids into proper nerds who write assembly and know their P from their I from their D. I like it.
Hmm, a game where you can program a computer within that game? Anybody remember that old adventure game called B.A.T. Agent? Weird game where, IIRC, you can program yourself with some crude scripting language. I don't think there's anything else like it.
Don't say that. I imagine there would eventually be an in game trade system which would allow anyone to buy ships and turrets with DCPU-16 software preinstalled.
The whole thing sounds to me like a scheme for transforming smart kids into proper nerds who write assembly and know their P from their I from their D. I like it.
Thank you. I was rather disheartened reading these comments. People are apparently planning on using this game to validate that they have holier than thou intellects over the general populace of gamers. My hope for this game is that it attracts the FPS gamers with its exploration mode and after a while they want to know more about how to program their DCPU-16 and awaken a thirst for knowledge inside them. Of course, that's a hope and may not be reality but I think Notch was alluding to that when he said:
It has a strange Quake-like quality to it: slightly too fast. I think it could be entertaining on LAN play but I don’t think you want to play it over the internet because with latency it’s going to become very unfair because it’s so fast. The goal still is to get it so that you can have a ship with the computer components in. Because then not only can you try the game but the people who want to build stuff for the computer can actually start doing that – it actually has some utility as well.
Basically I imagine the bullies in The Simpsons beating Notch up after they learn that he tricked them into learning.
My work here is dung.
Circle jerk is what you and your buddies do when you circle up, drop your pants, and jack off.
+1 Informative.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
CPU appears to be little-endian ("it's strongly suggested all multi-word operations use little endian in all DCPU-16 programs").
Sleep chamber peripheral appears to be big-endian ("Reads the B register, and reads a 64 bit number from memory address B in big endian, and sets the number of units to skip to that number.")
When reading a 64 bit value - indicating the number of units of time to travel forward through - there is mixed endianness.
What could possibly go wrong?
[an embedded programmer guy]
THAT'S THE JOKE /McBain
Backstory
In a parallel universe where the space race never ended, space travel was gaining popularity amongst corporations and rich individuals. In 1988, a brand new deep sleep cell was released, compatible with all popular 16 bit computers. Unfortunately, it used big endian, whereas the DCPU-16 specifications called for little endian. This led to a severe bug in the included drivers, causing a requested sleep of 0x0000 0000 0000 0001 years to last for 0x0001 0000 0000 0000 years.
It's now the year 281 474 976 712 644 AD, and the first lost people are starting to wake up to a universe on the brink of extinction, with all remote galaxies forever lost to red shift, star formation long since ended, and massive black holes dominating the galaxy.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff