Minecraft: A "Quantum Leap" {correction: revolution} in Gaming?
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Minecraft puts me in the mindset akin to a combination between Harvest Moon and Lost in Blue. It's calming and therapeutic almost, but at the same time can freak you out and frustrate you beyond reasoning. Some of it feels very disjointed, but seeing as it's a beta it has plenty of room for improvement. In my opinion, it is the definition of a sandbox game. You can literally do whatever you want within the confines of the game, and while singleplayer gets lonely after a while, I honestly don't think it was meant to be a multiplayer game. My friends and I all play, and to show each other our work we put the file on a disc or a detachable card, and take it to each others' houses when we hang out to show off.
It is addicting. It is a wonderful time waster. It gives you a sense of accomplishment even, if you're the right type of person for it.
But honestly, you have to be the right type of person to truly fall in love with Minecraft as a game. In my opinion, it's a good, entertaining, safe game for everyone to play, and more "sandbox" games should strive to be like it. But for how expansive you can make your world be, and how complicated you can make your creations, it's still lacking. If the animals didn't spawn in massive numbers, the world would feel so empty during the day.
It is addicting. It is a wonderful time waster. It gives you a sense of accomplishment even, if you're the right type of person for it.
But honestly, you have to be the right type of person to truly fall in love with Minecraft as a game. In my opinion, it's a good, entertaining, safe game for everyone to play, and more "sandbox" games should strive to be like it. But for how expansive you can make your world be, and how complicated you can make your creations, it's still lacking. If the animals didn't spawn in massive numbers, the world would feel so empty during the day.
No more intolerable than those who attack it because it's trendy to do so, in much the same way that people trip over themselves in their eagerness to tell everyone how bored they are with Portal...gibboss28 said:
Minecraft has sold over 2 million copies, essentially by word of mouth since it's never had anything like a pro advertising campaign. It's the most triumphant example since WoW that graphics aren't everything, and like WoW, it's a one-off, an unrepeatable phenomenon, and in the years to come publishers and developers will spend millions failing to replicate its success. Peter Molyneux called it the game of the decade and just about every commentator I've read, from Yahtzee to Extra Credits drools over the thing.
I realise it's not everyone's thing, but attempts to downplay and dismiss it as nothing special are just not convincing.
Well since it is not an entirely new concept and is still in beta and needs a bit of improvement. No it is not a quantum leap or revolution. It just does what people want creation sandbox type games to do. Let you do what you want but make you work for it to give you a sense of achievement.
No its not.
Its digital Lego where someone found a way to make it even MORE time-consuming to find the piece you want or need for your project.
Its digital Lego where someone found a way to make it even MORE time-consuming to find the piece you want or need for your project.
hahahahahahahaahha oh wow
No. Making virtual legos is not a "quantum leap". I can't see what changing the energy level of electrons has anything to do with a video game, however.
No. Making virtual legos is not a "quantum leap". I can't see what changing the energy level of electrons has anything to do with a video game, however.
Notch and his fanboys got the ball rolling by viraling /v/ every fucking day for half a year. The internet works in mysterious ways, just look at Friday.Sixcess said:
Ace of Spades is more fun
As great as it is, No.
Micecraft does show that something so basic can be wildly enjoyed and that graphics aren't always going to make a game less popular (In the case of Minecraft, the graphics made it more popular.)
In terms of gaming, the only thing that is revolutionary at the moment is social gaming.
Micecraft does show that something so basic can be wildly enjoyed and that graphics aren't always going to make a game less popular (In the case of Minecraft, the graphics made it more popular.)
In terms of gaming, the only thing that is revolutionary at the moment is social gaming.
The envy that fans of Dwarf Fortress exhibit towards Minecraft is painful to behold. Not envy of its mechanics, but envy of its success. Unfortunately there's a difference between simple graphics (Minecraft) and aggressively uninviting graphics (Dwarf Fortress) and so long as DF has the latter it will always be a niche title.Ultratwinkie said:
I'm not saying DF is a bad game by any means, but even if graphics are less important than gameplay, there comes a point where the visuals actively detract from the player's attempt to enjoy the game, and for a lot of people, DF has reached that point.
TO be comparable to Doom I think will take time. Wolfenstein was the first FPS (as far as I know) and Doom is the game that was hugely popular and can be cited as showing there was a market for FPS's and led to a huge number being made.
Minecraft is a revelation in terms of the potential of "indie gaming" (in terms of sales) and gameplay style I think (I could be wrong about this). For it to be comparable to Doom I think it would need to prove to be hugely influential in some way and it is to early to tell.
I do also wonder if it is fair to say that Doom was the last breakthrough in gaming of its size. What about GTA 3, not the first sandbox game but the game that showed the commercial potential for the genre (much like Doom).
EDIT:
Minecraft is a revelation in terms of the potential of "indie gaming" (in terms of sales) and gameplay style I think (I could be wrong about this). For it to be comparable to Doom I think it would need to prove to be hugely influential in some way and it is to early to tell.
I do also wonder if it is fair to say that Doom was the last breakthrough in gaming of its size. What about GTA 3, not the first sandbox game but the game that showed the commercial potential for the genre (much like Doom).
EDIT:
I must admit I have never heard of Dwarf Fortress so I could be wrong; to me it sounds a bit like Wolfenstein, the first game of its type but not a huge success in comparison to Minecraft/Doom respectively.Sixcess said:
I'm sorry but i'm calling bullshit on your little soapbox rant there. Quantum essentially means a discrete amount. The size of the amount isn't the point, the nature of how it changes is.. i.e. its a leap or step from one value or state to another. There is no 1.5 quanta, you go from 1 quanta to 2 quanta.DanDanikov said:
Thus using the term "quantum leap" is a perfectly sensible synonym for "step change" or "paradigm shift" in the sense that it implies a discontinuous change.
Edit:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/quantum+leap
OP, your usage is legit, please correct your correction!! XDOakleighy said:
To you perhaps, but not everybody (my point being that even if you tire of the game, it isn't pointless if other still find enjoyment in it).Kadamon said:
And you're neglecting to mention the other big areas of the game, including the big draw for most players; the creative building aspect.
The most painful part of Dwarf Fortress isn't the lack of graphics, it's the lack of inclination by the developer to either a) develop some graphics, b) get other people involved to develop some graphics, or c) decouple the engine from the graphics so others may develop and plug-in their own graphics. The DF community does seem to have some kind of giant stick up their collective butts with regards to making the game more accessible- it's like some elitist club that doesn't want the steep learning curve dropped. Toady himself is very much like a guy I once worked with (both happen to have Ph.Ds)- they don't work well in a team, micromanage, generate monolithic code that is incomprehensible to others due to having an architecture fetish. It's quite possible the DF codebase is unfathomable to anyone but Toady, and that's not a desirable quality.
I'd like to see a studio blatantly rip the good bits from Dwarf Fortress and make something better. Minecraft proves it's certainly doable to approximate it, but that's another one-developer wonder. Damn developers and their egos...
You say the size of the amount isn't the point, and it isn't... directly. What you said about the nature of the change is accurate- the whole idea is the nature of the change is indivisible and you cannot have incremental changes in quanta (as you said, no 1.5 quanta). By natural extension, quantum tend to be very small as change rarely has such large granularity, hence the natural association with the very small.
thefreedictionary.com's definition seems totally counter to this: 'a sudden large increase or advance' seems entirely concerned with the size of the change, not the quantization of it, nor equating it with a paradigm shift. I do think it can be argued that a quantum leap could be equivalent to a paradigm shift (as paradigms could be considered indivisible), but that doesn't change that previous popular usage has taken it far from its original meaning, as evidenced by that definition.
Regardless to the suitability of using 'quantum leap', there exists other less contentious phrases, such as 'step change' or 'paradigm shift', and on that basis I'd still recommend against using it.
I'd like to see a studio blatantly rip the good bits from Dwarf Fortress and make something better. Minecraft proves it's certainly doable to approximate it, but that's another one-developer wonder. Damn developers and their egos...
Well, I'm going to call bullshit on your calling bullshitContinuity said:
You say the size of the amount isn't the point, and it isn't... directly. What you said about the nature of the change is accurate- the whole idea is the nature of the change is indivisible and you cannot have incremental changes in quanta (as you said, no 1.5 quanta). By natural extension, quantum tend to be very small as change rarely has such large granularity, hence the natural association with the very small.thefreedictionary.com's definition seems totally counter to this: 'a sudden large increase or advance' seems entirely concerned with the size of the change, not the quantization of it, nor equating it with a paradigm shift. I do think it can be argued that a quantum leap could be equivalent to a paradigm shift (as paradigms could be considered indivisible), but that doesn't change that previous popular usage has taken it far from its original meaning, as evidenced by that definition.
Regardless to the suitability of using 'quantum leap', there exists other less contentious phrases, such as 'step change' or 'paradigm shift', and on that basis I'd still recommend against using it.