Dinnerbone in BTW MCF thread

[Thyrllann]

One of the most tragic examples by far though, is Relic, that went from intelligent games like Homeworld, Dawn of War & Company of Heroes, to Dawn of War II (which couldn't even be called an RTS), then to Space Marine, all in the attempt at pursuing the mass market. Basically, all the way from super-interesting RTS design to severely dumbed down linear third person hack and slash.

This may well be off-topic, but Dawn of War was (and, to some extent, still is) one of my favourite RTS games. The placement of units in-world, with cover and the like, essentially making you think about unit placement just made sense. Interesting quirks such as this do, in my opinion, help the enjoyability of a game. I mean, I once lost a skirmish against a mate, because he had units in cover, and i had the same units out of cover (in water, iirc).

Constraints like this, that make players think rather than just simply do, really make games much more enjoyable. Yeah sure, the mass market just wants pretty explosions and massive armies (or heaps of resources for little to no cost, to use a minecraft example), but this is not what makes a good game. Having to think, plan out and then act, like you do in BTW comes across as far better thought out than simply handing the endgame to players on a silver platter.

Like you've said FC, it seems like Mojang has been caught up in it's own success and popularity (which is awesome, don't get me wrong), but has begun to cater and pander to the 'lowest common denominator' the players who want to be handed a car with all the bells and whistles, without having to work for it. This is what I love about Better Than Wolves.

It is so much sweeter finishing a massive mob trap, or an automatic soul urn factory than building a castle or defeating one of the bosses in vMC. While many people just want everything handed to them - and they are the ones who call loudest - there is still a small group of people who enjoy the challenge, the nitty-gritty achievements of building some massive, complex thing, but their voices seem to get drowned out by the masses.

[Rianaru]

The decline of RTS in particular bugs the hell out of me. I enjoy nothing more than planning the most epic defense line ever, or finding a way to break through one through careful scouting and planning, and modern RTS gaming seems to have made that obsolete :(

[nukularpower]

Maybe I'm just not smart enough to comprehend the subtleties, but I typically just zerg and hope for the best, even in those golden oldies :(

Might have to give DoW another look, though. I bought it years ago but could never get into it for some reason, despite being a Warhammer fan.

[EvanT]

Homeworld is a good example. I loved it so much that I took a huge part of it into my own Browser (RT)S.
Dawn of War is still one of my favourite RTS games
Supreme Commander (until including Forged alliance). While SC2 has its highlights it lags complexity.
I used to play Brood wars a lot.
Ground Control was a new experience, it mixes RTS with Special Ops

And Stronghold which really puts the focus on "I'm sitting behind this wall and you are outside - burning in my traps" (For some reason I imagine this to be the way to handle Zombie-Sieges.)

[DaveYanakov]

Argh, do not get me started on the more recent examples of Real Time Tactical games. Forcing massive amounts of micromanagement on a player is not strategy. Strategy is building up concentrations of forces rather than individual units and ordering them to take action. No field commander in history ever won a battle by telling tank number three to reverse ten meters while infantry dude 11 turns left. Zerging and hoping for the best once you've arranged your forces for best advantage is what strategy is at heart.

It's time to roll the bloody dice once in awhile.

[BigShinyToys]

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some how this turned into a longer piece that i was exception WARNING : long post bellow.
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I have to add my name to the list of people that learned of minecrafts existence by watching the video of the USS enterprise and seeing Redstone computers. I have not made a fully working computer in minecraft but making RAM and a basic ALU tough me a lot about logic gates and the basis of transistor logic. I have always been into computers from as early as I can remember. I started on a old windows 95 computer it was a junker so i could do what i wanted to it. took it apart put it back together learn what parts did what updated RAM (all un supervised (I only shocked me self ounce and learn from that.)) when I found minecraft and had a better computer years latter I had good understanding of the basic components software installation installing OS's and BIOS usage. I was looking into the lower level of how they operated and Minecraft did that is a fun way. In my opinion the best Minecraft was 1.7.3 very stable no "random features" just a fun game of survival and building.

Having mostly played shooters being able to manipulate the environment was a nice change from set maps. I'm shore you all have have reached that point where you were tired of just building and surviving and wanted more changeling. Luckily I stumbled on BTW at this point it was the first big mod I had played and still play. It added so much more to the game and multi block systems are exactly what minecraft needed. I wonder Why have a building game where every thing is a separate block why not use the building functionality and make the devices use multiple blocks. Mojang seams to miss that point entirely. BTW's mechanical power system also feels right for Steve level. Remembering that Steve just got shot through a portal into how knows where I don't think he would be making Integrated circuits within a few hours.

What mojang had added since 1.7.3 is a lot of random disjointed ideas while leaving older ideas still unfinished the rail system and maps are a good example. Seeing as mojang is going to have a mod API eventually they should leave the game as raw as possible and remove all there extra features adding them back as a mod. leaving the core game a clean start for mods to build on. Minecraft is not in my opinion a game I'ts self it is a engine on witch mods should be built. all mods except BTW are stuck with what ever change that mojang makes especially forge going for "max compatibility" mods cant remove features with out causing problems. If the top level stuff that mekes minecraft more "adventure" based was all in a separate mod that came with the minecraft engine them moder would chose to work from it of not without having to go through the hole miencrat code base and remove all the aspects they don't want.

The minecraft engine is a very powerfully one in its versatility mode ca do what ever they want and branch in what ever direction they want. I play a lot of computercraft and it is over powered as hell a computer that has massive processing power and a high level scripting language crafted from redstone dust. It is kinda crazy but still fun to play and I have learned lua from it to a basic level.

Forges ability to have mods run together can create new game play experiences. Using a CC (computer craft) computer to control a ICMB mod (Inter Continental Belletristic Missile) is quite fun in a command and conker way. breaking into computer system and over riding base self security making programs to plot missile part and intercept. The versatility of the miecraft platform is unique among games.

BTW takes a different path and strips back the game then rebuilds a more difficultly / involving experience. All these extremely different mods all have one thing in common building on the base game. Mojang doesn't really understand that the changes they make have precautions to a huge amount of people. Every time they release a unstable not fully tested game people are forced to update there mods to that Only to have to do the same thing a few day/weeks latter when they release a new patch.

To summarize :

It would be good to see mojang wake up and do what is right for the community as a hole not what the community wants but what is right for the game.

[Six]

Same thing is valid for a lot of games.. Quest objects glow, lootable bodies are marked, Build-in Questfinder points you right to the spot, RTS is dumbed down to mass=win, FPS.. is there anything but CoD anymore?

Hehe...the quest markers in Skyrim drove me frigging nuts. Huge beautiful open world to explore, yet I have magical radar telling me where everything interesting is, so I spent more time looking at it, than at my actual surroundings. <face palm>

This has really been sticking out for me in playing Assassins Creed 3. The world they made is amazing to simply pick your own paths and run around, but then the missions are mostly "Follow the trail of highlighted markers and press a button.". I only recall one mission so far where the objective was just "kill this guy who is on the other side of a lake and up a cliff", without markers to show you exactly where you had to climb and just letting you pick your own way. A lot of it ends up feeling of like an open-world on rails. In fact at some points when the 'cinematic' camera keeps swooping behind you, you can just hold free-run, push the left stick forward, and the game plays itself.

[CreeperCommando]

Mostly +1 on most of this posts, glad I'm not the only one appreciating good defence-design in rts.
Currently have DoW (first one) modded with apocalypse mod, and I'll probably install CoH with the blitzkrieg mod (pretty much the second best mod after BTW) again in near future :D

[Rianaru]

Stronghold was a great series with a great take on castle/siege warfare :) I heard that they butchered the third one though...
Also:
http://kotaku.com/5961994/what-skyrim-l ... ds-at-once
I remember someone posting this a while back(I think) and I'm not sure who it was, but this is ridiculous. I'm pretty sure my life would be complete if that level of detail was actually in the game.

On-topic: FC, my game design professor likes your style and is impressed by your knowledge of game design and your applications of it. You've managed to partially inspire our next lecture, which happens to be on 'Balancing Constraints, Difficulty, and Creativity' and leads up to 'Maintaining Player-World Interactions in True Sandbox Simulations', the second of which is centered around Minecraft. And if you can handle any more of an ego-boost, I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that I can write one of my essays for this course series on the RTH :)

[phamtrinli]

All of this off topic chatter about games made me realize why BTW is the only Minecraft worthy of playing.

I'll draw the dreaded Everquest Parallel.
EQ was difficult, it didn't hold your hand. You had to fight the system to make anything work. (Alpha --> Beta)
Than PoP came out (Minecraft went live) and suddenly nothing was as difficult. Instant travel, fewer deaths, life was good.
Yet after a few weeks of hosanna's people began to realize that something was missing, it was hard to nail down. Sony distracted
people with expansion after expansion, but nothing lasted for long. Eventually everyone but the die-hards (People who refuse to upgrade their client) left.

BTW is something like if Sony had taken a step back and realized their mistake instead of chasing the whining masses.
Adding new and difficult content you had to master, not just unlock to succeed.

[Mikko_blu]

Flowerchild, I'm Unbelievably happy that you're going for TRTH. Yes, I'm sure i'll miss some features of vMC (Those wolves ;)) But I'm pretty sure it's because of the length of time i spent playing minecraft. You've taken off alot of the stress i've had worrying about Minecraft's future, and the remainder of your sanity putting up with their crap. You're a great person and developer, i would hate to see the game lose you.

Thanks man, I appreciate that.

I didn't find Dinnerbone's tone to be condescending though. I think he may have been a bit overwhelmed, but I didn't get any negative vibes from the guy really, and we all know how short a fuse I have when it comes to bad vibes :)

But...it's got to be pretty weird. While I was trying to be polite, I was coming at him pretty strong in the critique of the game's design, and I'm not so sure Mojang is used to that. I think much of the critique they face is of the trolling variety, and not really to be taken seriously, but what I was saying was of a very tone.

Yeah, i completely agree. As i said in the post, i don't think condesceding is the right word, but it definatley wasn't.. honest? It's hard to find the right word. Needless to say, it was quite weird. Hopefully, Hopefully, he plays the mod for himself, and gets an idea of what the core players of minecraft need, rather than the random players that shuffle in and out.

[EdzyWhat]

Hey guys. I don't think I have a full grasp of the big picture for the game industry, but there's a major point here that hasn't been stated yet in this thread. And I should note it's a depressing point:

They already have our money.

The small hardcore gamer market has been captured, and now they're looking to expand their player-base. Potentially to more casual, story-driven, easily-confused people. The people who don't give a lick about design if they can herd cats. People who go on MCF and ask for Mojang to spend time putting a tutorial in the game. People like my stupid cousins.

Compared to the prospect of paying for DLC bats (which is what the XBL version could become), I think we've got a pretty good deal. Of course, it could be better, and we have every right to want that. I'd just like to say that the posts I've identified most with in this thread have been the ones about how lucky we are to have this great game.

Love ya FC.

[FlowerChild]

That's not really true man. The thing is about the hardcore crowd, like I mentioned in one of my posts in the MCF thread recently, is that these are the guys that produce wicked youtube videos of crazy contraptions that basically act as "free advertising" to less hardcore players. They are the ones that spread the word about the game and really motivate others to give it a try.

Even the less hardcore aren't immune to "holy shit...that's cool and has so much potential" even if they never make full use of that potential.

So, keeping them in the long term is actually far more important than having already nabbed their 10$-20$ initial purchase price. These are the guys you really need on your side to continue to build a community and fan-base.

[SterlingRed]

I think the thing to keep in mind with that is, minecraft became popular because of the core players. Mojang did not advertise the game in any traditional way, and to my knowledge still hasn't. The 40 million players the game has would not exist without those players who paid the alpha and beta discount prices and brought the game to the attention of, well, everyone.

[EdzyWhat]

Heads up: my reply might get a bit off topic.

I just took a look at the sales numbers for Minecraft, and it looks like it's still selling like crazy (looks like 12 mil here.). Frankly, I had thought the game had plateaued, sales-wise. I guess that hardcore-capture-into-free-advertising is still a pretty big deal.

I suppose if I think about Mojang as a company needing a fan base for future projects, this also makes more sense. But honestly, I don't see myself buying any of Mojang's future other games. Minecraft feels to me like a flash in the pan (albeit a wonderful one). I like it because of it's endless sandbox/survival approach, but I don't think they want to clone that genre. And frankly unless Scrolls (or whatever they're calling their next project) is equally innovative/potential-filled, I think I'll pass. They are not impressing me with their handling of this game currently.

But back to point, thanks for reminding me that a successful [insert any noun here] cultivates strong community in order to grow. I keep forgetting that Notch actually want to grow this whole thing, rather than leave it as-is.

[FlowerChild]

I'm personally more interested in Notch's future games, rather than Mojang's, because yeah, Scrolls and Cobalt do nothing to excite me, and I feel they totally fail to build upon the fan base or design concepts that are such a big part of MC.

Notch's new space game though, DOES look intriguing, as it seems to me he's building around the creative aspects of MC, and applying that to a different genre. I'm not sure if it'll live up to the standard set by MC, but it does interest me.

I think of MC as Notch's baby (now adopted), NOT Mojang's.

[dawnraider]

Notch actually want to grow this whole thing, rather than leave it as-is.

Unfortunately, his hopes have not been fulfilled (by Mojang, mind you). Mojang has simply been adding useless features that are simply adding to the "MOAR POWER!" crowd. I was not brought in by the Enterprise and computer videos, but until I saw them, the game was kind of "Meh" to me, and Mojang are driving away those players, including me (I was about to leave, but I found BTW, thankfully). I can't wait for RTH, because I know it will be a world built from the ground up by MC's true designer, without all the fluffy crap added in the supposedly "final release" of MC. I agree with a lot of people here in that beta was a far better version of MC, and I hope you (FC) are able to recapture the feel beta provided, which
I have no doubts about.

[finite8]

I'm personally more interested in Notch's future games, rather than Mojang's, because yeah, Scrolls and Cobalt do nothing to excite me, and I feel they totally fail to build upon the fan base or design concepts that are such a big part of MC.

Notch's new space game though, DOES look intriguing, as it seems to me he's building around the creative aspects of MC, and applying that to a different genre. I'm not sure if it'll live up to the standard set by MC, but it does interest me.

I think of MC as Notch's baby (now adopted), NOT Mojang's.

Agreed. I love the stuff that Notch makes, not the rest of the Mojangsters. I think Notch has great vision when it comes to games and what he wants to get out of a game is similar to what i want too. 0x10c sounds good and the screenies look interesting. He always said that Minecraft was not the game he always wanted to make, and that is why he is now making 0x10c as that is the game he always wanted to make.

I am pretty confident we are going to see some good things out of it. Sadly, i don't think he sees Minecraft much more than a means to fund 0x10c now. He might have been attached to it before, and i think it probably keeps a special spot in his heart, but my bets are is that is more of an old Alpha / Beta thing.

[Gunnerman21]

I remember something a long time ago Notch said about MC that he started it to be an RTS, but then he found a sp style would be better. Personally I heard about mc when a friend told me he was farming on a platform but fell and was killed by zombies.

Also, with the way we talk about Mojang treating mc kinda badly, its like the child protective services are needed... or maybe the A Team...

[chai]

Hehe...the quest markers in Skyrim drove me frigging nuts. Huge beautiful open world to explore, yet I have magical radar telling me where everything interesting is, so I spent more time looking at it, than at my actual surroundings. <face palm>

+1, for real. I tried playing the game unmodded for a while, but that same tendency just drove me *crazy*. Eventually, I did find a mod that turned off the HUD except when you needed it (like combat), another to kill you for running around in the sub-Arctic winter in a light, sleeveless vest (almost nothing in that game looks particularly warm!), remove your marker from the map, and so on.

Even so, the game was *still* clearly designed for simplicity: every random cave an NPC somehow knows the bandits hide out in has a well-beaten road leading straight to it! And every attempt to go cross-country just leads straight back to a trail before long. *sigh*.

Anyway; constraints, intelligent design decisions (...not the politically/religiously-loaded kind) and the encouragement of problem solving/thinking ++.

Thanks, as always, for keeping/creating those things in Minecraft.

[Gears]

I've been on the fence in terms of the game's recent additions. Most of these are complete crap that add very little and relate nothing to how minecraft's design path was before the initial release. However, there are a few gems in the pile that I've rather enjoyed which don't deviate too far from minecraft's original design, but sadly those are few and far between.