Vanilla Minecraft News Discussion

[johnt]

Me too! I don't understand why such drastic development continues on the game after its release. It's almost as if Notch is paying an in house modding team, surely current sales cannot pay their wages?

Sure they can man. MC is still selling a million units every few months. You can see it just sold another million in the news items on MCF. What is that, 25 million dollars gross?

It probably doesn't cost more than a couple of hundred thousand a year to keep MC development going the way it is now.

I certainly don't approve of the current direction in which MC is going, and I'd personally be in heaven if they just stopped developing it entirely, but at the same time, I sincerely doubt it's not cost effective for them to keep going the way they are.

The numbers are jaw-dropping:

http://www.slashgear.com/minecraft-sale ... -11264932/

In all, the PC/Mac version of Minecraft brought in 4,177,843 sales throughout the year, which isn’t bad for a game that has been available for a number of years already.

Of course, while the PC version’s sales were impressive, they couldn’t top the sales of the Xbox 360 version. Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition was purchased 100,416 times on Christmas day, jumping up to 325,591 sales during the larger Christmas week. 5,002,370 sales was the final tally for Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition, which again is something that we already knew.

With the huge number of people getting a new smartphone or tablet on Christmas day, it definitely isn’t surprising that the sales for Minecraft: Pocket Edition managed to come in on top of the Xbox 360 and PC versions. The mobile version of Minecraft netted 283,939 sales on Christmas day, 706,419 on Christmas week, and 5,899,727 for 2012 as a whole. Both iOS and Android sales are counted in this figure, so it would appear that Mojang is cleaning up across all platforms.

Add up all of those numbers for 2012, and we come to 15,079,940 sales for all versions of Minecraft in 2012. That’s hundreds of millions of dollars for Mojang, so the studio is definitely sitting pretty as we head into 2013.

That's probably close to 200 or 300 million dollars for 2012 alone. Their profit margins have to be absolutely insane, too, considering that they only have like 10 or 20 people on the staff, and pay almost nothing for advertising -- even if they're paying 100 million dollars for server costs (and they aren't), that's a pile of money left over.

Interesting breakdown on the money, though -- the vast majority of going it is going straight to Notch's bank account, not the company.

last year, the majority of profits went straight to Notch Development—Perssons' own company—rather than Mojang itself. MCV states the 425 million SEK ($63.5 million) of the total 550 million SEK ($82.2 million) went to Notch Development). Now with the company's massive increase in yearly profits, much of the money will go straight to Mojang since the company has officially taken over the IP from Persson.

So, considering that profits doubled this year (according to the same article) -- that's about 160 million dollars going straight to Notch's bank account, and only $20 million going to mojang itself. For some perspective, Zynga is pulling in 4 times that amount of revenue while losing money, and it's worth almost 2 billion dollars. I don't have a clue what Mojang would be worth if it went public, but I would wager 'a lot'.

[Shengji]

I don't have a clue what Mojang would be worth if it went public, but I would wager 'a lot'.

It is heart warming that a game like minecraft can do so well in a marketplace where EA and Ubisoft feel they have to be so anti-consumer to meet their shareholders expectations!

[johnt]

Like, Mojang is making more than 'fuck-you' money. It's making "Let me buy a presidential election" money. Notch could be a billionaire today if he wanted to, just by selling Mojang (Sweden's extremely high tax rates aside)

[Donzaffi]

Its only me taht is some kind of paranoid, or minecraft is getting more and more ideas from BTW ?

[Elevatator]

Its only me taht is some kind of paranoid, or minecraft is getting more and more ideas from BTW ?

You are not paranoid (at least not in this case)
Some weeks/months time ago, Dinnerbone visited the McF thread. He and Flower had a talk, and one thing we know is that Flower suggested Dinnerbone, that he should play Btw to get an idea of gameplay.

[Donzaffi]

Its only me taht is some kind of paranoid, or minecraft is getting more and more ideas from BTW ?

You are not paranoid (at least not in this case)
Some weeks/months time ago, Dinnerbone visited the McF thread. He and Flower had a talk, and one thing we know is that Flower suggested Dinnerbone, that he should play Btw to get an idea of gameplay.

ah okay, thanks to the update, seems that i lost may things.

[Mikko_blu]

I'm really actually curious if dinnerbone got any of the stuff from the mod. I'd like to say he did, but I'm still really curious.

[userzero]

I'm really actually curious if dinnerbone got any of the stuff from the mod. I'd like to say he did, but I'm still really curious.

I'd say that features from this mod have shown up in VMC (as poor imitations) often enough to rule out coincidence.

[Sarudak]

Wow. Those numbers are rather mind-blowing. Notch is doing rather well for himself. I think they should give Flowerchild 1%... :P

[Six]

So we've got snapshot 13w05a now, and one change in particular made me laugh.

Changelog on reddit

Summary:

• Bug fixes.
• Finally put the multiple snow heights into the game. You can craft 6 snow layers with 3 snow blocks in a row, then stack these, ala this gif.
• Made stair lighting better.
• Added more stuff to the scoreboard system that was introduced last snapshot.
• 'Rebalanced' bonemeal so that all crops take an average of around 2.5 bonemeal to grow, but I think trees remain at 2?

And the kicker:

• Increased beacon range.
  - 1 layer = 41 blocks diameter (old diameter:33)
  - 2 layers= 61 blocks (old:49)
  - 3 layers: 81 blocks (old:65)
  - 4 layers: 101 blocks (old:81)

[FlowerChild]

• Increased beacon range.
  - 1 layer = 41 blocks diameter (old diameter:33)
  - 2 layers= 61 blocks (old:49)
  - 3 layers: 81 blocks (old:65)
  - 4 layers: 101 blocks (old:81)

Hehe...and totally wimpy no less.

For comparison, level 4 BTW beacons have a "diameter" (it's actually a square in both cases) of 320 blocks.

[DNoved1]

The snow thing intrigues me, but only slightly. I'm a little curious how the collision box will work with it now, obviously the player won't just be able to walk through a 3-layer snow pile but does this mean that you also can no longer walk through the normal 1-layer? Also, will snow pile up in tundra biomes when it is snowing?

Also, this line from the wiki: As of 13w05a, bonemeal has been balanced. Growing a plant to its last state now takes on average 2-5 uses of bonemeal (results vary from plant to plant). Developers stated that bonemeal should make a plant go to its mature state in 2-4 uses.

Who exactly decided that, and based off what? Personally, I find throwing a femur at my seeds doesn't really accomplish much, but now it seems to be balance so that one bone = one crop.

[Stompinlama]

Now if the made the snow layers a part of terrain generation and maybe one block overhangs it might be much nicer.
As for the rest, I don't see much I would use, but hey, at least the scoreboard works better, right?

[BinoAl]

[*]Finally put the multiple snow heights into the game. You can craft 6 snow layers with 3 snow blocks in a row, then stack these, ala this gif.

That's actually really fucking cool. It's a relatively small addition, but it should be incredibly fun to play with. I hope collision works with them, creating gradual slopes in a snowy region would be great

[Six]

[*]Finally put the multiple snow heights into the game. You can craft 6 snow layers with 3 snow blocks in a row, then stack these, ala this gif.

That's actually really fucking cool. It's a relatively small addition, but it should be incredibly fun to play with. I hope collision works with them, creating gradual slopes in a snowy region would be great

The funny thing is the code has been in the game for this for a long time. If I'm not mistaken, I believe if the difference of height between one block and the next is 1/2 a block or less you can walk between them smoothly.

[FlowerChild]

The funny thing is the code has been in the game for this for a long time. If I'm not mistaken, I believe if the difference of height between one block and the next is 1/2 a block or less you can walk between them smoothly.

Kinda smoothly. This is the way Groth already works, but movement over its surface is a bit glitchy as a result.

Hopefully now that Mojang has included this feature they'll be motivated to fix up the player movement code for that kind of thing, although I'm still uncertain as to how player collision will work with these partial snow blocks given that regular snow is ignored for collisions.

[MoRmEnGiL]

This new snow thing, it has some interesting potential implications. If snowing gradually piles up snow layers instead of a single layer, it will make snowy biomes much more interesting and interactive, while at the same time making surface paths etc a bit more complicated.

I'd really like to see snow becoming an issue in builds, and having to take measures to keep things under control.. But in all honesty, torch spam probably makes this just wishful thinking.


But just imagine how cool it would be to have auto-clearing paths, or special covered roads that eventually get covered up by snow.

[Magnavode]

Kinda smoothly. This is the way Groth already works, but movement over its surface is a bit glitchy as a result.

Hopefully now that Mojang has included this feature they'll be motivated to fix up the player movement code for that kind of thing, although I'm still uncertain as to how player collision will work with these partial snow blocks given that regular snow is ignored for collisions.

I did some quick tests;
- The 1 high snowblock has no collision box, other stack sizes do. EDIT: upon further testing I found that the collision size is the stacksize -1 (you sink trough the top layer).
- The player can walk onto a stack of 5 layers (not 4 as suggested above by six) without having to jump. EDIT: for some reason this only works when walking from flat ground (0 stack to 5 stack). It doesn't work when walking from a 2 stack to a 7 stack. A stack of 5 layers has the same collision size as a half slab. The half a block stepsize rule still applies.
- The glitchy player movement seems to be gone. Walking up and down a slope will not result in the player sinking into the block. I've tested this with various height differences. I've also tested this with a repeater/halfslab combination which always resulted in the glitchy movement in previous versions.
- A stack of 8 (looks like a full snow block) can still melt and wash away from water, same as other stack sizes. In other words; any stack size still behaves like a 1 high stack.
- Repeaters cannot be placed on a stack of 8.
- The block is transparent, including the stack of 8.

Personally I applaud Mojang for the changes in this snapshot. I hope the new lighting looks as good decompiled as it looks ingame. And here's hoping they don't go overboard with adding other blocks like the new snow.

[Six]

- A stack of 8 (looks like a full snow block) can still melt and wash away from water, same as other stack sizes. In other words; any stack size still behaves like a 1 high stack.

A few more questions I have about it:
- What do you get when breaking different sized piles?
- Does that stack of 8 become a snow block?
- Does (and did) water wash away full snow blocks?

[FlowerChild]

Personally I applaud Mojang for the changes in this snapshot. I hope the new lighting looks as good decompiled as it looks ingame. And here's hoping they don't go overboard with adding other blocks like the new snow.

That's awesome to hear man. That should smooth out a lot of movement problems with partial blocks in general.

[Magnavode]

- A stack of 8 (looks like a full snow block) can still melt and wash away from water, same as other stack sizes. In other words; any stack size still behaves like a 1 high stack.

A few more questions I have about it:
- What do you get when breaking different sized piles?
- Does that stack of 8 become a snow block?
- Does (and did) water wash away full snow blocks?

Breaking with your hand doesn't drop anything.
Breaking with a shovel gives you X amount of snowballs, where X is the stacksize.

Your other 2 questions have already been answered.

Personally I applaud Mojang for the changes in this snapshot. I hope the new lighting looks as good decompiled as it looks ingame. And here's hoping they don't go overboard with adding other blocks like the new snow.

That's awesome to hear man. That should smooth out a lot of movement problems with partial blocks in general.

Keyword is 'seems' though. I've only tested this in single player and there could still be some glitches in there. Also the reason why I'm a bit doubtful is that the Mojira doesn't say anything about this bug being fixed.
Edit: here's the bug on the Mojira: MC-1594. (Please note that I tried the steps in the description and it didn't glitch. I'm getting a warm, fuzzy feeling inside now. :))

Last edit before I go to bed: I downgraded to 13w04a, the glitch is there. This isn't random, it's been fixed. Goodnight.

[johnt]

Packet switched rail network.

http://imgur.com/a/g6hmY

[johnt]

Oh, and on notch's money:

$100 million in 2012:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/ ... in/c87pl91

Also, notch does an impromptu AMA on what it's like to be filthy rich.

As a point of comparison, EA earned 74 million for the entire year.

[Donzaffi]

Oh, and on notch's money:

$100 million in 2012:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/ ... in/c87pl91

Also, notch does an impromptu AMA on what it's like to be filthy rich.

As a point of comparison, EA earned 74 million for the entire year.

I prefer buying 10 copies of Minecraft than one copy of "insert EA game here"

But back to topic.
Its awesome that they are changing bonemeal finally.
In the last snapshots it seems that they are seeing that the updates are poor, but then again they add things that makes the game even more easily.

It drives me mad .

[Mikko_blu]

• 'Rebalanced' bonemeal so that all crops take an average of around 2.5 bonemeal to grow, but I think trees remain at 2?

So here's a question... why not just make it so that bones give one bonemeal? Wouldn't that balance it out? So 1 bone = 1 crop, Which is pretty much what they're doing now.