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Look at massive games like Skyrim or GTA that have multiple gameplay systems in their vast amount of content that are only sketches and not at all fulfilling th

Look at massive games like Skyrim or GTA that have multiple gameplay systems in their vast amount of content that are only sketches and not at all fulfilling the potential they suggest. Then remember that dozens to hundreds of people work on those games. Then repeat the phrase "I dunno whether its a matter of expectations" and think carefully about how that phrase applies to you. Of course hundreds of modders are going to end up fleshing out what one guy (and then a handful of guys) could not. The nether system being "pretty sorry" at release is almost a parody of a statement. If it's not meant to be, I guess the implication is that he should have released it only after "finishing" it? Or not added features at all, instead focusing on more core features? Those approaches have a massive hidden assumption that alternate-universe-Notch would have taken those paths and then focussed on features you wanted, rather than spending months, on, say, making a higher height limit, or better biome distribution, or better cow grazing behavior, etc etc all of which would not have added substantially to the fun of playing the game. Minecraft was and is an incredibly fun game. I'm not suggesting you should kiss the feet of every stray thought Notch has, but I find the people that write these kinds of posts have lost any sort of perspective. Think of the number of elaborate and most of all actually fun games written by one person that have not only shipped to players, but also were fun to play at every stage of an open development process. The number is tiny, and the reason is that it's really really hard. Maybe people don't have game making experience? Making games is hard, making a fun game is much much harder, and making a fun game out of a bunch of different interlocking systems that is relatively bug free is basically a miracle if we look at an existing games to attempted games ratio. Now, whether or not Notch owes you updates to the Nether for life for your $15 for Minecraft is a whole other story, but Minecraft has been fun to play in every incarnation I've played since Alpha. Calling his work half-assed is bullshit, even if we only compare his output to the actual output of every other aspiring video game maker that has ever existed. I'd say he's in some pretty good company on the far end of the curve on that one.

criley2 13y ago
I call his work bullshit after seeing how smoothly Minecraft development was under Jeb, and seeing how mod developers work. It wasn't until a talented and motivated developer took over the project that quality improved, IMO. And mod developers are out there writing far more fleshed out, balanced and reliable code despite the fact that they still do not have access to the unobfuscated source. Minecraft is still released without an API, or any mod tools, and no source. When I look at the brilliant and dedicated work of those who reverse engineer the binary for every major release, building third party mod api's like Bukkit and Forge, and allowing for ever-more-smooth updates of a spaghetti of dozens of disparate mods... it's hard not to look down on Notch's work. I mean hell, the teams reverse-engineering and supporting so many mods are unpaid, and small. They've gotten better, faster, and are more dedicated. In the past year we've seen unified liquid API under Forge allowing for mods like IC2, Buildcraft and Railcraft to share their liquid tanks, liquid pipes, etc. We've seen multiple microblock API's with Chickenbone's brilliant implementation rolled into Forge. We've seen the massive surge in popularity for managed modpacks (basically package management for first party and third party minecraft distributable). So not only full mod api's and basic package management, but brilliant new functionality exposed in wonderful api's. And half a decade later, Notch/Mojang still can't roll a basic mod api for the game (and their 'plugin-api', which has been in development since 2010 and is still unreleased, is woefully underfeatured compared to what the community offers today from multiple different third party modloaders). But why does it matter? No one looks down on Jobs for being bad at product design. Because he wasn't a designer by trade, he was a leader. Notch created an amazing platform and has handled it rather well. I'd love to have seen a lot of things prioritized or handled way sooner, but in the end, no one can question the success of his idea. This coming from a longtime Minecrafter (pre-survival) and current host of an FTB-based server.
rndmize 13y ago
It's good that you mention Skyrim because I do happen to have a similar beef there, and the basis for it is precisely because I think my expectations are pretty reasonable. Skyrim has an enchanting system where you can reduce the mana cost of spells by a percent value. It isn't terribly difficult to get to the point where you can cut the cost of casting for a school, say, destruction, to zero, and have free spells forever after that. This is pretty game-breaking, and doesn't even get into the level 100 enchanting perk, which doubles the number of enchantments you can have (would you like 75% magic immunity to go with your infinite spells?) I find this to be poor design, plain and simple. It shows a big disregard for balance, and the reason it annoys me so much is its not hard to fix: make the enchantments increase spell damage/duration instead; or reduce the strength of those enchantments so in total they won't hit 100%; or put a hard cap that these don't stack past 80%; anything, really, that doesn't cause a player to get to that point, run around killing everything for an hour, get bored, and quit. This sort of thing is pervasive. The pickpocketing tree, for example, is worse than useless - it'll actively harm your character by causing you to level if you pursue it, leading to stronger opponents without an increase in power to match them. And so on. Plain and simple, it looks to me like whoever designed these systems put a minimal amount of thought into them. Which brings me back to Minecraft. The core components of Minecraft - the mining, block placement, and the simple progression it has are very well done. So are the plants, animals, and environment. But the vast majority of the other stuff just isn't. Beacons - very cool idea. Too bad you have to kill a couple hundred wither skeletons to get the skulls to make a wither to get the main part for it. Enchanting - an entire system constructed out of grinding and chance. The Nether - I remember on release that if you made a portal and went to the nether, it would make a new one on your return instead of sending you to the one you'd constructed. One of the selling points was the ability to travel long distances in the overworld via the nether, and yet the portals wouldn't even tie to each other correctly! My point isn't that Minecraft (and Skyrim for that matter) aren't great games; they are. And Notch is a cool guy; I have a lot of respect for him. But. Tossing random stuff into the game (mooshrooms?) and having poorly designed systems with clear fixes is what I expect from a 16 year old modder, not a mature game dev (and this goes double when a lot of the worse systems were implemented after Mojang was incorporated; QA testing? Second opinions? Where were these? Am I missing something?)
- deleted 13y ago

criley2 13y ago

I call his work bullshit after seeing how smoothly Minecraft development was under Jeb, and seeing how mod developers work. It wasn't until a talented and motivated developer took over the project that quality improved, IMO. And mod developers are out there writing far more fleshed out, balanced and reliable code despite the fact that they still do not have access to the unobfuscated source. Minecraft is still released without an API, or any mod tools, and no source. When I look at the brilliant and dedicated work of those who reverse engineer the binary for every major release, building third party mod api's like Bukkit and Forge, and allowing for ever-more-smooth updates of a spaghetti of dozens of disparate mods... it's hard not to look down on Notch's work. I mean hell, the teams reverse-engineering and supporting so many mods are unpaid, and small. They've gotten better, faster, and are more dedicated. In the past year we've seen unified liquid API under Forge allowing for mods like IC2, Buildcraft and Railcraft to share their liquid tanks, liquid pipes, etc. We've seen multiple microblock API's with Chickenbone's brilliant implementation rolled into Forge. We've seen the massive surge in popularity for managed modpacks (basically package management for first party and third party minecraft distributable). So not only full mod api's and basic package management, but brilliant new functionality exposed in wonderful api's. And half a decade later, Notch/Mojang still can't roll a basic mod api for the game (and their 'plugin-api', which has been in development since 2010 and is still unreleased, is woefully underfeatured compared to what the community offers today from multiple different third party modloaders). But why does it matter? No one looks down on Jobs for being bad at product design. Because he wasn't a designer by trade, he was a leader. Notch created an amazing platform and has handled it rather well. I'd love to have seen a lot of things prioritized or handled way sooner, but in the end, no one can question the success of his idea. This coming from a longtime Minecrafter (pre-survival) and current host of an FTB-based server.

rndmize 13y ago

It's good that you mention Skyrim because I do happen to have a similar beef there, and the basis for it is precisely because I think my expectations are pretty reasonable. Skyrim has an enchanting system where you can reduce the mana cost of spells by a percent value. It isn't terribly difficult to get to the point where you can cut the cost of casting for a school, say, destruction, to zero, and have free spells forever after that. This is pretty game-breaking, and doesn't even get into the level 100 enchanting perk, which doubles the number of enchantments you can have (would you like 75% magic immunity to go with your infinite spells?) I find this to be poor design, plain and simple. It shows a big disregard for balance, and the reason it annoys me so much is its not hard to fix: make the enchantments increase spell damage/duration instead; or reduce the strength of those enchantments so in total they won't hit 100%; or put a hard cap that these don't stack past 80%; anything, really, that doesn't cause a player to get to that point, run around killing everything for an hour, get bored, and quit. This sort of thing is pervasive. The pickpocketing tree, for example, is worse than useless - it'll actively harm your character by causing you to level if you pursue it, leading to stronger opponents without an increase in power to match them. And so on. Plain and simple, it looks to me like whoever designed these systems put a minimal amount of thought into them. Which brings me back to Minecraft. The core components of Minecraft - the mining, block placement, and the simple progression it has are very well done. So are the plants, animals, and environment. But the vast majority of the other stuff just isn't. Beacons - very cool idea. Too bad you have to kill a couple hundred wither skeletons to get the skulls to make a wither to get the main part for it. Enchanting - an entire system constructed out of grinding and chance. The Nether - I remember on release that if you made a portal and went to the nether, it would make a new one on your return instead of sending you to the one you'd constructed. One of the selling points was the ability to travel long distances in the overworld via the nether, and yet the portals wouldn't even tie to each other correctly! My point isn't that Minecraft (and Skyrim for that matter) aren't great games; they are. And Notch is a cool guy; I have a lot of respect for him. But. Tossing random stuff into the game (mooshrooms?) and having poorly designed systems with clear fixes is what I expect from a 16 year old modder, not a mature game dev (and this goes double when a lot of the worse systems were implemented after Mojang was incorporated; QA testing? Second opinions? Where were these? Am I missing something?)

deleted 13y ago