Notch puts 0x10c on ice(usgamer.net)
usgamer.net
Notch puts 0x10c on ice
http://www.usgamer.net/articles/notch-puts-0x10c-on-icecommunity-heats-things-up-by-going-diy
118 comments
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?)
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?)
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Yep. Look no further than the top comment on Hacker News to find a dismissive comment that explains exactly why the case in question is very half-assed.
You guys should really give Notch a break. He's a human like everyone else. It must be incredibly hard to work under the pressure of 100,000 derisive hackers that will use every opportunity to point out why he is inadequate. My reaction on this story is rather to call him up and go have a beer and relax somewhere. That's what you do when someone fails a project. You don't start pointing out all his previous flaws and explaining why his effort was doomed in the first place. That's antisocial. Can you imagine saying something like this to his face? Can you imagine someone saying this to your face?
You guys should really give Notch a break. He's a human like everyone else. It must be incredibly hard to work under the pressure of 100,000 derisive hackers that will use every opportunity to point out why he is inadequate. My reaction on this story is rather to call him up and go have a beer and relax somewhere. That's what you do when someone fails a project. You don't start pointing out all his previous flaws and explaining why his effort was doomed in the first place. That's antisocial. Can you imagine saying something like this to his face? Can you imagine someone saying this to your face?
I don't agree with your call for sympathy, because Notch is the one who advertised Minecraft on 4chan and Reddit and sold early access to betas. He's the one who advertised 0x10c as a followup.
His work ethic has been criticized in the past because features introduced in one version of Minecraft would be abandoned by the next and remain incomplete. Bugs would remain unfixed for long stretches of time. There wasn't a public bug tracker (if there was any at all), so users had to list bugs themselves on a fan wiki page.
To claim that criticm is "antisocial" and that we should instead treat him as a best friend to have a beer with is an odd notion. Unless Notch is your personal friend, he is just a programmer working at a company, and the only relationship you have with him is as a customer. If you sell something, get used to criticism.
His work ethic has been criticized in the past because features introduced in one version of Minecraft would be abandoned by the next and remain incomplete. Bugs would remain unfixed for long stretches of time. There wasn't a public bug tracker (if there was any at all), so users had to list bugs themselves on a fan wiki page.
To claim that criticm is "antisocial" and that we should instead treat him as a best friend to have a beer with is an odd notion. Unless Notch is your personal friend, he is just a programmer working at a company, and the only relationship you have with him is as a customer. If you sell something, get used to criticism.
He made a game, by himself, that was awesome and genre busting and fun to play even when it was in the "alpha" stage. Millions of people played that version of the game and millions of people loved it. Just because it wasn't perfect doesn't diminish that achievement.
I don't see where in my post that I diminished its sales.
Jeb has done much better work than Notch maintaining the project. Minecraft has been better since Notch left his role in active development, and very few players/mod-developers would argue that point.
He doesn't have to be a whiz programmer with iron dedication. He just had to have the smarts to hire one to take over the project. Which he did.
He doesn't have to be a whiz programmer with iron dedication. He just had to have the smarts to hire one to take over the project. Which he did.
"Ever since superstar success your work has been half assed"
Where does one find such friends?
Where does one find such friends?
While I think the overly negative comments are overblown, the source (imo) is that there is definitely a group of people that think Notch is the best thing since sliced bread, and the truth is that he had a somewhat meritorious technical accomplishment that went onto be a commercial success, and they cant stand it.
>Can you imagine someone saying this to your face?
Yes. And since I am fully aware of my tendency to lose interest in projects part way through and move on to something else, I don't publicize them while they are in the "hey this idea sounds cool" stage. Thus avoiding having people point out the objective reality that I don't finish much of what I start.
Yes. And since I am fully aware of my tendency to lose interest in projects part way through and move on to something else, I don't publicize them while they are in the "hey this idea sounds cool" stage. Thus avoiding having people point out the objective reality that I don't finish much of what I start.
1. if Notch had your perfectionistic attitude, he wouldn't have released anything - so, no minecraft. Also, Elon Musk wouldn't have had three rocket disasters - no SpaceX. And Mark Zuckerberg certainly wouldn't have began The Facebook. Similar for google, linux, Windows (especially!) Of course, all these guys were lucky... but isn't it striking how fortune favours the brave?
2. Given that Notch had all this incredible success even though he's so "half-assed", imagine what you could do if you adopted his approach?
(For the record, I thought 0x10c was a stupid idea. OTOH I really liked the idea of the minecraft world - where the cube basis is universal and malleable, and sacrificing nicer graphics for that - though the actual game doesn't grab me. I think Notch is awesome and inspirational, and should keep doing what he values - regardless of my opinions!)
2. Given that Notch had all this incredible success even though he's so "half-assed", imagine what you could do if you adopted his approach?
(For the record, I thought 0x10c was a stupid idea. OTOH I really liked the idea of the minecraft world - where the cube basis is universal and malleable, and sacrificing nicer graphics for that - though the actual game doesn't grab me. I think Notch is awesome and inspirational, and should keep doing what he values - regardless of my opinions!)
Nobody on HN seems to want to address it, so I will. It's pretty obvious: Notch is incredibly wealthy and no longer is interested in programming. Can you blame the guy? Most of us would probably stop programming if we had his never ending flow of income. Minecraft is like milk: It's always selling and he hardly has to think about working anymore. Mojang doesn't even have to update Minecraft, the community drives it. The mobile version has reigned the iOS store for months. It's the holy grail of perpetual passive income we all wish we had that Notch has obtained.
Most of us would probably stop programming
No - I presume most on here are hackers and not only in it for success. The difference is that I'd stop coding for others, and do it for myself, pursuing the challenges that excited me, independent of the income they could generate. Which is what I think Notch is doing - he doesn't owe anyone anything.
No - I presume most on here are hackers and not only in it for success. The difference is that I'd stop coding for others, and do it for myself, pursuing the challenges that excited me, independent of the income they could generate. Which is what I think Notch is doing - he doesn't owe anyone anything.
What about the difference between 'programming' and 'hacking'?
No doubt everyone would keep hacking if they had unlimited money, after all, it's fun.
But programming? Tediously banging away on edge cases so a random consumer doesn't get frustrated? Polishing bullshit after the fun work is done so you have a 'product'? Maybe 3% of people enjoy the sheer grunt work involved with programming. Very few people would keep that up if they had unlimited money.
Much more likely, they'd do what we see notch doing right now. jump from interesting project to interesting project, discarding as they go along.
No doubt everyone would keep hacking if they had unlimited money, after all, it's fun.
But programming? Tediously banging away on edge cases so a random consumer doesn't get frustrated? Polishing bullshit after the fun work is done so you have a 'product'? Maybe 3% of people enjoy the sheer grunt work involved with programming. Very few people would keep that up if they had unlimited money.
Much more likely, they'd do what we see notch doing right now. jump from interesting project to interesting project, discarding as they go along.
That's what I was going to say! I'm sure for most of us, programming is FUN when you're doing it for the enjoyment, the puzzle-solving aspect, and working on a project you love, isn't it?
Once I'm wealthy and financially free, I might take some time off of work initially, but eventually I expect I'll do fewer of others' projects and more of the things bouncing around my head right now. I just love working on this kinda stuff!
That was the feeling I got from this article -- since Notch doesn't need the money, he works on something that interests him until it doesn't anymore, regardless of whether it's the best money-making option, don't you think?
I doubt my personality would let me just shelf a project when I'm in the middle of it, though... once I start something I can't help but see it through to completion!
Once I'm wealthy and financially free, I might take some time off of work initially, but eventually I expect I'll do fewer of others' projects and more of the things bouncing around my head right now. I just love working on this kinda stuff!
That was the feeling I got from this article -- since Notch doesn't need the money, he works on something that interests him until it doesn't anymore, regardless of whether it's the best money-making option, don't you think?
I doubt my personality would let me just shelf a project when I'm in the middle of it, though... once I start something I can't help but see it through to completion!
Given access to massive funds though, you might find that your interest in programming now has to compete with ideas like traveling the world, building rockets, flying aircraft or solving malaria.
I think we might be seeing a bit of 80/20 rule playing here...as the old saying goes, the first 80% of the project takes 20% of the time, and the remaining 20% is the most arduous.
If I had piles of cash in the bank, I might be less inclined to see something through once I hit that 20%...from what I hear this seems to be how Notch writes code in general, and now that he is very wealthy...well....
If I had piles of cash in the bank, I might be less inclined to see something through once I hit that 20%...from what I hear this seems to be how Notch writes code in general, and now that he is very wealthy...well....
That makes a lot of sense. Once you get to a certain point where the core of the functionality is built and the rest seems easy and/or tedious, it might be tempting to hand that part off to someone more interested/with more time/etc. wouldn't it?
If I had enough money not to care anymore, I'd still write code because I feel it achieves something worthwhile. I've contributed a bunch to KDE in the past, I would just work on it "full time" (aka, whenever I wanted to).
Speculative and inaccurate. Notch loves to program and design games, he released a new game a couple of days ago. He's worth hundreds of millions of dollars, sure, but that doesn't change that he built Minecraft out of a love for games, not for money. He'll be programming until the day he dies.
"I should write a post about the type of games I want to make in the future." 2 hours ago: https://twitter.com/notch/status/369423842155843585
"My #7dfps is done, after 8 days of work. http://shambles.notch.net/" 4 days ago: https://twitter.com/notch/status/368058518365949953
"I should write a post about the type of games I want to make in the future." 2 hours ago: https://twitter.com/notch/status/369423842155843585
"My #7dfps is done, after 8 days of work. http://shambles.notch.net/" 4 days ago: https://twitter.com/notch/status/368058518365949953
I don't know about that. A month long vacation, a year long vacation? Maybe. But it wouldn't feel right. Who am I if I don't create something?
A human... being
/Simpsons
/Simpsons
Notch is human, he thought the space idea might pan out, apparently it hasn't for him. That guy was born with a keyboard in his hands. He's trying different things like the programming competitions, when he finds something that truly inspires him and captures his imagination, it will be the next Minecraft.
>Most of us would probably stop programming if we had his never ending flow of income.
If I had a never ending flow of income, I would program more. You might see less output, though, as I would be more liable to jump to whatever project seemed the most fun at the moment. If Notch's success is the cause of less output, that's the more likely reason.
If I had a never ending flow of income, I would program more. You might see less output, though, as I would be more liable to jump to whatever project seemed the most fun at the moment. If Notch's success is the cause of less output, that's the more likely reason.
i agree with everyone here, even if i had millions i would still program, i just wouldn't be programming what my managers and higher ups tell me to program. I would work on projects that I like to work on and thought might go somewhere if i could put in 40 hours a week on them. I sadly need focus/direction on my side projects so i have trouble finishing them or sticking with a single project for long enough.. I've been building a multiplayer mobile version of Acquire for months now...
If you want it bad enough, you'll make time. It's hard as hell, but you may have to axe something you really love to make it fit.
> Most of us would probably stop programming if we had his never ending flow of income.
As far as I'm concerned, quite the opposite. I would keep coding but this time, without anyone telling me what to do.
As far as I'm concerned, quite the opposite. I would keep coding but this time, without anyone telling me what to do.
> OTOH I really liked the idea of the minecraft world - where the cube basis is universal and malleable, and sacrificing nicer graphics for that - though the actual game doesn't grab me.
I feel like I should point out, the "idea of the minecraft world" came from Infiniminer. Notch's contribution was the part that doesn't grab you :)
I feel like I should point out, the "idea of the minecraft world" came from Infiniminer. Notch's contribution was the part that doesn't grab you :)
Markus was never involved in Scrolls development. Markus had been good friends with Jahkob (Mojang co-founder) for many years prior to Minecraft, Jahkob had been playing with an idea for a long time that Markus liked (what has eventually become Scrolls) and Mojang was formed, in part, to back Scrolls. Markus was never going to develop Scrolls; it was Jahkob's project and he formed a team to build it. Scrolls has become a full game that is being constantly developed, you can buy it now: http://scrolls.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrolls_(video_game)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrolls_(video_game)
I don't know that I would call scrolls a full game. It has about as many cards as like 25-30% of a single magic set.
That's the same thing I say about poker. Not nearly as complex as Apples to Apples.
I'd say it's definitely a full game. So many hours of fun and tinkering even with the relatively low scroll count so far. And it's just going to get better, still Beta.
I very much recommend trying out Scrolls if you're into deep strategy games.
I very much recommend trying out Scrolls if you're into deep strategy games.
I'm surprised you think Scrolls is a deep strategy game. I've only sunk no more than 10 hours and I already see everyone with the same decks (3 factions, 3 decks). Not much room for different strategy since there are hardly any cards. Scroll's complexity isn't 'complex' - it's needlessly cumbersome and tiring - having to do consistent mathematics in your head isn't fun (for me anyway).
Hearthstone is way more complex simply due to the 9 (vs 3) classes.
Hearthstone is way more complex simply due to the 9 (vs 3) classes.
I have played it for around 2 months and still find new things to play, test and learn. The hex grid not only makes the game unique for a TCG, but also enables a lot of tough strategical decisions.
3 factions yes, a fourth on the way. 3 decks? No way! Decks evolve constantly and new ones pop up, some die out - seems very healthy for such a small, young game so far :)
Just my 2 cents and experience.
3 factions yes, a fourth on the way. 3 decks? No way! Decks evolve constantly and new ones pop up, some die out - seems very healthy for such a small, young game so far :)
Just my 2 cents and experience.
Quantity does not necessarily imply quality. In fact, some times, and especially with games, just the opposite. The world doesn't need any more POGs or Beanie Babies.
I think the fundamental principles behind release early, release often are sound. I doubt Minecraft would've been as big a success if it'd been released as a fait accompli. The continuous addition of new content is certainly what kept me coming back. In fact, the main reason I stopped playing was that my RSS feed stopped working, which made it seem like they'd halted development.
That said, I can imagine that Minecraft has set dauntingly high expectations for him. He wouldn't be the first to suffer under that pressure. Albert Einstein famously said that his years at the patent office were the happiest of his life, because no one expected him to lay golden eggs.
That said, I can imagine that Minecraft has set dauntingly high expectations for him. He wouldn't be the first to suffer under that pressure. Albert Einstein famously said that his years at the patent office were the happiest of his life, because no one expected him to lay golden eggs.
> That said, I can imagine that Minecraft has set dauntingly high expectations for him.
High expectations coupled with basically unlimited funding really is a problem. I see Notch as a highly creative (if unstructured) programmer and people like that usually do their best work when facing constraints.
High expectations coupled with basically unlimited funding really is a problem. I see Notch as a highly creative (if unstructured) programmer and people like that usually do their best work when facing constraints.
"Release early and release often" is not connected to "(iteratively) fleshing features out", though. I'm currently learning this, and while feeling weird, it's a very powerful way to release features very early, check back with users and then extend from there. This happens in some areas of minecraft, but on the other hand, there's vast areas where it doesn't happen and people aren't happy about it.
I think the approach taken by Notch is more like playing around with an idea to see if it works. The fact that he now runs a multi million dollar business doesnt seem to have changed this and its probably a good thing.
We all have unfinished/failed projects laying around somewhere..he has is just way more popular than most of us and has chosen to make his development efforts somewhat public, which might have been a mistake as he now realizes.
IMO, hes still building games with the right attitude. He plays around and tries to find a cool idea, just as he has done before.
IMO, hes still building games with the right attitude. He plays around and tries to find a cool idea, just as he has done before.
Unrelated, but on the matter of Minecraft mods; I really wish we had a nice modding API that didn't involve haphazardly de-compiling the Java byte-code to make changes.
However there is the community project forge, that gives you a nice API. Stop whining and make mods! ;) You just need to overcome the modding community that is 90% toddlers and assholes.
http://www.minecraftforge.net/forum/
http://www.minecraftforge.net/forum/
that STILL hasn't been introduced? I thought that had been promised literally years ago.
John Siracusa had a epic rant on that exact topic on ATP #25 ( http://atp.fm/ ). I myself was baffled to find out that modding involves unpacking a JAR file, overwriting .class files with modded ones and packing the whole thing back up. Disaster.
Why is this a disaster? My 10 year old son has been doing this for years without any problems. It has encouraged him to start poking around other game parts and learning lots in the process.
Edit: There are also many easy to use front ends for adding mods and working with different minecraft versions etc.
Edit: There are also many easy to use front ends for adding mods and working with different minecraft versions etc.
* Because you can only run one patch at a time.
* Because your patches only work against one version of the game.
* Because you are directly updating files, so both of the previous restrictions can easily be violated, which tends to cause a crash on startup.
The front-ends work around this lunacy by keeping multiple clean copies of the entire install, at multiple version levels, so that each mod can trash it on its own or use the version it needs.
* Because your patches only work against one version of the game.
* Because you are directly updating files, so both of the previous restrictions can easily be violated, which tends to cause a crash on startup.
The front-ends work around this lunacy by keeping multiple clean copies of the entire install, at multiple version levels, so that each mod can trash it on its own or use the version it needs.
Hell I'm baffled to find there's no server tools to automatically update a server (or even set it up to run autonomously). There's a bunch of hacked script files and screen... That's about it. Given The money they've made from this, it's a bit silly.
You'd be surprised; that's how most games server software works actually. For example, running a Source Dedicated Server works in exactly the same way (as does pretty much everything else). After years of dealing with that I did in fact eventually write a Web app that wraps servers like that and makes them Internet accessible. You can check it out here:https://github.com/lelandbatey/veiled
I had the pleasure of being a full time game server admin for about 4 years, running servers for Australia's biggest ISP. I still have the mental scars of dealing with game server software. The company I worked for built a wonderful tool for managing the servers called gamecreate: http://www.gamecreate.com/
There's no way I could have single handedly managed the 500+ game server instances with out something like that.
As an aside, if you've never had to deal with any of the CoD series servers count yourself very lucky. I think it was still a requirement for CoD3 that the windows dedicated server required directx installed..... just so it could show the splash screen.
There's no way I could have single handedly managed the 500+ game server instances with out something like that.
As an aside, if you've never had to deal with any of the CoD series servers count yourself very lucky. I think it was still a requirement for CoD3 that the windows dedicated server required directx installed..... just so it could show the splash screen.
Wow, that's just... I have no words for that. I thought the recent SteamCMD not playing nice with TTY's was bad, but just... whoa man.
Wow, great answers! I'll check these out, thanks.
That's not how modding works nowadays. See Forge, Bukkit and/or MCPC.
Indeed, the mods for Minecraft are great. The only problem is nobody made a mod to REMOVE things. I'd remove the End any time - it's just a pointless place that a very few very specific things use.
Disclosure: I also run a modded Minecraft server (with an easy-to-use launcher and many nifty features), if anyone cares.
Disclosure: I also run a modded Minecraft server (with an easy-to-use launcher and many nifty features), if anyone cares.
Why do you need a mod to remove features? Surely if you don't like them, you can just ignore them.
I am working on a Minecraft server; and I am finding myself removing things that go against the theme I am trying to build.
I'm aiming for western and a lot of the Magic and Dragons don't really fit with that.
There are reasons to want to remove features.
I'm aiming for western and a lot of the Magic and Dragons don't really fit with that.
There are reasons to want to remove features.
I guess I see where you're coming from with potions and enchanting, but you don't exactly just absentmindedly wander into the End.
Is it survival? I have yet to find a nice survival server.
With PvP or without?
I recommend 2b2t.org, as it is probably the best survival server out there.
It's a pvp-enabled anarchy server. Nobody can get banned for any reason whatsoever. The server is ~3 years old and the map has never been reset. What this means is that from spawn to about 5km away from spawn is desolate wasteland. You have to travel at least 10-20km out before you find areas that havent been burned down or still have regular trees. At about 30km from spawn, the chances of your base being discovered drop pretty fast, but most people keep their full blown bases at 100+km out, with advance bases 20ish km from spawn that they use as temp bases for raiding people near spawn.
There's pretty much two things you do on 2b2t after establishing a base - exploring to find other peoples bases, and raiding them. There's hundreds of bases that are plenty old, many of which still have loot in them, with new bases being created by new people every day. Here's a handful of pics I took of the spawn, some bases, and a few megaprojects I found: http://imgur.com/a/sGoRc#0
If you want minecraft 'survival' mode, you'll get it on this server. </endshill>
It's a pvp-enabled anarchy server. Nobody can get banned for any reason whatsoever. The server is ~3 years old and the map has never been reset. What this means is that from spawn to about 5km away from spawn is desolate wasteland. You have to travel at least 10-20km out before you find areas that havent been burned down or still have regular trees. At about 30km from spawn, the chances of your base being discovered drop pretty fast, but most people keep their full blown bases at 100+km out, with advance bases 20ish km from spawn that they use as temp bases for raiding people near spawn.
There's pretty much two things you do on 2b2t after establishing a base - exploring to find other peoples bases, and raiding them. There's hundreds of bases that are plenty old, many of which still have loot in them, with new bases being created by new people every day. Here's a handful of pics I took of the spawn, some bases, and a few megaprojects I found: http://imgur.com/a/sGoRc#0
If you want minecraft 'survival' mode, you'll get it on this server. </endshill>
This sounds like my kind of server. I love this idea - see what happens when no rules of any kind are set up. A kind of "hands off" deist approach.
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I think he prefers it the exact same way. It's just not natural for him (and most people) to say nothing when someone asks him what he's working on. Even if it's just some small hacked together game he's still going to be honest. Most developers love showing off what they're working on no matter what it is because there's usually no downside. Due to his popularity, people go out and start telling everyone that Notch is working on this new super awesome game even though Notch is just fooling around with an idea.
I think this happening wasn't wholly unexpected, and probably a good move for Notch's mental health.
0x10c kind of arose out of the haze following Minecraft's popularity explosion (For reference, it was announced on 3/31/12, a month before the XBox 360 version of Minecraft came out). Since then, a lot of things have happened to Persson and the people around him, both personal and relating to games, and he's had some time to acclimate. If he's like most people, Notch's head would be in a fundamentally different place now than it was at the time 0x10c's core ideas were fleshed out, and it's really hard to improve and expand a game you're working on alone when so much has happened.
The community's response is really interesting! Judging by what the article said ("The community will not use Persson's code, story or even the game's title"), the only thing they're really keeping is the game's environment and its core ideas (which are really cool! You have a space ship with a user-programmable computer, and a big open world, EVE-style!). I wonder how much of what is said about the project's organization is spin, though, because "several departments" sounds uncharacteristic of that community (or any smaller open source project, really), especially given the loose, idividual-oriented nature of other notch-related projects (things like the Catacomb Snatch remake[1] and the very splintered Minecraft modding community)
[1]http://catacombsnatch.net/
The community's response is really interesting! Judging by what the article said ("The community will not use Persson's code, story or even the game's title"), the only thing they're really keeping is the game's environment and its core ideas (which are really cool! You have a space ship with a user-programmable computer, and a big open world, EVE-style!). I wonder how much of what is said about the project's organization is spin, though, because "several departments" sounds uncharacteristic of that community (or any smaller open source project, really), especially given the loose, idividual-oriented nature of other notch-related projects (things like the Catacomb Snatch remake[1] and the very splintered Minecraft modding community)
[1]http://catacombsnatch.net/
Minecraft was making obscene amounts of money well before the xbox release. (Something like 100k a day in 2010, according to a quick google.)
The reason there is such a large number of people involved in the community version is because of the game's nature - there were a large amount of highly interested programmers in the r/0x10c subreddit, so when someone proposed the idea of a community version, a huge amount of people offered to help.
Of course, about 90% of those will probably drop off in the near future, but I reckon that they'll have enough of a development team left afterwards to go through with it.
Of course, about 90% of those will probably drop off in the near future, but I reckon that they'll have enough of a development team left afterwards to go through with it.
Having watched the discussion around 0x10^c for the past year, it's hilarious to see all the comments (reddit, twitter, etc) where people seem to think it would help if Mojang just hired a large team to "pick up the pace". Notch was struggling to make the creative vision coherent - throwing manpower on the problem to "just start implementing it" would just have locked down the incoherencies and made the project unsalvageable.
Given how seemingly intolerable the pressure on this game has been, it makes sense to just drop it. Maybe once the thing cools down and no-one is watching, he'll become motivated to work on it in quiet.
Which leads naturally to some wild speculation: If I were Notch, and just got some renewed motivation to develop the game, I would have just told everyone "I have stopped - project's dead" so I could work on it in peace.
Given how seemingly intolerable the pressure on this game has been, it makes sense to just drop it. Maybe once the thing cools down and no-one is watching, he'll become motivated to work on it in quiet.
Which leads naturally to some wild speculation: If I were Notch, and just got some renewed motivation to develop the game, I would have just told everyone "I have stopped - project's dead" so I could work on it in peace.
> If I were Notch, and just got some renewed motivation to develop the game, I would have just told everyone "I have stopped - project's dead" so I could work on it in peace.
You might be correct that he's succumbing to the pressure. However, I don't think that'd have the affect you're after. At least not in the short term. Announcements like that don't bring peace and quiet when you've already got a bunch of kids in the back seat screaming "are we there yet?"
You might be correct that he's succumbing to the pressure. However, I don't think that'd have the affect you're after. At least not in the short term. Announcements like that don't bring peace and quiet when you've already got a bunch of kids in the back seat screaming "are we there yet?"
By hiring large team they might have accidentally hire someone who would pick up the vision and carry it further. Who knows, maybe Notch would join back in if he saw someone expanding on his idea and making things happen.
I think I abandoned a lot of projects because no one shared my passion for them to the point of actually owning and developing parts of them. If no one cares enough about the idea to work on it then maybe I also shouldn't.
I think I abandoned a lot of projects because no one shared my passion for them to the point of actually owning and developing parts of them. If no one cares enough about the idea to work on it then maybe I also shouldn't.
By hiring large team they might have accidentally hire someone who would pick up the vision and carry it further.
Please don't use this hiring advice.
Please don't use this hiring advice.
Heh. It wasn't intended as such. Just an observation what might happen if you have too much money, not enough ideas about what to focus on and you start hiring awesome people.
This makes me sad, because I was really excited for that game. I even wrote a small QuickBASIC to DCPU-Assembly compiler with Go [1] for it, which was a nice Go learning project for me.
I hope that someone will pick up this great idea and build a similar game, where programming is a first citizen and you can do crazy stuff that was planned for 0x10c like programming your own spaceship, sharing code with others on floppy discs, and so on.
[1] https://github.com/M4v3R/DCPU-Bas
I hope that someone will pick up this great idea and build a similar game, where programming is a first citizen and you can do crazy stuff that was planned for 0x10c like programming your own spaceship, sharing code with others on floppy discs, and so on.
[1] https://github.com/M4v3R/DCPU-Bas
I think the DCPU16-stuff can be reused in other games
> was put on hold indefinitely last week
This article is entirely false. The game has been put on holds for a year or so. More than 6 months ago people already knew that Notch gave up. No news here.
edit :
also if anyone is interested in the genre, it has been posted many times on /r/0x10c : check the game "Starmade". It's almost what Notch wanted to do, without the computer part.
This article is entirely false. The game has been put on holds for a year or so. More than 6 months ago people already knew that Notch gave up. No news here.
edit :
also if anyone is interested in the genre, it has been posted many times on /r/0x10c : check the game "Starmade". It's almost what Notch wanted to do, without the computer part.
> More than 6 months ago people already knew that Notch gave up.
I don't know about "people," but I certainly didn't know it. I was just checking the website http://0x10c.com as recently as a few weeks ago.
I don't know about "people," but I certainly didn't know it. I was just checking the website http://0x10c.com as recently as a few weeks ago.
I'm talking about /r/0x10c
Also check out Rodina: http://elliptic-games.com
I left my startup last year. I didn't sell it, but had saved enough money to last me 3-5 years. It's enough to make me feel free to work on whatever is important to me.
One of the unintuitive things I have struggled with is that now that I can do anything, I have a hard time choosing to invest time in something unless it feels like "the one" project. It has to be so important it was worth saving so hard and leaving my startup. So the bar is much higher for what I spend my time on. I realize this feeling is stupid, but it doesn't stop me from having it.
I bet being wealthy and having a huge hit feels similar. Notch probably feels MORE like giving up on any given project because he second guesses himself. Since he can work on anything, it HAS to be amazing, or why else would he choose it when he can choose anything?
One of the unintuitive things I have struggled with is that now that I can do anything, I have a hard time choosing to invest time in something unless it feels like "the one" project. It has to be so important it was worth saving so hard and leaving my startup. So the bar is much higher for what I spend my time on. I realize this feeling is stupid, but it doesn't stop me from having it.
I bet being wealthy and having a huge hit feels similar. Notch probably feels MORE like giving up on any given project because he second guesses himself. Since he can work on anything, it HAS to be amazing, or why else would he choose it when he can choose anything?
> One of the unintuitive things I have struggled with is that now that I can do anything, I have a hard time choosing to invest time in something
Thing is, when one can choose between a lot of things, all of which seem awesome, one tends to be unable to choose (or choose all of the things and do everything half-assed or not finish anything). Human trait.
Thing is, when one can choose between a lot of things, all of which seem awesome, one tends to be unable to choose (or choose all of the things and do everything half-assed or not finish anything). Human trait.
The community-based clone's website is http://trillek.org
Really, it should have been linked in the article...
Really, it should have been linked in the article...
After skimming the forums, I am slightly worried. They are establishing the management tree and throwing endless ideas at a wall. I hope they actually release something, because I like the concept. But, they are also starting from, almost, scratch.
https://github.com/trillek-team
https://github.com/trillek-team
I would say that establishing a management tree makes semi-sense, since they seem to have a bunch more people working on it from the get-go that you'd usually have. In that case, I can see why they'd want to arrange who's working on what.
There's something I call manic-depressive programmer syndrome. It used to occur infrequently, but -- I think -- because tools have gotten so much better (everything from the quality and speed of compilers and class libraries to the speed of hardware) it's becoming more common. We get a fantastic 1.0 product that never gets followed up. At best you see bug fixes and updates, but the extraordinarily promising core never gets expanded.
I'll cite some examples:
* TextMate
* Silo 3D
* The Hit List
* Hypercard
Each of these is characterized by being developed by a very small team (sometimes one person), being extraordinarily impressive out of the starting gate, and never developing to its full potential.
I'll cite some examples:
* TextMate
* Silo 3D
* The Hit List
* Hypercard
Each of these is characterized by being developed by a very small team (sometimes one person), being extraordinarily impressive out of the starting gate, and never developing to its full potential.
"The Second System Effect" is at play in at least some of these cases.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-system_effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-system_effect
Meh, I feel like I got more than my money's worth from minecraft. Notch doesn't owe anyone 0x10c. AFAIK, no pre-payments were made.
Lots of comments here about the stick-to-it-iveness of Notch. I bet it was shaping up to just not be terribly fun.
Sometimes that happens with a game and no amount of tweaking the mechanics can push it over that hump, the foundational idea was just flawed.
Sometimes that happens with a game and no amount of tweaking the mechanics can push it over that hump, the foundational idea was just flawed.
He didn't think the game was fun so he stopped developing it. This sounds like something a lot of game development companies out there could learn from.
I wonder if the obsessive focus fans developed on writing ASM, to the exclusion of almost any game mechanics, might have something to do with that
This was kind of expected IMHO. Notch has had a helluva lot of stuff happening in his life.
It was fun whilst it lasted though. Check out my DCPU13 in PHP https://github.com/jbrooksuk/DCPU16
It was fun whilst it lasted though. Check out my DCPU13 in PHP https://github.com/jbrooksuk/DCPU16
I've been following the development of Rodina[1], which is a similar game except that it uses Lua instead of a DCPU, and has made decent progress in the past year. It will also follow a release early, release often way of working, with the first release by the end of this year. I'm far more excited about Rodina that I ever was about 0x10c.
[1] http://elliptic-games.com/
[1] http://elliptic-games.com/
I'm personally more excited about Elite: Dangerous. http://elite.frontier.co.uk by David Braben (from Raspberry Pi)
It will have a scientifically based galaxy with rotating an orbiting planets which I think is very important in a space game like this, it also features a mass multi-player dynamic galaxy.
It's shaping up nicely as you can see from the newsletters http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/home/?u=dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21...
and youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/FrontierDevelopments/videos
It will have a scientifically based galaxy with rotating an orbiting planets which I think is very important in a space game like this, it also features a mass multi-player dynamic galaxy.
It's shaping up nicely as you can see from the newsletters http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/home/?u=dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21...
and youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/FrontierDevelopments/videos
You mean Elite 4, the game he's been promising to deliver for over a decade? :)
That's E:D sorted ... I hear that the Star Citizen fanboys are quite rabbid and sure to turn up shortly. Brace for impact!
looks nervous
That's E:D sorted ... I hear that the Star Citizen fanboys are quite rabbid and sure to turn up shortly. Brace for impact!
looks nervous
They had a successful kickstarter campaign http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1461411552/elite-dangero...
It also has a solid release date set for March 2014 and they are right on schedule, alpha testing will start this December.
It's not as if he can now run away with the money and postpone it for another decade.
It also has a solid release date set for March 2014 and they are right on schedule, alpha testing will start this December.
It's not as if he can now run away with the money and postpone it for another decade.
No, but he's bit off more than he can chew I think.
Also, Star Citizen - using CryEngine and non procedural systems. snigger
This, gentlemen is why there are no good space games out there.
Also, Star Citizen - using CryEngine and non procedural systems. snigger
This, gentlemen is why there are no good space games out there.
+1 for the great choide of title. The article is actually about the community taking over development, which is not really proven 1 week after starting the idea. It's not like cataclysm (a zombie rogue-like) where the developer built a running program and a community around that peace of software and now they finished a Kickstarter and developed the program some recognizable steps ahead. After a week of forming a new team it's not even clear if the team itself will hold up.
He created a masterpiece for today's younger generation - what the c64, 2e and trs80 did for others. An engine for building creative thinkers in today's locked down digital architectures.
It's the experiencing exploring that's important not the artifact. That's not on ice.
It's the experiencing exploring that's important not the artifact. That's not on ice.
People lose interest in their projects all the time, the only difference here is the hype that surrounded this one.
Am I the only one who reads it as "Zero Existence"?
Hint: before complaining do what Notch accomplished with Minecraft.
That said, I'm sorry too about the news because I was really excited about the 0x10c plot / idea.
That said, I'm sorry too about the news because I was really excited about the 0x10c plot / idea.
Anyone else completely forget about 0x10c? I thought it was cool, but it's been so long that I'm not even bothered.
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I first felt this when I played Minecraft; with successive patches and new added elements, it always felt as if Notch had had an idea, and gone to implement it, and then never bothered to flesh it out or work out the kinks. The Nether and portal system was pretty sorry at release, with basically nothing to do in the nether; rails and carts were always minimal given the possibilities as well as having various non-obvious mechanics that were somewhat frustrating; and so on. I feel you can really see this with the help of the modding community, where often a poorly implemented idea like villages or what not is decently fleshed out by someone who had a strong interest in it.
After Notch stopped working on Minecraft, and even before, there was talk of Scrolls, and the suit with Bethesda; after some time, that sorta fell by the wayside, was eventually handed off to the rest of Mojang, and Notch went to work on 0x10c. And now that, too, has been left in incomplete form.
I dunno whether its a matter of expectations, where the massive fan responses he gets damages his creativity, or if he just loses interest in projects (I have no lack of half-completed works laying around myself) but at this point I'd rather hear about a new project when its close to completion or released, rather than as he develops it.