BlueManedHawk

Gotcha'all. It seems that having the project exist would make a lot of people more interested in this project. I will work on making it exist. Once it is what i deem sufficiently existent, i will come back to this thread to state its existence.

I've noticed that there haven't been any responses to the ticket i linked to in my initial message for this thread besides my own, and i'm thinking it might be because people don't want to bother getting invested in what might seem like just another Minecraft clone. Perhaps i need to do something to instill faith in people that this won't just be another dud. Perhaps i need to show that this time's gonna be different. After all, i want this to be for everyone, not just for me.

(I hope it's not that my own reply to the ticket has set an intimidating precdent or something—i want any problems people have with Minecraft, regardless of how long individual people's lists may be. On the other hand, maybe it was just that i started this thread at a time when not many people were online on Apionet to see it get bridged—hopefully i'm timing this message correctly so that this is counteracted. (If anyone happens to be reading this message because it was bridged to Apionet, please see the first message in this thread. (I really hope these sentences i've typed in this message aren't making me come off as pushy.)))

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gollark: When has it been tried before? Those tries can be analyzed to see why they didn't work so that what they did wrong can be avoided in the future.

I don't really agree with you about what many of the problems with minecraft are[…]

I would like to know what problems you have with it anyways. I want to collect all the problems people have with it first and sort through them later.

[…]how software should even be structured in general[…]

I feel like you're referring back to a previous conversation, but i can't remember which; could you please remind me?

[…]or why people play video games at all.

Personally, i play video games for fun. Therefore, i think it would make the most sense for this project to prioritize fun above all else. This is what i intend to do. If the consensus of the populace is that doing something would be the most fun, that's what should be done; if everybody's saying that something isn't fun, it should be removed; if experiments reveal that people find something more fun than expected, that should influence the decisions.

I also aim to create a minecraftlike[…]. I haven't, however, made very much progress at all on my own project, so regardless of the direction of your project, I probably wouldn't be of much help anyway.

That's okay. I'm not going to force anybody to help me with this. I'll be happy with any help people are able to provide, and i'm saying that genuinely, not saying it out of cultural expectations of politeness. (I'm curious about what you specifically mean by the design goals you listed, though.)

my project doesn't aim to replace minecraft. I don't really think that goal makes sense, and I don't think such a goal would result in an actually good game. if you make a new game, it's a new game. a game which is different does not replace minecraft by definition.

Perhaps i stated my goal wrong. Maybe a better way to phrase it would be that i want to create a game that's better at being Minecraft than Minecraft is. Or perhaps i could say that there's a certain happy feeling i used to have when playing Minecraft when i was younger_{and less disillusioned with the world}, and i want to be able to recreate that feeling. Or perhaps i could say that i don't like the way that Microsoft is maintaining Minecraft, and i'm frustrated with it and think that it would be better if it was maintained by the community. Or perhaps i could say that i think that Minecraft always had the potential to be good, and that's why people played it, but it never reached that potential, and i want to create something that does.

Maybe one of these makes it more clear what i want to work towards. Maybe they don't, and i'm just waxing poetical in the blindness of nostalgia. Truthfully, i don't even really know what i was saying just then; sometimes i just don't understand myself. But i hope that i was in some way able to say something that made my thoughts more clear.

you don't seem to comprehend that people want to play different kinds of games at different times, as when I pointed this out to you before, you called it "addiction to novelty".

I don't remember if that's what i said or meant when i used the phrase "addiction to novelty", but i don't think that's how i'd use the term now. When i refer to an addiction to novelty, i refer to a specific practice in the development of video games where updates are made that only or mostly focus on adding in new things while not working on fixing up the old things, making sure the old things work with the new things, or even really caring about the new things at all. If one were to stick with one update of these games forever, they probably would get rather bored of it rather quickly, because there isn't an incentive to make deep, rich mechanics that you can always find new and interesting things in when there's going to be another batch of new crap thrown at you in a year or so to satiate any boredom that might crop up anyway.

In contrast, a well-designed game would, to me, not be like this. To me, a well-designed game would be one where a few simple, basic building blocks (metaphorical) synergize together in a multitude of ways so that even if the basics never change, there's always something new and interesting and exciting and fun to discover by combining the basics in new ways. And there are definitely examples of this being pulled off. Consider the board game Catan, for instance: it's pretty simple and easy to learn, yet masterfully designed in such a way that it's very difficult for it to get old. Or consider the board game Go, a game that's been entertaining people for millennia and still has new things to discover. Something like this is the type of video game i want to create.

it would be a different story if the goal was to attempt to reimplement minecraft as an open source piece of software, which would be venerable.

This is not a goal of this project i've created. I do not want to reimplement Minecraft; i want to make something better than it.

No matter what, you probably think that Minecraft has some problems. Whether you think it's a dozen or a zillion, whether you think they're big or small, and regardless of what exactly they are, i'm certain that you can think of some qualms you have with the game.

And i'm sure a lot of people have a sense of frustration when we see updates happening where so much changes, yet at the same time it feels like so little has changed when we keep coming across the same problems over and over again. Maybe you don't feel this way; if that's the case, well, you can probably ignore this thread.

But it's the case for me, and i'm certain it's the case for a lot of other people. And frankly, i feel like we can't just sit around waiting for Microsoft to fix these problems. They've had plenty of time to clean up their act, but year after year goes by with them doing, if you'll excuse my language, fuck all.

We've cut them enough slack. It's time to take matters into our own hands.

So that's why i've started a project on sourcehut to replace Minecraft with something better. Particularly, i've created this issue ticket for everybody to list the problems that they have with Minecraft that this project can hopefully fix. (You don't even need a source hut account to participate, as explained here​,so you have no excuse for not participating.)

Now, i'm not a superhuman, and i won't be able to do this by myself. I'm going to need your help if this project is to succeed in its goals, and i hope you'll be willing to lend that help.

We can do this. We can take Minecraft back.

MAT

Well, alright then. So what helps a wiki get done right?

It seems to me like wiki-based systems for collecting information on specific things are significantly more preponderant than proper official documentation on specific things, despite the fact that (based on my experience) such wiki-based information stores are often worse at being informative (most commonly due to a lack of comprehensivity and a disorganized unoptimized nature to the information). So why are they more common than proper official documentation on specific things?

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Please submit an action.

If you think it's dead, be the change you want to see in the world.

BLOG

LONG

It sure is long.

uh oh

Bmh is known for occasionally doing that (making up his own definition)

No i don't. Often it's just a misinterpretation of the real most common definition.

…at the expense of taking far more time for those capabilities to come to fruition.

what?

The modding API is a subsystem of the project that requires continuous effort to be put into it, leaving less time to work on other things.

The fracturing of the community also leads to a fracturing of the effort. I would much rather have a few good choices than many bad choices.

would it? i think there would be less effort overall. you dont encourage modding by.. making it harder

I don't think that modding should be encouraged. I think that forks and patching should be encouraged.

the advantage of mod apis is that you can have hundreds and thousands of mods, all of which are going to be mostly compatible with each other, and the individual player gets to choose exactly what combination they want. if you merged all these features into the base game (or a relatively smaller number of forks) then you wouldn't have that freedom of choice.

But if the mods clearly make the game better if implemented either as-is or as a per-savefile option, what rational person would choose not to play with them? What purpose is there to a choice nobody would take?

and if you are thinking 'well, that freedom of choice doesn't sound like fun to me' that's fine, but given the popularity of modding across a wide variety of video games, it seems like a lot of people have a different idea of fun to you.

My issue is that there are too many mods to choose from and most of them are not fun. It's difficult to figure out which ones are good.

What points do you think i've ignored?

The point about being able to install arbitrary numbers of mods for starters. […]

What is that point?

modifications/plugins are literally just advanced scripts. some even are literally just scripts.

When i think of a modding API, i think of something that is used to fundamentally and completely change what exists in a piece of software, where one entity makes and maintains a mod for distribution to others. When i think of a scripting API, i think of something used to do stuff, where people make their own scripts for quick little things, often only to use them once or twice, and frequently using a REPL or equivalent to do so. To me, these are two distinct things that fill unique niches.

anyway, why are you so stubborn in your beliefs?

I don't mean to come off that way. I'm completely willing to change my mind if i should, but i don't want to blindly accept things.

you made this thread like a question, and then argue like it's a debate.

I'm sorry that i've come off that way. I don't want this to seem like an argument. I wanted this to be a discussion mutually beneficial for all parties.

if you really had genuine curiosity, then why do you refuse to accept the given answer?

Because i don't understand why that's the answer.

is it because you're still curious on the specific details? well it's not like we're going to explain human sociology to you to say why humans want to have multiple modifications working together and modularly, with an easy and convenient way to achieve that. you've got the best answer we can reasonably give.

Well, based upon this statement, it appears as though this thread has served its purpose. Thank you all for coming.

ok, i guess you don't need an operating system then. just flash software to your ROM directly. since, an OS is literally a modification API for computers.

I'd say that an OS is more akin to a scripting API or a programming language, which i am completely fine with.

I know that the work itself never addresses that

and therefore, is not a valid counterpoint. if it's so trivial to derive, then provide a point-by-point breakdown of your trivial derivation.

Okay then: The claim is that forking will lead to people being overwhelmed because there will be too many forks. The essay explains that there will not be that many forks. Therefore, people will not be overwhelmed because there will not be too many forks.

I think that forks rarely become many because most attempts to fork a project will invariably get absorbed into the main project or one of the few forks that fills a unique niche different from the original project.

and also a plugin API. that's a very important reason that cannot be overlooked.

What evidence do you have that a plugin API prevents fracturing?

How else am I supposed to respond to "you're acting like a capitalist" we've explained to you numerous times why a plugin API is better than just forking it. And you've ignored us every time.

What points do you think i've ignored? I didn't mean to do that, and i'd be glad to respond to them now.

You're acting like a capitalist, trying to prove your own point by simply saying it again instead of refuting the refutations of others.

i never knew capitalism was about proving points via repeating oneself infinitely. i thought it was about the ruthless drive for profit above literally everything else. but i suppose it's about being a poor debater?

No, it's just that capitalists tend to defend capitalism by just repeating themselves over and over. Example:

"They deserve their money because they invested capital!" «And i don't think we should have a system where a person having money should be rewarded with giving them more money.» "…but they invested capital!"

Of course, the it to is isn't what what do it what it's not only.

hey, speaking of poor debate skills, i'm pretty sure calling someone a capitalist, or « acting like a capitalist » is some kind of fallacy. it's certainly name-calling. ad hominem perhaps?

It's not ad-hominem because the analogue has direct relevance to the debate.

💀

Well, that's not a very informative response.

Again, a modification api allows the user to pick and choose which mods to use rather than being able to only use one at a time. It gives the user choose, which is a Good Thing™

You're acting like a capitalist, trying to prove your own point by simply saying it again instead of refuting the refutations of others.

yes, the instances of forking are about it being legally fine. nothing to do with the psychological overwhelming of forks.

I know that the work itself never addresses that, but it seems to me as though it's trivial to derive.

also, death of the author just means that the interpretation of a work is independent from the author's intention. nothing to do with categorisation.

Does the author having it categorized in a certain way not count as the author's intention?

[forks rarely become many] because people add plugin APIs/modification APIs. which makes making many forks unnecessary.

I don't think that's true. I think that forks rarely become many because most attempts to fork a project will invariably get absorbed into the main project or one of the few forks that fills a unique niche different from the original project. I don't think that a modification API helps with anything.

the document is not an essay explaining how the fear of an overwhelming number of incompatible forks of a project is not upheld by reality.

It seems to me like that's clearly what it's about: it gives several examples of instances of forking in many other projects that have been perfectly fine, and in the final section explains why that has happened. In the BSD section, it explicitly talks about how yes, sometimes forks persist, but it's because they fill a specific niche, creating a situation where it's clear which fork to select based upon actually substantive differences.

it is about the legal fear of forks. as in incompatible licensing and cetera. there's a reason it's under a subdirectory literally titled « Licensing and Law ».

Eh, death of the author. I don't think that what it says on the legal issues of forking are the main thing worth taking away from it.

the document does not address the psychological overwhelming of many forks to choose from, which is only a counterargument addressing your argument that many modifications to choose from is overwhelming.

I think it addresses that by explaining that forks rarely become many.

this document refutes everything bmh says. read it. https://www.mozilla.org/media/MPL/2.0/index.48a3fe23ed13.txt

I do not see which of my points this file you linked refutes, nor what particular relation it has to forking. Could you please be more specific?

I suspect you may be parodying message #3800 that i sent earlier. If this is the case, i want to make it clear that the file i linked in message #3800 was not a legal document about the legal nuances of forks, as you so claimed, but instead an essay explaining how the fear of an overwhelming number of incompatible forks of a project is not upheld by reality; i would suggest you be more clear (and a little less hostile) in parodization in the future if you want them to land better. If this is not the case, ignore the preceeding sentence.

I mean, it's pretty simple: people need to be happy in order to be productive.

Well yes but they can't be productive if they're playing games.

Of course. There's a balance to be struck, and modern capitalism encourages a shitty one that leans way too heavily on productivity, leading to an overall worse society. (Besides, the reason people are productive is so that they can be happy.)

Modding APIs also bring downsides by being a complex subsystem of the project for the maintainers to deal with, taking away time that could be used to solve other problems in the software,

but it also increases the capabilities of the project by approximately ∞%!

…at the expense of taking far more time for those capabilities to come to fruition.

and (in my experience) they often lead to fracturing of a community and too many options to choose from.

this is good! i like having choices. you can always choose not to use mods

The fracturing of the community also leads to a fracturing of the effort. I would much rather have a few good choices than many bad choices.

How do 10 very different mods all fill the same niche?

They all play their part in filling the corners of the niche, so that the niche as a whole is filled.

That's not how i think of it. I would say the the usefulness of video games is that they're entertaining.

Please try to convince literally any school of that.

I mean, it's pretty simple: people need to be happy in order to be productive.

That kind of unification of competition within a niche is exactly the type of thing that i was supporting in my original message.

That's not at all what I was referring to. Many modpacks combine many trivially related mods. It's not as fun to play with 10 mods that all overhaul, say, caves, than 10 mods that each do different things.

That sounds like exactly what i'm referring to: unification of things within a niche.

[Video games a]re meant to entertain, not be useful.

That's not how i think of it. I would say the the usefulness of video games is that they're entertaining.

If doing things differently than other softwares makes them be more entertaining, then so be it.

Of course—the rules should be broken when it's beneficial for everyone.

(Also sorry for not replying to message #3874 earlier.)

What problems do[ modding APIs] create? (You probably already said it but it would be nice to have it all in one place)

Indeed i did, in #3822:

Modding APIs also bring downsides by being a complex subsystem of the project for the maintainers to deal with, taking away time that could be used to solve other problems in the software, and (in my experience) they often lead to fracturing of a community and too many options to choose from.

ok! plugins/add-ons/mods are much easier to manage and install and use than forks. anyone can drag a bunch of files into a folder, add things they want, or remove things they dont. modularity!

Why is that worth the problems that a modding API creates?