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Since there's not much info on this, and since I missed the relevant thread last week, I'll just note here for the record that Mojang's other recent release, a

Since there's not much info on this, and since I missed the relevant thread last week, I'll just note here for the record that Mojang's other recent release, a browser-based retro game called Minecraft Classic, was built on my voxel game engine. [game] https://classic.minecraft.net/ https://classic.minecraft.net/ [engine] https://github.com/andyhall/noa/ https://github.com/andyhall/noa/ if anyone's interested. It's pretty weird waking up one morning to find out that Mojang built a game on your tiny solo project...

ralphstodomingo 7y ago
Congratulations! Really cool of them and you. Is there a statement from Minecraft how much they'll be developing this?
- fenomas 7y ago
  Thank you! But I don't know a thing about it - I only found out it existed because an internet citizen looked at the source and let me know.
  - BubRoss 7y ago
    It's a little bizarre that they didn't get in touch with you at all.
    - brainpool 7y ago
      Modus operandi of predatory organisations.
      - dbt00 7y ago
        Or, completely in keeping with the open source license he made it under? https://github.com/andyhall/noa/blob/master/LICENSE.txt https://github.com/andyhall/noa/blob/master/LICENSE.txt
      - WilliamEdward 7y ago
        Amazing - you are given the power to choose your own license and choose how you want people to view your source code, yet people are STILL unhappy and surprised when you comply in the exact way you wanted them to.
    - fenomas 7y ago
      It would have been friendly, but FWIW they seem to have forked my project in mid 2017, so I'm guessing it's an experiment and got shelved and later revived. So it's easy to imagine a scenario where the people who ultimately released it last week weren't really aware of how much it uses external libraries - mine, and also a 3D engine called Babylon.js (who also weren't contacted).
yohann305 7y ago
what an achievement, good job! I hope you'll get handsomely paid for it, cheers
- malnourish 7y ago
  Unless the parent were to be hired in some capacity, why would they be paid for it? The project has the MIT License.
  - behringer 7y ago
    and now the reason for the GNU GPL license becomes apparent. If some unfathomably wealthy corporation founded by one of the richest person to have ever lived isn't going to pay you for your work, at least you can get something out of it by making them open source their work.
    - steve_taylor 7y ago
      If this library was GPL licensed, Mojang/Microsft wouldn’t have bothered taking the time to even evaluate it.
      - nothrabannosir 7y ago
        How do you know? I always evaluate GPL code, keeping in mind I could try and offer the maintainer a fee for a private license. All code is implicitly dual licensed, for the right price. Only some of it explicitly so :)
        kapep 7y ago
        It's only that simple if it's all written by the same person. A maintainer can't just re-license the whole project unless all other authors agree (or already agreed to that e.g. by accepting some contributor agreement). Or did you mean a price high enough to just ignore the existing license?
      - 7y ago
zentiggr 7y ago
Having trouble controlling classic.minecraft.net on Win10/Firefox (with uMatrix but everything requested whitelisted). Anyone have a discussion site / advice? Edit: got the mouse to switch by invoking 'b' to choose block. Going to be a learning curve, a near newbie in Minecraft.
- fenomas 7y ago
  Word to the wise: they have the mouse sensitivity set very low and there's no option for it, but you can open the JS console and twiddle "noa.cameraControls.rotationScale".
oneepic 7y ago
Interesting note indeed. I remember there being a different Minecraft Classic mode from somewhere around 2009-10 that just ran on Java and you could play it through a browser (Java applet I guess) or download a Java client. The server was in Java too, of course. So perhaps they decided to rewrite it in JS? I used to be an admin on one server and split my time between building stuff and banning griefers/undoing the griefing on the main worlds to make everything pretty again. Great memories.
- jtl999 7y ago
  Minecraft Classic was the original Java based game around that time.
emilfihlman 7y ago
The FPS counter is horribly off.
- emilfihlman 7y ago
  Not sure why the negative points here. The game plays extremely laggy and with input delay on my Surface Pro 3, yet the FPS counter shows always above 40fps, usually over 100. The FPS counter is horribly off and does not represent real life.
  - fenomas 7y ago
    I agree, the counter is certainly odd. That bit of code is Mojang's, I'm not sure what it's measuring. That said, I take no responsibility for it being laggy - the version of my engine they're using is from 2017 and I've done some performance stuff since then :D
    - emilfihlman 7y ago
      Thanks for the reply! Not blaming you (you've done awesome job here!), just bringing up an interesting point and was hoping to get insight but apparently not so much :/
      - fenomas 7y ago
        I hear you. FWIW I think they might be measuring how long the render takes and then showing the inverse of that as the FPS. If so, that would equate to a kind of theoretical maximum frame rate. The code is minimized though, and I didn't look very carefully.
downrightmike 7y ago
Sucks that a multi-billion dollar franchise looks like it is walking all over you, are they contributing anything back?
- WilliamEdward 7y ago
  It's under the MIT license. Sure giving something back would be a nice gesture but there's no reason to say they are 'walking over' them.
- jcl 7y ago
  Funnily enough, it looks like noa is built on the Babylon.js engine, which was the side project of some Microsoft employees, released under the Apache license, written in TypeScript. So it seems that open source software has stimulated some mutual benefit to all involved -- and rather more directly than usual.
  - fenomas 7y ago
    Yes, Babylon does the 3D rendering while noa does meshing, physics, entities and such. Curiously, the Babylon people also didn't hear about the minecraft game until after it launched, even though their engine is being used and they're all under the Microsoft umbrella.

ralphstodomingo 7y ago

Congratulations! Really cool of them and you. Is there a statement from Minecraft how much they'll be developing this?

fenomas 7y ago
Thank you! But I don't know a thing about it - I only found out it existed because an internet citizen looked at the source and let me know.
- BubRoss 7y ago
  It's a little bizarre that they didn't get in touch with you at all.
  - brainpool 7y ago
    Modus operandi of predatory organisations.
    - dbt00 7y ago
      Or, completely in keeping with the open source license he made it under? https://github.com/andyhall/noa/blob/master/LICENSE.txt https://github.com/andyhall/noa/blob/master/LICENSE.txt
    - WilliamEdward 7y ago
      Amazing - you are given the power to choose your own license and choose how you want people to view your source code, yet people are STILL unhappy and surprised when you comply in the exact way you wanted them to.
  - fenomas 7y ago
    It would have been friendly, but FWIW they seem to have forked my project in mid 2017, so I'm guessing it's an experiment and got shelved and later revived. So it's easy to imagine a scenario where the people who ultimately released it last week weren't really aware of how much it uses external libraries - mine, and also a 3D engine called Babylon.js (who also weren't contacted).

yohann305 7y ago

what an achievement, good job! I hope you'll get handsomely paid for it, cheers

malnourish 7y ago
Unless the parent were to be hired in some capacity, why would they be paid for it? The project has the MIT License.
- behringer 7y ago
  and now the reason for the GNU GPL license becomes apparent. If some unfathomably wealthy corporation founded by one of the richest person to have ever lived isn't going to pay you for your work, at least you can get something out of it by making them open source their work.
  - steve_taylor 7y ago
    If this library was GPL licensed, Mojang/Microsft wouldn’t have bothered taking the time to even evaluate it.
    - nothrabannosir 7y ago
      How do you know? I always evaluate GPL code, keeping in mind I could try and offer the maintainer a fee for a private license. All code is implicitly dual licensed, for the right price. Only some of it explicitly so :)
      - kapep 7y ago
        It's only that simple if it's all written by the same person. A maintainer can't just re-license the whole project unless all other authors agree (or already agreed to that e.g. by accepting some contributor agreement). Or did you mean a price high enough to just ignore the existing license?
    - 7y ago

zentiggr 7y ago

Having trouble controlling classic.minecraft.net on Win10/Firefox (with uMatrix but everything requested whitelisted). Anyone have a discussion site / advice? Edit: got the mouse to switch by invoking 'b' to choose block. Going to be a learning curve, a near newbie in Minecraft.

fenomas 7y ago
Word to the wise: they have the mouse sensitivity set very low and there's no option for it, but you can open the JS console and twiddle "noa.cameraControls.rotationScale".

oneepic 7y ago

Interesting note indeed. I remember there being a different Minecraft Classic mode from somewhere around 2009-10 that just ran on Java and you could play it through a browser (Java applet I guess) or download a Java client. The server was in Java too, of course. So perhaps they decided to rewrite it in JS? I used to be an admin on one server and split my time between building stuff and banning griefers/undoing the griefing on the main worlds to make everything pretty again. Great memories.

jtl999 7y ago
Minecraft Classic was the original Java based game around that time.

emilfihlman 7y ago

The FPS counter is horribly off.

emilfihlman 7y ago
Not sure why the negative points here. The game plays extremely laggy and with input delay on my Surface Pro 3, yet the FPS counter shows always above 40fps, usually over 100. The FPS counter is horribly off and does not represent real life.
- fenomas 7y ago
  I agree, the counter is certainly odd. That bit of code is Mojang's, I'm not sure what it's measuring. That said, I take no responsibility for it being laggy - the version of my engine they're using is from 2017 and I've done some performance stuff since then :D
  - emilfihlman 7y ago
    Thanks for the reply! Not blaming you (you've done awesome job here!), just bringing up an interesting point and was hoping to get insight but apparently not so much :/
    - fenomas 7y ago
      I hear you. FWIW I think they might be measuring how long the render takes and then showing the inverse of that as the FPS. If so, that would equate to a kind of theoretical maximum frame rate. The code is minimized though, and I didn't look very carefully.

downrightmike 7y ago

Sucks that a multi-billion dollar franchise looks like it is walking all over you, are they contributing anything back?

WilliamEdward 7y ago
It's under the MIT license. Sure giving something back would be a nice gesture but there's no reason to say they are 'walking over' them.
jcl 7y ago
Funnily enough, it looks like noa is built on the Babylon.js engine, which was the side project of some Microsoft employees, released under the Apache license, written in TypeScript. So it seems that open source software has stimulated some mutual benefit to all involved -- and rather more directly than usual.
- fenomas 7y ago
  Yes, Babylon does the 3D rendering while noa does meshing, physics, entities and such. Curiously, the Babylon people also didn't hear about the minecraft game until after it launched, even though their engine is being used and they're all under the Microsoft umbrella.