
Notch's next game is an MMO - primesuspect
http://0x10c.com/
======
cpeterso
I was a developer for the ill-fated Perpetual Entertainment's Star Trek Online
MMO (which was later sold and successfully launched by Cryptic Studios).

Star Trek Online's #1 most common feature request from beta testers was "ship
interiors." Players didn't want to play "WoW _in Spaaaace_ " game. They wanted
to play "The Sims meet Star Trek" and relive their favorite Star Trek TV
episodes. That sounds like a pretty cool game (for a small, but dedicated
niche), but Perpetual's game designers scoffed and (having worked at Blizzard)
proceeded to create "WoW in Space."

~~~
h2s
This is the one thing stopping me from reaching 100% rabid-fanboy-mode about
this news. We already have Quake in Space, WoW in Space, and Spreadsheets in
Space: I hope this doesn't turn out to be "Assembly Programming in Space".
This quote gave me hope:

> 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.

I'm hoping that "dim lights" means actually dimming the lights _inside_ and
being less able to see, and that the fact it's mentioned is a sign that this
is their intended direction. I really hope Notch nails this. Give me a
chilled-out space MMO that lets me have a friend ride shotgun and take over
the controls to check out the awesome spaceship I just bought and then help
fight off some attackers Millenium Falcon style. Please.

~~~
tchock23
I completely agree, except I would extend this to say that all genres beyond
space games should consider more "in ship/plane/building" type of interaction.

For example, I've long wanted a submarine and/or battleship simulation that
would provide a true feeling of being part of a huge ship, with players
assuming various roles as necessary. Add a MMO element and it'd be just
amazing.

~~~
freehunter
Problem is, most things on a sub (et al) are boring. Clean this, cook that,
monitor this, listen to that. You would have to constantly be under attack
with only brief respite to repair your ship. Listening to whales, cooking with
lard, and mopping the floors wouldn't make a compellin... actually, people pay
to do menial tasks in MMOs all the time _right now_. How many chefs were there
in Runescape, or dedicated crafters in WoW?

You might be on to something.

~~~
tchock23
Exactly! I think in a weird way the mundane elements of the game could even be
fun, provided there was a strong MMO backbone to it with guilds, clubs, etc...

------
aresant
A four paragraph website outlining the vision coupled with a simple way for
customers to engage directly with the CEO of the company.

Notch understands "Minimum Viable Product"

~~~
swah
Should there be a button so he could have some feedback?

~~~
groby_b
No, there shouldn't :) Nothing worse than game design by committee.

~~~
nextstep
>Nothing worse than game design by committee.

Notch clearly disagrees: "The game is still extremely early in development,
but like we did with Minecraft, we expect to release it early and let the
players help me shape the game as it grows."

~~~
kpreid
Design by committee ("the players say they really want X, let's include X") is
not the same thing as design with consideration of feedback ("the players
really liked X_0, let's build X_1, and deemphasize Y because it didn't turn
out fun").

------
endianswap
Technology of note: "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. [...] The cost of the
game is still undecided, but it's likely there will be a monthly fee for
joining the Multiverse as we are going to emulate all computers and physics
even when players aren't logged in."

~~~
cing
Programmable 16-bit CPUs? Sounds like work disguised as gaming!

~~~
saraid216
Aren't all MMOs like that?

~~~
jiggy2011
Yes, but most MMOs simulate minimum wage busywork this one involves some
actual skill/thinking.

~~~
fleitz
So true, I played WoW for about a month when it came out then I thought:
"Didn't I get into to programming because I didn't want to work at UPS
delivering packages?"

It should have been called World of Errands.

~~~
alanfalcon
It's better since Cataclysm, the errands are more directly, visually, and
emotionally tied to saving the world (of Warcraft.)

Anyone who once thought they liked the game's single player questing aspects
should spend a week with a free scroll of ressurection and experience what the
game has become, because it's really awesome and fun.

------
jiggy2011
I hope this will be like EVE Online but actually fun.

When I played EVE, I always thought that a programmable ship would be fun.
Although there is a risk that programmers will get an unfair advantage.

On the other hand it may get more people interested in programming.

I wonder if this will ship with an interpreter/compiler for any language or
whether you will have to write ASM?

Surely won't be long before there is a LISP for it.

I can also imagine a lot of people getting pissed of because they keep getting
killed accidentally by someone else's buggy software.

~~~
tesseractive
> When I played EVE, I always thought that a programmable ship would be fun.
> Although there is a risk that programmers will get an unfair advantage.

If programming is part of the gameplay, then being good at programming means
you are good at the game. It would then be best considered an entirely _fair_
advantage.

~~~
jiggy2011
True, but I imagine their target market is not just programmers.

Perhaps there will become a market in the game for selling programs to run on
the CPUs.

Some players specialize in programming, others in logistics , battle command
etc.

Of course it will be an interesting microcosm of the software industry in such
a case.

Will people care about piracy of their code? Will anybody start releasing
under GPL etc?

As I have said elsewhere , most likely all the best code will end up on a wiki
somewhere and everyone will use that.

Of course it depends upon the dynamic of the game. Whether it is like Eve
where you just get one ship. Or whether people will build full automated
fleets, space stations etc.

In the latter case they better be prepared to buy some _serious_ hardware to
run the server end of this on.

~~~
coopdog
Keep your core secret, open source the support code, declare war on those who
violate GPL >:[

------
pantaloons
"We are going to emulate all computers and physics even when players aren't
logged in."

I built a prototype trying to do something similar, inspired by a text-based
RTS/MMO that kept running while you were asleep. For me this was an
unrealistic goal, if the simulations are complex enough you can't operate at a
price point users will pay for. Even if you can, because the game is now CPU
bound, far less players fit on a single instance -- you now need incredibly
clever partitioning and load distributing facilities to keep the world
appearing seamless. Even AAA titles haven't solved that problem, a look at
world PVP lag in EVE or WoW will tell you as much.

~~~
groby_b
Really? Given what Notch plans (2,000 DCPUs per machine - which is certainly
doable), let's assume he's running a high-cpu instance (large) at Amazon for
those 2,000 DCPUs. That's $500 per month for the machine. If he can't get that
much money out of 2,000 players, he's doing it wrong.

Assuming you allow for eventual instead of atomic consistency, and allow for
loss of CPU for several seconds if an instance goes kablooey, the load
distribution is really not that hard. (And your spaceship really doesn't need
five 9's. It's a game, so just blame it on "an ion storm". Or "a space
monster" if that floats your boat ;)

Partitioning does not need to be too clever if you can constrain the number of
ships per region - certainly something you can impose via game design.

Lag _only_ matters if you interact twitch based. Notch's plans lend themselves
to indirect agency via the simulated ship's computer instead, so if everybody
perceives the world as it was a few seconds ago, not much is lost.

It's certainly a doable task. Notch's mind is in the right place to pull it
off. No doubt, it'll be hard - but it'll be interesting to see what he comes
up with.

~~~
pantaloons
Well a first person shooter engine only really needs an (x, y, look-at) tuple
for each player, certainly putting thousands of players on one map is doable.
You're dreaming.

Assume for a moment a team of developers spend several months if not years
doing infrastructure build-out to support the imagined CPU simulation system.
Now they just have to implement the rest of the engine, the part powering the
actual game, in which all players, CPUs, and other elements are active and
interacting with one another at all times.

I'm hoping Notch succeeds, but lets be realistic -- the closest anyone has got
to offline simulation is effectively "event queue and timer" and not for lack
of trying.

~~~
groby_b
> Assume for a moment a team of developers spend several months if not years
> doing infrastructure build-out to support the imagined CPU simulation system

Huh? A CPU simulation is not that complicated a task. If it takes Notch
several developers and years of time, he's definitely doing it wrong.

> active and interacting with one another at all times.

Yes. That's a solved issue, mostly. It's a large task, but it's not an
unsolved problem. (See e.g. social networking sites. Humongous amounts of
people interacting with each other)

The point is that you'll need to make some concessions to the realities of
large scale when it comes to the game design.

> the closest anyone has got to offline simulation is effectively "event queue
> and timer" and not for lack of trying.

Funny. And here I thought Havok just gave a talk on physics in MMOs. (GDC
China).

~~~
pantaloons
I think you might be missing the point, all simulation continues while players
are offline. Implementing consistent physics in an MMO is (very) hard, but
having all players simulated even when they are logged off is something else
entirely. The state of the art there is things like mail systems, auction
houses, and skill queues.

~~~
groby_b
I wouldn't be surprised if the offline simulation curtails your abilities
somewhat, enabling a much lower CPU-effort simulation. We'll see, I guess :)

(There's also the point that a monthly subscription fee of $15 buys you a nice
VPS slice these days. If you're willing to cut into the - significant - profit
margin of MMOs, you have a lot of performance available for offline
simulation. I'll stand by my judgment that it's a hard, but solvable, problem)

------
mdanger
Between this and <http://www.ftlgame.com/> , it's nice to think that the scifi
games I used to be only able to dream about are slowly becoming real.

~~~
ericd
Wow, thank you for posting about that. I'm really glad there are people doing
really original work in the indie gaming world, it gives me hope that we
haven't seen the last of the xcoms and fallouts (the original, scrappy
versions of these, not the recent AAA incarnations)

------
thinker
The creator of Minecraft is creating a space game!? He should totally call it
Starcraft.

~~~
tomrod
You sir, are the best hybrid of geek and reddit. Have an upboat.

Shame the name is trademarked.

~~~
tomrod
Wow, tons of downvotes. There goes 6 months of hard work. Bad way to start a
day.

~~~
nateberkopec
Welcome to Hacker News, where everything is made up and the points don't
matter!

~~~
tomrod
Love it. Best show ever.

------
fruchtose
I don't know what I'm more excited for: the possibility of a DCPU C compiler,
or the first player to exploit the security holes in a program written for the
DCPU C compiler.

------
officemonkey
As a fan of old space travel role playing games like "Traveller", I'm looking
forward to this.

If it combines the "build-it-yourself" bits of Minecraft (build your ship,
build your computer, build your programs) with MMO trading, and guild-building
of EVE Online, and let players build the universe, then it might be a real
winner.

I'll sign-up regardless.

~~~
Gormo
The amazing implication here is that if the game were to use a sufficiently
realistic physics engine and realistically model materials and energy
generation/consumption, then the ships and control systems that you design
could actually be potentially viable designs for real-world spaceships!

I doubt even Notch is able to accurately and fully emulate reality itself just
yet, though.

------
lloeki
I was reading those specific two bullet points:

    
    
        * Hard science fiction.
        * Space battles against the AI or other players.
    

which, combined with:

    
    
        * Lots of engineering.
        * Fully working computer system.
    

reminded me of essays such as "Realistic Space Combat" [0]. I wonder if Notch
considers such a thing.

[0] <https://gist.github.com/1526107>

~~~
mattmanser
Just glancing at that essay it's pretty awfully written and repeatedly wrong.
And my physics is extremely poo. Ever heard of a heatsink and then releasing
it later? Decoys of simple complexity but same mass are as cheap to make as
real ships of complexity? Nope.

~~~
curiousepic
You can start here: <http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/misconceptions.php>

~~~
lloeki
That's exactly what I meant with 'such as'. I couldn't find that link again,
thanks.

I was more concerned about general physics considerations (inertia, etc) and
scale (like intercepting stuff flying at 30000km/s).

------
rdl
I hope this doesn't ship for a year or two. I'd like to get more work done
first :)

~~~
dholowiski
I hope it ships soon, because it's the only thing that will be able to keep me
from wasting so much time on Minecraft

------
Aissen
One word. SpaceChem.

This looks heavily inspired by this indie game. In spacechem you must you use
"chemistry pipe design skills", that highly resemble how you design logic
circuts, in order to create certain molecules.

It also seems quite inspired with what you can do in minecraft with the
redstone.

All that, but more open, pushing the limits. Not such a bad idea.

------
potomushto
@notch: The DCPU-16 specs are up, with some sample code and a memdump:
<http://0x10c.com/doc/dcpu-16.txt>

------
justjimmy
Hopefully it'll have some sandbox features! MMO Scene has been missing a
decent sandbox since UO and SWG (Pre you know what. And dont' say EVE online
cause to me, that was just a huge game of stare-at-your-UI-windows)

~~~
stephengillie
Can it please be "EVE-craft"? If it were just "Minecraft in space" on the EVE
scope?

Go mine iron to craft parts for your spaceship!

------
goblin89
Slightly off-topic, but—how mercilessly correct he is about physics of our
space-time. We all know the universe is expanding, but many consequences of
this phenomenon are not obvious—such as that after some time we'll be unable
to see (and therefore ever reach) even nearby galaxies, since they're
constantly getting farther and farther away.

We'll be completely alone forever, and future scientists would have completely
wrong picture about universe in such an absence of information. Thinking about
that, we already miss a lot of information because of red shift… There're
facts potentially explaining the eternal question ‘about universe and
everything’, but they are slipping away from us, crossing the event horizon
never ever to be learned about. Not a fun thing to know.

Personally for me that was a discovery thanks to the explanation by Lawrence
Krauss in his ‘A Universe From Nothing’ popular talk
(<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo>).

------
ique
Has anyone decoded the name? He said it was related to 1 in a 64-bit system
read in 16-bit with the wrong endianness, or something like that. I tried my
hand at it briefly but gave up.

~~~
losvedir
0x10^c in base 10 is 16^12, or how many years into the future the people woke
from their sleep.

I think you're referring to his tweet: "What happens if you try to read a 64
bit representation of 1 in a 16 bit system, but you get the endianness wrong?"

In other words, the endianness and 64/16-bit comments in that tweet weren't a
puzzle, so much as the back story. (Check the paragraph beginning "In 1998").
i.e.: "What happens if you specify something one way and a program reads it a
different way? You end up a 200 trillion years in the future!"

~~~
bobwebb
He's poking fun at the Y2K, Y2K38 problems. :)

------
Breefield
EVE Online meets Minecraft.

~~~
trickjarrett
I was thinking the same thing.

------
mischa_u
What Notch means with "Hard Science Fiction":
<http://0x10c.com/doc/hardscifi.txt>

~~~
narkee
What an amazingly complex game it would be if he decided to include
relativistic effects of time-dilation.

------
vitno
I think I'm going to lose a lot of time to this game...

------
chromejs10
I'm super excited for this game. I like open ended games, and Notch spends a
lot of time trying to make the game fit each user. But does anyone know why
Notch gets so much shit online for being "greedy" or an "ass"? I've never seen
or heard about him doing anything to get those ugly titles. Looking at the
twitter feeds on 0x10c.com, I see a bunch of "greedy bastard" comments. There
is nothing wrong with selling a game in the alpha stages. People will get a
chance to voice their opinions on how the game should function.

~~~
padraigm
In light of his giving away his dividends last year to his employees[1], I
think it's hardly appropriate for anyone to call him 'greedy' or an 'ass'. He
actually seems like a genuinely great guy.

[1] [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/02/markus-notch-
persso...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/02/markus-notch-persson-
gives-3-million_n_1317396.html)

~~~
chromejs10
Exactly. And he also did that last coding competition for charity.

------
ilaksh
Great, now I can finally stop pretending that Infinity: Quest for Earth is
actually going to happen.

~~~
afterburner
Yes, the seamless planet landing thing made me thing of Infinity too...

------
ddelphin
While I'm def excited about this game, when I thought about it, how is this
not just the second half of Second Life by Linden Labs? Second Life already
offers an MMO with object creation (Minecraft) and scripting (0x10c). While
the sci-fi story line is more appealing to me, the concept of building thing
and coding their workings in a 3D MMO doesn't seem novel to me... Unless I
completely misunderstood something.

~~~
mfringel
Execution counts.

A similar concept doesn't guarantee a similar user experience.

~~~
nknight
It's not even such a "similar concept". SL's "resources" are just... money.
Real money. And it doesn't really have any inherent "gameplay". It's a pure
sandbox -- with dollars for grains of sand.

Notch is talking about real resource management issues, combat as an inherent
part of the game, random AI encounters, etc..

This is a _game_ that happens to share _some_ SL-like properties. SL is just a
framework. Arguably that makes SL more interesting in some ways, but it's also
a lot harder to "get" something out of SL other than pure socialization.

------
genu1
Notch is officially my programming hero. This post inspires me; to take risks
and be brave with my coding decisions while nurturing the process. Before
today I would code and think over think and run into wall, while the original
plan remains stagnant, always looking forwards to the finale. Now I look to
code richly, daily, and to water my plants. Notch is zen. I can't wait to play
this game.

------
dsirijus
I'm getting a git repo up for DCPU16 on dcpu16.com, .net & .org as we speak.
With a custom design by a Swedish guy that looks like notch's twin. :D Will
update you guys when it's up, should be today. I already have people that want
to push.

------
anthonyb
He's released the spec for the 16-bit CPU used in the game:
[http://notch.tumblr.com/post/20056289891/start-classified-
tr...](http://notch.tumblr.com/post/20056289891/start-classified-transmission)

------
jentulman
Okay so I'm just a simple PHP dev, would someone be so kind as to point me in
the right direction to start learning what I'm going to need to write for the
in game CPU, so I can try and get a jump on things?

(0x10c.stackexchange one day?)

~~~
elliottcarlson
Never think of yourself as a simple X dev. While you may not have the same
experience or background as someone else, that alone doesn't take away from
you being a developer (keeping in mind I don't know your proficiency or length
of time as a developer).

That being said, since it's going to be a virtual CPU with what seems to be a
system based on 6502 opcodes (or similar), we can assume that this means there
will also be an opportunity for abstraction/compilation to that system.
Basically, there would most likely be cross compilers available in a matter of
time that could aide in the development so you don't have to learn ASM or
anything that low level. If you want to learn for the sake of learning, and
with a great chance of being able to implement that new knowledge in to this
game, then learn C - it will teach you a lot more about lower level
development and would be a great candidate for a cross-compiler when one were
to come out (ex: <http://www.cc65.org/>)

------
mikedougherty
depending on your chosen minecraft server, his first game was an MMO too!

------
jonnycowboy
Notch mentioned in another interview that he was looking to create basically a
modern 'Elite' set in a persistant universe but this programming thing seems
to deviate slightly. Super interesting!

------
tnash
This looks great, and it's evident from Notch's success with Minecraft that he
really knows how to provide a great product and interact with his fans.
Looking forward to trying it out.

------
justauser
I thought Scrolls was his next game?

~~~
oflannabhra
If I remember correctly, Scrolls is Mojang's next game, but Notch was
uninvolved in its developement (aside from hiring everyone).

~~~
Zaak
Notch was at least involved in the original concept for Scrolls. I don't know
if he's been involved in the actual development.

------
uriloran
The DCPU-16 specification is up at <http://0x10c.com/doc/dcpu-16.txt>

I am so exited right now!

------
ericHosick
This might be a great environment to encourage people, and especially kids, to
learn how to program. This was seen in Minecraft and maybe he will try to
extend the idea into this new MMO.

I hope so because anything which encourages and helps people to learn
programming is a plus in my book.

------
fleitz
Wouldn't it just be simpler to use an x86 CPU and qemu? Or a sandbox'ed
process, etc, etc.

I'm sort of thinking that if you used an x86 CPU there are so many existing
tools that could be used for it instead of having to write new compilers, etc.

~~~
anthonyb
That would be incredibly slow if you wanted to run more than a handful of
CPUs...

------
jebblue
If Minecraft was a hit then this sounds like it could be a mega-hit I mean a
computer you can program in the game (I think I read that right), duct tape
(how can you possibly keep a modern spaceship together without it?)!

------
martingordon
This sounds like its the beginning of OASIS: [http://www.amazon.com/Ready-
Player-One-Ernest-Cline/dp/03078...](http://www.amazon.com/Ready-Player-One-
Ernest-Cline/dp/030788743X)

------
LinXitoW
It'd be cool if someone made a Minecraft IDE, where you program using
preformated elements in a visual style by literally building your program with
blocks. Sorta like Scratch.

------
razzaj
This sounds similar to ogame only for hardliner geeks. I like it already. But
i guess it will all be in the interface, i hope he nails it right. This could
be very interesting.

------
kaonashi
Reminds me of an MMO version of SunDog
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SunDog:_Frozen_Legacy>).

------
emarcotte
Wasn't Notch's first game an MMO? Didn't he work on Wurm?

------
ConstantineXVI
Without any context for the name: maybe "sixteen (or hex-ten) to lightspeed"?
Space game with a focus on the ingame CPU, seems logical.

------
mindstab
Is this some hint? the year 281474976712644 - 1988 (first year of deep freeze)
== exactly 2^48

And how do you get that much sleep on a 16bit cpu

~~~
a1k0n
That's why it's called 0x10^c. And the 16-bit CPU supports extended addition
and multiplication via ADD/ADC and MUL, so it's easy.

------
Tichy
Sounds as if I can program the computer to play for me? I'm in! Wanted such a
game for decades (former Corewar player here).

------
quattrofan
An Elite for the 21st century? Want!

------
codesuela
I hope someone comes up with something like "Spaceship on Rails"

------
LostInTheWoods2
"The only thing to it, is to do it!" -- Martin Lawrence

------
kreeben
If someone will create a .net-like framework for me to run managed code upon,
then sure, I'll play this game.

~~~
recursive
DCPU-16 = CLR

DCPU-16 machine code = MSIL

The framework is the machine. Free your mind.

------
gavanwoolery
We are in the year 281 474 976 712 644, but there are only 16 bit computers on
the ships? Anachronism!!!

~~~
Tuna-Fish
No. The ships were launched in the 80's, and all the tech they contain is
16-bit. Presumably, there are more powerful computers out there, but they are
advanced enough that _you_ are certainly not going to do anything useful with
them.

(Let's just ignore that the tech ran without issue and succesfully woke you up
after 281*10^12 years.)

I find this actually really clever. I suppose the less programmatically
inclined will trade new programs from the people building them.

~~~
gavanwoolery
Ah I think I misread that. ;) Still, I think even a thousand year gap in tech
would make ships obsolete. I mean, look at how far our tech has progressed
over the past century...

------
wildster
Red Dwarf!

------
mkramlich
Funny timing. I was designing a new space/SF computer game this weekend for a
few hours. I tend to make one new one every few years. I saw a little overlap
between his feature list and mine, but a lot of potential differences too,
which is great. I may put it up on Kickstarter too if/when I have some proof-
of-concept demos ready to show. So little free time though...

------
naughtysriram
Guess its pronounced "Oh X ten C" or something like "Oh! Extacy"

~~~
mrspeaker
I'm guessing that it's pronounced "2 cents". There are 0x10 kind of people in
the world ;)

~~~
jconnop
I'm truly sorry to rain on your parade like this, but the "0x" signifies hex,
aka base 16, which makes "0x10" equal to 16 in decimal.

Now, if it were 0b10...

------
Heisens
I'd like to see this on the iPad vs. Java.

------
w1ntermute
I hope the graphics don't suck, like they do in Minecraft. I know it sound
superficial, but graphics _do_ matter. Minecraft succeeded _despite_ its
graphics, not because of them.

~~~
emeltzer
Strongly disagree with this. Minecraft's graphics are a direct consequence of
what the game IS (i.e. a world made out of large-ish blocks). More realistic
(that is, less stylized) textures look strange on top of huge blocks, and
anything that obscured the block structure of the world would have made
Minecraft a worse game.

~~~
v21
Minecraft needed to be made of blocks, it's true. But Minecraft could be more
beautiful than it is. Which isn't to diss it - what it does well, it does
really well. And it can often be beautiful -- the terrain generator can
produce some wonderful things.

While it isn't aiming for all the same points, and is obviously inspired in
some parts by Minecraft, I think for example Cube World is a much better
looking game. <http://wollay.blogspot.co.uk/>

------
dysoco
The game looks really awesome, I love space games, and if you combine it with
Minecraft... and not only that but programmable CPUs !!!! I would love it.

Sadly "Monthly Fee" is something I don't like... I don't have the money to pay
it, nor a credit card to do it, so nope.

~~~
codesuela
you can't spare 5 USD for potentially many hours of monthly entertainment?

