
Nostalgia for Minecraft - ohaikbai
https://reallifemag.com/open-worlds/
======
Razengan
A multiplayer persistent world like Minecraft with physics would be amazing,
and probably replicate Minecraft's success.

e.g. If I chop down a tree at the top of a hill it could roll down and
potentially wreck your house.

Or causing cave-ins and avalanches from indiscriminate mining. Building dams
and rerouting rivers. Building realistic defenses and then siege weapons. Fun

Add in critter breeding and predation for dynamic populations that interact
with each other. So if you slay too many Gorgs soon there would be none left.
Leave them alone and they'll eat all the Fraggles. Players would form culling
expeditions every week. Pretty soon you'll have players giving each other
quests. :)

I think the venerable Ultima Online had a few features like that, or was
supposed to, not completely sure.

~~~
blotter_paper
> So if you slay too many Gorgs soon there would be none left. Leave them
> alone and they'll eat all the Fraggles. Players would form culling
> expeditions every week. [...] I think the venerable Ultima Online had a few
> features like that, or was supposed to, not completely sure.

Ultima Online tried to have such an ecology, but the players didn't react to
it as described despite the game designers giving players minimal rewards for
killing herbivores so that they would focus on killing the carnivores. Instead
the players indiscriminately killed both the carnivores and the herbivores,
because the players were human. The ecology was removed.

[https://youtu.be/KFNxJVTJleE](https://youtu.be/KFNxJVTJleE)

~~~
ss248
>because the players were human

It's a very compelling story, but that wasn't actually the case. The real
reason was the flawed design. People just had to kill everything for the
materials because of the way equipment was implemented.

~~~
justmedep
I think one YouTube comment named another good reason: The animals were too
easy to kill.

"The problem is obvious. The animals were too easy to kill. Imagine trying to
chase down a real rabbit or deer with a sword. You will never catch either one
and if by some chance you corner them the deer would actually stand a chance
of beating you."

------
eyphka
A few commenters are responding on how they think certain features in addition
to Minecraft would make a killer game. I don’t think Minecraft’s success had
anything to do with its featureset. To paraphrase notch, he believed in a
model of good enough vs perfect and continually released updates that added
the minimal needed for the feature he wanted, responding to user feedback in
real-time. This was unheard of at the time for how games were developed, in
addition his target user was the lowest common denominator in terms of gamers,
his mother, whom self described never played games.

“In addition to that, he released updates often, in accordance with the
Swedish saying “hellre än bra” (meaning someone who prefers spontaneity over
perfection). As soon as a new function or bug-fix was in place, he made it
available via his site, asking players for help in testing and improving it.”
[https://www.wired.com/2013/11/minecraft-
book/](https://www.wired.com/2013/11/minecraft-book/)

~~~
zamadatix
Plenty of boring casual games with little success release early and often.

I don't think there is any 2 thing that made Minecraft a success. It's a
combination of a great nu!bet of things but most importantly a combination of
a great number of things done right together not just as you'd view them
individually.

~~~
LanceH
It's a computer version of legos that is actually playable.

Lego tried making some brick building games but they were universally awful. A
couple hundred bricks and the computer slows to a crawl. Their later games
don't involve building at all.

Minecraft scratches that building itch, with a bucket that never runs out.

------
indymike
Ten years ago, my kinds were all under 12, and I discovered Minecraft from a
message on a forum. So different, relaxing and engaging. And such blocky, bad
graphics compared to the drive to 3d photo-realism that seemed to be the story
in most games. All of my kids have discovered Minecraft on their own. I
figured if Dad recommends it, that it is instantly cringy.

Four girls, one boy and all of them love it. Ages 10-22. Roblocks? Not so
much.

------
skybrian
One thing I think this misses is that while Minecraft's graphics are blocky,
the terrain generator creates rather spectacular and varied scenery. Just
wandering around has an appeal evocative of visiting national parks, and
building even a basic hut in a nice setting is more appealing than it would be
in a plain sandbox.

Maybe that's part of why it feels "somehow pure"?

~~~
gsaga
It's a lot like an atomic simulation. All the items are quantized and can be
combined to produce new items.

They follow very simple rules and their interaction with each other can
produce amazingly complex machines.

It's the most realistic game we have.

------
black_puppydog
I find it disturbing that more and more websites, and especially personal
blogs, refuse to even show any content without loading scripts from google
_and_ cloudflare. It's a bunch of text with images. It's _literally_ what HTML
was made for.

~~~
HeckFeck
Mandatory mention of this:
[http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/](http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/)

Maybe someday the web will return to its humble roots.

------
MaxLeiter
I really think Minecraft mods are an underused method for teaching
programming. I first got into programming in 7th grade developing mods. Times
have changed, but ~5 years ago there were great tutorials, documentation, and
good support channels (IRC) for modders.

If regular development is too complicated, there are mods that add
programmable computers (Lua, iirc). You can use them to mine, build, automate,
or in the spirit of Minecraft, really do whatever you want.

~~~
askvictor
Nowadays there is Minecraft education edition; a variant of the Bedrock
version which has a code editor to create automations, and a classroom mode.
Aimed much more at schools than at individual student-hacker-learners, but a
lot more accessible IMO, and has a heap of resources/docs and communities for
those teachers.

~~~
mrlala
Is there any way to get this version? I would love to use this with my kids.

~~~
AgentME
If you just want the code editor part, then
[https://minecraft.makecode.com/](https://minecraft.makecode.com/)

~~~
mrlala
Thank you! Will definitely check this out.

------
linuxhansl
There is also [https://www.minetest.net/](https://www.minetest.net/). It's
fully open source and free, and although it is written in C++ it has a Lua
modding API with many mods.

Minetest itself is just the engine with basic functionality such as terrain
generation and basic physics. Mobs, and other things are added via mods. Mods
can be installed manually or in-game from
[https://content.minetest.net/](https://content.minetest.net/).

~~~
mastazi
The problem I had with Minetest, is that the base sandbox is quite boring and
I think you're not supposed to be playing it on its own, but then when it
comes to mods there is so much choice and I couldn't find a place to start
from (something like: "if you are a beginner, start from these 5 mods"), so I
don't know where to start from. Any suggestions?

~~~
linuxhansl
Yeah. That's a common problem and mostly because nobody has time documenting
this. The minetest page itself helps a bit (under customizing, but it's not
that helpful admittedly).

FWIW, here're my recommended mods:

Basic gameplay: 3d armor, mobs_redo + mobs_monster

Logic: mesecons, more mesecone, digilines

Hard monsters: NSSM (not so simple mobs), dmob (dragons, etc) (both need
mobs_redo)

Building more: Homedecor

There're also some read-made games. Mineclone 2 is pretty good.

~~~
mastazi
Just replying back to let you know that I'm enjoying Mineclone 2 a lot! Thanks
again!

------
nostromo
It’s frustrating how Minecraft’s potential hasn’t been realized under
Microsoft.

The game has such huge potential and tremendous goodwill, and it’s been so
stagnant since the acquisition.

~~~
bengarvey
I don't know. They've added a ton of underwater content, new structures, mobs
(bees, foxes, llamas, phantoms, drowns, etc), sunken ships and treasure maps.

If anything, they've had a better release cycle since the acquisition.

~~~
willis936
What the game really needs is what was promised ages ago: a mod API on the C++
edition.

~~~
HeadsUpHigh
Yea let's actually make the C++ edition playable first. Have you noticed how
the cursor acceleration is actually like a joystick? I play on a computer for
a reason, I don't want console nonsense creeping on me. Same goes for the
whole UI. Also no linux version.

~~~
willis936
When it takes 30 minutes to load your mod pack and even with a RAM disk and a
healthy number of fast cores on a dedicated server you're still dipping below
20 fps on some occasions, it's time for a leaner edition than java. I'm not
even saying java is inherently the problem, but the java edition of minecraft
is not performant and the bedrock edition is.

~~~
PeterStuer
As I remember from setting up a server way, way back is you want to give that
JVM as much memory as you can trow at it.

~~~
hoseja
Better hope you pick the right arcane garbage collection strategy!

~~~
satanspastaroll
Latency minimal GC is the right choice for game servers. The most available
one is G1, though others like Shenandoah and ZGC are on the way

~~~
willis936
I played with a few of them. A server I used to run had a leaky mod that
would, when a base was large, leak so much that the GC would hit twice a
minute with a 5 second stall. It didn’t matter what GC was used. I never found
a solution.

------
nottorp
The article is more about Roblox (whatever that is) than Minecraft. Title
kinda misleading.

------
Multiplayer
Both of these games are excellent intros to game development. ROBLOX more so
in my opinion - it’s a lot like the old school quake-c modding days and such.

I tried to get my kids to play around with web pages and tutorials, but it
wasn’t until they wanted to create mini games in ROBLOX that they got busy.

------
itronitron
Interesting article, the author kind of gripes at the end that open world
games like Minecraft and Roblox eventually devolve into a competition among
players for points, achievements, and status.

While that is true in many cases, so is society in general, and I think that
occurs when people accept rules that limit what they create and discover in
the world. 'Mini-games' are all about points and status, servers with
economies result in play that is all about selling goods and accumulating
wealth.

What the author doesn't mention is the side channel (typically discord) on
which players are communicating and socializing.

------
mastazi
I agree with the article, Roblox certainly doesn't please the Minecraft crowds
- or at least, not everyone among them.

I'm curious about Hytale, an RPG game currently under development, made by
Hypixel which is the developer behind one of the most successful Minecraft
servers.

Another title that I was excited about was Cube World but after reading the
reviews, it seems it didn't really hold up to the hype.

------
travbrack
It annoys me when people call Roblox a game. It's an engine and a platform.
It's like calling Unity or Unreal Engine a game.

~~~
benji_is_me
I've also found that people tend to underestimate the development tools Roblox
gives. There are games on Roblox that have external web APIs for managing
servers, games that circumvent the standard "player model" and instead opt for
an entirely different appearance, games that make use of the GUI tools given
in meticulous ways...

Roblox does a fantastic job at giving creative young minds an opportunity to
expand on their ideas — something very few other "games" accomplish.

~~~
supernovae
This is exactly what I love about Roblox. My 11-year-old daughter does
"commissions" and designs 3d objects to sell, she's on "Scripting teams" where
they help design in-game elements. She's having fun, building / creating,
learning and interacting with people. Something I could only dream of when I
was 11 (I had BBS's, lots of TW2002).

My 11-year-old knows blender, photoshop, python and javascripting because of
Roblox and some Minecraft.

~~~
xen2xen1
Remind me to break out Tw2002 on docker.. And yes, the opportunies these kids
have is amazing.

------
vintermann
I think Minecraft was the first game with a procedurally generated immense
world which was also 100% modifiable. Games with virtually infinite procedural
worlds have existed and sparked imagination before (my first was Elite 2 on
the Amiga), but you couldn't really interact with them in a way that changed
them.

Correct me if you know of any earlier examples.

------
goldcd
Minecraft is the game that made me feel old - and that I was genuinely missing
out on something.

I seemingly signed up my €15 in 2011 and had fun. Then forgot about it.

Then I remember when MS bought it for silly money. Full on WTF? headspin.

Then I visited my former-bridesmaid, who shared with me what she'd built on
her ipad. I'd no idea what she was talking about, quickly stopped randomly
hitting stuff when her upset overcame her politeness and she told me to stop.
She _really_ cared about what she'd built.

I can still only wrap my head around it as "infinite lego with a community" \-
but that's pretty damn impressive.

~~~
a13n
> Then I remember when MS bought it for silly money. Full on WTF? headspin.

Considering Minecraft has over 176 million copies sold, not to mention the
endless amount of merchandise and spin-offs I'm sure MS is getting royalties
on, it looks like they got a bargain at $2.5B.

~~~
goldcd
Maybe I didn't make my point clearly enough. To me - it was a silly fun game I
spent an evening with - and then never touched again. The whole "becoming a
thing" completely missed me. I maybe say it was on Android, or Xbox - but
being an old fart completely missed the fact that millions had turned up and
were playing it (and PewDiePie was a name of somebody etc etc)

~~~
wingerlang
I played it overnight nonstop after buying it, also in 2011 I think (infdev
anyone?). Then also never touched it again. However I am curious how you
missed the hugeness of it for so long, did you not follow gaming sites or
anything gaming on YouTube similar at all?

------
npunt
This raises some interesting points about social dynamics that emerge in
creation-oriented engines like Minecraft/Roblox based on how their different
business models work.

Roblox sounds like a place where a sort of creative hustle underlies the whole
experience, where everyone's creative experience is about trying to figure out
what they can get from others. It's full of in-app purchases, by way of
people's creations.

Minecraft, meanwhile, sounds like a more open-ended collaborative experience
where people create for the sake of creating, and the worst negative
externality is some people do it to gain views on Youtube. There's no in-app
purchases, just the upfront fee paid to Microsoft.

One thrust of the piece is that playing Roblox promotes "indoctrination into
entrepreneurship for children", by way of many of the 'tycoon' style games.

Author also points out how accruing possessions is a large part of Roblox:
"Compared with Minecraft, most Roblox games are highly individualistic and use
private property as their main incentive rather than skill-building or a sense
of common good."

Author then frames Roblox as operating a kind of multilevel marketing scheme,
where everyone's hustling to make game modes to get game currency from others,
and it all flows up to Roblox. It may not match an MLM perfectly, but it
really made me think about how games are places where a lot of these really
negative ideas from the offline world (like MLMs, gambling, etc) can appear in
similar form in game worlds.

The author goes into a digression about streamers and creators showing off
their work on Youtube, and that being something that sort of sullies the
purity of these creative mediums. I don't see that as particularly unique to
these games though, as that's part of the broader trend of 'life as
performance' which exists everywhere in social media (see also Instagram,
etc).

The last paragraph is great: "By enabling self-defined goals and DIY
accumulation of skills and resources, Minecraft once seemed to promise fun
without fixed form, without ownership, without competition and hierarchy.
Roblox has no such pretense. Though its premise of blurring the line between
player and creator may seem democratizing, it transforms conventional gameplay
into entrepreneurial striving while indoctrinating young children into
capitalist society’s hierarchical scoreboards, its fantasy of being the best
by having the most."

Is this all just a reflection of adding in-app purchases with a % going to
creators? Feels like it.

------
Buge
The article seems to be saying Roblox is a successor to Minecraft. But Roblox
was released under that name in 2005 (I created my Roblox account in 2008).
Minecraft was released in 2009.

------
smitty1e
At a higher level of abstraction, git(hub|lab), or even the internet itself
are still less structured construction projects.

------
Pamar
I am a bit surprised at not seeing any reference to Second Life in this
article. Is this because it (quickly) turned to more "mature" themes?

I ask because both the exploratory and (more importantly) the build/customize
parts were a big element of that - also, it is still active (I believe) even
if not exactly "thriving" today.

------
shmerl
_> Even as Minecraft experiences a nostalgic renaissance, the online open
world Roblox has become its spiritual successor._

Too bad Roblox doesn't work on Linux even in Wine, and developers have no
interest in doing anything about it. So it's far from being a proper
successor.

------
gatherhunterer
The page is not loading its content for me. Maybe it was hugged to death?

