Minecraft [1.7.2/4?]

[HalcyonSpirit]

I never said anything about anything other than you calling these things "game-breaking," so don't start taking issue with things I've never said anything about.

Your issues with the game getting popular because of mods, and that they're important for having a better experience right now? Not important to this discussion. Favorable game experience is not a factor when talking about bugs that supposedly break the game. User experience is a different issue from the game's overall playability.

As for the bugs themselves, I'm not sure why you aren't getting this simple fact: if you can still generally play the game, a glitch is not "game breaking." Not being able to use a particular function to its full intended purpose is not the same thing as it breaking the game.

Mobs not working well is not game breaking. They're annoying as hell to deal with because of the server-client (mis)communication, but they still function. You can play the game of mining and building (i.e. advancing in the game) with them on, even if it is frustrating. Furthermore, you're given the option to turn them off via the difficulty setting so that the building/mining experience is more favorable. Dealing with mobs is an aspect of the game separate from the other parts of the game, and mobs having issues in the ways they do right now does not directly affect being able to do other things in the rest of the game. In other words, not game breaking. It's not as if there was a bug that caused you to get swarmed by mobs no matter what setting you were on and where you were, and had no way of dealing with them to go do other stuff. If that was the case, yeah, I think that'd qualify as game breaking.

Boats were toeing the line on game breaking prior to the crash issue being fixed, but still weren't game breaking (or rather, gameplay breaking) because all you had to do to keep playing the game was not use them. So all it did to the gameplay was keep you from crossing water faster. It did not affect your ability to play the game, it affected your ability to use boats. That's it. As for boats and minecarts now, they certainly aren't game breaking. Again, their ability to be used is quite diminished, but the ability to use a single aspect of the game does not affect your ability to play the core of the game. If it is less fun for you because of that, fine, but that's in the realm of user experience, not game playability.

Game breaking means breaking the game. It does not mean making it less fun, or causing certain isolated problems using specific parts of the game. If any of these were actually game breaking, no one would be playing the game on multiplayer, simply because there would be no "game" within Minecraft's multiplayer mode to play.

User experience is an issue that's almost universally taken up in the Beta phase, since there's less actual game breaking bugs to deal with. And as for bugs introduced by changing things (such as server-side inventory)? That happens, even in Beta. But a bug being introduced doesn't mean it's going to break the game, and if it does, you'll have a legit criticism if it is not dealt with promptly (in Beta, developers HAVE TO deal with them promptly so further user experience and functionality tweaking and polish can resume). But criticizing something before it even happens is not legitimate in the least.

Edited December 15, 2010 by HalcyonSpirit

[Brushfire]

Hey guys what's going on in here?

[drake7707]

Sorry to jump in from nowhere in this but shouldn't it be a good thing that it's going to go to beta ?

In alpha the developers can usually change things that won't be backwards compatible and break the entire map in this case. It's an alpha phase after all, designed to iron out the major flaws and redesigning the code after it has grown too large in 1 place, without having to worry about backwards compatibility.

In beta, the major flaws should be gone and then it's time to prep it for release. Usually this is the time where open or closed beta starts and people can start playing & testing it. Of course what you think of 'major flaw' is up to you, there probably will be some in beta too (it's hard for a 1 man team to introduce new stuff and not break older stuff).

The only reason why people can play it during alpha is because he wants feedback as soon as possible and he has no budget to hire a testing team (well initially that is), and you paid a price for it that can be considered a 'donation' with perks to receive the full game afterwards (I don't really agree with having to pay for a game in alpha stage, but I understand that notch has to get some income in order to keep working on it full time).

Anyway, I think it's pretty pointless to keep bickering over whether or not the game is crap or not. New major bugs are frustrating and annoying but it's not worth it to annoy other people with it. If it's too annoying just wait until the next update where it will hopefully be fixed.

I'm not either pro or against beta here, just giving my 2 cents .

[phill]

Hey guys what's going on in here?

ಠ_ಠ You shouldn't interrupt with your fancy fancy pictures

[AeroZ]

Hey, who do I talk to to get on the whitelist?

My username is AeroZ87.

Tnx

[Crowbar Man]

So not being able to play the game as intended due to broken things is not game breaking?

Really, I dont know what to say here. I dont know how people can go "oh well these features completely dont work but thats fine if you can avoid them"

No, its broken and a known issue, known issues again should be taken care of before deciding the game is good enough to move on to next phase. Just because its avoidable, or you can turn it off, or you can just not use the feature doesn't make it okay and works. Especially features on by default and what the game is intended to be.

And saying that things will change just because its in Beta, is really just silly. Its still Notch. Things will be the same as always

Any votes for AeroZ or MikeInc?

[Schwaltzvald]

Can't say I know them as well as the others but... I have this feeling they'll be alright on the server...

[prophetik music]

Aeroz is cool. don't know who mikeinc is.

[Abadoss]

Any votes for AeroZ or MattInc?

AeroZ is cool. It seems MattInc is an OC ReMixer... I say that counts as being a part of the community.

[The Author]

I have to ask are the monsters still broken?

Because on the multiplayer server I hang out on, not only are they functional, but we see them, we fight them, and thanks to a specific construction, we farm them. Monsters work pretty darn well, the only issue there is is latency, but hey, most online games have issues with that. If the monsters are still invisible to you, change your difficulty to anything other than peaceful on the client side. It's a small temporary fix until he re-tweeks difficulty levels.

I also like how you said "up until last patch, boats were gamebreaking." Fuck, up until he made the game, the game was unplayable derp derp, maybe he should not be in alpha yet.

This is an example of forward progress: something was broken, and he fixed it.

As for gamebreaking bugs in general? They happen.

Right now, I can't use the voice chat options built into Live when I play Dawn of War 2 because it crashes the game. That's a gamebreaking bug.

And it's a released big name game.

Or hell, the biggest gamebreaking bug I've heard of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrupted_Blood_incident

So yeah, is Minecraft ready for Beta? Hell yeah, it has issues, but Notch is aware of them and can get to work on fixing them.

[HalcyonSpirit]

So not being able to play the game as intended due to broken things is not game breaking?

Playing without mobs is possible to set up in the provided settings, so I guess it's "intended" that you play the game that way, too, so obviously mobs aren't broken because you can still play the game as intended.

Do you see how weak that type of argument is? "Intention" is a very vague thing the way you're using it. The way you're using it, leaves not despawning is "game breaking" because it's Notch's intention to allow you to take down the logs and easily pick up the saplings that fall to the ground due to the leaves despawning. No, that's not game breaking, that's interfering with a particular aspect of the game.

So far you've not understood the difference I've been pointing out between "breaking aspects of the game" and "breaking the game." Just because you've broken an aspect of the game doesn't mean you've broken the game. Breaking the game requires the broken thing to significantly hamper your ability to do things in the game that are completely unrelated to the aspect in question. The Corrupted Blood incident Author linked is a perfect example: it affected even those that did not do the quest and prevented them (especially newer players) from doing much of anything because you couldn't do anything to deal with the problem.

Mobs in Minecraft are the closest thing to that, but what you seem to not understand is that you can still deal with mobs the same way you do in SSP (lighting, walls, fighting). You just have to do them keeping in mind what the bugs do to make it more difficult, and thus it is less enjoyable. Everything else is still unaffected by the mob bugs. It's the same issue as the Ultralisk area-damage bug in Starcraft 2; you couldn't deal with Ultralisks attacking large units/buildings as "intended" because of the bug (which would make the unit's damage area larger than any building in the game, doing massive amounts of damage to anything nearby), but everything else in the game was unaffected. Annoying bug? Yes. Important to fix (especially for balance in tournament play)? Yes. Game breaking? Hell no. Especially not from a game development and testing standpoint, which is the only important factor when the game isn't even released. These bugs would not be game breaking even in the released product. Would they be unacceptable? Yes, of course, since they all contribute to a meaningful player experience, and them not working degrades the experience to an opinion-based degree. But not game breaking.

Really, I dont know what to say here. I dont know how people can go "oh well these features completely dont work but thats fine if you can avoid them"

No, its broken and a known issue, known issues again should be taken care of before deciding the game is good enough to move on to next phase. Just because its avoidable, or you can turn it off, or you can just not use the feature doesn't make it okay and works. Especially features on by default and what the game is intended to be.

And saying that things will change just because its in Beta, is really just silly. Its still Notch. Things will be the same as always

First, if all known issues had to be fixed before moving onto the next phase, no game would ever make it into Beta or be released. It's impossible. Don't believe me? Well, then you should look into what game development really entails.

Second, stop throwing up strawmen. I never said anything about the severity of the bugs aside from whether they are game breaking or not. I never said anything about these bugged functions "working" and thus be "okay" to have in the game (by the way, they don't completely not work, as I pointed out already, specific aspects of these aspects of the game don't work; very big difference). I never said anything about thinking things will change once it's in Beta. I never said anything about those, and yet you're implying that I have. Stop that. It makes me feel you're not actually putting any effort into thinking about what I'm actually saying, and so unless that changes, I'm not continuing this. Which I'm sure other readers of the thread will enjoy.

[Ferret]

The next update will involve major glitches regarding fire now attaching itself to objects that shouldn't be flammable and glass blocks suddenly being as hard as obsidian.

[Lunar-X]

hey everyone ima let you finish... but Metal Gear Solid 4 had one of the best endings of all time.

AeroZ is amazing. (as far as music goes) so thats a yes from me

and Mik--- er Matt's avatar has a cool mustache so... its a maybe.

Edit: sorry about messin up your name Mattinc

Edited December 15, 2010 by Lunar-X
misNamefermation

[Matt E. Waldman]

Oh noes, everyone's gonna think my name is MikeInc now!

[Meeting_Gman]

hey everyone ima let you finish... but Metal Gear Solid 4 had one of the best endings of all time.

Oh, it was quite an ending!

[noTuX]

Thanks Lunar for fucking up the thread, but I agree MGS4 had one of the best endings I've ever seen on a video game. I was actually sad because I beat the game and I knew I wasn't gonna play it anymore. Its like loosing a friend.

[Brushfire]

hey everyone ima let you finish... but Metal Gear Solid 4 had one of the best endings of all time.

Yeah, them credits were pimp as shit.

[Gollgagh]

[The Derrit]

best post '10

[Crowbar Man]

HS: Features in single player is a good example of what should be intended, multiplayer should have that, plus more. Mobs are there as intended because thats how SSP plays, and its a default option. Some people dont want mobs so thats why theres a switch to turn them off, since there is not a Creative mode yet anyways. I dont know how thats vague. It seems you're really reaching here for ways to twist words. Also you're just splitting hairs about the difference between breaking an aspect of the game and breaking the game. Theres hardly any difference, especially when one leads to the other. And again, its not just the range of mobs, though thats a problem for sure, its the range combined with the fact they are sometimes INVISIBLE lol. Range i could deal with, though still broken from a gameplay prospective, but how do you deal with invisible deaths?

Author: As far as the invisible mobs go its a client issue that happens if the mob doesn't spawn on your local client you can't see it.you can see mobs that spawned around you but not others. I don't thinks its out rageous to ask for something small as that to be fixed but it certainly ruins the game if its left as is.

Both: Well I guess well have to agree to disagree because apparently my expectations are too high or others are just way too low. Again my definition of Beta (when theres an Alpha phase, and several other phases before it) would be "done but needs extensive testing to find bugs" not "everything is still not done, and things that are here are broke", etc. But alas, these conversations just wind up "ME: well thats broken" "others: NO THATS OKAY AND YOU ARE DUMB" heh

In good news notch appears to be working on visible armor (another broken feature I forgot) and interpolation (client side lag prediction) if that makes it in before beta it would make the game far more playable broke or no and may fix the super mob reach issue as a side effect. Id say all tnat plus the server side inventory would make it closer to beta quality if he can pull it off and not break everything

Also clearly his name is MikeInc what kind of name is MattInc?

Edited December 16, 2010 by Crowbar Man

[phill]

...interpolation (client side lag prediction)....Also clearly his name is MikeInc what kind of name is MattInc?

Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa......WHOA. He is seriously adding interpolation? *checks blog* huzzah. Lets hope it's done right so weird shit doesn't happen.

As for "MattInc" the guy wonders into IRC and I'm wondering how he could screw up his own name?

[Crowbar Man]

Yeah, I'm actually pretty excited about that, that should make the game a lot more playable really

[Lunar-X]

Both: Well I guess well have to agree to disagree because apparently my expectations are too high or others are just way too low. Again my definition of Beta (when theres an Alpha phase) would be "done but needs extensive testing to find bugs" not "everything is still not done, and things that are here are broke", etc. But alas, these conversations just wind up "ME: well thats broken" "others: NO THATS OKAY AND YOU ARE DUMB" heh

Alright class, now let me show you where he should have ended that paragraph. After, the word Disagree. Once you add on after that your not really agreeing to disagree.

you may now go back to your text books (how to prevent deaths in your mineshaft).

Edit: does anyone else ever put their reason for editing?

Edited December 16, 2010 by Lunar-X
book needed a title

[Gollgagh]

sorry lunar, but as much as I agree with you, you've lost all credibility for using "your" in place of "you're"

[Lunar-X]

sorry lunar, but as much as I agree with you, you've lost all credibility for using "your" in place of "you're"

thats ok. i only care about grammEr on roleplaying forums Edit: and on term papers.

Edited December 16, 2010 by Lunar-X
forgot a reason