Minecraft [1.7.2/4?]

[Crowbar Man]

You play on lots of vanilla servers? Most servers are running Hey0 or SimpleServer, etc.

[Gollgagh]

I run my own vanilla

unmod runs on vanilla

I am well established in both

yes, I play a fair amount of vanilla SMP

[M W]

While I see the rationale for wanting to play on vanilla Minecraft servers, my guess is everyone will need to use a mod of some sort for some reason.

An example on the Minecraft sever I use: We wanted Minecarts once we heard they were working, but problems arose on days when people had connection issues. We had to use HMod and Craftbook to make the railways have auto-prepel properties so that people wouldn't need to use powered minecarts that - given one moment of lag - would leave your position on the train chain behind. The modding helped us compensate for server issues we couldn't control.

... granted, always going at 200% speed is a little excessive, but eh.

Edited December 14, 2010 by M W

[Gollgagh]

I'll grant that other servers may need them to compensate, but I've had great luck with stuff so I'm pretty happy.

[K.B.]

"future versions"

This means what, exactly?

Yes, I read the above, but apparently the facebook post says expansions included, yet RD says (in clarification) no expansion packs (or dlc). I'm inclinded to believe the author as well as The Author, and I'm also not much of a computer gamer due to restrictions (and thusly might be missing the obvious meaning to the terminology), so I don't know how to correctly interpret what has been said.

I'm asking because I was intrigued enough by the videos I've seen to buy the game now - to be playable whenever I finally buy a new computer - but it would have to be because the "future versions" would be something I would want. IOW: five (ten now, actually) euros in savings isn't in itself a big deal, but this future versions thing sounds like it could save a buttload more in content I would want. Or, says the better (cynical) part of me, it's nothing more than scare tactics as the devs, for whatever reason, need funding now rather than later. But again, I really don't know how to interpret this, so any clarification would be appreciated.

[M W]

One thing I imagine the modding community will do is make new worldgen properties to make some more fantastical landscapes and climates. There's already plenty of physics within that would allow for it. Right now, we're working on making an ice fantasia by placing watertiles airborne and using admin commands to autogenerate snow. Similar tower structures can be made using lava and drenching it with water from tall heights. Add in a few mossy cobblestones and you'll have something that looks like a long-forgotten civilization with relatively little effort.

Another thing I'll bet on is the modded addition of selective floating physics in water. This way, if you add in a steering wheel object and have whatever it's attached to define itself as a floating object, then SMP servers can easily make working pirate ships.

[HalcyonSpirit]

"future versions"

This means what, exactly?

Yes, I read the above, but apparently the facebook post says expansions included, yet RD says (in clarification) no expansion packs (or dlc). I'm inclinded to believe the author as well as The Author, and I'm also not much of a computer gamer due to restrictions (and thusly might be missing the obvious meaning to the terminology), so I don't know how to correctly interpret what has been said.

It's simple. The game is in Alpha development right now, but it will be switching to Beta development on the 20th. If you buy it now, while it's in Alpha, you get EVERYTHING that could possibly be released in the future for free. You will not be charged for the "completed release" version of the game, and any big content expansions will be free of charge for you. If you buy it after it switches to Beta, you will still get the "completed release" version of the game for free, but anything after that, aside from bug fixes and small content additions, will require payment. (EDIT: well, may is probably more accurate, Notch hasn't indicated that he will charge for future content. This is mostly legal ass-covering right now, according to him.)

Notch has not given any reason to believe there will be large content expansions in the future, so right now the only real reason to buy now instead of after it goes into Beta is the lower price. But it also gives you the security of free expansion content should it ever occur, so I would buy it now anyway.

Edited December 14, 2010 by HalcyonSpirit

[Crowbar Man]

vanilla actually just lost /home (and /spawn?), so unless you're an admin, all you have for commands are: /me, /tell, and /kill (yourself)

Not even a playerlist, so you have no idea whos online

and theres player and op. No groups with different priveledges, no whitelists. You can ban people but thats it

And currently, unless he magically makes a fully functioning API in a few weeks before Beta (lol), theres no way to officially mod vanilla.

Not exactly a rich feature set, but whatever floats your boat. Doesn't sound that great to me, especially on a product thats entering Beta phase

Edited December 14, 2010 by Crowbar Man

[Brithor]

I also prefer playing vanilla SMP. I can get by with the limitations, they're bound to be fixed at some point.

Edited December 14, 2010 by Brithor

[Gollgagh]

vanilla actually just lost /home (and /spawn?)

See, I'm the kind of person that enjoys roguelikes, so I see this as a good thing.

[Crowbar Man]

You may, but many do not.

I think you are missing the point, this isn't by design (in fact, removing /home i think is his idea of a bugfix), its just unfinished/broken. Features are planned, they just aren't there. If you want to force the game to be simpler, you have a CHOICE with server mods (you can disable any command you dont like).

You want to have ANY real options for your server, you have to use a 3rd party hack. And this product is entering Beta.

Edited December 14, 2010 by Crowbar Man

[The Author]

Dude, the game is way more than ready for beta.

/home and /spawn? Not there in single player, because that's how the game is supposed to work. He removed it in multi most likely because it was causing some issues. Teleporting is actually hard on the game and on the server load and might have been the source of some memory issues.

Content wise (what Alpha is about) the game is there except for 1 thing: the nether. And I think what's holding the nether back is simply because the server would have to manage 2 maps at once and that's a bit of a problem.

But I guess being a whiny baby works too.

[phill]

Dude, the game is way more than ready for beta.

/home and /spawn? Not there in single player, because that's how the game is supposed to work. He removed it in multi most likely because it was causing some issues. Teleporting is actually hard on the game and on the server load and might have been the source of some memory issues.

Content wise (what Alpha is about) the game is there except for 1 thing: the nether. And I think what's holding the nether back is simply because the server would have to manage 2 maps at once and that's a bit of a problem.

But I guess being a whiny baby works too.

....are you saying that a games multi-player should work just like single-player? because that's all sorts of stupid right there. As for teleporting being hard on the server, true, but so is logging on, re-spawning after you die, walking into a new chunk, or playing in general. Removing /home is just a stop gap measure, one way of hiding the problem that doesn't require fixing it.

[Ferret]

I noticed that every so often foliage will disappear when you destroy the top log of a tree...but it doesn't always happen. Game feature or server glitch?

[Schwaltzvald]

So I haven't been on as of late due to recently finding joy in playing spy seriously for once... Has the server fixed the lag issue or is it still hammering it..?

[The Author]

When he removed /home, the notes on the blog did include a sorry, so it seems that he didn't want to remove it, but had to.

But then again, it's his game, it's his rules. And if most people would stop complaining about the fact that the game isn't shitting rainbows, they'd realize that what they have is a pretty solid near beta game in their hands. All the features are "there" they just don't work yet.

Adding features is par for the course in Alpha. Next step is making everything work, but that's what Beta is all about. Moving into Beta simply means that the intent of the game is there, now they need to give it the means to work with the features.

That's what most people aren't getting.

Yes it's gonna break, IT'S NOT RELEASED. I worked with companies that found potentially crippling bugs in their products as initial production was rolling out. And it's normal.

And the game we have, although not perfect, is amazing for how it was produced.

But as I've said, it's easier to be a whiny bitch because there ain't no rainbow diarrhea coming out of your USB ports.

What did you buy? A game that is currently being developed and for which features are being added and issues are ironed out as updates roll out. What did you get? Exactly that.

As for multiplayer and single player: multiplayer is an extension of what single player is. Can you do everything you can do in single player in multiplayer? Pretty much, right? What's missing? Item damage, paintings and the nether. Two of these issues are being worked on right now (server side inventory) and one is being looked at in a different manner (nether portals leading to other multiplayer servers).

Frankly, once server side inventory is done, yeah all that is left is polishing the game and figuring out what to do with the portals. All of that can be done in Beta as the multiplayer features won'T be adding something new but polishing something existing, and the nether coding is done, it just needs implementation compatible with multiplayer.

So really, the idiots here are the people who still, after a couple of months, can't fathom what it means to play a game in development.

That simple.

Yes, I called you an idiot. Cry about it.

[Schwaltzvald]

...the idiots here are the people who still, after a couple of months, can't fathom what it means to play a game in development.

That simple.

Yes, I called you an idiot. Cry about it.

How often do regular consumers often buy products that are in their alpha stages though; specifically how often would gamers, before minecraft, have bought games that were in alpha stages...? Playtesters understandably are actually paid to playtest games for quality control and debugging to the best of their ability.

You have no good reason to call others idiots when all the complaining towards Minecraft is perfectly justified as it's called criticism. If we didn't complain that would easily give the impression that we, the consumer, are so complacent that dog shit would do just fine in place of digital blocks.

To Notch's credit, at least he does listen and is willing to make improvements/updates to fix/build the game to his vision; which hopefully would satisfy or calm down the buyers.

Edited December 14, 2010 by Schwaltzvald

[The Author]

Complaining about /home being removed is ridiculous.

Either the feature didn't work and he had to remove it, or he didn't want it in the game and removed it.

That simple.

At this point in dev, features are going to be added or removed. It's part of the development process.

If the software destroyed your C: drive, I'd understand actual complaints, but right now, the complaints are not well presented. Comparing /home to walking or logging in is just plain stupid. Can you play the game without logging in? Can you play without spawning? Can you play without teleporting? One of these things is not like the other.

[prophetik music]

he didn't want it in the game and removed it

this is why it was removed. he wanted a more hardcore experience.

[The Author]

this is why it was removed. he wanted a more hardcore experience.

So it's his game, and his rules. Sounds quite an acceptable policy to me.

[Schwaltzvald]

Complaining about /home being removed is ridiculous.

Either the feature didn't work and he had to remove it, or he didn't want it in the game and removed it.

That simple.

At this point in dev, features are going to be added or removed. It's part of the development process.

If the software destroyed your C: drive, I'd understand actual complaints, but right now, the complaints are not well presented. Comparing /home to walking or logging in is just plain stupid. Can you play the game without logging in? Can you play without spawning? Can you play without teleporting? One of these things is not like the other.

In regards to /home being taken out for developing issues, fair enough as who knows if it will actually return anyways; especially if the player gets glitched on the world/underground that said player can't escape. Normally I'd say it's dangerous as a game breaking bug where a player can't reset short of deleting all of his/her work... Well... You should be able to guess what happens next.

So it's his game, and his rules. Sounds quite an acceptable policy to me.

Say that again after doing what could amount to a month's time of playing and then suddenly being forced to erase it all.

[HalcyonSpirit]

Has the server fixed the lag issue or is it still hammering it..?

It's been fixed for the most part, from what I can tell (though I've mostly been on when no one else is, so I don't know if the extra load from more players would cause issues). There is still some issues with dirt and sand when digging using the diamond shovel, as you can destroy them so fast that the server can't seem to keep up, but other than that issue it seems to be working fine.

....are you saying that a games multi-player should work just like single-player? because that's all sorts of stupid right there.

Um, no? In general, multiplayer will have some differences from single-player at the very least. This applies to Minecraft, obviously. But in Minecraft's case, there's two modes: Creative and Survival Multiplayer. There's a reason one of them has the Survival modifier on the title. It's supposed to be like the single-player game as much as possible. You don't have /home in SSP, do you? And for good reason, too. One, it would break the immersion if you had that option available.

Second, and more importantly, it would completely nullify the Survival aspect of it. When you have that option, you have very little to actually fear. Die and your base is a long way from spawn? No worries, just teleport back instead of braving the world without any of your precious items. Surrounded by enemies? No worries, escape by teleporting. Set on fire? If you set your /home to standing in a block of water, you have no worries there, either. Falling down a long mineshaft to certain death upon impact? If you set your /home to the top of a body (or single column) of water that's a couple blocks deep, you have nothing to worry about if you have a decent typing speed.

/home breaks the survival aspect of Survival Multiplayer. Plain and simple. If you don't want to play with the survival aspect, that's fine, there will be mods to change it to your liking, but a main aspect of Survival Multiplayer is the survival aspect, and removing /home enhances that aspect from the vanilla game.

Edited December 14, 2010 by HalcyonSpirit

[Schwaltzvald]

It's been fixed for the most part, from what I can tell (though I've mostly been on when no one else is, so I don't know if the extra load from more players would cause issues). There is still some issues with dirt and sand when digging using the diamond shovel, as you can destroy them so fast that the server can't seem to keep up, but other than that issue it seems to be working fine...

Cool I may have to try again to see if I get frustrated with the lag or not.

/home breaks the survival aspect of Survival Multiplayer. Plain and simple.

aww dood take a look to the problems I see from it.

[The Author]

In regards to /home being taken out for developing issues, fair enough as who knows if it will actually return anyways; especially if the player gets glitched on the world/underground that said player can't escape. Normally I'd say it's dangerous as a game breaking bug where a player can't reset short of deleting all of his/her work... Well... You should be able to guess what happens next.

Say that again after doing what could amount to a month's time of playing and then suddenly being forced to erase it all.

I've done that before. Sky garden wasn't my first home, and since I havent played single player in a while, I might just delete the game and restart. I keep getting better and better at making good defensive structures.

Plus once you get crystal the game kinda gets boring.

And it says that we should not get attached to saves as they may be affected by development.

[HalcyonSpirit]

aww dood take a look to the problems I see from it.

/kill. Already exists. Kills you so you can respawn at the spawn point. Prevents it from being abused since you drop all your items at the point of activation.