Are you happy with Notch's development of Minecraft?

wayhey

I'm not making this thread so it can descend into "omfg notch is so lazy!oneoneone..."

But I have to say I've gotten really disappointed with Notch lately. I couldn't wait to turn on Minecraft to see the Seecret Friday update in the Alpha days and even if it was something small at least it was something.

I think his development has a lost a bit of direction lately. As soon as I saw posts on his blog about achievements and eating food and a "hunger system" I became disappointed. Hardly revolutionary features? I do appreciate that Minecraft is only in Beta- but I'm finding I get more excited about mods than Notch's actual updates; I think that a lot of the time they haven't been thought through very effectively and trashed out for weaknesses.

Thoughts/opinions?

Linkus

For the most part, he seems to be adding in pretty simple things that mods have already done, and surpassed.

Niallwithaz

I agree op. It appears that Notch and the development team are after getting lazy about development and adding cool new features to the game and it's disappointing. It feels like in order to enjoy the game to the full you have to go and install mods. People that are making these mods are doing it for the community not money and what they are producing is far better then what has been coming out of mojang lately.

Shiminay

This is why games companies don't really publicise what they're doing in the way Notch and Mojang has

If any of you have ever been involved in a serious software development project, you'll know that you work on the core first and that'll take 80% of the time to get right. Then you add the bells and whistles that you'd always intended or that you thought of along the way. For some time Notch has alluded to Minecraft as having RPG elements. The core of the game wasn't stable enough for him to go work on them though and so others took up the job with the mods etc. However, every time the game got updated, all those mods broke and had to be fixed again which is why you leave that sort of development till closer to the end of the project.

hare05

+1 Shim,

90% of games projects (Free or commercial) that bite off more than they can chew die painfully.

Take a look at ModDB and the huge number of big projects on the site, then look at the timescale for each.

The only ones to ever reach completion are the ones that either cut all the ancillary crap until the base code is stable (Frozen Synapse), or they spend 7 years on it (The Nameless Mod), or they spend several years on it, add too much too soon, and have to scrap half the game for a release (S.T.A.L.K.E.R).

It doesn't help that Minecraft is being built in a language just not suited to large games, and by people who are relatively inexperienced developers. I've heard that the source will make your eyes bleed :pac:

Rome wasn't built in a day. Romantown either (That took about a week). :P

wayhey

I understand completely that Minecraft is very young and that it is still in Beta. I don't expect Notch to unveil elaborate, exciting updates every week.

I admit that I wish Mojang's development speed could be a little faster. My main issue however is with the content as it stands and the direction that Notch is taking Minecraft in. I can understand the need to have a stable "core" game- but there are, I feel, features of the game that have been consistently overlooked for too long and that ought to be changed, never mind adding such a barely-noticeable feature such as tameable wolves.

AirBiscuit

I don't give a ****. As long as they don't do a "Duke Nukem forever" releasing the full version, I'll be fine with whatever progress is made.

Cossax

character wrote: »

This is the most interesting gaming story I've read in ages...http://shaolinsybarite.wordpress.com/2011/07/26/chain-world/

Tallon (I think) discovered that before, there was talk of people doing it as a chain game but no idea if that ever happened.