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The Mojang buyout #minecraft #mojang #microsoft

[There was supposed to be an Watch analysis here, but then I heard about this.  So fuck the analysis.]

 

Because the first thing you do as a huge company with a sandbox game is to be beaten cross-eyed with the compitition.

 

I don’t have high hopes for Minecraft.  I know that’s saying anything and everything, and I completely agree.  Minecraft created a bigger following than anything any professional games company could make.  Ratchet and Clank?  There’s no cult following there.  Super Mario 64?  Kind of.  Banjo Kazooie?  Great game, but not really a religious following.

Ratchet and Clank was supposed to capitalize on the third-person shooter genre.

Super Mario 64 wasn’t even finished.  It was literally hacked together because Nintendo was pressed for time.

Banjo Kazooie…well it was lucky…that and Rareware already knew what it was doing.

Minecraft is kind of the same thing:  Notch was just derping around with Javascript in his free time, decided to put it on the Internet, and VOLIA, instant hit.

 

Super Meat Boy was an indie project too.  Every hit game seems to start out as either a specific mindset or a lucky break.

 

And then the big guys step in and buy everything, then only focus on what is Basically Globally Popular (the BGP), and crank out shooter after shooter after shooter after shooter after shooter after shooter after shooter after shooter after shooter after shooter and they all get suckier and suckier…until the fandom just dies from boredom.

 

Do you know why this happens?  [Long explanation incoming…bear with me]

Pretend you’re a CEO.  Your company is doing moderately fine, you’re cranking out games…people are sort of playing them maybe…then a new technology comes along:  Motion controls!  Suddenly it’s all the rage!  And your company has to get in on the action!  So what do you do?  You tell your lackeys to contact Nintendo and offer to develop games for the Wii, and in return Nintendo gets 25% of the profits.  Nintendo agrees, and sends you the Wiimote SDK.  Your programmers take a look…and piss their pants.  They’ve never dealt with things like this.  They take one look at all the CalibrateRemote(3, 6, 100) if MotionX > 100 Round(10[+/-1]) and decide “Well…we’re not paid well enough for this, let’s just copy the required libraries and cobble together what we can figure out.”

They don’t spend a couple years actually learning the code.  Because the more time spent learning is more time for their previous games to start dropping in sales, and if that happens, their moneys go away.  And companies love moneys, because moneys allow them to hire more people.

 

And that’s exactly what happens.  Your programmers can’t figure it out.  All their demos (meaning 2 or 3) look half-assed and don’t work at all.  But you don’t have time to sit on your ass and waste time with stupid people, so you throw more people and money at it.  You hire even more programmers in the hopes that they can gather enough brain cells together to crank out a half-decent product.

 

Then an idea comes along.  A shooter!  Shooters are popular, motion controllers are popular, 2+2=4.  Motion controlled shooter.  Everyone likes it (or at least wants the profit), so the programmers break out the SDK, copy the libraries to the project file, inject their demos, spend as little time as possible wondering why the game thinks that suddenly moving the controller a million miles an hour over to the other side of the screen and back is valid, package the game, load it onto CDs, and done.  And it sucks.

Because in-game, as soon as you move, you fall through the map because their original in-house 3D engine was based on the fact that the collision detection expects a D-pad, as in you turn very sharply.  And now since the motion-controlled camera allows you to turn very smoothly, you can hit slopes at completely unexpected angles, which completely confuses the collision detection.

 

So what does this have to do with Microsoft buying Mojang?  EVERYTHING.  Look what Microsoft did with Banjo-Kazooie!  They released Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, which completely changed the genre from “collect-a-thon” to “car game”.

 

Lemme repeat the new genre:  “car game”.  Because the current generation loves cars.  Burnout.  Grand Theft Auto.  QED.

 

They even made fun of the old genre by running a short little demo in-game where you control Banjo and you have to run in basically a straight line collecting gold floaty things.  Then the game stops you and says “No, no, it’s too painful to watch.”  I’m serious.

 

Microsoft is not a games company.  They try, and they sort of succeed maybe, but they really just piss everyone off.  The Xbox One.

 

Also Windows 8.  Their idea department needs work (although my awesome adjusting powers led me to like the interface somewhat, but it’s really a tablet interface, except sometimes it’s not…more on that if I feel like it).

 

So what will Microsoft do to Minecraft?  Remove Javascript.  I’m calling that right now.  The first thing they’ll do is port it to their own engine (M3D v1.12.31.1.5 BuildD11A278).  And rename it Microcraft.

 

Beyond that, I am afraid to think of what a giant professional company like Microsoft will do to the result of just derping around.  I am really afraid.

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The Yogscast #yogscast

The Yogscast are a brilliant group of people of United Kingdom origin, that upload really funny videos to YouTube.

The Yogscast have several different sub-groups inside of it, that all have their own channels (some groups have only one person in them).

Now, this is only my opinion, but the best sub-group that I’ve found is Simon and Lewis (the channel is called “BlueXephos”, or “YOGSCAST Simon and Lewis”). I think I WOULD pick GameChaps…but I can barely understand them because they talk a million miles a second.

You might remember Simon and Lewis from the YogPod, an old iTunes podcast that starred Simon and Lewis (personally, I picked up the YouTube Yogscast before I found the YogPod).

What the Yogscast usually does is upload Minecraft videos of custom maps…and all of the sub-groups (not just Simon and Lewis), do a really good job. They also upload other videos of a variety of computer games, so there’s fun for everyone.

You should really check them out. Their website is www.yogscast.com. You’ll probably like them.

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Yogscast…Zybourne Clock? (And other things) #yogscast

If you don’t know about the Yogscast…you need to get on the Internet more. They are a fantastic group of UK (United Kingdom) people that upload hilarious videos of computer games.

Particularly, I’m interested in a select two people from that group, and I watch them the most: Simon and Lewis. This duo is the most hilarious (in my opinion), and they do great things.

One in particular strikes me as really fanominal, and that is their Shadow of Israphel series. It’s a series where a person named Israphel is trying to take over the world using a toxic sand substance, and it’s up to Simon and Lewis (acting as Honeydew and Xephos respectably) and a bunch of other people to stop him.

It’s also a Minecraft series. No, it’s not close ups and cinematic scenes (secretly I hate those kinds of movies…they don’t fit Minecraft), but it’s told from the perspective of Xephos and Honeydew…from their clients, inventory GUI and all. So if you can ignore the GUIs and treat them as just additional info (like a news ticker or something), it can be really engrossing and fun to watch.

___

So what about this Zybourne Clock thing? Well…an early Minecraft map they used for the series got leaked at one point. And I obtained a copy since I am a curious bastard (don’t worry Yogscast if your reading this…it’s so early it dosen’t even contain the giant robotic hand we already saw in the series, I checked).

Before I continue, you have to understand that this particular map was used for a museum server, for people to look at. Spoilers are surrounded by bedrock (a normally impenetrable wall). This particular thing I’m going to talk about was not surrounded by bedrock, yet it was never mentioned in the series.

This Zybourne Clock is even more interesting, since it’s located really close to a section of the map that was actually explored in the series, and is even visible from that place! Yet Honeydew and Xephos never see it. Probably because they were escaping something at the time…and it was dark and raining.

Since its not a spoiler (not surrounded by bedrock), I can probably describe it.

It is a sheer cliff with a spade symbol on it (like you see on playing cards), and on top of the spade, there is a number 5. There are steps cut into the side of the cliff, with signs talking about a married couple (I’m assuming) finding an object many people have given their lives to see: The Zybourne Clock. At the bottom of the cliff is a sign saying something along the lines of “A grim path led us here…” Which is odd, because this area of the map has not been touched by Israphel (at least as far as we know right now). At the top of the cliff is a chest, which is empty, but is probably supposed to contain the Clock itself. A little ways away from the cliff (facing the spade symbol), is a lighted path coming towards the spade, with a sign at the beginning of the path that says “Time works the same way…”.

Alright people, I’ve worked really hard to oust spoilers from this post so far (because people probably already saw the Clock in the museum server) but now I will start deconstructing this Zybourne Clock and what it’s for, so if you haven’t seen the series yet or don’t want to find out, click off this post now!

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