Now let me make this clear. I dont hate minecraft or mojang or microsoft. I think them still continuing to update a game thats almost 17 years old is a blessing many games dont have.
I dont hate the fact that they have added sulfur stuff. Its whatever, doesnt impact the game much but we can say its still something. But here is the thing. Minecraft is THE biggest game in the world.
I wouldnt have critiqued them if they were short staffed or had financial issues. They dont. This is why i think every single update could just be pushed a bit to its limit. Why stop at a sulfur cave when you could have a sulfur biome? Why not add sulfur crafting recipes? Say a stronger tnt made with gunpowder + sulfur.
Minecraft needs bigger ambitions in my opinion. They shouldnt underestimate themselves. Why aim for the sky when you can aim for the stars? There is genuinely so much potential with them and the game but they only use such a small portion of it.
by oLexrzs
10 Comments
Caves & Cliffs being split into 4 parts is what happens when they get too ambitious. They switch to Game Drops to avoid disappointing people ever since Trails & Tales (despite being the last update where they only showed what was finished) didn’t live up to what people expected
You have to remember that copper golems, armour and tools weren’t a thing when copper first dropped. They’ll add on the idea later on.
I’m just bitching about it but i don’t like how the colours look if they have no function outside of the water stuff why not make them prettier or add something with better colours
they’ll add anything but what we actually ask for
honestly, we should just stop hating on mojang, one bad update won’t kill the game when the past few have been amazing
This point has been driven into the ground. They don’t let us see behind the curtain much, but when they do, it becomes pretty clear why slow and careful development is the right thing for the team to do.
People often respond to this sort of thing by saying, “you don’t know how game development works”, but even that misses the important point: you don’t know how developing Minecraft works.
There is developer commentary that makes it obvious adding features is slow, bureaucratic, and incredibly cooperative from start to finish. More teams might make the studio more capable, but they increase how long it takes for everyone to agree. Features are held to a very high standard of creativity and cohesiveness with the rest of the experience, so their design apparently stays on-paper for some time before sincere implementation.
I can’t remember if this is from the mouth of a developer or just reasonable speculation, so assume it’s the latter; nevertheless:
The bureaucracy has an intentional purpose in the game’s development! Minecraft simply cannot have too many features. The game is primarily creative. Creativity thrives on limitations and discovery. Discovery should inspire you to be creative. That is the minimal gameplay loop that Minecraft thrives inside. Bloating it with features will strip the inspiration from discovery. Creativity requires a person to feel like they have a grasp on the breadth and depth of their medium. If the discovery continues endlessly, the creativity never gets its chance.
They fight a constant battle with a community full of people who are only unified in how strong their criticism is. If you treat the Developers’ critics as one person, that person is a walking contradiction. That person wants hundreds of features per update but complains if the game starts feeling un-minecrafty. All that is not to mention how we haven’t seem the extent of the features the sulfur caves will offer. They rarely show their full hand during Live.
Karma facing is crazy these days
A lot of fans will jump to their defenses by saying, “Don’t worry! They’ll reveal more content later on!”
And, they do, but, only semantically speaking, really. Just the bare minimum to say they added more than just what they revealed at Live
Eyeblossoms and resin were the only major additions to The Garden Awakens after it was first revealed at Live. I’d argue resin, the creaking’s main drop, is something Mojang should’ve had revealed **DURING** the Live presentation, and maybe they could’ve given it more uses than just cosmetics and craftable hearts in the snapshots
Similar story with sulfur and cinnabar. They could add more uses for both, yes, but it sets a bad precedent that Mojang’s making them out to be purely decorative with this initial reveal, when sulfur and mercury are both useful, albeit dangerous IRL, and rarely associated with building
Lives are only 20 minutes at this point, and only like 5 of those minutes tend to be spent on the actually new features. I don’t think it’s insane to believe that Mojang should find some way to manage that time and development crew better
Covid be good?
Let’s just say the slimes are cool