Minecon and BTW

[Rawny]

Someone mentioned BTW as "one of their favorites" during the live stream of the Modding Panel. I believe it was the creator of Twilight Forest.

Just an FYI.
I thought that was good.
Doesn't really matter.
I cheered though.

[Gilberreke]

Oh, is there another Minecon?

[Rawny]

Oh, is there another Minecon?

Was playing in the background as I was playing BTW.

Livestream here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPSVJHVL6TA

[Gilberreke]

Was playing in the background as I was playing BTW.

Livestream here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPSVJHVL6TA

Do you know at what time in the video the BTW mention is?

[Rawny]

Do you know at what time in the video the BTW mention is?

The guy with the apple laptop i believe is Direwolf and the guy in the white buttoned shirt I believe is the twilight forest creator.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPSVJHVL ... t=3h29m35s

[FlowerChild]

Woot! Now I can put the final touches on my Lex voodoo doll :)

[destineternel]

Woot! Now I can put the final touches on my Lex voodoo doll :)

mawahahahahahah! *cackle*

[FlowerChild]

And omg...having finally seen a pic of Dinnerbone, I'm feeling like a

"Would you put this kid in charge of one of the most popular games on the planet?"

label beneath it would be very appropriate.

Not insulting his appearance or anything, I just don't think it hit me before how very very young the guy actually is.

[Rawny]

Wow!
"53% of bug reports are duplicates" -Jeb
"15000 bug reports are duplicates" -Jeb

That would mean at least 15000 bugs plus those that don't have duplicates. If just 1% of them are actually a bug that's 150+ bugs... Stop putting out "new" content and fix your damn bugs! Wow!

Edit: Come to think of it, it doesn't matter as I'm happily on 1.5.2 but this makes them look bad IMO.

[EpicAaron]

Minecon in Florida? Had I known in advance, I would have planned to stop by and walk around outside with a BTW Logo on my back just to see how many dirty looks I would get.

[FlowerChild]

So now rumors are flying that Searge of MCP has been hired by Mojang based on him wearing a company badge at Minecon.

At this point, I can only laugh :)

[TheGuy]

Was playing in the background as I was playing BTW.

Livestream here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPSVJHVL6TA

Do you know at what time in the video the BTW mention is?

3:29:00
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPSVJHVL ... re&t=3h29m

[FlowerChild]

...and it's official: Searge is now part of Mojang.

http://www.twitch.tv/m/295552

Torn between laughter and sighs :)

[Gilberreke]

Torn between laughter and sighs :)

Well, he might be a total prick, but the guy does get things done, might not be a bad move for Mojang :D

Still waiting for them to hire a game designer though.

[FlowerChild]

Well, that's the thing: being a prick aside (which he definitely is), Mojang needs more pure programmers/non-designers like it needs a hole in the head.

Also, how making a decompilation utility for a game, something which shouldn't need to be done in the first place on a project, somehow qualifies you to be a dev is beyond me.

Whatever man, just glad I'm close to gone :)

[Gilberreke]

Well, that's the thing: being a prick aside (which he definitely is), Mojang needs more pure programmers/non-designers like it needs a hole in the head.

Also, how making a decompilation utility for a game, something which shouldn't need to be done in the first place on a project, somehow qualifies you to be a dev is beyond me.

Whatever man, just glad I'm close to gone :)

I thought you could solve any problem by throwing more programmers at it? ;)

[FlowerChild]

I thought you could solve any problem by throwing more programmers at it? :)

Hehe...yeah, that seems to be the overall philosophy here.

I got a real chuckle in the above linked stream where Jeb says they're hopeful about having the API sometime in 2014, but emphatically added "but no promises".

Seems they don't really realize that their overambitious design for the thing might be the problem rather than a lack of programmers, and that by the time they wind up providing an official solution for modding, they may have already lost a good portion of their established modding community. I could have told you that in the first 5 minutes of that first mod API IRC "meeting" long long ago :P

[FlowerChild]

Just as an aside, I find the whole tone of that stream to be rather whacked. Like the part where they're obviously taking pride in being the first game to provide integrated streaming functionality.

For fuck sake: why? You're talking about a small fraction of your user base that actually streams, and the ones that do are already used to using external utilities to do it. They probably invested a huge amount of dev time into that to benefit a tiny portion of their user base, and to then only benefit them in a negligible manner. What's next? MCPhone functionality? MCOS?

There's good reason why no game has done that in the past, and it really sounds like they've devolved into pure programming wankery over there without any clear vision to guide them anymore.

[Gilberreke]

Hehe...yeah, that seems to be the overall philosophy here.

I got a real chuckle in the above linked stream where Jeb says they're hopeful about having the API sometime in 2014, but emphatically added "but no promises".

Seems they don't really realize that their overambitious design for the thing might be the problem rather than a lack of programmers, and that by the time they wind up providing an official solution for modding, they may have already lost a good portion of their established modding community. I could have told you that in the first 5 minutes of that first mod API IRC "meeting" long long ago :P

Meanwhile, the people that want to make mods, make mods. The people that get frustrated enough by that scene or Mojang's attitude go make real games.

What I find disturbing is that there's another hidden mention of the "Minecraft: The MMO" thing. They're working hard to streamline the game further and further, so more and more people can get on one server. I mean, it's not necessarily a bad thing to expand the amount of users that can join a sever as technology scales, but will there be a game left when their ultra-streamlined, API-capable, mod-ready game is finally there?

First off, I suspect there will eventually be a shelf-life to Minecraft. It's still going strong, but eventually, it might dry up, like WoW is doing right now. Secondly, by adding more and more random content, they are diluting the core experience that sucks new players in.

I couldn't care less, because I once spent 15 bucks or so on a game and I'm still getting hours of enjoyment out of it, so there's no reason for me to be angry or so. I just would really love for there to be more Mojang stuff to play around with that's actually good and their current train-wreck-heading for Minecraft might jeopardize that.

[Gilberreke]

Just as an aside, I find the whole tone of that stream to be rather whacked. Like the part where they're obviously taking pride in being the first game to provide integrated streaming functionality.

For fuck sake: why? You're talking about a small fraction of your user base that actually streams, and the ones that do are already used to using external utilities to do it. They probably invested a huge amount of dev time into that to benefit a tiny portion of their user base, and to then only benefit them in a negligible manner. What's next? MCPhone functionality? MCOS?

There's good reason why no game has done that in the past, and it really sounds like they've devolved into pure programming wankery over there without any clear vision to guide them anymore.

Oh, I'll have to disagree there. I see your point, but I think that the single most important reason for Minecraft's huge success was that it coincided with the advent of Youtube Let's Plays as an important medium. Leveraging more of that by making streaming an integral experience is just a logical step.

Besides, Sony is doing it, Valve will probably be doing it, all the big gaming companies are focusing on it. It's not like they are alone. The whole industry is betting on "streaming everything" being the most important technological battleground for the next 5 years and Mojang was there first.

What *I* think about that is not important, but it's surely what everyone else is doing, so it can't be THAT crazy to jump in first.

[FlowerChild]

First off, I suspect there will eventually be a shelf-life to Minecraft. It's still going strong, but eventually, it might dry up, like WoW is doing right now. Secondly, by adding more and more random content, they are diluting the core experience that sucks new players in.

Yup, agreed. It's going to end eventually, probably when the "next big thing" in the genre comes along (I don't claim RTH will be that...I have other goals there). Right now, they still enjoy a market monopoly that keeps people coming back as there's really nothing else like it out there.

I couldn't care less, because I once spent 15 bucks or so on a game and I'm still getting hours of enjoyment out of it, so there's no reason for me to be angry or so. I just would really love for there to be more Mojang stuff to play around with that's actually good and their current train-wreck-heading for Minecraft might jeopardize that.

Yeah, I definitely agree there. I have a personal investment in it given the amount of time I've put into BTW, and I think I also tend to protest on principle because I hate seeing the brilliance of MC slowly devolve into whatever it's becoming. MC is a once in a lifetime kinda thing for a designer (something I think Notch is slowly realizing now), with most of us never experiencing anything close to it. Having worked so long and hard in the game industry and never even come close to anything like it, it thus strikes me as rather tragic to see what Notch's game is becoming.

But really, this doesn't affect me personally anymore given I've already made the decision to move onto other things, so it really doesn't upset me beyond passing mention in conversations like this.

[FlowerChild]

Besides, Sony is doing it, Valve will probably be doing it, all the big gaming companies are focusing on it. It's not like they are alone. The whole industry is betting on "streaming everything" being the most important technological battleground for the next 5 years and Mojang was there first.

What *I* think about that is not important, but it's surely what everyone else is doing, so it can't be THAT crazy to jump in first.

The thing is that you're comparing apples and oranges. When Sony and Valve do it, they probably have a programmer or 5 working on the side on *just* that, and that team will likely serve multiple game dev projects, which helps spread out the cost. When a small team like Mojang's diverts a developer's focus from a ton of other stuff they could be working on for something so tangential, it becomes much more questionable.

You're talking about a task which is easily isolated from the rest of development, so for a big company it's basically a pure monetary gamble based on where they see gaming trends going in hiring some extra programmers to do something like that. When a small team does it though, you're ultimately sacrificing functionality from somewhere else.

[Foxy Boxes]

And for a platform that already has thrid-person programmes that already do said function.

[Gilberreke]

The thing is that you're comparing apples and oranges. When Sony and Valve do it, they probably have a programmer or 5 working on the side on *just* that, and that team will likely serve multiple game dev projects, which helps spread out the cost. When a small team like Mojang's diverts a developer's focus from a ton of other stuff they could be working on for something so tangential, it becomes much more questionable.

Fair point, agreed.

[TheGreatIntelligence]

I feel sorry for the poor blinded 12-million-some-odd other people who play minecraft and don't realize what a cesspool it's become since 1.3.