LONG BLOG
Building a Better MineCraft...
-lifted from my website shoobop.com as it's one of the less 'rambling on about crap' things I've written-
If you've spent any time online but not only on Facebook (or even on there in some cases) you'll have heard of MineCraft, an endless (well, about 9 times the size of earth) world of cubes in which you have to mine, craft (kinda given away by the name) survive waves of monsters, and build up your base into something you can show off to friends. The game is fun, very fun. I've been running a server now for almost 4 months and I'm still having fun. That isn't to say the game is anywhere near perfection though.
Minecraft is riddled with floors, not to mention the speedy process of adding new features has now slowed down to a crawl. Where once it was infinitive new games in this fresh genera of True Sandbox are beginning to show their faces with better ideas, more stuff to do, and even in some cases trying to re-invent the concept in their own special way. So why don't we hear about these games?
Most never make it very far, not due to the "epic scale" of a project like this, from what I've seen if you have a clear grip on programming the core building blocks of a MineCraft game are not exactly rocket science. Most dwindle and die out due to a mindless fan base who are quick to jump on the YouTube comments or the forums to spout hate at a game for having a core concept similar to MineCraft. Fanboyism (isn't a real word but should be) is destroying keen developers motivation. Even when Notch himself (creator of MineCraft) openly promotes a game it gets shit from the MineCraft community who almost seem threatened by competition against their beloved game. The stupid thing is if more MineCraft clones came out which did more than MineCraft it's self it would force Mojang to pull their finger out and get some more content released to keep the game fresh.
So do any of these games push through to competition? We are about to see with the impending release of Terraria, a beautiful 2D True Sandbox game with not only the ability to mine, build, craft and fight monsters, but upgrades, a whole army of different monster types, insane power-ups and equipment and most awesome of all, Boss Monsters!
Terraria looks like it could re-invent the re-invention that Notch kick started over 2 years ago and I'm excited about it, so check out the trailer, watch the developers Let's Play (or the Yogscast one) and decide for yourself, and if you like the concept I hope you'll join me in playing when it comes out and supporting people who don't look at a game like MineCraft and think 'let's clone that' but think 'let's improve that'.
If you've spent any time online but not only on Facebook (or even on there in some cases) you'll have heard of MineCraft, an endless (well, about 9 times the size of earth) world of cubes in which you have to mine, craft (kinda given away by the name) survive waves of monsters, and build up your base into something you can show off to friends. The game is fun, very fun. I've been running a server now for almost 4 months and I'm still having fun. That isn't to say the game is anywhere near perfection though.
Minecraft is riddled with floors, not to mention the speedy process of adding new features has now slowed down to a crawl. Where once it was infinitive new games in this fresh genera of True Sandbox are beginning to show their faces with better ideas, more stuff to do, and even in some cases trying to re-invent the concept in their own special way. So why don't we hear about these games?
Most never make it very far, not due to the "epic scale" of a project like this, from what I've seen if you have a clear grip on programming the core building blocks of a MineCraft game are not exactly rocket science. Most dwindle and die out due to a mindless fan base who are quick to jump on the YouTube comments or the forums to spout hate at a game for having a core concept similar to MineCraft. Fanboyism (isn't a real word but should be) is destroying keen developers motivation. Even when Notch himself (creator of MineCraft) openly promotes a game it gets shit from the MineCraft community who almost seem threatened by competition against their beloved game. The stupid thing is if more MineCraft clones came out which did more than MineCraft it's self it would force Mojang to pull their finger out and get some more content released to keep the game fresh.
So do any of these games push through to competition? We are about to see with the impending release of Terraria, a beautiful 2D True Sandbox game with not only the ability to mine, build, craft and fight monsters, but upgrades, a whole army of different monster types, insane power-ups and equipment and most awesome of all, Boss Monsters!
Terraria looks like it could re-invent the re-invention that Notch kick started over 2 years ago and I'm excited about it, so check out the trailer, watch the developers Let's Play (or the Yogscast one) and decide for yourself, and if you like the concept I hope you'll join me in playing when it comes out and supporting people who don't look at a game like MineCraft and think 'let's clone that' but think 'let's improve that'.
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About Timbo Jayone of us since 6:53 PM on 04.30.2011
Hello boys and girls! My name is Timbo Jay!
How are we all today? I'm glad to hear!
So you want to know a bit about me? Nosey little buggers ain't ya?!
Right well I live in the city of Newport in South Wales, UK. I'm 23 (almost 24...I'll no doubt forget to fix this till I'm 25) and have been a gamer since the age of about 4 when I was given an Atari 2600, from there my love of gaming only grew, I still fondly remember the first time I played Mario (I was about 6) on the NES (oddly a good 2 or 3 years AFTER a friend had shown me a Mario Bros. Sticker Book, with no idea it was for a video game I still loved the designs even then). These days I jump between low end PC gaming (wonders of a sucky PC) and all 3 current generation consoles (soon to be previous gen if E3 goes as it sounds). I have a love hate relationships with RPGs as I love them to death yet I've only ever finished 2...and they were the easier Zelda games (Link's Awakening and Twilight Princess), although I have a deep love of adventure games playing and finishing all the Lucas Arts adventure games except Loom (not too sure why, I need to go back and fix this!) as well as playing through the first 2 Broken Sword games countless times (and thanks to the iPhone I'm doing them both again!).
I'm very much into my online gaming although I enjoy co-op games much more than versus (as I tend to suck at them) so if you fancy getting my Xbox Tag, Wii Friends Code, or PSN Name (hahahaha if it ever gets back online) feel free to bug me for it!
What else is there to me?
Ok well for the last year and a half I've been deep in the indie game scene as an artist with a new found love for Pixel Art, I'm not the best but apparently I'm not the worst although in true Indie Game Development fashion none of the projects I've taken part in have made it to completion which is a shame.
I guess that about rounds up my gamer side, one last thing though, I am dyslexic, thanks to spell checkers this isn't a major issue but no one has invented a gamma checker (the total misuse of ',' no doubt proves this) so I can't promise I'll put everything in the right place sorry doods and doodets!
Oh and feel free to check me out on www.shoobop.com!
How are we all today? I'm glad to hear!
So you want to know a bit about me? Nosey little buggers ain't ya?!
Right well I live in the city of Newport in South Wales, UK. I'm 23 (almost 24...I'll no doubt forget to fix this till I'm 25) and have been a gamer since the age of about 4 when I was given an Atari 2600, from there my love of gaming only grew, I still fondly remember the first time I played Mario (I was about 6) on the NES (oddly a good 2 or 3 years AFTER a friend had shown me a Mario Bros. Sticker Book, with no idea it was for a video game I still loved the designs even then). These days I jump between low end PC gaming (wonders of a sucky PC) and all 3 current generation consoles (soon to be previous gen if E3 goes as it sounds). I have a love hate relationships with RPGs as I love them to death yet I've only ever finished 2...and they were the easier Zelda games (Link's Awakening and Twilight Princess), although I have a deep love of adventure games playing and finishing all the Lucas Arts adventure games except Loom (not too sure why, I need to go back and fix this!) as well as playing through the first 2 Broken Sword games countless times (and thanks to the iPhone I'm doing them both again!).
I'm very much into my online gaming although I enjoy co-op games much more than versus (as I tend to suck at them) so if you fancy getting my Xbox Tag, Wii Friends Code, or PSN Name (hahahaha if it ever gets back online) feel free to bug me for it!
What else is there to me?
Ok well for the last year and a half I've been deep in the indie game scene as an artist with a new found love for Pixel Art, I'm not the best but apparently I'm not the worst although in true Indie Game Development fashion none of the projects I've taken part in have made it to completion which is a shame.
I guess that about rounds up my gamer side, one last thing though, I am dyslexic, thanks to spell checkers this isn't a major issue but no one has invented a gamma checker (the total misuse of ',' no doubt proves this) so I can't promise I'll put everything in the right place sorry doods and doodets!
Oh and feel free to check me out on www.shoobop.com!