Minecraft sold to Microsoft.

[Nitus]

Given that there's nothing actually wrong with Minecraft at the moment, I don't see the point in switching to clones.  Terasology, Minetest, TUG, you name it, they all have significant performance problems that need to be ironed out.  Ironically, so does Minecraft 1.8, but even with its problems it's still the much better choice.  Especially for modding.

I'm not sure... I mean, switching to clones would bring more attention to them, therefore giving them more resources, maybe even volunteer coders. More resources and coders means better performance. Better performance means a better game. 

 

 

(Disclaimer: The words here written may or may not be true. I'm famous for spouting quality bullshit, which is basically bullshit that makes it seem like I know what the fuck I'm talking about.)

[FyberOptic]

I'm not sure... I mean, switching to clones would bring more attention to them, therefore giving them more resources, maybe even volunteer coders. More resources and coders means better performance. Better performance means a better game. 

 

I'm not going to disagree entirely.  I'll also point out that Terasology appears to have a really great modular design.  It's also in Java which is familiar territory for modders.  It's just a shame that no matter how low I turn the settings, it still runs poorly for me.  If I ever delved into its code, the first thing I'd do is rip out the fancy lighting and shadows.  A voxel engine is resource-intensive enough without visual fluff.  We need all the resources we can get for when complex mods are running.  

 

Where I'll disagree with you slightly is splitting up the community.  Whether that's forks or clones, it tends to result in no concentrated effort in any particular direction, leading to a lot of mediocrity.  

[Neowulf]

Any talk of replacing minecraft is academic at this point. We don't know what the future brings, just that an event happened that is closely associated with unknowns and is therefor scary.

 

Luckily academic discussions are quite stimulating and promote learning, which you should never stop doing.

 

 

 

Each of the clones has some good points and bad points, and if we have to move to one to fill the virtual legos gap left by MS eating MC then we can decide what has the easiest to fix flaws.

I know minetest has the LUA modding api going for it (tons of computercraft/opencomputers users would be able to write mods/plugins for it, already knowing the programming language), but on the other hand the C++ core does pose some cross platform concerns. Mainly the possibility of the maintainers having a platform bias.

Terasology looks cool and the java focus does keep it platform independent, but those visuals do look really hard on the old graphics card and apparently the modding api is lacking from what I see.

Others I haven't seen yet, but I suspect most are like terasology, exercises in making a "better" minecraft without taking the possible users into account.

[disconsented]

At this point we cannot possibly know whats going to happen. So until the dust settles I am going to get some popcorn

[FyberOptic]

I know minetest has the LUA modding api going for it (tons of computercraft/opencomputers users would be able to write mods/plugins for it, already knowing the programming language), but on the other hand the C++ core does pose some cross platform concerns. 

 

From the game developer's point of view, using Lua is smart.  It abstracts the game in a way that they have full control over what functionality they choose to expose, they can easily release more functionality into the API as time goes on, and mods are sandboxed and can be limited to any degree, which both reduces the possibility of malware and instability to virtually nonexistent.  

 

From the modder's point of view, though, this is like wanting to write a book, but most of it is already written by someone else, and you're given a template from where you can only add or change certain words and paragraphs.  For some people that might be fine.  But other people want to be able to add or change entire chapters because they have a different story to tell.  The template is only a hindrance for them, possibly enough so to not even bother, or to at least end up with something far less good than they planned.

 

I personally feel that going from modding Minecraft down to its core to being restricted into a scripting language is just not an acceptable alternative.  Lua is good for a lot of things, with ComputerCraft being a perfect example of it being used to its potential.  But using it as a game's sole API is just not very enticing for an existing Minecraft modder in my opinion.  That's why TUG gets marked off of my list immediately.  Minetest still has potential because it's open-source and the API can at least be expanded by others, or mods could be written in native code, despite the cross-platform issues that introduces.  Meanwhile, Terasology is not only already in Java, but is designed to be modded fairly directly, the way we're already used to with Minecraft.  It even comes with the ASM library, which is the basis for low-level class transformation like the way coremods work in Forge.  Whoever the dev is seems to know what modders are looking for.

 

But I still end up coming short of promoting any of these as alternatives due to the performance, unfortunately.  But I have a feeling there's other clones out there that I just haven't heard of.

Edited September 17, 2014 by FyberOptic

[Dentcat]

It isn't about the people. It isn't about the clones. It's not about the DLC. It is about our last bastion of hope in this world reduced to nothing but yet another corporate pawn. Don't stress the future of Minecraft. Accept the loss of freedom, the memories of hope, the heartwarming story of the billion dollar indie company. It's all gone. All faded into the black void of corporate warfare. Do not mourn the loss of our expressionism, instead, try to understand what all this means. Nothing good can come of this, and, whatever your thoughts, especially the hopeful, you must learn to accept the overbearingness of truth. We have to live with all that this hateful, uncaring world forces us to live through.

[disconsented]

It isn't about the people. It isn't about the clones. It's not about the DLC. It is about our last bastion of hope in this world reduced to nothing but yet another corporate pawn. Don't stress the future of Minecraft. Accept the loss of freedom, the memories of hope, the heartwarming story of the billion dollar indie company. It's all gone. All faded into the black void of corporate warfare. Do not mourn the loss of our expressionism, instead, try to understand what all this means. Nothing good can come of this, and, whatever your thoughts, especially the hopeful, you must learn to accept the overbearingness of truth. We have to live with all that this hateful, uncaring world forces us to live through.

You are completely jumping the gun here.

[Dentcat]

You are completely jumping the gun here.

Am I really? All good things must die. This is because they are not perfect. It is how the world the world works. Look around you, all imperfections lead to destruction.

[Munaus]

Am I really? All good things must die. This is because they are not perfect. It is how the world the world works. Look around you, all imperfections lead to destruction.

ugh, grow up and stop being such a drama queen. Life didn't seize to exist because of MC being sold out. I haven't even played the game that frequently.

And Technic will still be around, it's grown beyond MC thanks to the platform

[Melfice]

Am I really? All good things must die. This is because they are not perfect. It is how the world the world works. Look around you, all imperfections lead to destruction.

 

You are being pessimistic.

 

An ancient but rotten tree falls. It was, after time, imperfect and got destroyed.

Giving room for new saplings to rise up, and mushrooms and moss to flourish. And even giving shelter to young animals.

[FyberOptic]

If you want to apply some kind of moral struggle to this entire situation, then I think people should look less at corporations consuming things, and more at the distasteful amount of entitlement and greed which turns something as trivial as the Minecraft server prompting you to accept a EULA that hadn't changed in ages into an unfathomable shitstorm of misinformation and misdirected hate towards a single man who quite literally changed all of our lives with his creation.  This is why I don't blame Notch; I would be more inclined to blame every asshole who yelled at him that he was "killing servers" and every greedy server operator who riled these people up into thinking it.  Microsoft buying Mojang was merely a side effect of the community's actions.  Especially since this is far from the first time we've seen it happen.

 

Anyway, what's done is done.  Now we make the best of it.

 

I mostly came back to mention that I was a bit wrong in regards to Minetest's Lua interface, which is both good and bad.  The good part is that they're not just exposing some functionality through it, they actually designed the entire game around its content being scripted.  All of the blocks and items are done through this interface apparently, which makes it far more moddable at least in regards to content.  You still can't change fundamental ways the engine works through this, but, it is still open-source, after all.  Cross-platform issues aside, the ability to mod it this much is interesting.

 

The downside to this though is that I believe this is a big part of why the game has performance issues, because a game of this sort has quite a lot of content and has reason to call these scripts often for various in-game events.  So it can't be good for performance long-term.  

[Nitus]

If you want to apply some kind of moral struggle to this entire situation, then I think people should look less at corporations consuming things, and more at the distasteful amount of entitlement and greed which turns something as trivial as the Minecraft server prompting you to accept a EULA that hadn't changed in ages into an unfathomable shitstorm of misinformation and misdirected hate towards a single man who quite literally changed all of our lives with his creation.  This is why I don't blame Notch; I would be more inclined to blame every asshole who yelled at him that he was "killing servers" and every greedy server operator who riled these people up into thinking it.  Microsoft buying Mojang was merely a side effect of the community's actions.  Especially since this is far from the first time we've seen it happen.

 

Anyway, what's done is done.  Now we make the best of it.

 

I mostly came back to mention that I was a bit wrong in regards to Minetest's Lua interface, which is both good and bad.  The good part is that they're not just exposing some functionality through it, they actually designed the entire game around its content being scripted.  All of the blocks and items are done through this interface apparently, which makes it far more moddable at least in regards to content.  You still can't change fundamental ways the engine works through this, but, it is still open-source, after all.  Cross-platform issues aside, the ability to mod it this much is interesting.

 

The downside to this though is that I believe this is a big part of why the game has performance issues, because a game of this sort has quite a lot of content and has reason to call these scripts often for various in-game events.  So it can't be good for performance long-term.  

What about the servers that needed the income from the users? Are you telling me that the new EULA wouldn't kill them off? A lot of people simply didn't have the income to support the servers all by themselves, so they used this as a way to keep the server running. That isn't to say that I only blame Notch, because I blame him as much as I blame the stupid parents that gave the kids they credit card info, I mean why the fuck would you do that?

[FyberOptic]

What about the servers that needed the income from the users? Are you telling me that the new EULA wouldn't kill them off? A lot of people simply didn't have the income to support the servers all by themselves, so they used this as a way to keep the server running. That isn't to say that I only blame Notch, because I blame him as much as I blame the stupid parents that gave the kids they credit card info, I mean why the fuck would you do that?

 

You mean the servers which were given a clear list of officially sanctioned ways that they were allowed to make money with Mojang's property?  Which still made people mad, and still got Notch yelled at?

 

I don't have a lot of sympathy for failed business models designed around someone else's work.

[Neowulf]

I mostly came back to mention that I was a bit wrong in regards to Minetest's Lua interface, which is both good and bad.  The good part is that they're not just exposing some functionality through it, they actually designed the entire game around its content being scripted.  All of the blocks and items are done through this interface apparently, which makes it far more moddable at least in regards to content.  You still can't change fundamental ways the engine works through this, but, it is still open-source, after all.  Cross-platform issues aside, the ability to mod it this much is interesting.

 

The downside to this though is that I believe this is a big part of why the game has performance issues, because a game of this sort has quite a lot of content and has reason to call these scripts often for various in-game events.  So it can't be good for performance long-term.

See that's what we'd have to really debate on when it came down to it.

Minetest is more accessible modding wise, but that extra level of abstraction would limit the possible audience with the extra power requirements.

One HUGE benefit would be modding wouldn't be limited to the "chosen few" as it is in minecraft. No more flowerchildren with overinflated egos because they can do something most can't/won't.

 

Terasology's modding interface is much better than minecraft and without the extra abstraction of the LUA interpreter it would run much betetr (especially once someone mods in sane simple shaders), but it still relies on modders knowing java.

 

 

So many points to consider, and we don't even know if it's going to be necessary.

Though the whole game branching out is still a good idea, even if we stick with minecraft. Like KSP.

[EvilOwl]

Some time ago one spoiled kid paid to a greedy server admin some money to be whitelisted, when the parents found out they turned to... Notch.

 

This is how it all started. Butterfly effect. Now look everyone where it got us.

If Technicpack depends on vanilla and vanilla depends on millions copies of the game sold to... spoiled kids... There's no other future than this what's happening now.

 

P.S. My cousin regularly spends his pocket money money on XP levels on some online gaming server (not Minecraft) from online 'friends'... His mother doesn't know anything about it... I'll bet this is not allowed in the EULA of this game.

Edited September 18, 2014 by bochen415

[Nitus]

So, looks like monetizing is A okay. Now we just need to know about Modding and everything is cool. Shame really, this is proving to be excellent entertainment.

[EvilOwl]

If the Minecraft/Microsoft drama will be over I can do a Modding News topic if anyone is interested. Suggestions?

 

Edit: Facts only.

If someone wants drama here you go.

Edited September 19, 2014 by bochen415

[Nitus]

If the Minecraft/Microsoft drama will be over I can do a Modding News topic if anyone is interested. Suggestions?

Modding drama is the best kind of drama so if you find any, publish it! My...I'd say soul but I lost that a while ago, so I'll simply say, my body, it requires it! 

[EvilOwl]

OK. A little drama I can go with. How much drama is OK with the mods?

 

Which one is better?

 

XCompWiz is charging money for the new Mystcraft version.

 

or

 

XCompWiz is testing new Mystcraft version.

[Nitus]

OK. A little drama I can go with. How much drama is OK with the mods?

 

Which one is better?

 

XCompWiz is charging money for the new Mystcraft version.

 

or

 

XCompWiz is testing new Mystcraft version.

Both are ok, and the two can lead to a very interesting discussion. But I was expecting you to actually create a different thread, and not use this one...

[EvilOwl]

It's happening now... This was just an example Give me some time dig out some trash

 

Edit: Done.

Edited September 19, 2014 by bochen415

[FyberOptic]

If the Minecraft/Microsoft drama will be over I can do a Modding News topic if anyone is interested. Suggestions?

 

Edit: Facts only.

If someone wants drama here you go.

 

Speaking of drama, I thought Asie quit modding and shut down the drama generator after Microsoft bought it?

[EvilOwl]

Speaking of drama, I thought Asie quit modding and shut down the drama generator after Microsoft bought it?

 

He did.

 

Psssst: click on the 'Nope, no more tries. It's over.'

[ThePagan]

Really hope Microsoft switches to cubic chunks.

Edited September 21, 2014 by ThePagan

[Kalbintion]

@ThePagan - I hope you realize until the deal has been completely finished off and they know what they want to do, the devs of Minecraft will still be the employees of Mojang. Microsoft probably wont touch the core group of devs unless one of them wants to leave or be moved elsewhere. The "worst" case scenario is that they will bring in additional devs to help Minecrafts development along.