Preview: Minecraft

[anyGould]

I think the game will kick into high gear for me when survival multiplayer is solid (the Robinson Crusoe gambit is only fun so long), and if we could dial the difficulty a bit more (for whatever reason, day 2 I will *always* be surrounded by spiders and creepers - I'd love to be able to choose "give me gobs of zombies and nothing else").

 

[Jester00]

i love that game. the multiplayer is awesome, i built a big city with some friends.

 

[Dragoniangirl]

I've been watching a bunch of "Let's Play"s and other such videos about Minecraft on youtube for a while now and I'm finding myself wanting to get into it more and more. While it does look like at points I may get bored with it, I find the idea of just exploring around and seeing what's been generated in my own little "world" to be very interesting.

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

Even though multiplayer is missing a lot of the single player features, building stuff in the same world as other people is way more fun

Check out the minecraft escapist group group

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/groups/view/EscapeCraft

We have active server ops who police against griefing, tons of server mods to make life easier, and a great server that can handle 30-40 players without too much lag.

 

[Lord Honk]

Very nice review, turned most of the rather open-minded opinions about it into coherent arguments, both pro and contra.

As for my opinion on the game itself, I enjoy it as much as I enjoyed my Legos when I was 6. Being able to put all and every creative thought you have lingering in your mind when you think "What could I do with an infinite amount of blocks?" might not be everyone's cup of tea, but when more and more storydriven games leave you with the feeling that that last confrontation could've gone different had you been given more freedom, this is the exact oposite. You get no narrative, no objectives, just building blocks in the most literal sense, for better or worse.

 

[T-Bone24]

A game that lets you hollow out a volcano to build your base is pretty cool.

A game that lets you pour lava through a mountain using nought but a bucket to make your own volcano which you then make a base in is the kind of game for me.

 

[YukoValis]

It's a game you play for a few hours then stop for a bit. Then suddenly you get an idea of what you want to make! So you come back and play for a few hours again. I wouldn't really call it a "game" as I feel it's more of the blank canvas sort. So far I have built a railroad, fort, treehouse, treehouse library, lava house, castles, docks, lighthouses, underwater tunnels, and so much more. I enjoy Minecraft, and will love to see it blossom and evolve.

 

[juffeee]

Best Indie EVER! Must buy for all.

 

[blankedboy]

How does the combat work in Minecraft exactly?

The monsters come out(usually at night.) and you right click to attack. You can build swords out of various materials(The better the grade the better damage the sword outputs. So Rock>Wood) you can also build bows. That's about it.

You can also build armor of various kinds to reduce how much damage you take. Those also take the same form of Rock>Wood.)


There's also(Also!) some people who've made traps that usually explode either killing the monsters outright or dropping them into a hole they can't get out of. But those are a little more complicated.

There's no Light>Dark or Ice>Fire type additives to the combat. It's really just that simple.

You can right click to attack with a sword?
Didn't know that, I've been using left click.

 

[Weaver]

Hey some of these clips are from the escapist server <3

 

[Plurralbles]

i was really hoping that this would have somethign more than talkinga bout the current alpha.

Thanks, we all know this from twenty different other articles and vids and millions of forum posts. Thnx a lot?

 

[WOPR]

Still bores the crap out of me and had the same appeal runescape did

if I want a GOOD game about CUBES I'll play Cubivore

...

in fact I wonder what would happen if I gave Cubivore to a minecraft fan... Hmm...

 

[Spikkle]

I'm not sure I agree on the point of making the gameplay more focused on objectives, I must say. The minute you start doing that is the minute you start to constrain what sort of buildables are viable towards your success. Minecraft is a blank canvas and a creative tool; putting in arbitrary objectives would actually take a lot of the creativity - and the fun - out of the game for me. Especially in multiplayer.

I think there's a certain case to be made for making the world more accessible to newbies. When I first consulted the wiki (which is itself not particularly well-organised) and found out that to create most of the more complex items I had to create a specific item in the smaller inventory window, which I had only barely registered in and of itself, and then place that item on the floor, right-click and then order more items in a specific configuration...my gut reaction was "How the crap was I meant to figure that out intuitively?"

Some work could definitely be done on that aspect of the game before it proceeds into beta (because with this type of thing, a truly 'finished product' is unlikely.)

 

[RejjeN]

Hey some of these clips are from the escapist server <3

And SO close to my floating "pyramid" too

Though I'm even more sad he didn't include a clip of the "Tomb of Russ Pitts" just for the sake of it ;D

 

[JamesCG]

YOU FEATURED JAMESTOWN. <3 <3

Gawd, I haven't been on the server in about a week.

It's awesome.

 

[CaptainCrunch]

Hey some of these clips are from the escapist server <3

And SO close to my floating "pyramid" too

Though I'm even more sad he didn't include a clip of the "Tomb of Russ Pitts" just for the sake of it ;D

I was working fast, and some of the stuff I got didn't turn out quite right. It was pretty much a case of "make Kross fix the Op commands, then warp around and capture something quick."

There's a lot of really awesome stuff on there though. It's a shame we couldn't show more of what the Escapist users are making.
minecraft.escapistmagazine.com (use it in the client - not a web address)

 

[blipblop]

I realy want to try this game but my computer is shit

 

[ItsAPaul]

Apparently I need to look up the escapist server (name on minecraft is the same if I ever get around to it btw), but I'll probably be playing this game for a good long while. Definitely not a game for people who hate sandboxs though, like every one of my friends.

 

[Impluse_101]

"The game will never be more then what you put into it."

TRUER WORDS HAVE NEVER BEEN SPOKEN!