Poll of the Day > Terraria update: "we added 4 new bosses and 300 new items"

(+) Yeah! (+)

Minecraft update: "there are giraffes now"

I thought they were supposed to stop updating it like 2 years ago.

I'm just comparing Terraria and Minecraft updates in general

It's pretty insane how much content they added for free over such a long period of time

I mean, it was literally called the "labor of love update". Honestly, it's still great that both games are getting content. Wish more games got such long term support. Though, I do hope the Terraria team makes a new game.

i think its easier to develop a 2d game than a 3d game in java

Teenaged_Jesus posted...

i think its easier to develop a 2d game than a 3d game in java

mod makers add more content to minecraft on a regular basis in months than Mojang adds in years

What's Notch doing these days?

GanonsSpirit posted...

What's Notch doing these days?

Probably being a left-leaning centrist on Twitter

Zareth posted...

mod makers add more content to minecraft on a regular basis in months than Mojang adds in years

and those mods frequently break and break other mods, too, don't they

Zareth posted...

mod makers add more content to minecraft on a regular basis in months than Mojang adds in years

I like how everyone brings up this point, nevermind the fact that making a mod is nothing like developing a commercial update. Mojang needs to spend months coming up with new features, which takes time and money. Then they need to spend months prototyping, tweaking and finetuning new features, which takes more time and money. And everything they add, they need to thoroughly test to make sure it doesn't break something that's already in the game. They literally have test worlds, with hundreds of tests in them that they need to run every single time they make any change to the code to make sure they didn't break anything. Then they need to release the new features in beta tests to get community feedback. Which takes even more time. Then they need to make marketing materials. Which takes more money and more time. Then after they're confident they are releasing what they just spent 6 months to a year on, now they need to get it working in Bedrock edition. And the console editions. Then they need to get approval from Microsoft. And Sony. And Nintendo. Then they need to make sure it works in the phone editions. Then they need to get approvel from Apple and Google. All of that takes more time and more money. And if they need to hire new developers at any point in that process, then they need to train them, get them acquainted with the codebase and development pipeline. And, you guessed it, that takes time and money.

A mod will just copy wooden planks 200 times and make 200 new textures, and somehow break the lighting engine in the process, but nobody cares because it's a mod.

I haven't kept up with the latest MC update but based on their history of updates it's gotta be more than just giraffes. I don't see why the two games need to be compared anyway, there are very few games that get this kind of official free updates for so long even if you think Minecraft isn't the best at it

Terreria has always been a more action-oriented crafting game, so this feels like an apples and oranges comparison.

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

Terreria has always been a more action-oriented crafting game, so this feels like an apples and oranges comparison.

There's some overlap, but they're very different.

Zareth posted...

Probably being a left-leaning centrist on Twitter

Close! Replace left with right and you got it.

Shananagainz posted...

Close! Replace left with right and you got it.

You kind of missed his joke.



Zareth posted...

Minecraft update: "there are giraffes now"

From my understanding, "lack of meaningful updates" is pretty much the least of Minecraft's problems at the moment.

Zareth posted...

Probably being a left-leaning centrist on Twitter

i heard he tripped and fell up the alt-right pipe

Zareth posted...

I'm just comparing Terraria and Minecraft updates in general

Not a fair comparison.

https://minecraft-archive.fandom.com/wiki/Updates

Look at the major updates since the 1.5 Restone update, they've all been themed and feature many new additions and changes. You're thinking of Minecraft 2011 when adding a new mob was considered a major update.

Yeah I'm surprised people are still playing minecraft, the dev process suuuuuuucks.

"We added ducks, they use 5 polygons, come back on and play for another 1000 hours in the duck update"

Add lategame dimensions already. Expand the lategame. Devs hate expanding the endgame!

Yellow posted...

Add lategame dimensions already. Expand the lategame. Devs hate expanding the endgame!

Didn't they kind of do that though? The nether and the end were considered late/end game and both areas received huge updates. The end has end cities, which are the only place to find the flying wings and the stuff to make shulker boxes, and you can find enchanted diamond gear and stuff there too. The nether has a bunch of new structures, biomes, and mobs, and the new ore that's super rare and better than diamond. They also added woodland mansions which are endgame I believe, though I have never found one in any of my worlds. And they massively improved cave systems making them larger and more dangerous to explore. With the nether and the end they have a "sky" dimension and a "hell" dimension outside the overworld dimension. What other dimensions should they add?

kind9 posted...

What other dimensions should they add?

8 more dimensions available consecutively

Use billions of dollars to literally never stop adding more dimensions. Add a dungeon system, add an entirely new game within the game, wizard magic system, factories, idk. Give me a reason to never stop playing the game.

Don't add a bumblebee and 5 different kind of rocks and call it a day.

Minecraft is a crafting game, I don't need them to go hard on a bunch of action and RPG stuff. To me, it's not so much about the updates themselves but they're a good excuse to start up a new map and then taking a new approach to how I'll build up my area.

Admittedly, the survival startup routine is pretty stale every time with a new map. Make the wood pickaxe, make the stone pickaxe, sleep in a dirt hovel, etc. I think it would be cool if instead they added a mode where you started in a safe town with a lot of essentials, maybe there are some run down parts that you can choose to improve or not. I know they have villages but those always have jack shit in them, same with the bonus chests. The problem is they seem to add a lot of stuff that adds challenge which is fine, but that early game might need tweaking in the other direction. It doesn't add much to the challenge to get your footing in survival at this point, it's just tedious.

Yellow posted...

Use billions of dollars to literally never stop adding more dimensions.

You can do this with mods, but it very quickly runs into file size problems, which in turn increases load times and the need for extra chunkloading if you want to do things in multiple dimensions (which can significantly increase the processing load). It's a nifty idea, but from a technical standpoint it's generally going to be better to add new content to existing dimensions.

Yellow posted...

Give me a reason to never stop playing the game.

At the end of the day, it's a sandbox crafting game. You're the one responsible for creating reasons to never stop playing. No amount of update content is ever going to be able to achieve that goal for you.

Yellow posted...

8 more dimensions available consecutively

Use billions of dollars to literally never stop adding more dimensions. Add a dungeon system, add an entirely new game within the game, wizard magic system, factories, idk. Give me a reason to never stop playing the game.

Don't add a bumblebee and 5 different kind of rocks and call it a day.

But what should the new dimensions be? What would be the point of going there? Why should they add new dimensions, when The End needs to be completely revamped, and there are features and areas and biomes in The Overworld that also need updates? There are dungeons. Strongholds, Bastions, Fortresses, End Cities, Ancient Cities, Woodland Mansions, Ocean Monuments. Sure Strongholds should be redesigned, or at the very least get something new. And the structures that are literally called "Dungeons" are a single room with maybe a chest or two. Those also need to be completely revamped. And there kind of are magic systems, enchanting and potion brewing. I think potion brewing especially should get like an in game recipe book or something. Who the hell figures out how potions work on their own?

But also, 1.19 strongly hints that a new Dimension will be added. There's a giant unbreakable frame in the Ancient Cities, and the new "5" music disc has sounds that could be related to a new portal being activated. But personally, I really really hope they do to The End what they did to The Nether a couple years ago before they go adding a new Dimension. The terrain generation is endless islands of cheese with the occasional city. The End desperately needs some new biomes and natural blocks, and maybe a new ore or something. Once most players get an Elytra and a few Shulker Boxes, they never go back to The End. And in fact that, that's not even most players. That's most players that even bother going to The End in the first place. The vast majority of Minecraft players never even seek out an End Portal frame. Give people more of a reason to go there.

I feel like there just isn't that much you can add to Minecraft without making it so radically different. Even the end still feels kinda weird to me. Dimensions might actually be a good idea though because you can opt out of doing them if you want. But I agree they might as well add more to the end before bringing in any brand new ones.

I think they've done a pretty good job with most updates being additive and not radically altering the character of the game too much. The tradeoff is those changes might be pretty boring. Like I don't see a huge advantage to a material that's stronger than diamond, since diamond is still really good... but nerfing diamonds would be a bad thing too. Then you have a lot of new additions that tend to amount to providing some easier/alternative middle step to acquiring something else, building a farm, etc.

And really, if you do want to make it radically different, such as turning it into an rpg with a magic system, there are countless mods to help with that. To officially try to take it in one such direction at the expense of any other option would just result in a game that fewer people would enjoy compared to the basic blank slate the game provides as-is. As such, updates are going to be mostly focused on providing new environments to explore and materials to build with, rather than anything fundamentally game-changing. If that's what you want, get into modding.

Spider-grapple is so feckin cool

papercup posted...

But what should the new dimensions be? What would be the point of going there? Why should they add new dimensions?

Could always just steal ideas from various mods. Something like the Twilight Forest would be an obvious one. Then you invent a new resource or two that can only be found there, a few recipes that use that new resource, and maybe pick an existing resource that's rare in vanilla Minecraft and make it more common in the alternate dimension as added appeal.

The problem really isn't a shortage of ideas or possibilities - the mods all show you can do tons of things with the core game. The problem is the lack of any real interest in doing those sorts of things on the part of the official devs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwPLGUw7nwg

BTW this is the new music disc added in 1.19 a few months ago. This is definitely hinting at a new dimension coming. But who knows when thats going to happen. Also there are references in the structure data for the Ancient Cities to portals. A fourth dimension is pretty much confirmed.

papercup posted...

A fourth dimension is pretty much confirmed.

I'm waiting for The Fifth Dimension.











https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjxSCAalsBE

ParanoidObsessive posted...

The Fifth Dimension.

Oh that's where my buddy Mr. Mxyzptlk is from

4d minesweeper

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOMAXp8KOYk

adjl posted...

You can do this with mods, but it very quickly runs into file size problems, which in turn increases load times and the need for extra chunkloading if you want to do things in multiple dimensions (which can significantly increase the processing load). It's a nifty idea, but from a technical standpoint it's generally going to be better to add new content to existing dimensions.

The mods for Minecraft are not optimized well because they aren't given access to the source code, only a few hooks they've salvaged. That's the reason they have such terrible performance, it's not exactly because of their technical prowess. Java Minecraft, and mods in general (despite what people say) run poorly because they're optimized poorly. Adding gameplay content, as a rule of thumb, should be the thing that adds the least amount of extra needed storage, RAM, processing power, whatever. Minecraft textures are small and the music is... well, mp3 files.

My understanding is that the C# port is much faster and better with memory. While there is an almost endless stream of misinformation about how Java, C#, and .NET work, I was able to finally find the most accurate summary of Java vs Bedrock.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/kfe8y8/java_performance_vs_bedrock_performance_in_a/

Anyway, if you chain one gameplay section with the next and limit the interaction between the segments to ways in which you know things won't get screwed up, I don't see why they can't just keep adding new dimensions forever. They might do that anyway, I mean they need to milk the cow they bought.

To put it another way, you could probably program all of Tekkit Minecraft (if you were to start literally from scratch using C) into a PSX game that renders maybe the 4 blocks in front of you, simulates (much) less at once, and the compiled gameplay logic would take up maybe ~6 MB with the rest of the disk being mostly music.

@adjl To beat the dead horse even further, if I needed any more evidence that minecraft is poorly optimized...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oNQLP0oqeY

And the precompiled size of the source code is...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/4/1/AAbsMXAAD0IF.png

Yellow posted...

The mods for Minecraft are not optimized well because they aren't given access to the source code, only a few hooks they've salvaged. That's the reason they have such terrible performance, it's not exactly because of their technical prowess. Java Minecraft, and mods in general (despite what people say) run poorly because they're optimized poorly.

Minecraft code is run through an obfuscator, but if I'm not mistaken there are tools that modders have been using to decompile and de-obfuscate the code in order to modify the code directly and load mods. I believe there was a time when the Minecraft devs were actually working with modders to make the process easier. I specifically remember that being a big point of discussion at a minecon or something. I think the Java version is poorly optimized because, according to the devs who took over after Notch, it was all "spaghetti code", and they were working hard at optimizing it. That led to the update 1.5(or 1.15?) which had a massive performance improvement over all previous versions. I wouldn't argue that the game isn't poorly optimized, but I would argue that the java version runs perfectly fine these days. I don't think there is a C# version of the game, Bedrock is written in C++.

kind9 posted...

Minecraft code is run through an obfuscator, but if I'm not mistaken there are tools that modders have been using to decompile and de-obfuscate the code in order to modify the code directly and load mods. I believe there was a time when the Minecraft devs were actually working with modders to make the process easier. I specifically remember that being a big point of discussion at a minecon or something. I think the Java version is poorly optimized because, according to the devs who took over after Notch, it was all "spaghetti code", and they were working hard at optimizing it. That led to the update 1.5(or 1.15?) which had a massive performance improvement over all previous versions. I wouldn't argue that the game isn't poorly optimized, but I would argue that the java version runs perfectly fine these days. I don't think there is a C# version of the game, Bedrock is written in C++.

Oh wow, it is C++. I didn't know that. I wonder how that works on android, which is completely sandboxed?? I'm also surprised that they run JE through an obfuscator, that's actively hostile to the modding community. When did they start doing that, when MS took over?

Java edition does well enough on its own, I was going to rail on it harder but realized that Java has a great JIT these days.

Yeah, from the programming side of things, Minecraft is an absolute mess. That's kind of to be expected, given that it was a bunch of amateurs just working in the only language they knew only to have their little project blow up into one of the biggest games ever.

Yellow posted...

The mods for Minecraft are not optimized well because they aren't given access to the source code, only a few hooks they've salvaged. That's the reason they have such terrible performance, it's not exactly because of their technical prowess.

Part of it is also that they're just doing things base Minecraft was never meant to do. Adding new dimensions will inevitably take up a bunch of extra space because you're adding another map file, and the base game was never designed to keep hundreds of chunks loaded at once like you need to do if you've got factory mods processing things in chunks that you aren't occupying. That's always going to result in a significantly increased technical load, no matter how well-optimized the base game is.

Of course, if the base game is better optimized so it doesn't use much processing power, using 10 times more than that is less of a problem. Generally, though, unlike Factorio and the like, Minecraft just isn't designed around having stuff happen without the player being present. Fixing that is not a small feat.