FortressCraft Creator: Minecraft Doesn't Focus on Creativity

[jdogtwodolla]

I don't get it. Somewhere (I think on this site) I heard that the team behind behind Fortesscraft asked Notch or Mojang if they could make a Minecraft like game for the xbox and getting the ok from them. And then Notch just blasts them? I don't know how true that situation is but that just seems distasteful.

 

[Tiamat666]

FortressCraft is obviously heavily inspired by Minecraft. So much you could consider it a ripoff. But Minecraft practically ripped of Infiniminer, so if anyone has something to ***** about, its the former Infiniminer devs.

Minecraft deserves the credit for making the game concept interesting and popular. But Sawkins has a point- he seems to be the better game designer. FortressCraft seems to have a clear focus about what the game is supposed to be, whereas Minecraft has lost itself in a mess of unrelated, half-implemented features.

 

[devilofthemist]

yeah minecraft doesn't focus on creativity thats why there's no creative mode or anything nope


yeah he's in denial

 

[Wade Knapik]

Fortresscraft, Total Miner, Castle Miner, etc. XBLIG is littered with Minecraft "clones". I'm sure there will be more and more too. At the time Fortresscraft game was released there was no Minecraft on the 360 and no public plans for one. He obviously tried to fill a hole. He should just own it. So he made his own version of Minecraft, with some of his own ideas, for the Xbox360? Big flipping deal. The world continues to turn. Next thing you know, he 'll make a twin stick shooter with zombies and try to claim that his is different from the 270 other twin stick zombie shooters.

Also, at this point, Minecraft is so far removed from what Infiniminer was that calling it a clone is like calling Portal a clone of Doom, since they use the same first person perspective. The guy from Infiniminer should only be mad at himself for not taking the idea far enough.

 

[theultimateend]

I concede Minecraft is no longer about creativity no that the shitty story is shoehorned into the matter. But it was not so when Fortress craft was made. Just admit you got the idea from minecraft, you launched it with the title for publicity, that you did some underhanded things, and let the fanboys wank to that for a week so they can move on.

True enough, not like it has a mode or anything for being creative.

What would they even call a mode like that?

 

[Claptrap]

Don't really see why this is news, This is obviously just fortresscraft pissing everyone off again to get more publicity.

 

[WanderingFool]

He is a teller of untruths and a charlatan. A charlatan I say!

That is awesome... thank you for posting that.

Also, I found FortressCraft to... ehhh, kinda fun, but nothing I would really spend hours on.

 

[Baalthazaq]

FortressCraft is obviously heavily inspired by Minecraft. So much you could consider it a ripoff. But Minecraft practically ripped of Infiniminer, so if anyone has something to ***** about, its the former Infiniminer devs.

Minecraft deserves the credit for making the game concept interesting and popular. But Sawkins has a point- he seems to be the better game designer. FortressCraft seems to have a clear focus about what the game is supposed to be, whereas Minecraft has lost itself in a mess of unrelated, half-implemented features.

FortressCraft is obviously heavily inspired by Minecraft. So much you could consider it a ripoff. But Minecraft practically ripped of Infiniminer, so if anyone has something to ***** about, its the former Infiniminer devs.

Minecraft deserves the credit for making the game concept interesting and popular, but Sawkins has a point- he seems to be the better game designer. FortressCraft seems to have a clear focus about what the game is supposed to be, whereas Minecraft has lost itself in a mess of unrelated, half-implemented features.



There you go, I corrected one minor punctuation mistake in your post.
Now am I:

A) Better at expressing your thoughts than you are.
B) Just able to tack on 15 seconds of effort on, which I wouldn't have done without your effort.

If you answered B, Sawkins is not a better designer, when he didn't design 99% of the game.
If you answered A, you meant B. I should know.

 

[ThePS1Fan]

There was a time when an FPS was a 'Doom clone' and an open sandbox game was a 'GTA clone', platformer, 'Mario clone' and the list goes on. it's how gaming evolves, slowly by taking other's concepts and just building off of them, Minecraft itself was inspired by Dwarf Fortress and Infiniminer. In time the voxel based building type game could become its own genre.

 

[Sucal]

All I know, is that Fortresscraft is a shitty minecraft clone that has an elitist creator/community and tries to hide it behind shiny graphics and constant complaining about minecraft, and yet will never get half its success.

Why do I say this you wonder? Unlike Minecraft, which can be gotten anywhere FortressCraft isn't available in many countries such as Australia, thus locking out anyone in those countries who were interested in switching over, and playing something that might be better coded and might have fixed many of minecrafts issues.

Of course, locking out a large chunk of a potential playerbase totally isn't the developers fault, the game only fails because 'all the idiots prefer minecraft.'

 

[Agow95]

Minecraft has a creative mode, it was originally made with no mobs or crafting, but as a creative just build stuff game, there are people who play versions of minecraft so modded that by this guy's logic they could sell it as a new game.

 

[Tiamat666]

There you go, I corrected one minor punctuation mistake in your post.
Now am I:

A) Better at expressing your thoughts than you are.
B) Just able to tack on 15 seconds of effort on, which I wouldn't have done without your effort.

C) Better/more interested in English grammar than you are.
D) Trolling
E) Part-time wiseguy

Something along the lines of C, D and E I guess.

 

[Antari]

Anyone want to start taking bets as to how long it takes for these those indies to hit the courts?

 

[Baalthazaq]

There you go, I corrected one minor punctuation mistake in your post.
Now am I:

A) Better at expressing your thoughts than you are.
B) Just able to tack on 15 seconds of effort on, which I wouldn't have done without your effort.

C) Better/more interested in English grammar than you are.
D) Trolling
E) Part-time wiseguy

Something along the lines of C, D and E I guess.

Ooooh sensitive.

B already implied C.
I'm a FULL time wise-guy, don't short change me.
D... yes. I'm trolling a thread by offering the majority opinion.

If someone modifies an existing thing by a small amount, that does not intrinsically make them a better designer than the designer of the original. The guy who invented the cup-holder is not a better inventor than the guy who invented the car just because the car is now mildly better.

Your original statement implies they would be. Modification is different than (though related to) innovation.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Sawkins is a fucking prick. He's successful in the UK games industry, after having worked as audio programmer on titles like Burnout Revenge, and now he's famous for this.

He put out an open call for testers on Twitter, so I signed up. As a games development student, I figured getting some practice doing QA would be beneficial, and getting credit on a game would help me get into the industry. Since he's already there, I figured Sawkins would know how hard it is to break in and would be willing to lend a hand for relatively little effort on his part.

There were around 20 of us testing, and we were all in one Skype conversation. Every time we found a bug, we either mentioned it in the Skype chat, or sent an e-mail. I tested for a few hours every evening after uni for around a week, same as everyone else there.

And here's the best part. Four of the testers got credited, and the other 16 or so? "Everyone I forgot." Forgot. Fucking forgot? It's not like we were all handily in a single Skype conversation with the guy, is it? Oh wait. So, I sacrificed time and got nothing in return, despite being promised a testing credit that would have taken literally minutes to put in. If it weren't for the people testing, his shitty Minecraft clone would have never made its release.

Am I bitter? Hell yes. But Sawkins is an ungrateful piece of shit who was unwilling to help others into the industry he's enjoyed success in for so long.

Did you record the Skype session? Because that sounds like disenfranchisement, and you could use that against him.

 

[Togusa09]

There was a time when an FPS was a 'Doom clone' and an open sandbox game was a 'GTA clone', platformer, 'Mario clone' and the list goes on. it's how gaming evolves, slowly by taking other's concepts and just building off of them, Minecraft itself was inspired by Dwarf Fortress and Infiniminer. In time the voxel based building type game could become its own genre.

Given how much id engines were used in the early days, a lot of doom/quake clones were even using the same engines.

 

[scnj]

Did you record the Skype session? Because that sounds like disenfranchisement, and you could use that against him.

Sadly, no. I downloaded Skype specifically to get into the testing chat, and had no idea how to use it, or that I'd get screwed over at the end of it. In fact, I only found out when I downloaded the game demo and excitedly loaded up the credits to see my name.

 

[LavaLampBamboo]

Frankly, he'd be less of a bullshit merchant if he hadn't called the game "FortressCraft". There is literally only ONE reason he'd call it that. It's the same reason Gameloft call their CoD rip-off "Modern Combat".

The fact he is even bothering to argue against this is sad. It just makes him look petty, and he is annoyed he is going to lose a lot of income once Minecraft is released on Xbox. So instead of being gracious, he's going to throw a hissy fit and tarnish his name in the eyes of gamers so they won't respect him, and not buy whatever he does next.

 

[SoulSalmon]

As much as I think people who believe Infiniminer, Dwarf Fortress, Minecraft or Terraria are in any way clones/ripoffs of eachother need to throw their PC in a fire...
Fortresscraft is pretty obvious about being a ripoff made only for quick easy money.

On a related note, this Sawkins guy sounds like he's throwing a tantrum >.>

 

[Tharwen]

Sawkins has the same attitude to design as most of the Minecraft modders. Adding lots of new things doesn't necessarily enhance gameplay, and a lot of the appeal of Minecraft was in creating things in such a way that they fitted into the emergent story that was exposed through playing it.