I was a heavy Minecraft user up until Minecraft 1.8. I didn’t stop because I became an adult. I already was an adult, and was playing on MisfitMC, a “mature survival” server. There are however, adults who play Minecraft to hang out with kids, and parents should be aware of that and know the reputation of the server (There are thousands of servers, and they are run by random people), including in regards to gambling and pay-to-win. Mojang says they still get requests for getting such money refunded, but they can’t because they don’t supervise these servers. However, this article isn’t for kids, it is for adults. I want to focus on how Minecraft got worse for them, though possibly for teens as well.
I was surprised to hear, years after all the events I’ll describe, some teen say “Minecraft is for 11 year olds.” I never knew an 11 year old to play Minecraft or thought it was relatively rare (Though I had a clue from Minecon clips, there were still far more people playing than attend that), so the statement seemed to confirm to me that Minecraft had lost its niche and become a mass-market product, as in too much hand-holding and cuteness which I vaguely knew was increasing. The first thing that went wrong for me was the API changes in version 1.8 which broke the marketplace plugin on the server I was on. There was never an official API (Application Programming Interface, or in this case a system for making plugins) up to that point, but third-party ones had to “re-hack” the game when there were major internal changes. Mod breakage overall was a real factor (definitely in my case), maybe even to a greater extent for other servers, but there were also other factors to the server’s decline and Minecraft’s.
I revisited my house on CedarCraft briefly. Being light on mods meant that the server wasn’t as good for casual play, as there was less trade, or at least I wasn’t making friends since there were fewer adults. I didn’t see that outlook getting any better elsewhere since Minecraft was becoming a pop culture phenomenon rather than a niche survival game for serious gamers. I started being more interested in making mods and taking a break from public Minecraft servers.
Around the time of Minecraft 1.8 there was a perceived mod apocalypse which was overestimated in some ways but has had a demoralizing effect on modders. Server software using the Bukkit plugin system never really went away, but there was a licensing struggle that made changes necessary and caused overall concern. People were still contributing code to Bukkit to help modders, but the core dev(s) secretly already sold it to Mojang. Some contributors were upset that they had been instead helping Mojang’s intellectual property portfolio unknowingly. Microsoft bought Mojang shortly after that and have continually tried to centralize mod development.
Mojang kept saying they would make a modding API, only to make an incomplete one years later, then dump it, and dump another plugin system (and maybe more?). This is typical of Microsoft, echoing the mood of the presentation where they announced Silverlight and an audience member asked, “When will you dump it?” (It was never widely used, and like several of their other user interface APIs they eventually dumped it).
The latest modding API distributes mods through the Minecraft DLC Marketplace. It is a corporate hub for cross-brand projects such as paid skins with value marginal and disposable to players. Some mods on there are inferior clones of “OG” (original great…) Minecraft (Java) mods and sometimes even use graphics ripped from them. Mojang doesn’t show concern, but benefits financially. Minecraft’s “Realms” server hosting system provides a lever to centrally control mods as well (The admin rents instead of hosts, and can only make changes Mojang allows). These negatives are impacts of the fiasco and corporate API changes that lasts even to this day. However, the major and prolonged damage to the modding community (and hence casual options for some servers) was only the beginning of the end for “mature survival” in Minecraft, as after Microsoft purchased Mojang, later versions made more tangible changes to the core (“vanilla”) game.
In some respects many adults are more patient through experience (at least sensing the value of delayed gratification). They may grind more overall in some cases and not give up on a game as easily as younger people, but may play more casually as in spreading out their time. In the case of the server I used, the casual part required the marketplace (in-game economy)–If someone else already did a different kind of grinding, you could buy items from their store. The money was all obtained in the game by selling ores to the in-game bank. A game doesn’t have to be “cozy” to be casual–It can just allow you to play for shorter sittings, and play for longer sittings less frequently. Without that, Minecraft is too “grindy” (requiring long stints to get certain materials or advancements) for most adults. That may be a deal-breaker for working people or those with dependents needing care or transportation.
So what makes people want to play for the long haul? Well, Minecraft used to be a “git good” type of game. It isn’t bad to have gatekeeping if it is skills-based or knowledge-based. Not everything should be made easier for the sake of people who don’t like the game or learning curve (Though some people may like a crafting guide over a Wiki). Every game and program has a purpose, like every person. Not every game is for everyone, period. Games and applications that try to be for everyone gradually become worse. There are various parts of Minecraft versions after 1.8 that demonstrate that.
Saying “yes” too much to the mass audience of younger kids instead of rewarding patience & delayed gratification: “I want more diamonds” (done: deepslate), “I want to dig deeper” (done: deepslate), “I want to build higher” (done), “I want to fly” (a.k.a. “op me”; done via elytra), “I want to be able to run commands” (a.k.a. “op me”…again; done via command blocks); “I want a robot helper” (done via copper golem); and “make getting enchantments easier” (done via villagers with lecterns, which completely break ramping).
- Cheapening survival and travel makes the game world feel smaller, and less interesting for adults. The enjoyment of advancement and even of the world itself is spent more quickly.
- Some of these features already existed in mods anyway, so they were all by choice and are now required in some cases (unless they have options, or in other cases are taken out manually by mods).
- Going higher or deeper has no meaningful effect, other than having the deep dark. It (and flying at high speed) creates a more disjointed world, and travel becomes more contrived (Practically requiring teleportation).
- More naturally-occurring blocks fill your inventory more quickly. Shulker boxes make the game playable, but the cognitive load of having many more types of items than earlier versions remains.
New mobs (especially post-1.8) are generally “safe” choices in that they don’t add to gameplay in meaningful ways. Exceptions include happy ghasts, but they break and sanitize the lore of the nether; and except phantoms which punish you for not playing a certain way, even though beds were already incentivized. The punishment is also contradicted somewhat by the fact that you must let them appear so you can kill them and collect phantom membranes to repair elytras. You could be tempted to say that phantoms are adding to gameplay in that way, but this cycle is contrived, as in only meeting a need it created and having no intuitive logic behind it.
Because of all that, the Luanti (then called Minetest) engine sounded exciting to me since it automatically downloads mods when you join a server. Since all gameplay is in the form of mods and they are open source and scripted with Lua, anyone can fix them–you don’t have to upgrade Luanti to get significant gameplay features, and you don’t have to stay at a lower version to keep the ones you want. I am trying to go my own direction with making advancement features instead of copying Minecraft and its mistakes.
Since Minecraft gets worse over time, Luanti mods shouldn’t try to do the same (not to mention, having the same problem of API changes breaking things…). There is some use in the comparison as a personal challenge to learn game development, but Luanti mods should have their own lore, including their own interactive blocks and systems not just generic versions of Minecraft ones. Mineclonia and MineClone 2 games for Luanti are useful for porting old Minecraft worlds to Luanti (via mcimport), so I would still be glad to use them and maybe even contribute code and assets (graphics & sound).
However, trying to make Luanti as good as Minecraft (or “Golden Age” Minecraft, which is arguably 1.8 Beta to 1.8, or even earlier for people who call that the “Silver Age”) will not happen by copying it, and copying the graphics could lead to legal issues. Some Luanti-based game(s) on app store(s) have been taken down because they were wrongly identified as hacked Minecraft clients even though all of the graphics were apparently public-licensed and made by the Luanti community. Beyond the legal risks, it is clear that many things that are the same in Luanti mods either don’t look as good or work as well. Developers should play to the strengths of the engine and existing mods and work incrementally.
My focus for my ENLIVEN game is to make a game that is immersive and good in its own way. While working on my own mods I make them open source and often contribute code and assets to existing mods. The features available for Luanti engine are not just ever-growing but ever-improving. Even if some mod support drops off due to engine changes and lack of maintenance, typically new ones take their place where there is demand. The features can be decided by the developer of each game, and ultimately the server owners and players can choose.
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