Perhaps someone is not familiar with the fact that the sun moves across the sky in Minecraft, just like real life? Hint: how quickly the sun moves can be used to calculate the length of the day!
You forgot about the things in Minecraft known as Snow or Rain, which can hide the sun.
Not really. One of the first things I do when starting into a new topic is search for the wiki. And, indeed, Googling 'Minecraft wiki' takes you to... the Minecraft wiki.
Not everyone is a Slashdot geek who automatically thinks about wiki's. I didn't...at first, the forums led me to it, but I found blogs and the minecraft forum first. You have to remember about those "millions of grandmas" supposedly playing the game. Do you think they read or post the forums?
Because Minecraft is at its core a sandbox game. Do you give kids a 'tutorial' on how to play in a sandbox?
Yes! You can tell them the basics to get them started at least. That's all I'm asking... I'm not asking for a built in tutorial on NAND gates and/or Flip-flops using Redstone for new players , but something more akin to the 360 versions tutorial. And more in-game information... maybe there could be books in treasure chests or something.
And, as explained before, the wiki DOES have a tutorial.
Yes it does, but it needs to be in-game.
You're the guy who doesn't research anything,
But I obviously did, that's how I found the wiki right? I just found the forums and blogs first.
and expects to get a pop-up explaining how to do everything.
The funny thing is, the Pocket edition and the 360 version DO give you more in-game information. Why not the PC version as well. I'm not expecting "everything" just some basics for new players.
Minecraft ain't that kinda game. It's a survival sandbox game.
Yes, but recently it's become more about Monster Survival XTREME to make the hardcore happy at the expense of the Mining and crafting.
See the point? Lot's of people want lots of things. Mojang can't give them all what they want, so why are you special??
Why are you so special that you get to say the game doesn't need a basic tutorial built in...that one version of the game already has. Just because YOU have been playing since Alpha and think the game is too carebear or something doesn't mean you get to make the game a worse experience for new players.
Oh, and like I said- Creative, or Peaceful. Either will solve your problem of the game being 'too hard'.
So why is the solution that the ones who don't like the difficulty changes play peaceful or creative...when the solution could also be that the changes be moved so that they're Hard/Hardcore only.
We don't want to play in Creative, that takes all the fun out of gathering your materials. We don't want to play on Peaceful difficulty, because we need to get the items that the mobs drop, and we don't mind having to kill a few mobs to get them. What we DON'T want is to have our entire Minecraft existence be centered around nothing but having to kill a billion zombies anytime we want to go outside our house.
You did know that on peaceful, slimes that already are spawned despawn, right? Thus preventing a player on that difficulty from making leashes, Magna cream or Sticky Pistons.
and if you start peaceful, hostile mobs don't spawn at all, so no drops, thus denying many items from those who play on that.
Really? You are seriously suggesting that a significant number of people are too stupi
I only use the thing a couple of times a month (for movies, usually), and it seems like almost every time I turn it on I need to apply some update,
That's an exaggeration considering system updates come less often than that, which means you aren't using it enough to get the updates when they come out. However, besides system updates there are updates for individual things like Netflix, those are separate (why force you to update Netflix if you don't have it installed)
You are totally obsessed with this, and you're wrong.
I'm wrong for daring to criticize Minecraft? I'm wrong for thinking the game needs "finishing and polish"? I'm wrong for thinking that Mojang shouldn't be charging $27 for what is still essentially a Beta?
My 10 year old girls aren't what anyone would call hard core gamers. But they both love playing.
I have no doubt that they do enjoy playing...but how do they play? Creative? Peaceful? Need I remind you that you are posting on Slashdot..you probably taught them the tips and tricks. YOU are their Manual and Strategy guide and probably the guy who mods their game for them. Most Minecraft players don't have a direct mentor. In other words, your situation is not the norm.
I want to know why it bothers you that others like it.
It doesn't bother me that people like it, I don't know where you're getting that idea. I just think that:
1. Mojang needs to finish the game and do the final polish that other games get. No more features. Finish it, move on to something else. Game dev isn't like doing some web browser or email client, programmer-hour resources are finite...games need to be "finished".
2. The cult of Indie-dev/Notch worship has let Mojang and Notch get away with crap no other game developer could. Which means I think people should hold Mojang and other indie-devs to the same standards they do to "non-indie" developers like Blizzard, Square-Enix, Insomniac, Atlus, Nippon Ichi, Bethesda, Bioware, Firaxis, Valve, 2K. Gamers deserve better.
You don't think there's a cult of Notch worship? Look at your response and others,
You have a problem
It's like I kicked your cats and took your candy. "Someone dares to criticize our Developer God Notch, Mojang and Minecraft! Send forth the hounds."
It's a game, not a religion, a game that needs more work. Even adding a version of the 360's version's tutorial to the PC version would be a good start.
Meanwhile, people are still buying it and having fun in their own ways.
Maybe. What I would like to know is how many casuals bought it at full price at the urging of a more technical friend, played it a couple of times...and then never played it again.
I just don't think the "hardcore Minecraft nerds" should have or be evangelizing the game so much when it's designed with them in mind, not everyone else. As I said, it's like Nethack, some hardcore nerds think it's the greatest game ever...everyone else...not so much. At least with Nethack, one doesn't have to pay $27 for it, and that makes a difference.
I don't think "hardcore nerds" are such a great marketing force to create a commercial success out of nothing.
Really? Considering all it took was a bunch of influential nerds in the gaming/tech press and Minecraft got a ton of free publicity when it was still in Alpha!. Slashdot, Kotaku, Game magazines, you name it.
It's not that I don't enjoy Minecraft, I do, it's just that I consider it a seriously flawed game that would be even MORE enjoyable if it was ever "finished and polished" like a "real" game is. Heck even Nethack has been essentially "done". which hasn't stopped the "hardcore" from whining that Nethack is too easy and creating even MORE complex and difficult variants.
Next time, use the damn quote tags, that's what they're for. And it's MY blog and my post.
Really? The 'day' part of a MineCraft day is 10 minutes long. It took you longer than 10 minutes to figure out you had to hold the mouse button down???
Perhaps someone was just wandering around and looking, not knowing how long the day was because...you know, they were a NEW player? Or perhaps they were looking for a good flat open spot to build a dirt hut. Or a million other reasons for someone to not play Minecraft "perfectly" like the goddamned a "Stop Having Fun Because we want it to be harder" hardcore Minecrafters the FIRST time they booted it up.
Um, NO- that wasn't aimed at newbs. And the very fact you thought it was is laughable.
Actually it was, paraphrased from blog posts for supposed "noobs". I found blog posts and the forums before the wiki. Did you ever think that might happen?
Try the MineCraft wiki, which I know you know exists, because you mentioned it.
Yes, I know... But that information should be available in the game. Why not have a tutorial? In fact, the Xbox version DOES have a tutorial, that Mojang seems unable to put into the PC version.
There's a whole section for newbs: http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Tutorials#Newcomers that has simple advice like the default keys for movement and actions, including "Click and hold the left mouse button to break down (or mine) blocks. This is how you collect resources from the environment. Rapid clicking does not work, even though it may seem to."
That should be the first thing a new player sees in the game! They shouldn't have to go to an outside source, that's a cop-out by lazy developers.
So... basically the guy's an idiot.
Yeah? You're the guy who can't figure out that people might start playing it differently because they might not know things already.
Um, not quite. A map needs paper and a compass. (Makes sense). The compass needs a single piece of redstone dust. And what's the point, anyway?
Because in other modern games the map is built in from the start. In some games it's right there on the main screen! Yes, having to craft a map is realistic... but it's a world with exploding creepers, skeletons on spiders....too much realism is a bad thing. The fact that you actually have to make multiple maps because they have limits is even worse. It's 2013... I do NOT want to have to go back to the dark ages of game mapping especially in a 3D game.
The Horror!!!!
Because Modern games have these things called mini-maps which means I can actually play the game while using them because the reality of RL map use isn't a fun gameplay mechanic. Maps work the way they do in Minecraft because of "Stop Having Fun Guys" who want everything to be "hardcore"
And while I can mod minecraft to have one, it should be built in (though with the ability to not use it if one wants to be hardcore) Modding also is something for the hardcore, not the millioins of Grandma's that supposedly bought the game.
Nope- they are in Abandoned Mineshafts, not strongholds. Oh, and some villagers have them for trade, too. Did this guy actually play the game?
Ooh, getting a tiny detail wrong means I didn't play the game? Don't be a jerk.
Nope- many players pack light and keep moving.
If by many you mean the "The game needs be more difficult, it's too easy" guys on the Minecraft forum, then yes.
So play on peaceful. I think he means that regaining health 'uses' some of your 'hunger' bar. Which is completely logical and consistent, so i don't know why he's bitching. He can play in Creative if he doesn't want hunger, and Peaceful i
How does it even follow from the discussion we're having?..
Because hard core nerds are promoting Minecraft to non-hardcore when the game is ever more and more designed with the hardcore in mind. Sure, lots of people are playing it... but they're not playing it the way the hardcore say they should be or doing what the hardcore says they should be doing. The hardcore are treating Minecraft as it belongs to them and should be focused on what they want, not the general audience. With every new feature or tweak, Minecraft becomes LESS friendly to beginners and casual players.
Which part of that doesn't fit in several pages?
oh the part on how to find an endportal or how to get the eyes you need, or the farm you'll need for food, oh and the stuff you need to make the enchantment table, so you'll need cows, and paper, and you'll want diamond stuff so you'll have to learn to basically do a branch mine down low, and you'll have to build a safe way to get to the end portal, but you'll have to do the nether first of course to get the blaze powder for the Eyes and blaze rod so you can make a brewing stand, and you'll have to build a base in the Nether.
You'd need about as much experimenting and external sources before you get good enough to play through Elder Scrolls games.
No, you don't, because the game tells you what you need to know within the game. Oblivion and Skyrim have a whole tutorial dungeon! The Fallout's have something similar. Same goes for other games, Civilization, Final Fantasy, even MMO's have tutorial areas and starter quests.
Minecraft...has nothing, that might be fine in Creative...but not in Survival. What's worse is that the Xbox 360 has a tutorial, a nice one (you can even get music discs from it)....the PC version doesn't.
Yeah, that's why games like, say, Metroid and Castlevania were commercial failures and nobody remembers them anymore.
Actually Metroid was a commercial failure...in Japan. Times were different then, we put up with discoverability issues because of hardware limitations. Note that, however, Super Metroid does give more in-game information with the map, the little "how to use the missles/bombs/scanner" popup. The 3D Metroids have tutorial levels!
Or, say, Elite - if you were (un)lucky, RNG could drop you into a supernova system.
insta-death with no chance of prevention is not fun.
Those games were _terrible_, you know.
They were games of their times and we put up with the limitations....we expect more and better now. That's one of the reasons I'm a bit hard on Minecraft and Mojang.
No, Notch and Mojang get a pass because Minecraft is fun.
It may be fun, but I don't think hardcore nerds should go around promoting it as the be-all and end-all of great games that everyone should play. It's not finished and it needs a LOT more work, and I don't think Mojang should be charging what they do for it. 10 bucks, maybe.
Because some nerds are using "oh minecraft is so popular and it's because it's so nerdy and has redstone circuitry etc etc"...when it's not.
You could condense knowledge of what's needed to get to Minecraft's endgame in several pages
Really? Considering what people recommend one does/has BEFORE doing that...I think not. Potions of this, potions of that High level enchanted stuff, not counting you have to find an end portal and have eyes of ender to activate it.
Again, that's wrong... how?
Because no other game is that dependent on external sources of information. Even Nethack, which is hardcore-nerdy and very inaccessible to non-nerds, has the Oracle.
What would happen if a Final Fantasy or Bethesda game had no tutorial, if the controls weren't intuitive, if there was no in-game information, if you could be screwed from the start by the RNG? There would be uproar and demanding of refunds.
But Notch and Mojang get a pass because they're "indie". I'm sorry, but I think Indie devs should be held to the same standards Square-Enix, Bethesda, Bioware, Blizzard, etc etc are.
but the popularity suggests those are not game breakers and don't ruin the fun for most of those who play it.
I think the real question is "how are people actually playing the game" I'm seeing signs that the majority of non-hardcore players are simply using creative or playing on peaceful.
Sheer space of things you could do is the fun part, not the things you can't.
True, but how do you find out what you "can" do? You use the wiki.
Oh, and I like reading the wiki, just to find out what others found and thought up. Should Mojang include a five page tutorial on basic redstone logic and then a dozen pages more on advanced ways to apply it?
When you play Civilization, what does the game have built into it? The Civilopedia! Even Civilization Revolution has it! Tells you everything you need to know to play the game.
No, we should slap Nintendo silly for ever letting Shiggy near a controller design team. Blame him for that absolute piece of crap that is the N64 controller.
Nintendo also needs to have someone, say an Anglophone, stand around Shiggy and say "No." to his stupider design ideas since apparently the Japanese game development community has no one to tell them NO.
Navi? NO
Tingle NO.
Not providing any sort of in-game hints to specific features (the white block trick in SMB3). NO.
The problem is, that Minecraft can feel more like work, than a game. Sure you can spend a lot of time playing...but it's because of the bad design decisions. Think about the chunks... if you travel a bit, you can come back to find your farm at the state you left it in because Notch didn't think of keeping track of time and updating crops growing when you return to the chunk.
That's one of the reasons the multiplayer is popular, because the game is so time consuming that more people helps with the "work".
You also basically have to use the wiki to play, there is no in-game information. And don't tell me the fun is finding the stuff out....nobody does that not even the people who work on the wiki...they source-dive to find that stuff out.
Simply put, Minecraft is badly designed because it's been changed to suit the tastes of the "hardcore players" whining on the Forums, not the general more casual players that made Mojang their money.
I did a comment about that problem recently, it doesn't only affect Minecraft:
It makes no sense that horse armour can't be crafted. I hope they change it.
Or saddles so that one can actually ride the horses.
Horses also wander off too quickly.
That's what leashes/leads are for. Slap down a fence, and leash them to it. Yeah it means taking up a valuable inventory slot with a fence. (Really, they should up inventory size)
I also find the constant need to get XP to repair items is makes minecraft "grindy". I use my tools/weapons to gather resources and the XP I get is enough to keep them repaired, but more often not enough left to enchant new tools.
Apparently it's more efficient to use non-magical tools and replace as they break, saving your magic stuff for specific purposes. Or else you're expected to make your own XP grinder, which is, of course, "hardcore stuff that is hard for casuals to do"
He's currently fubaring it with making it impossible to stay still whilst not helping with a nomadic lifestyle
Regional Difficulty? That's Jeb's fault, not Notches.
You know that's another thing, with no other game company do we refer to their programmers with cute little "nicks" It's almost a "indie personality cult"
I think his attention span problem comes from a lack of incentive to work on something from start to finish.
I think part of that goes with being a European developer that seems to be common among them, the lack of ability or desire to do the "final finishing and polishing". Of course it just might be the "indie mindset". If you're non-indie you've got "somebody" who can say NO or give an order. "By god, you put necessary game information IN THE GAME, stop adding new features and do the final polish or heads will roll."
The problem with Notch is he is an ideasguy with grand scopes for things but has knowledge of coding left in the 80s and 90s.
He's self taught I've read. Probably one of those ex euro-pirate guys whose brain is stuck in the Amiga or ST.days who goes off and starts some indie phone game company once he realizes he wants to make money.
Yes, but that means Mojang has to devote resources to Minecraft....forever. Think about it, do you think Squaresoft or Bethesda have staff devoted to working on the Final Fantasy VI or Oblivion codebase...no. That means that those companies can put their manpower on NEW projects...oh say for example a space game with a built in programmable CPU only hardcore nerds will use.
But Mojang can't do that, which is bad because they're "Indie" and simply don't have enough resources or people to spare.
I consider that a serious design flaw. It's no wonder multiplayer is popular because in single-player there's too much stuff for one player to do and it can become overwhelming, especially with chunks not updating (farms) when you're far enough away from them.
There's plenty of open source software that is far more "finished" than Minecraft, though the flaws of Minecraft and it's development do remind me of open-source software. You know how it is, some visionary starts a project and quits before it's done because starting something new is more "fun" than actually quashing bugs, and finishing and polishing a project.
Come now, there's plenty of "RTFM noob" elitist jerks in the Linux community to this day. It was even worse back then. Think about all the ire RedHat, Mandrake and even SUSE got for trying to make Linux more accessible to the "non-hardcore". You got tons of flames from supposedly l33t Linux users saying "Slackware is the only real Linux, everything else is dumbed down for noobs."
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps someone is not familiar with the fact that the sun moves across the sky in Minecraft, just like real life? Hint: how quickly the sun moves can be used to calculate the length of the day!
You forgot about the things in Minecraft known as Snow or Rain, which can hide the sun.
Not really. One of the first things I do when starting into a new topic is search for the wiki. And, indeed, Googling 'Minecraft wiki' takes you to... the Minecraft wiki.
Not everyone is a Slashdot geek who automatically thinks about wiki's. I didn't...at first, the forums led me to it, but I found blogs and the minecraft forum first. You have to remember about those "millions of grandmas" supposedly playing the game. Do you think they read or post the forums?
Because Minecraft is at its core a sandbox game. Do you give kids a 'tutorial' on how to play in a sandbox?
Yes! You can tell them the basics to get them started at least. That's all I'm asking... I'm not asking for a built in tutorial on NAND gates and/or Flip-flops using Redstone for new players , but something more akin to the 360 versions tutorial. And more in-game information... maybe there could be books in treasure chests or something.
And, as explained before, the wiki DOES have a tutorial.
Yes it does, but it needs to be in-game.
You're the guy who doesn't research anything,
But I obviously did, that's how I found the wiki right? I just found the forums and blogs first.
and expects to get a pop-up explaining how to do everything.
The funny thing is, the Pocket edition and the 360 version DO give you more in-game information. Why not the PC version as well. I'm not expecting "everything" just some basics for new players.
Minecraft ain't that kinda game. It's a survival sandbox game.
Yes, but recently it's become more about Monster Survival XTREME to make the hardcore happy at the expense of the Mining and crafting.
See the point? Lot's of people want lots of things. Mojang can't give them all what they want, so why are you special??
Why are you so special that you get to say the game doesn't need a basic tutorial built in...that one version of the game already has. Just because YOU have been playing since Alpha and think the game is too carebear or something doesn't mean you get to make the game a worse experience for new players.
Oh, and like I said- Creative, or Peaceful. Either will solve your problem of the game being 'too hard'.
So why is the solution that the ones who don't like the difficulty changes play peaceful or creative...when the solution could also be that the changes be moved so that they're Hard/Hardcore only.
http://www.minecraftforum.net/index.php?app=forums&module=forums§ion=findpost&pid=23162816
We don't want to play in Creative, that takes all the fun out of gathering your materials. We don't want to play on Peaceful difficulty, because we need to get the items that the mobs drop, and we don't mind having to kill a few mobs to get them. What we DON'T want is to have our entire Minecraft existence be centered around nothing but having to kill a billion zombies anytime we want to go outside our house.
You did know that on peaceful, slimes that already are spawned despawn, right? Thus preventing a player on that difficulty from making leashes, Magna cream or Sticky Pistons.
and if you start peaceful, hostile mobs don't spawn at all, so no drops, thus denying many items from those who play on that.
Really? You are seriously suggesting that a significant number of people are too stupi
I only use the thing a couple of times a month (for movies, usually), and it seems like almost every time I turn it on I need to apply some update,
That's an exaggeration considering system updates come less often than that, which means you aren't using it enough to get the updates when they come out. However, besides system updates there are updates for individual things like Netflix, those are separate (why force you to update Netflix if you don't have it installed)
I honestly don't know what you think needs fixing.
What, you didn't see my other comments, or notice the "even adding a version of the 360 versions tutorial would be a start"?
1. Discoverability in general, there should be more information in the game.
2. Saddles/horse armor should be craftable...It's Mine"Craft" not Mine"slog-your-way-to-a-stronghold-and-hope-the-RNG-put-some-in-a-chest"
3. Regional Difficulty should be made Hardcore Mode only or removed...it doesn't do what it's intended on doing and punishes less hardcore players.
4. The same goes for the new zombie mechanics with their spawning, range of view and behavior.
5. Debuff the Skellys, it's Minecraft, not "Skelly Killer Xtreme"
Here's some posts on the forum, not by me, that pretty much summarizes my view as well:
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1872524-minecraft-16-zombie-aggro-range/page__st__20#entry23162816
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1872524-minecraft-16-zombie-aggro-range/page__st__20#entry23168504
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1872524-minecraft-16-zombie-aggro-range/page__st__40#entry23191748
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1873484-since-when-is-minecraft-a-constant-onslaught-of-zombies/page__st__40#entry23169808
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1873484-since-when-is-minecraft-a-constant-onslaught-of-zombies/page__st__40#entry23171882
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1873484-since-when-is-minecraft-a-constant-onslaught-of-zombies/page__st__60#entry23182761
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1873484-since-when-is-minecraft-a-constant-onslaught-of-zombies/page__st__60#entry23188557
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1873484-since-when-is-minecraft-a-constant-onslaught-of-zombies/page__st__60#entry23190803
You are totally obsessed with this, and you're wrong.
I'm wrong for daring to criticize Minecraft? I'm wrong for thinking the game needs "finishing and polish"? I'm wrong for thinking that Mojang shouldn't be charging $27 for what is still essentially a Beta?
*I* worship Notch??
"your" and "our" are plural in this instance. Referring to Slashdot and the Minecraft community in general not just you.
Not everyone is like you.
pot, kettle, black
They play with many friends? Does that mean you set up and host your own minecraft server?
Not everyone is a nerd like you.
My 10 year old girls aren't what anyone would call hard core gamers. But they both love playing.
I have no doubt that they do enjoy playing...but how do they play? Creative? Peaceful? Need I remind you that you are posting on Slashdot..you probably taught them the tips and tricks. YOU are their Manual and Strategy guide and probably the guy who mods their game for them. Most Minecraft players don't have a direct mentor. In other words, your situation is not the norm.
I want to know why it bothers you that others like it.
It doesn't bother me that people like it, I don't know where you're getting that idea. I just think that:
1. Mojang needs to finish the game and do the final polish that other games get. No more features. Finish it, move on to something else. Game dev isn't like doing some web browser or email client, programmer-hour resources are finite...games need to be "finished".
2. The cult of Indie-dev/Notch worship has let Mojang and Notch get away with crap no other game developer could. Which means I think people should hold Mojang and other indie-devs to the same standards they do to "non-indie" developers like Blizzard, Square-Enix, Insomniac, Atlus, Nippon Ichi, Bethesda, Bioware, Firaxis, Valve, 2K. Gamers deserve better.
You don't think there's a cult of Notch worship? Look at your response and others,
You have a problem
It's like I kicked your cats and took your candy. "Someone dares to criticize our Developer God Notch, Mojang and Minecraft! Send forth the hounds."
It's a game, not a religion, a game that needs more work. Even adding a version of the 360's version's tutorial to the PC version would be a good start.
Meanwhile, people are still buying it and having fun in their own ways.
Maybe. What I would like to know is how many casuals bought it at full price at the urging of a more technical friend, played it a couple of times...and then never played it again.
I just don't think the "hardcore Minecraft nerds" should have or be evangelizing the game so much when it's designed with them in mind, not everyone else. As I said, it's like Nethack, some hardcore nerds think it's the greatest game ever...everyone else...not so much. At least with Nethack, one doesn't have to pay $27 for it, and that makes a difference.
I don't think "hardcore nerds" are such a great marketing force to create a commercial success out of nothing.
Really? Considering all it took was a bunch of influential nerds in the gaming/tech press and Minecraft got a ton of free publicity when it was still in Alpha!. Slashdot, Kotaku, Game magazines, you name it.
It's not that I don't enjoy Minecraft, I do, it's just that I consider it a seriously flawed game that would be even MORE enjoyable if it was ever "finished and polished" like a "real" game is. Heck even Nethack has been essentially "done". which hasn't stopped the "hardcore" from whining that Nethack is too easy and creating even MORE complex and difficult variants.
Next time, use the damn quote tags, that's what they're for. And it's MY blog and my post.
Really? The 'day' part of a MineCraft day is 10 minutes long. It took you longer than 10 minutes to figure out you had to hold the mouse button down???
Perhaps someone was just wandering around and looking, not knowing how long the day was because...you know, they were a NEW player? Or perhaps they were looking for a good flat open spot to build a dirt hut. Or a million other reasons for someone to not play Minecraft "perfectly" like the goddamned a "Stop Having Fun Because we want it to be harder" hardcore Minecrafters the FIRST time they booted it up.
Um, NO- that wasn't aimed at newbs. And the very fact you thought it was is laughable.
Actually it was, paraphrased from blog posts for supposed "noobs". I found blog posts and the forums before the wiki. Did you ever think that might happen?
Try the MineCraft wiki, which I know you know exists, because you mentioned it.
Yes, I know... But that information should be available in the game. Why not have a tutorial? In fact, the Xbox version DOES have a tutorial, that Mojang seems unable to put into the PC version.
There's a whole section for newbs: http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Tutorials#Newcomers that has simple advice like the default keys for movement and actions, including "Click and hold the left mouse button to break down (or mine) blocks. This is how you collect resources from the environment. Rapid clicking does not work, even though it may seem to."
That should be the first thing a new player sees in the game! They shouldn't have to go to an outside source, that's a cop-out by lazy developers.
So... basically the guy's an idiot.
Yeah? You're the guy who can't figure out that people might start playing it differently because they might not know things already.
Um, not quite. A map needs paper and a compass. (Makes sense). The compass needs a single piece of redstone dust.
And what's the point, anyway?
Because in other modern games the map is built in from the start. In some games it's right there on the main screen! Yes, having to craft a map is realistic... but it's a world with exploding creepers, skeletons on spiders....too much realism is a bad thing. The fact that you actually have to make multiple maps because they have limits is even worse. It's 2013... I do NOT want to have to go back to the dark ages of game mapping especially in a 3D game.
The Horror!!!!
Because Modern games have these things called mini-maps which means I can actually play the game while using them because the reality of RL map use isn't a fun gameplay mechanic. Maps work the way they do in Minecraft because of "Stop Having Fun Guys" who want everything to be "hardcore"
And while I can mod minecraft to have one, it should be built in (though with the ability to not use it if one wants to be hardcore)
Modding also is something for the hardcore, not the millioins of Grandma's that supposedly bought the game.
Nope- they are in Abandoned Mineshafts, not strongholds. Oh, and some villagers have them for trade, too. Did this guy actually play the game?
Ooh, getting a tiny detail wrong means I didn't play the game? Don't be a jerk.
Nope- many players pack light and keep moving.
If by many you mean the "The game needs be more difficult, it's too easy" guys on the Minecraft forum, then yes.
So play on peaceful. I think he means that regaining health 'uses' some of your 'hunger' bar. Which is completely logical and consistent, so i don't know why he's bitching. He can play in Creative if he doesn't want hunger, and Peaceful i
How does it even follow from the discussion we're having?..
Because hard core nerds are promoting Minecraft to non-hardcore when the game is ever more and more designed with the hardcore in mind. Sure, lots of people are playing it... but they're not playing it the way the hardcore say they should be or doing what the hardcore says they should be doing. The hardcore are treating Minecraft as it belongs to them and should be focused on what they want, not the general audience. With every new feature or tweak, Minecraft becomes LESS friendly to beginners and casual players.
Which part of that doesn't fit in several pages?
oh the part on how to find an endportal or how to get the eyes you need, or the farm you'll need for food, oh and the stuff you need to make the enchantment table, so you'll need cows, and paper, and you'll want diamond stuff so you'll have to learn to basically do a branch mine down low, and you'll have to build a safe way to get to the end portal, but you'll have to do the nether first of course to get the blaze powder for the Eyes and blaze rod so you can make a brewing stand, and you'll have to build a base in the Nether.
You'd need about as much experimenting and external sources before you get good enough to play through Elder Scrolls games.
No, you don't, because the game tells you what you need to know within the game. Oblivion and Skyrim have a whole tutorial dungeon! The Fallout's have something similar. Same goes for other games, Civilization, Final Fantasy, even MMO's have tutorial areas and starter quests.
Minecraft...has nothing, that might be fine in Creative...but not in Survival. What's worse is that the Xbox 360 has a tutorial, a nice one (you can even get music discs from it)....the PC version doesn't.
Yeah, that's why games like, say, Metroid and Castlevania were commercial failures and nobody remembers them anymore.
Actually Metroid was a commercial failure...in Japan. Times were different then, we put up with discoverability issues because of hardware limitations. Note that, however, Super Metroid does give more in-game information with the map, the little "how to use the missles/bombs/scanner" popup. The 3D Metroids have tutorial levels!
Or, say, Elite - if you were (un)lucky, RNG could drop you into a supernova system.
insta-death with no chance of prevention is not fun.
Those games were _terrible_, you know.
They were games of their times and we put up with the limitations....we expect more and better now. That's one of the reasons I'm a bit hard on Minecraft and Mojang.
No, Notch and Mojang get a pass because Minecraft is fun.
It may be fun, but I don't think hardcore nerds should go around promoting it as the be-all and end-all of great games that everyone should play. It's not finished and it needs a LOT more work, and I don't think Mojang should be charging what they do for it. 10 bucks, maybe.
As I said earlier, it isn't a game breaker.
That's where we disagree.
Then you have been sleeping. The games revolution has already happened. Windows in now an afterthought. Its a new world.
What fantasy world are you living in and what the hell are you smoking? Windows...an afterthought? Can I buy a Linux native version of:
Civilization V
Skyrim
World of Warcraft
Diablo 3
The Sims 3
League of Legends
Starcraft 2
The Elder Scrolls Online
Aaaand it's bad and wrong... how?
Because some nerds are using "oh minecraft is so popular and it's because it's so nerdy and has redstone circuitry etc etc"...when it's not.
You could condense knowledge of what's needed to get to Minecraft's endgame in several pages
Really? Considering what people recommend one does/has BEFORE doing that...I think not. Potions of this, potions of that High level enchanted stuff, not counting you have to find an end portal and have eyes of ender to activate it.
Again, that's wrong... how?
Because no other game is that dependent on external sources of information. Even Nethack, which is hardcore-nerdy and very inaccessible to non-nerds, has the Oracle.
What would happen if a Final Fantasy or Bethesda game had no tutorial, if the controls weren't intuitive, if there was no in-game information, if you could be screwed from the start by the RNG? There would be uproar and demanding of refunds.
But Notch and Mojang get a pass because they're "indie". I'm sorry, but I think Indie devs should be held to the same standards Square-Enix, Bethesda, Bioware, Blizzard, etc etc are.
but the popularity suggests those are not game breakers and don't ruin the fun for most of those who play it.
I think the real question is "how are people actually playing the game" I'm seeing signs that the majority of non-hardcore players are simply using creative or playing on peaceful.
Sheer space of things you could do is the fun part, not the things you can't.
True, but how do you find out what you "can" do? You use the wiki.
Oh, and I like reading the wiki, just to find out what others found and thought up. Should Mojang include a five page tutorial on basic redstone logic and then a dozen pages more on advanced ways to apply it?
When you play Civilization, what does the game have built into it? The Civilopedia! Even Civilization Revolution has it! Tells you everything you need to know to play the game.
No, we should slap Nintendo silly for ever letting Shiggy near a controller design team. Blame him for that absolute piece of crap that is the N64 controller.
Nintendo also needs to have someone, say an Anglophone, stand around Shiggy and say "No." to his stupider design ideas since apparently the Japanese game development community has no one to tell them NO.
Navi? NO
Tingle NO.
Not providing any sort of in-game hints to specific features (the white block trick in SMB3). NO.
The problem is, that Minecraft can feel more like work, than a game. Sure you can spend a lot of time playing...but it's because of the bad design decisions. Think about the chunks... if you travel a bit, you can come back to find your farm at the state you left it in because Notch didn't think of keeping track of time and updating crops growing when you return to the chunk.
That's one of the reasons the multiplayer is popular, because the game is so time consuming that more people helps with the "work".
You also basically have to use the wiki to play, there is no in-game information. And don't tell me the fun is finding the stuff out....nobody does that not even the people who work on the wiki...they source-dive to find that stuff out.
Simply put, Minecraft is badly designed because it's been changed to suit the tastes of the "hardcore players" whining on the Forums, not the general more casual players that made Mojang their money.
I did a comment about that problem recently, it doesn't only affect Minecraft:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4097867&cid=44588611
It makes no sense that horse armour can't be crafted. I hope they change it.
Or saddles so that one can actually ride the horses.
Horses also wander off too quickly.
That's what leashes/leads are for. Slap down a fence, and leash them to it. Yeah it means taking up a valuable inventory slot with a fence. (Really, they should up inventory size)
I also find the constant need to get XP to repair items is makes minecraft "grindy". I use my tools/weapons to gather resources and the XP I get is enough to keep them repaired, but more often not enough left to enchant new tools.
Apparently it's more efficient to use non-magical tools and replace as they break, saving your magic stuff for specific purposes. Or else you're expected to make your own XP grinder, which is, of course, "hardcore stuff that is hard for casuals to do"
He's currently fubaring it with making it impossible to stay still whilst not helping with a nomadic lifestyle
Regional Difficulty? That's Jeb's fault, not Notches.
You know that's another thing, with no other game company do we refer to their programmers with cute little "nicks" It's almost a
"indie personality cult"
Fortunately Linux isn't short of games anymore.
Ha ha ha ha ha, really? Citation Needed.
(Yes I know there's games for Linux, I run Linux myself, but the numbers of Windows games dwarfs it by orders of magnitude)
I think his attention span problem comes from a lack of incentive to work on something from start to finish.
I think part of that goes with being a European developer that seems to be common among them, the lack of ability or desire to do the "final finishing and polishing". Of course it just might be the "indie mindset". If you're non-indie you've got "somebody" who can say NO or give an order. "By god, you put necessary game information IN THE GAME, stop adding new features and do the final polish or heads will roll."
The problem with Notch is he is an ideasguy with grand scopes for things but has knowledge of coding left in the 80s and 90s.
He's self taught I've read. Probably one of those ex euro-pirate guys whose brain is stuck in the Amiga or ST.days who goes off and starts some indie phone game company once he realizes he wants to make money.
Didn't sound like fun to me either, just some super time consuming space game with features only programming professionals would/could ever use.
Yes, but that means Mojang has to devote resources to Minecraft....forever. Think about it, do you think Squaresoft or Bethesda have staff devoted to working on the Final Fantasy VI or Oblivion codebase...no. That means that those companies can put their manpower on NEW projects...oh say for example a space game with a built in programmable CPU only hardcore nerds will use.
But Mojang can't do that, which is bad because they're "Indie" and simply don't have enough resources or people to spare.
It's best played with a group of people too.
I consider that a serious design flaw. It's no wonder multiplayer is popular because in single-player there's too much stuff for one player to do and it can become overwhelming, especially with chunks not updating (farms) when you're far enough away from them.
IMHO Minecraft, in it's current state, isn't worth $27. I also believe Mojang shouldn't be charging for what is essentially a Beta.
I did a blog post about Minecraft recently, on my Second Life centric blog, I only started playing it last year:
http://ccslfashionista.blogspot.com/2013/08/a-critical-review-of-minecraft.html
There's plenty of open source software that is far more "finished" than Minecraft, though the flaws of Minecraft and it's development do remind me of open-source software. You know how it is, some visionary starts a project and quits before it's done because starting something new is more "fun" than actually quashing bugs, and finishing and polishing a project.
Come now, there's plenty of "RTFM noob" elitist jerks in the Linux community to this day. It was even worse back then. Think about all the ire RedHat, Mandrake and even SUSE got for trying to make Linux more accessible to the "non-hardcore". You got tons of flames from supposedly l33t Linux users saying "Slackware is the only real Linux, everything else is dumbed down for noobs."