So the Minecraft movie looks... unique

 

I'm actually starting to come around to this age of adaptations that we're living in. It was kind of disconcerting when all of them were starting to become good or decent- I was starting to really question my grip on reality- but thank goodness for sanity to return with the dropping of Borderlands; a masterpiece of crap that truly harkened back to the days of my 2000's childhood- bliss. Which is why I was actually looking forward to the next upcoming one- Yakuza- before being jump scared with the announcement that this ten-year-overcooked half-digested-idea was making it's way to the big screens. Not sure why, not sure how, but the Minecraft movie is finally going to be landing in theatres and I definitely have some thoughts about that reality after this trailer.

So first off I absolutely know what they were going for from an artistic level. I have no doubt that when this movie was first conceived they had a totally different aesthetic in mind, probably something a lot more akin to what Minecraft Story Mode ended up doing- and in the years since the Animated Kids Movies of the time shifted that vision. With the near grotesquely tactile material, ugly faces and accurate but unflattering proportions- this is very clearly a play on the style of Detective Pickachu- and I may be taking an unpopular stance when I say that I really liked how that movie conceived of the Pokemon. It really fit the style of a noir detective thriller, albeit a kids one, to have the usually cuddly Pokemon look garish and awkward and full of sometime ugly character. Whether that works in this movie will depend on how the film ends up shaping- but from the get go I can say that my eyes do not love what they see. Which may be the intent, who knows?

Steve is of course the generic name given to the default character of Minecraft- a legend in his own right. Even though nowadays he's been replaced with more Swedish and gender-neutral 'Alex', but that's neither here nor there. Steve is an important figure within the Minecraft world- twas him that was chosen to represent Minecraft in the Smash Bros Ultimate tournament- which is why it's such a disappointment that his representation in this movie appears to be little more than standard Jack Black in a teal cardigan. They did nothing to the man. He has the same beard, the same haircut, they didn't even ask him to dye. They just rolled that man out of bed and slapped the name Steve ontop of him. It's a bit lazy.

Laziness is not a term I can use to describe the supporting cast, however, who conversely appear to be a complete assault on the eyes. I don't know what madman in the costuming department was in charge of clothing these people but he clearly needs to be locked up because the sheer deluge of clashing stylistic choices makes my eyes want to bleed. Rocker Jason Mamoa steals attention the most, but honestly all of the cast look to be dragged from different time periods, franchises and universes to create the most confused looking cast of all time. Can't say whether that is to the detriment of their dynamic or in support of it- I just know these people look deranged at a glance.

Funnily enough seeing what awaits us seems to have birthed a resurgence of apologetic revisions towards the originally much-lambasted Minecraft Storymode- itself an attempt to create a narrative out of the creative mess that is base Minecraft. That Telltale offering did little to really standout as an interesting piece of media in it's own right- in fact it tended to follow the most basic storyline without anything remotely subversive or intriguing- but it at least met the expectation of what a narrative based Minecraft experience should be. This movie seems to resemble better what a standard kids movie ends up being. A colourful slap together of animated and live action characters that never really sells to the eyes and ages poorly in five years or so. We can't all be Roger Rabbit, afterall. 

Now a funny thing that I have noted is the fact that from the face of this trailer, it seems that the presented villains of this tale are going to be the Piglins once again- who are coming to be the go-to badguys of the Minecraft world despite the plethora of other much more interesting creatures that roam the Minecraft mythos. You have nocturnal suicidal green monsters that explode on contact, stalking phantoms that haunt the sleepless, demented teleporting other dimensional slendermen who speak in twisted backwards speech- and then you have the mean pig people who hang around their dimension doing their own thing most of the time. I understand the basic premise of 'those are monsters creatures who operate on whim whereas these are seemingly sentient beings who choose to hurt others', but there's so much more interesting potential elsewhere that slips us by.

The one thing I am surprised we didn't get a look at during this trailer, which might hint at either holding something back or a severe break from the expected- are Youtuber Cameos. Minecraft lives and breathes it's influences and without them the universe of Minecraft would be nowhere near as long lasting as it otherwise has been. Minecraft Storymode actually fit in a lot of Youtubers where they could and even the Fnaf movie got in a Matpatt or two when no-one was looking. Could be an indication that the general fallibility of internet content creators makes their inclusion in this product a potential brand risk down the line? Or maybe it's just really cringe to throw Youtubers into a movie? I would be surprised if it's the later because that's never really stopped them before, now has it?

Minecraft looks to be a children's movie through and through, which nothing in it to attract the more grown up in the audience- which seems to be something of a missed opportunity given the fact that a large portion of Minecraft players have aged over the years. The kid popular games of this age are your Roblox and your Fortnite, Minecraft requires a bit of individual creativity and reasoning to get to work which doesn't quite slide with the modern audience of players quite as strongly as it did. Minecraft is still a deliriously popular franchise, don't get me wrong- but I don't think these movie makers are quite aiming for as much of the market as they think they are by going for just the kids. But hey- no matter how bad it ends up looking or being, I'll bet this is more interesting than the Borderlands movie. (I've only managed to get 10 minutes into that snoozefest so far- don't know how much more I can feasibly take.)

Sideways expansion

 

So you have a video game and it has everything in it. I'm talking the Kitchen and Bathroom sink, spinning wheels, boiler plate- everything you're little heart could desire. But it's not enough. I mean it would be enough, but we live in the age of 'Live Services' wherein every game is as much of an investment as being hired to direct a CW series. You know the studio aren't going to let you leave until that ship hits an iceberg with you riding the wreck all the way down to the frigid depths, because there are no gracious exits in this business, no sir! What do you do? Well, you could go the route that everyone else does and put less and less effort into every subsequent update, never really thinking about where you intend to take things and just shrug when it all collides a few years down the line. (Thank you so much for the stellar example of that in motion, Destiny 2.) Or you could be clever with it.

I consider the topic of Sideways progression fascinating when it comes to the way that developers design content for game progression. Instead of going the stereotypical route of becoming stronger at the one thing you're good at, the game encourages the player to diversify and start afresh at something totally new. The way that Runescape adds skills instead of just bumping up the level caps of existing skills. (Albeit very rarely.) It's such a painfully difficult way to make a game because it requires clever integration with everything that exists in order to feel natural. That means every new addition needs devs to revisit finished code, pull apart working systems, and remodel them from the inside out. That's the kind of insanity you need passion to pursue- or a complex about going to the Nth degree like I'm mostly sure the Larian Team has. (Someone should make sure they're not killing themselves to make their next game already.)

But whenever I've brought up this kind of development topic before I've always thought about the way this would work during the design process of a game that one expects to have updates, like an MMO or a Live Service. How would such an ideal work for a finished and boxed game? DLC has a typical approach that isolates it's content from the majority of single player games for the sanctity of the developer's sanity, but what if some madman was to design an expansion which expanded on sideways progression paths instead of upwards ones? (The actual terms would refer to 'Vertical' and 'Horizontal', but I like my choices better.) And whatsmore, what kind of games have already created systems like that and how do they effect those games?

One famous game which has avoided sideways progression for eons is Grand Theft Auto V, although it's the online portion (now it's own separate application) which I want to highlight today. Every few months or so Grand Theft Auto Online throws a new bunch of cars into the game that it's online players are expected to grind over, then give up and spend real money to cheat the fund in order to purchase. But what if, here me out- they added those cars to the traffic spawning database instead? Imagine how that would change up the pedestrian makeup of Grand Theft Auto to see the style of vehicles across the region evolve over the decade! The game would mimic the real evolution of modern roads, albeit much more sped up, and it would expand upon one of the key pillars of the Grand Theft Auto experience- stealing and driving cool cars. That right there would be a perfect opportunity for sideways expansion!

Perhaps one of the most successful recent examples of a sideways expansion would have to be 'Phantom Liberty' for Cyberpunk 2077, even if it unfortunately ended up being the only expansion the game received. As it sits, much of what the Phantom Liberty upgrade offered slid alongside the game that was already there, rather than piling itself on top of the existing content. The entire perk tree was remade in order to accommodate new styles of play, level scaling was utterly gutted to facilitate a smoother experience, police systems were implemented across the whole city, car vendors were consolidated into terminals- CDPR went every distance they could in order to make Phantom Liberty an all-around expansion that slid neatly into the game that was there, such to the extent that even without the DLC the 2.0 update was enough to totally turn around opinions on the quality of Cyberpunk 2077.

You see, the way that expansions interact with the base game is I think what makes sideways expansions such an interesting prospect, kind of like the 'Fallout 76' approach of- fix the game that's there in hopes it raises the overall experience for all. And event though it probably took an obscene amount of time to redo the main questline of Fallout 76 in order to accommodate for the new NPCs that were ushered into the game circa The Wastelanders update- the results spoke for themselves. Positive headlines for Fallout 76 for the first and last time. What a world! And what a painfully large undertaking it is, which is probably why every subsequent update has detached itself from Appalachia and focused solely on vertical expansion.

The dangers of building atop yourself should be fairly obvious. Anyone who has played a game of Jenga in their life knows that the higher you stack you tower block, the easier it is for it to fall over onto itself. For MMOs that comes in the form of the endless 'race to the top' which is what makes all MMO's feel exactly the same these days. There's no 'simulated life' aspect to these games anymore, they're linear adventure tales chasing the current level cap and the single best set of gear which was revealed this expansion. Soon to be topped by the next best set the next expansion, or the next set of abilities and power levelling which totally invalidates everything before it. Such games end up feeling less like consequential adventures and more like step ladder journeys towards an unreachable destination. And if that's your kink, just get a job.

Horizontal expansion by it's very nature engenders creativity in the design room, and when you've got the designers thinking outside the box about how they can enrich the game, you're going to pass that excitement onto the player on the otherend. Just look at the kings of this style of development- Mojang. Even those who don't play Minecraft all that often pay a visit to the changelogs every now and then just to see what sort of crazy new direction Mojang have decided to commit to in their 'dart board' development style. That's the kind of spontaneity the game's industry could do with a bit more of if it really intends to commit to this 'Live Service' world like they certainly want to insist that they do. Onwards and upwards? Nah, Imma do my sideways thing.

What's up with Minecraft?

Too much, arguably.

Success

 And succor?

Following my treatise on what it is to lose in games, I thought it only right that I try and touch on the inverse scenario; what it is to win and the relation that special moment has to the way that we as players experiencing gaming. There's quite a bit of nuance in this topic, perhaps just as much as there is with losing; and by objectively analysing the higher concepts of success and how it effects ideas of 'enjoyment' and 'satisfaction', perhaps some deeper understanding into certain genres that play around with these ideals may be granted. But I'm getting a little ahead of myself, first we should identify that which further differentiates the medium of gaming from other interactive mediums, the ability to succeed or complete the interaction with the piece of art.

Winning is a novel concept, typically defined as resolving the conflict presented by the game, the actual specifics of what 'success' is can vary depending on the game in question and even the player behind the controls. For some the very act of finishing a level is a 'win', or defeating a tough enemy; for others those are only positive touchstones on the road to total victory; completing the game. But then there's the question of what 'completion' even is. How many people actually finish every single activity in open world games? Very few I'm sure, so then is 'completion' simply finishing the core narrative questlines? Do side quests count as well? What about branching RPG games where you can reach a totally different ending depending on choices made by the player, such as in Outer Worlds where a low intelligence stat character can smash their face onto a ship control panel and launch that vehicle into the sun, bringing the narrative to an end halfway through a traditional campaign? Is that a victory? The parameters and measurements most typically are left solely to the discretion of the player in these instances.

'Completion' of a game or a full narrative is not necessarily the height of the experience as one might expect by the natural adulation you'd afford a 'victory'. It may seem a little cliché to say, but the moment you 'complete' a game is typically quickly followed by the moment you put it down and stop enjoying it through active engagement. You may have fond memories of that victorious moment to look back on, but the pedigree of that memory is forged more by the struggles and failures which predated the end rather than the moment itself. What tastes more sweet, the vegetable that you pick out of the ground or the ripe fruit you have to climb a tall tree in order to reach? And yes, that analogy is loaded with prejudice and manipulation but the thought experiment it provides is valid; strife builds accomplishment. A concept which I think might be best understood by... say it with me... Soulslike games.

Soulslike games as a genre are built on the understanding that difficulty is most pure when it can be attributed to the strengths of the player and failure that is down to anything other than player error feels like a robbery. (That doesn't stop Dark Souls from throwing in the odd random death drop, but they never rely on that cheap shot too heavily.) In many ways, beyond the lore and the themes and emotional resonance the narrative is attempting to portray, the raw experience of overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds is the fibre at the beating heart of the Soulslike genre. Which is probably why the commonly held refrain from those who aren't as big fans of these styles of games, that they are lesser without some sort of 'easy mode', is so vehemently pushed back upon by those that do. Yes, inclusion is important and accessibility should absolutely be more widely adopted as industry standards, but Soulslike games are most chiefly informed by their carefully designed difficulty. Stripping away those layers to allow someone to experience the story is like hollowing out a peach so it's easier to swallow; you've removed the substance- what remains is hardly worth sharing.

But I digress, because success does not all always need to be the overwhelming wash of relief at the end of a hard-fought adventure- it can be little stabs of sunlight from the little victories along the way. That moment when you crack a Pokémon egg and get a shiny you've been grinding several hours for, or solve an annoying logic puzzle that's been stumping you for just as long. Everytime you hit that resolution button and are struck by those waves of buzzing endorphins, I consider that a 'victory' moment in gaming. However as with any chemical infusion, the more used to receiving that endorphin hit you are- the less effective that drag becomes. Perhaps that is why some of the tougher games, where victory seems all but illusive, strike the hardest when you've finally pushed through the immovable wall.

Yet even with everything we've talking about so far, I've somehow managed to still keep to largely traditional games and their understanding of success. What about Minecraft? What about Stardew Valley? What does success look like in those endless styles of games that are designed to be experienced theoretically forever? In my mind, this is when we get back to the, decently cliched, idea that 'the journey is better than the destination.' Success and achievement can be rewarded in milestones of progress, such as finishing a large build in the ongoing construction of your base, or saving up enough for that house upgrade you've spent several seasons eyeing. Sometimes the parameters aren't even suggested by the game itself through clear presentation hooks, and sometimes it's beyond what the developers even intended for the game in question.

Success can be a powerful incentive and reward when handled correctly, and sometimes it needs to be managed in a sense of balance. Keep the prize of a victory too elusive and you'll starve the players out of anticipation and straight to simple frustration. Of course, the threshold for what is 'too much' can differ wildly from player to player, so an understanding of your audience is an essential aspect of this recipe. And though the 'ultimate' success, completing the game and moving on- can bring with it a moment of sadness as you leave behind the experience- without that pathos I don't think any journey is truly complete. Like a full course meal missing it's desert, that finale isn't just a sweet treat, it's often a palette cleanser and reset designed to cap-off and compliment the entire dinner. I've been at that point of refusing to finish an adventure you just can't put down- but at the end of the day aren't you just denying yourself the fullest experience of that adventure in your trepidation?

The reasons why we play are many and varied, from searching for relaxation to waging against competition to experiencing accomplishment to basically yearning to be entertained. As esoteric and ethereal as the particulars of art can be, the chemistry is often as down to earth as one could imagine; breaking down these elements, what it is that makes someone feel victorious, and how to bring about those sensations, can absolutely be the key to understanding some of the highest concepts of game design. Of course, those very same questions are asked and toyed around with by professional psychologists who come up with ways to exploit the brain to empower mobile games and GACHA systems; so there's dark clouds amidst every silver lining. With great power comes a great number of corrupt influences ready to take advantage of it, I suppose.

I'm finally understanding Minecraft Legends

 I can see clearly now

Not too long ago Microsoft finally worked it's way around to doing what literally every other major video game publisher is doing and mounted it's very own reveal trailer showcase. For some strange reason the showcase shared a name with Bethesda, which makes me wonder what exactly such a show would look like if that Activision buy-out ever goes through, (The Bethesda-Microsoft-Activision/Blizzard showcase!) even though we got no further word on the huge upcoming Xbox exclusive game which is said to be landing before Q3 of this year! But what the event did manage to do was clear up a lot of confusion on some of the titles that never quite got explained all that well over the past year- one of which was Minecraft Legends which, I'll be honest, I had no idea what to make of when I first saw it. I mean I liked it, I liked most every Minecraft related spin-off, but I couldn't explain what the thing actually was to someone else. Now, after an extended gameplay presentation like that; I can recognise the RTS game for what it is.

That's right, Legends is a Minecraft RTS in the vein of Starcraft, Red Alert and... Army Men RTS. A genre which goes quite a way back for me personally as one of those styles of strategy game that is just deep enough to permit exploration into higher game theory concepts, whilst still accessible to the point of being new-comer friendly. I find a lot of the more complicated 4X games and bigger concept grand strategy titles can sometimes become so lost in their micromanagement that unless you've been drawn into the thrill of the game at an obsessive level it can be difficult for a layman to really get into those sorts of game and learn all the requisite counter units and basic unit placement etiquette. Simpler RTS games, like I can only assume Minecraft Legends is aspiring to be, are typically built for balance and intuitiveness. Wherein units and foils are obvious, building hierarchy and fortifications fit together naturally and a fresh player can grow to love the game without spending hours memorising the play manual beforehand.

The presentation we saw focused specially on the PVP aspect of Legends, which is an important component to any RTS game in the modern world and a vector worth exploring to ensure that Mojang know what they're doing. I'm not sure if Minecraft has ever actually had a dedicated 'player versus player' mode in any of it's main or spin-off games save the short-lived deathmatch servers built into Minecraft console edition. (I miss those.) Legends' take on PVP seems to play into the strengths of competitive RTS games that has kept those titles a popular niche genre for so long, resource nodes, diverse units, progressive material structures- the singular distinction only seems to be the fact that Legends presents a single focal unit as the viewing port of all the army management and base-building. Perhaps I'm merely seeing the trees instead of the forest and there actually is a wider map management view, but if there isn't I do have to wonder how the removal of a true tactical viewport might effect the development of genuine in-action strategy. Right away it makes the game feel a bit more like a Musou game than an RTS like it's supposed to be.

One unique aspect of Legends that dawned on me first in waves, before flooding over all of me in a sparkling wash of realisation for it's genuine potential is that of the world generation. Yes, the key most feature of Minecraft which is perhaps the main game's crowing jewel, the procedural generation of it's world, is getting some form of representation in Legends and depending on how it is realised this has a level of potential that no other RTS can match. Typically, map domination and knowledge is the life and death of any RTS professional player's game, with spontaneity and on-the-spot choices typically only entering the equation when in battle with an equal. But thrown in an aura of total randomness to the world and you suddenly tip everything on it's head. Preparation and preplanning become strategy-making and team-mate communication, routines fall away for fresh plans, unpredictability itself evolves and solidifies as it's very own opponent! Given the right attention and approach, I think this single throw-away mentioned feature has the singular potential to reinvigorate, and maybe even revolutionise, this entire genre of games!

Of course, that's only me talking about the online competitive aspect of Legends, what most will be flocking to the game for is the single player or co-operative campaign experience. What makes a great RTS single player campaign is, in my experience, a variety of scenario and challenge. Build a game like this right and the scope of the tactical gameplay and enemy AI adaptability itself should provide sufficient enough replay value, all the team needs to do is lay the right pieces and set the correct stages for that replayability to flourish. Minecraft is certainly limited in it's scope of enemies and locations from a glance, but Minecraft Dungeons proved well enough that Mojang aren't afraid to expand on their lore and mob variety in side games where it's much easier to throw in a brand new character mob without having to agonise over the way in which it's utility interacts with every existing system in the base game. And, indeed, we're already seeing brand new creatures in Legends, not least of which being the sentient barrel of arrows which serves as archers for the player to enlist. (Unique as far as RTS units go...)

What I do find myself worrying about however is the approach to difficulty that Mojang will employ, to both extremes. Because RTS, and tactical games in general, tend to be tricky endeavours for players in the way that they demand some level of understanding and careful exploitation of rigid systems, whereas Minecraft typically engenders an audience who thrive in 'find your own solution' styles of gameplay. Make a game like this too difficult and it can drive away at the readily presented audience, whilst make it too easy and players will come away inevitably feeling like Mojang failed to capture the full extent of possibility and potential that the game genre had. Of course, personally I would hope that Mojang favours the more richly complex style of gameplay, as I feel that just has longer legs to play around with, but I can see a world where that just isn't a consideration for the sorts of experiences that Mojang want to foster. At the end of the day it really comes down to how dedicated Mojang are to the spirit of these spin-off endeavours they launch.

I am quite taken with the somewhat unique approach to the typical Minecraft artstyle that Legends has chosen to employ. As most are familiar with the blocky supremacy of Minecraft, I'd imagine the slightly more stylised approach of Legends flies right by the majority of people. What I notice, however, is the leaner blocks around the Nether portal, the smoother lines of the overworld blocks that allows the split of block textures to mesh into a smoother more dominate 'ground' texture and the near cell-shaded gleam that allows structures to stand out from the world with their slightly thicker outlines. It's a pleasing side-step from the main Minecraft visual style that refreshes the eye and brings Minecraft in line with the sort of visuals that Mojang are slowly starting to introduce into the base Minecraft texture offerings. Ultimately, it reinforces how this is all very familiar, yet recognisably different, which I think is the point of all these Minecraft spin-offs.

Minecraft is always going to be a franchise I give a great amount of leeway too; it's too large a part of my childhood for me to treat it any other way. That being said, I really do like the look of this particular side-game, much more than I did Dungeons which never really was my style or genre of game to being with. There's a lot of versatility to Minecraft and many styles of game it can feasibly morph into, but the engine has limitations, even for the modders and large server game hosts. I love all of these side games for the amount of gameplay diversity they can offer whilst seeming like addendums onto the main Minecraft package, even if they are technically separate applications off the Minecraft launcher. Wherever could Mojang go next to expand the Minecraft horizons? Or a better question: is the next game going to be a Metroidvania platformer or a straight third-person Soulslike?

Minecraft slaps down NFT

 Mission failed: We'll get 'em next time

We're going to be hearing about NFTs slow and steady implosion for a very long time as more and more fools come to realise how piteously self defeating it all is. All except for Ubisoft, I guess, who have already murdered their own respectability and are in competition with themselves to see how far off the deep end they can drag themselves. (I have faith in them; I think they take it all the way to chapter 7 Bankruptcy!) This 'NFT movement' becoming one of those issues where no matter how little you think it matters about anything, you can be sure at some point you're going to learn what certain people think about them. Whether it's influencers, celebrities or even that sterile amalgam of an entity we call 'companies'. Not because this is the wave of the future, but because it's a normie plaything that serves as a fascinating litmus test for how much of an out-of-touch luddite your are. Proof that under the right dressing, MLM's and Ponzi-schemes can be pimped out by any famous mouthpiece, not just professional-moron Gwyneth Paltrow.

Yes, I wish this whole boat would just tip over and sink too, but even with pretty stern evidence that the single most successful NFT exchange is an elaborate, and wildly successful, prank run by 4Chan grifters; the ship of public opinion is a mile long. Turning from stern to bough is taking years at this point. Still in the belated interim, slightly more self aware pundits and commentators can use this whole movement as an easy way to score themselves some quick public relations win with the public by simply coming out and stating that they're not interested in engaging with this new buzz term. Which has to be one of the most ironically lazy ways to cement your moral values. "Hey, just so you know; we're not going to kidnap children so we sell their organs on the black market." "Thanks, Company X; I didn't even know you were considering it!"

Although even with that framework for moral mediocrity which this atmosphere breeds, I have to admit to a little bit of surprise when I heard that Minecraft, of all companies, were publicly moving away from NFTs. Given that they're now a subordinate of a mega conglomerate, you'd have thought that tired money schemes would be their catnip. Then again, it takes no great strength or moral upstanding to take a look at the many failed ventures of your peers and decide your efforts are best spent literally anywhere else. (They might as well spend funds in an alchemist to chemically distil liquid gold for them; it'd have a higher chance of success) If anything taking such a stance just proves you have some slight sense. Not like Gamestop, who are desperate to leverage all that unearned publicity the whole 'Gamestonk' incident earned them and waste it on a pitifully misguided NFT collection. No, I'm not kidding even though I so wish that I was. Now your hero has been fallen and their message corrupted; what do you stand for now, WSB?

In a statement that, from an outsider's perspective, dropped out of freakin' sky, Minecraft has come out to clear their up stance on this issue publicly, instead of the much more effective route of doing it litigiously. (Which is what I would have done in their shoes.) Apparently Minecraft considers the NFT movement to be outside the established scope of their mission statement to be inclusive to as many players as possible (which is- I'm not even going to lie they're 100 percent correct about. It's weird to agree with a corporate statement so totally with no caveats) and as such they're concerned about some individuals who are already implementing Minecraft world files and skins. They've outright banned blockchain integration into their game and sent a stern warning whilst doing so; although if they seriously think this is just going to stop anything they've got another thing coming. The NFT marketplace was built on theft, first of art then money; you ain't stopping no one from outside the court room. 

So what is it that they're talking about? Well I've actually seen a few of these offers pop up around the Internet and thought nothing of them, which probably matches the level of forethought that went into constructing these lacklustre schemes in the first place. Minecraft Servers that have access tied to NFT ownership so you can't get in without the blockchain's approval, and from there it get's even 'better' as these blocky landlords dictate the land you're allowed to exploit with the amount of NFT's you purchase. That's right, the exact same digital land ownership that everyone from Earth 2 to Peter Molyneux  are trying to take advantage of right now has been transplanted to the digital ownership space so we all can share in the hatred together; how utterly and unabashedly terrible! Of course, many big servers already play around with land plots for some sensible management reasons, but as always NFTs ruins that to greedy extremes.

There's also talk about 'skins' through NFTs which I've actually heard nothing about but am agog by the sheer audacity of. Are people selling Minecraft skins as non fungible speculative assets? I can't imagine such a grift considering that in the Java version at least the ability to freely create and use skins is exactly that... absolutely free. Any skin can be replicated easily using basic factory software, and if NFT owners lose their mind about screenshotting just wait till they learn about copy/paste! Bedrock Edition actually does have a framework to buy and sell skins because it's infrastructure isn't as open to mess around with, but even then I'm decently sure that every skin pack has to be sold directly through Minecraft's ingame store so there's no way for independent grifters to make millions off that without raising some eyebrows; nor is it really possible to instil any sense of exclusivity.

So not only is Mojang rejecting NFTs as a rank condemnation of their conceptualisation, but the Minecraft systems don't even really support such a world anyway. And I know what the idea is, these NFT heads wanted to interface with Minecraft and NFTs in very precursory little ways until such a time where they can force Mojang to rewrite the game to accommodate them due to the widespread mass-adoption their propositions have garnered. Except they hadn't garnered that adoption, and never would. Obviously. You can't just develop a scheme tailored to exclusively exploit the wealthy and then turn around and say this is the playground of the everyman, that's what we call: 'asinine'. Mojang aren't going to fall for that, Microsoft ain't going to fall for that, any company with more than 5 brain cells to share around their management board aren't going to fall for that. Which is probably why Ubisoft is still very much on the grind.

The lesson is clear; the whole idea of the WEB3 world being primed to overwrite the antiquated old way of the Web is a fabrication, one that not even the big potential profiteers are willing to buy into. Now as any monetarily minded organisation would, Minecraft did the leave the door open in their statement declaring they'd witness how things develop across the blockchain world, but all of that is mostly just lip service. Unless some real visionaries get behind this technology and sculpt it into something sublime and actually industry changing, they're not going to budge any more than us moralists on the topic are budging. Although just seeing that slightly jutted door is enough to convince these grifters to never give up as they consume themselves with the myth of success they've fuelled their very being with. Which is kind of respectable in a deeply embarrassingly sad way.

Minecraft Legends

 Another one...

For a very long, an utterly peaceable time period, Minecraft was the absolute pinnacle of it's own brand. A video game of limitless potential where players were thrown into a world with the tools to harvest it's very organs in order to build whatever their minds could conjure. It was a purity of concept and execution that could only be limited with the confines of genres and mechanics. Minecraft simply was, that was all there ever needed to be. Of course, in the pursuit of remaining fresh, Minecraft has remade and remodelled itself over the years and even the core game has, in my opinion, crossed the pale from a game that was instantly intuitive to one you need to navigate with the Wikipedia window constantly open, but the heart of that original premise is still very much beating; which is why I find it totally wild whenever the Minecraft brand tries to branch itself out.

No, I'm not ragging on the Lego Sets, or the merchandise or the >shudder< joke books- I'm talking about the various Minecraft Universe games that exist. Games like Telltale's Minecraft game: Minecraft Storymode. What turned out to be, in my opinion, a rather limp fantasy story loosely stretched over the Minecraft brand and playing vague lip-service to the very meta nature of the game they were working with. They treated Minecraft like a game only, when Minecraft is very much more than that. It's a foundation that, at times, feels close to a service, which could have facilitated a much more clever and outside of the box story had 'Minecraft: Story mode' been more ambitious. But then such is what happens when you try to box in a game of ultimate freedom into the confines of a basic 'heroes fight the villains' story.

Then again with Minecraft 'Dungeons' did the franchise try something different, and again it felt weird. Bringing in Diablo-style ARPG action with item looting and classes and the works; Minecraft Dungeons felt like a very polished game made using the Minecraft foundation that wouldn't have at all worked divorced from the context of the game it was working with. As it stands I think that dungeons is completely fine, but also utterly non essential. There's no real value imparted on the Minecraft brand beyond, I suppose, providing a better basic combat model than base Minecraft does. Oh, and throwing some cool enemy designs at us which would look great implemented into real Minecraft, but probably never will be. (The base game could use some more varied enemies in my opinion; give the Overworld some edge to it.)

And now we've been struck again with the arrow of 'try something new' now that Minecraft appears to have taken influence from games that were in turn influenced by them. 'Minecraft Legends' is another recontextualizing of the Minecraft foundations that bares a passing resemblance to Dragon's Quest Builders. (Which is, in itself, a Minecraft derivative.) There seems to be simple RTS mechanics and more narrative trappings slapped on to give this new gameplay purpose. This one, at least, holds some potential for tapping directly into the building and creative routes of Minecraft, albeit in a stunted and limiting manner, and it's already tipped to be the next bold frontier of the brand. I can't say I quite understand what it is that Minecraft is going for, but I respect the idea of 'widening appeal' at least.

Minecraft Legends tells the paint-by-numbers story of an invasion from the hellish forces of the Nether that needs to be repelled by hoards of minion creatures that the player can send to attack the fortifications of their foes. Players will be base building and forging fortifications, so that the Todd Howards in the crowd can find what they're looking for, and some mild terrain deformation if I've examined this trailer correctly. Of course in this early stage we have very little tangible information regarding the game's specifics and go only go through the snippets of gameplay offered in this reveal. We can't yet say the extent of the strategic elements and whether we'll be managing resource lines in order to funnel unit construction and a deluge of reinforcements. 

What we do know, and very much fitting this style of game, is that there will be PVP elements so that players can test their strategy skills against one another, and this is either an indication of the depth of Legend's strategic features or a total misstep on Mojang's part about what online strategy players want. Competitive strategy only really works when you have distinct styles of play, which can be as innocuous and happenstance as the method you choose to design to strategy (which is indicative of any old game in this style) to the distinct modals or characters that players will choose to become familiar with in order to provide buffs, bonuses or unique unit types. If they want a solid PVP offer, Minecraft Legends definitely wants to have the latter level of design complexities, but whether or not they'll bother rise to such occasions waits to be seen.

Now I am going to throw shade at the choice of having a central hero unit in battle, which sort of makes this look like a Musou game. In fact, very muck akin to Warrior games it seems that the hero not only rides at the head of his forces into battle, but can even take a swing themselves from atop their steeds. I think such a focus all to often drags attention away from the strategy and puts too much emphasis on the core leading individual. Something I noticed when I played 'Divinity: Dragon Commander' was how much more engaging it was to totally ignore the 'Dragon' mode and just play it as a pure RTS. I wonder how Legends will cater to people who want to play like that considering they've yet to even show us the requisite bird's eye camera view. Right now I don't even know if I can call this a 'my first RTS' style game, because Army Men RTS already covered that demographically neatly and with grace and Legends has yet to even match that in it's previews.

But even though I don't understand, nor entirely agree with Minecraft's perplexing attempts to branch out their genres; I respect the idea of trying to differentiate the Minecraft offerings. Beyond just generating flat revenue bumps for the Mojang team, these games allow for utterly fresh experiences to be had within the Minecraft ecosystem which keeps player within their blocky claws, which is undeniably beneficial to Minecraft's staying power outside of the core demographics. Fans of ARPGs and strategy games, including those too intimidated by being given a blank slate and told to do whatever they want, can find solace in these more focused experiences and for a world like Minecraft, the more people get involved the better. So I guess we'll have to wait and see how Legends ends up shaping. And pray that they get around to that Bird's eye cam. It's really important for an RTS!

Does Minecraft need to Modernise?

 Nothing will come of nothing.

We have a tendency to be resistant towards wanting things to change or evolve in any fashion for fear of losing that which made it special to begin with, for how can something new come along if the original doesn't die first? Our very beings shouts out against the concept of death, struggling for the impossibility of eternity amidst a reality absolutely conceived to feed decay and destruction. It's a futile struggle, but one which informs and drives a lot of human determination. And yet a knock on effect of that stubbornness means that it can often be hard to accept when a situation would be better off after change, though by that very same merit the opposite 'evolved' desire to be rid of the old in favour of the new can often, through similar obstinance, ignore when something still serves it's purpose just fine and would be ruined with change for the sake of uniformity or 'modernity'. Why do I introduce these concepts? Because recently I noticed an article directly targeted at the age old institution of Minecraft and it got me really thinking about what might be done for that game we all have some affinity for.

Perhaps the most key and important mode for Minecraft is it's Survival mode, because besides from it's creative heart, Minecraft is a game that tries to give value and life to the things that you create so that the act of creation has worth. Survival mode gives you enemies, forces you to seek sustainability, make you have to walk the ground, requires the manual gathering of materials, all to ground the player in that way which creates a hurdle worth crossing. Sure, if you look at the raw thesis of what Minecraft proposes: a engine for unlimited creativity, then Creative mode would be the purest completion of vision. But those that understand how important the struggle and work behind the art is, in relation to the overall completion, knows that there is no doubt Survival mode is the backbone of the game. And yet-

"Minecraft's Survival mode is boring, and it needs to evolve" says Brendan Lowry for Windowscentral. A bold proposition to the say the least, let's explore. In Lowry's world, survival is too simple for the player to master, noting that Minecraft doesn't push it's players to "meaningfully interact with any of its building or crafting systems". Getting food to survive is simple, building a bulwark against the spawn of the night is childsplay, and nothing overwhelmingly threatens the player once they've gotten a footing in this world. Lowry sees this as a gamemode stuck in the past, lacking the purpose that a player like him searches for in his games. He "likes to have reasons beyond (his) own boredom to build advanced structures, explore, and hunt." And of course Lowry has some ideas for what would make Minecraft closer to a survival experience better than what it currently is. 'Roaming hoards, block breaking mobs, more enemies in general, new ores (is that really related to survival?), and more dungeons.'

 

So I'm going to honest with you right now, whilst I respect Brendan Lowry's opinion and the way he's even gone to the trouble to outline a road to 'success' under the mantra that 'limitation breeds creativity'; (that is the purpose behind survival mode to begin with; good on him for picking up on that) I fear he's a little bit backwards on pinpointing exactly what Minecraft is and what purpose it serves. Ironically, Mr Lowry seems to be a little stuck in his ways for what a survival game actually is, which is what he excuses Minecraft itself of being. You see, what he envisions is Minecraft as a survival game similar to the others out there in Rust, Valheim or No Man's Sky. He wants a game that offers challenges that need to be overcome by tackling the endless list of upgrades and improvements that usually end up dragging players all over the place in search of the next higher tier of anything, leading to a point where all the gear gathered thus far is abandoned and depreciated. Obvious once you take a step a back and really look, that's not the sort of game that Minecraft has ever been or wishes to be, let me explain.

Minecraft isn't about overcoming overwhelming odds of new enemy types with new gear that pushes some meaningless stat two points higher with each tier. Minecraft is a lot simpler than that, and in that simplicity, impossibly more evocative. You see, Minecraft yearns for creativity, plain and simple, and the ultimate challenge it offers the player is no more complicated than the challenge to be creative. Starting a world in Minecraft is similar, to put this in the terms of an author or artist, to being presented with a blank page and being required to fill it. The endless possibilities of what could be is overwhelming until you take that very first step, which is incidentally the impetus that Survival mode provides. Once you've gotten a foot hold, Minecraft doesn't need to limit itself to keep the player interested, that's the kin of other games. Limitation may breed creativity, but Freedom is creativity.

A key point that a lot of his arguments keep coming back to is the idea that Minecraft doesn't push it's players to new systems with challenges, and that is absolutely intentional in a manner so simple that it pains me one might not notice it. The toy box of blocks and mechanics laid out before the player are the same as the box of toys laid out before you back when you were a child. In such days you didn't need a noose swinging over you neck in order to interact and enjoy yourself, you just needed to have the courage to reach out and enjoy yourself. No one needed to stand over you and tell you how to enjoy your play time, why you should be playing, all that was up to you, and Minecraft taps into to the childhood freedom of an entire world at you fingertips. The very reason for your playtime is up to you, and I can fully understand how that is intimidating and not what everyone looks for in their games, such as I assume it is to Mr Lowry, but that doesn't mean every such game needs to hobble and neuter itself to fit inside a more comfortable box just for him.

Other survival games suffer from this paradox of progression over creativity, which quite counters the assertion that 'limitation breeds creativity' for this context. Once you've managed to build yourself a castle- too late it needs to be rebuilt with even better materials, that armour needs to be recrafted, those weapons too. Always you find yourself chasing these stat increases until you reach the ultimate top tier and then... you're done. There's no incentive to stick around, because until now you've played only to overcome the challenges the game has presented to you, thus when there's no more challenge there's no more reason to play. Half of the items in the game exist only to be slightly sturdier alternatives to what you're already using, and only the truly impeccably built survival games manage to stop entire inventories from depreciating with each jump onto the next tier. But even then the ultimate result is a driven journey to an inevitably shallow end. Minecraft, on the otherhand, is all about a journey with no end.

Now bear in mind as I state all of this, that I am a fan of both Survival games and Minecraft and I've experienced enough of both to be able to safety say that Minecraft is not a survival game, at least not in the traditional sense. Minecraft is a careful balancing act between bare bones simplicity and utterly optional indepth complexity, in order to remain endearing for children and engrossing for adults; every update needs to manage this flawlessly in order to prevent upsetting that which Minecraft is. Adding a mob, throwing in a new block, always has to have this purpose beyond 'higher stat value' else you ruin the concoction and make it feel as shallow as a lot of the lesser survival games out today. Even adding Netherite as a stronger item tier than Diamond was a big deal for what it meant to the game and required care and justification every step of the way. Mojang aren't quiet about any of this either, watch their dev blogs and they'll actively tell you how they don't want to bog down the timeless concept that Minecraft is. And so I ask, does Minecraft need to modernise itself to fit the tastes of a genre it grazes? Of course not, because what it is happens to be so much more unique all on it's own. 

Speeding through Dreams

 A song of mod folders and drop rates

I've never really been one to follow drama on the Internet that doesn't directly revolve around game creators and the consumers who feed their efforts. There's a special kind of joy I do get from following those sorts of machinations, hence why I tend to do so very often when I get the chance, but outside of that little niche my interests are far and few. But there are exceptions, of course there are, when I hear some story pop my way with but the littlest connection to my interests and I pay it a bit of mind, and then in twenty minutes I'm just glued to a saga of lies and betrayal. This- well quite honestly it's a problem and I need help. But you know the way that help works around here, don't you? Self therapy through sharing stories on the Internet; so sit back, relax, and try to help me unravel the enigma of Minecraft Speedrunning.

Even as a gaming fanatic Speedrunning eluded by tastes. I've touched on it before, but basically as someone who prioritizes playing every game to it's fullest in order to live that new adventure, I find the prospect of rushing through it to the point of unravelling it's finely crafted world often asinine. And if you think I'm being too harsh, just look up the Twilight Princess Low Percent run which requires players to stand still for several hours in front of a slightly broken open box animation in order to phase through walls and sequence break. (That's when you've gone too far.) All that being said I've had a change of heart recently, gotten into a lot of the more interesting Speedruns that don't devolve into walking around dead black screens in order to exploit programming bugs and force a load of later stages, I've actually grown to appreciate them to some degree; which is why I was actually paying attention when the whole Dream debacle happened.

So Dream is a Minecraft Youtuber who really come to prominence in the latter parts of 2020 when his uniquely engaging video style blew up for a community who's patrons had almost exclusively taken up considerably more passive styles of video creation. (They've been at this for years, let them rest) Dream became such a superstar for the Minecraft community, that over the space of about 3 months he went from a nobody that hardly anyone knew of to a seminally influential figure imbued with all of the "urg, it's that famous figure" derision that usually hangs around those with at least half a decade in the spotlight. As such, when this Dream fellow decided he would run a competitive speedrun of Minecraft, it was met with more scrutiny than it would if anyone else had done the exact same thing. He was a celebrity now and had to act with the caution of one, and not doing so would cause one of the largest scandals that the speedrunning community has had to date.

Though I was paying attention to Speedrunning at this time, Minecraft speedrunning didn't and does not interest me and so I only heard about this in backlash a little while after the run had been completed; but the backlash was loud enough that even over in the GTA speedrunning circuits trouble was stirring. Apparently, despite Dream's run not landing on a podium position (or even all that near to a podium position) he was receiving accusations of having cheated thanks to those who took to analyse his run. The evidence was anecdotal, with Enderman seeming to drop Pearls surprisingly often for Dream, but before you knew it there were amateur mathematicians crawling out the woodworks to start number crunching and spitting out probability figures for how unlikely it was that Dream did this legit.

When I was looking at this, people had started reaching out to professional mathematicians, and as odds starting erring into the billions it turned to Dream to defend himself with the assertion that nothing was an impossibility and sometimes lucky things just happened. Several times in a row. In the middle of a competition. (I didn't say it was an easy sell.) Soon even the official moderators for the Speedrunning circuit were calling Dream into doubts, which the Minecraft creator was less than happy with. It was this point which I would call his biggest mistake, as Dream took to airing a lot of his dirty laundry with the Speedrunning moderators publicly and thus denigrated the entire speedrunning community through proxxy of doing so. It was inelegant, dirty, and turned pretty much everyone who wasn't his fan against him as they turned around and said "He's kind of acting really guilty right now."

Investigations dove so far as to start analysing his folders, whereupon a mod folder was discovered and Dream had to defend that. He said that these were mods he'd use for videos and that it was completely inactive at the time of the speedrun. But this was all happening inbetween examples of Dream being less than cordial with some folk as he, perhaps understandably, grew frustrated at this whole situation. Unfortunately the heightened scrutiny imbued by fame amplified everything and made him look like a worse and worse villain each and every time he lost his temper. There was actually no single incident that resolved all of this either, just a winding down of hostilities naturally as time went by and people lost interest with their unrelenting pursuit. Dream saw the way he was acting and apologised, but those who he wronged mostly chose to cut ties with him, pretty much cementing the rough relationship between the current biggest Minecraft Youtuber and the Speedrunning community.

But it's been months after the fact, so why am I bringing all of this up now? Why indeed, dear reader, because Dream himself provided an update just the other day in which he rocked up and revealed that, unbeknownst to him at the time, he had installed some subvert plugin which improved mob drop rates for the purposes of videos that he forgot to turn off. That's right, all of this chaos and back and forth was pointless because the clumsy fool had done the crime and neglected to perform his own due diligence! Of course, Dream took the time to apologise, but during his long post Dream still couldn't help but try and shift blame for his own actions on the Speedrunning moderators for their being "unprofessional". (hint for apologies: it doesn't matter if you still feel that way, your apology shouldn't be about them) And all of this begs the question of how we ended up here and what is the truth of the situation.

I emphasise 'truth' because to be honest with you all it's been several months and I, for one, cannot remember a single game I've actively played (with modding capabilities) that has retained the same file structure for over half a year. There's no way that Dream was just hopping through files and just noticed this, no he knew about this for a while. So I see one of two possibilities here: either Dream knew right away that he screwed up and had his mod on (I don't think he did it intentionally; they'd be no point for such a low leaderboard placing anyway) but chose to fight against accusations out of embarrassment, or secondly that his mod folder wasn't actually active and he's just confessing to it after all of this time in order to try and bookend this whole issue for those that still held quiet reservations about his truthfulness. Eitherway, it's a mercy for the man to provide closure to a story that was so twisting like this one as all too often we are left without such in life. So now that it's over, where do you fall on the whole conversation, if indeed you are or were invested at all. And whatsmore; what do you think should be the recourse after such a revelation? Lifetime bans are so easy to dish out, but when we're talking about the biggest Minecraft content creator in the world right now that seems a little short sighted- so what would be appropriate and beneficial to the speedrunning world as a whole? My suggestion is to have him redo his run properly as an event piece, but I'm curious of other suggestions.

So I bought Minecraft again after two years...

 Minecraft?! You're still alive my 'old friend'.

Kono Giorno Giovanna Niwa yume ga aru

A long time ago, on a computer system far away and now outdated, back when I was of the optimal age group I used to play Minecraft. No, no- I don't suppose play work so well here, now does it? Anyone who knows me from those dark days knows that I used Minecraft in probably the least healthy way it was possible to use a game of 'infinite creative possibility' like that. I turned that straight-up into my job. What's that? You jump into Minecraft in order to build your little base, go out, and explore all of the little wonders of the world bit by bit? Yeah, that's not me. You go onto creative mode and let the juices flow with unlimited resources and the power of unhinderable building? That's the weak stuff to me. See- I had that horrible combination of too-big dreams and a crippling desire to make it 'legit'; so I it wasn't long until I signed myself up to the sort of project that would define my next years (Yes, years) of playing Minecraft.

But first, when I got into Minecraft it was as a spectator during it's first few years of growing into Youtube prominence, after the Indev days and into the Beta. I would see people enjoy the game in the simplest of ways and marvelled at a concept so simple yet executed so well, and to this day I still find that a marvel. Many smaller games form themselves around the 'find your own goal' model, but most of them end up falling apart from that very rhetoric either because they've got a very clear path of what the game loop actually is, and are just pretending to be 'free form' under clearly false pretences, or they've just got a really aimless and directionless game inside which it's impossible to conjure any sort of meaningful direction. (I would call out Dreamworld here, but I think it's unfair to even call that a game.) Minecraft wrote the book on how to nail this with simplicity, approachability and just great visual communication of mechanics to the players. You don't need to log onto a Minecraft world too long until you've got a decent idea what's going to be the most fun thing for you to do, even if that's just digging a hole somewhere and figuring out everything one blocky day at a time.

When I actually got a chance to play the game for myself, however, it was- as always- not quite the same game that I had slowly fallen in love with watching, because it was Minecraft console edition, the extremely limited console port. Being as weak as the Xbox 360 was, Minecraft Console Edition wasn't even the same build as Java Edition, let alone similar in size. The biggest point of contention, for me, was the way in which the entire Console world was only ever as big as the size of a single map, which was still considerable, but seriously cutdown on the 'unlimited exploration' that the Minecraft dream promised. But I never really bemoaned such, I hardly even noticed it. I loved playing Minecraft both alone and with others back then, and when Bedrock Edition was released on the Xbox One I hopped eagerly onto that (exporting my hefty world, of course) and it's increased features. (Including that unlimited world I had wanted for so very long.)

But what was this about 'treating Minecraft like a job'? Oh, heh, yeah about that... So everyone picks their own goals in Minecraft, and mine was to make a ludicrously huge home base to live in that would literally float in the freaking sky. I wish I was kidding, but I'm not, I dreamt up something that stupidly big. And I don't just mean a little floating fortress or nothing, nah this was an entire full island ripped out of the ground and hung in the air with all that would entail. It was a whole thing, don't ask. The point is that led to actual years of me just sitting down on Minecraft whenever I had the free time just to mine stone, dirt, and slowly the new blocks they kept adding. (Yes, I hated the 'new' useless mineral blocks with a passion.) That was my entire Minecraft experience, and it was honestly total bliss. There's a freedom in seeking out some mindless, seemingly impossible goal, and I relished in actually trying to achieve something this unwise and out-and-out stupid. So that was my Minecraft play experience up until about 2 years back.

What happened then? Minecraft itself just sort of locked me out. Yeah, I guess something innate in the game's programming sensed that I was grinding away my sanity in its little caves because Minecraft just crashed endlessly on by Xbox One and no one could quite figure out why. So that was a little bit of a 'forced retirement' on my end, but in a sense it was just as well because the Minecraft ecosystem was slowly getting 'out of hand' for me through endless updates that were fundamentally changing things in ways that I was having trouble keeping track of. When I left the game it was only a few weeks into the 'Village and Pillage' update, and the simple game I remembered was slowly getting buried because of it. That was totally fine in my book, of course, I loved all the new added complexity, but I just couldn't always gel with it, so to speak.

But it's now two years down the line, and I've done what I'm surprised I hadn't done an age ago and bought Minecraft Java Edition so that I may renew my stupid endless pursuit of making my dream world. Oh that's right, I haven't given up! When the last version of the game locked me out I had already built the island and was working on filling it up, and it was grand- but it had the potential to be so much more... Part 2 of Minecraft's newest update is promising to increase the height of the world by over 100 blocks, something I kept scraping into during my time playing the game. See where I'm going with this? New floating island- twice as big! Better shape, more scope, less people working on it. (I used to have a friend who helped out occasionally with life-saving redstone QOL contraptions back in the day. Now I'm just trying to rudimentally follow his shadow.) Minecraft is the endless dream that I just can't put down and my consciousness will soon belong only to it's vastly superior blocky world.

In all honesty, however, I was genuinely surprised by how jarring my reintroduction to Minecraft was. Getting used to the controls again was no big deal at all, despite years of playing with a controller I suppose I'm just so acclimatised to PC controls from similar games (thanks No Man's Sky) that I was Minecrafting to the standard of the old days (almost) in no time. It was the game itself, changed in many weird little ways, that caught me off guard. A sea of fish, coral and drowned when I was used to looking at blank oceans, (I played on a legacy world, so even after the update I had to go looking for new stuff) the wandering trader appearing out of the friggn' blue and giving me a heart attack, the various new flowers that are colourful, lush yet entirely new to me. And then, most jarring of all, the Nether. Good lord what have they done to the Nether! That update is wild to me, after the fact and having followed none of the dev blogs at all. Learning these new ultra powerful Piglin Brutes exist, reading that I need to wear a piece of gold armour in order to not be mobbed to death everywhere I go nowadays, trekking over 500 blocks in desperate search of my good-old-Nether-Fortresses and seeing entirely new alien biomes. It feels like I'm playing with mods, it's the weirdest thing.

Looking upon a game you feel like you knew intimately and not recognizing it is alienating and honestly rather scary. It gets me thinking about what things would have ended up like if I had waited another two years: would the game have been so unrecognisable that I couldn't get back into it? On the verge of the new update, which I've been cramming about in knowledge that Part 1 drops on the 8th, I've heard concerns about the Minecraft world becoming overly complicated and if that betrayed the original vision at all. I hate to break to ya, guys, but that's already happened an age ago. Minecraft is more intricate then many other titles of it's kind nowadays, and we just don't recognise it because the developers are so good at tying the game up to be as intuitive as possible. It's only when I was deeply tied into the game, pulled out and thrown back in again that I saw how crazy the evolutions this game goes through are. It's amazing to think that a single game can shift so fundamentally over a decade since it's launch, but Minecraft is that model which proves how it can be done and to rampant success. 

Hello once more, my Minecraft , I hope we treat each other well this time. (No more 20 hour sessions, I promise.)

It's the end of Minecraft Earth, as we know it

(And I feel fine)

Terrible news everyone; Minecraft Earth is shutting down! No, not the yearly convention wherein new updates for the popular build-em-up game are announced; I'm talking about Minecraft Earth: the mobile mixed-reality app. Minecraft Earth? Anyone? Really? See, I have this weird sort of fascination for those dead and dying game-adjacent ventures, and for the unique strange circumstances surrounding them. I like to find out whether we're talking about a sleeper hit that didn't take off, or a title that scared away it's consumer base, or one that was simply killed off for the sake of keeping company resources free. And that, of course, extends to games that I haven't even heard of before, like this Minecraft Earth thing; What's that all about? Literally the first I've heard of this app is it's last; and now, inexplicably, this thing has been bought alive in the world of my vision, captured in morbid fascination as it falls still in those final eternal moments. (Did I successfully manage to creep you out yet?) So let's take a look.

Minecraft Earth is a free-to-play augmented reality game bought out in late 2019 with the hopes of creating a platform for collaborative online creation and play within a virtual Minecraft overlay. Now to be honest, whilst I never heard of this game in my entire life, I did actually hear about the technology that makes it work, and that's because I first remember it being showcased giddily at a Microsoft showroom event about various alternate reality projects. I recall being amazed at the way a whole depth-realised Minecraft world could exist in the virtual, a whole layer that was just casually superimposed onto our reality, like something out of a David Cage game. For that very reason, I never really expected anything to come of it. I mean, most of what you see in those tech shows are just theoretical and functionally useless, all the really world changing applications are with-held until a army of patents can be written up, so we just get to see the weekend projects that some genius has tinkered with for half an hour as a hobby before deciding to go back to solving cold fusion or something.

And even if this were something that might be coming our way, I always figured it was space age tech; due in years, not months. But... now I come to think about it- I remember going into school the next day and talking to people about that event. Which means it was years ago, and therefore I was just a complete dunce who forgot the definition of 'exponential' when considering the growth of technology. Augmented reality is no longer space age stuff, in fact, we hardly even acknowledge it anymore. It's reached that point in general culture where if we don't quite understand how something works or functions we simplify it or loop it into a concept we understand. Instagram 'Filters' for example; quite a lot of them use Augmented reality, and we don't even bat an eye. Maybe the very fact I find that wild is indicative of my rapidly increasing out-of-touch nature. (I've never even been on TikTok. Oh god...) Whatever the case, this all means that it's not even remotely strange for something like Minecraft Earth to exist.

But what it is? Specifically? Well it's Minecraft Bedrock edition but superimposed into a free-to-play mobile format that has hints of resource collection, some mob fighting, and a crowing jewel of building within a mixed reality environment. As opposed to the showcase I saw when this was achieved through the use of that, still not as widely utilised as I'm sure the developers hoped for, Hololens thing; here anyone could go nuts building with the power of their phone camera alone. Although there's not a great deal of online video content on how the things works (weirdly) as I understand it, there would be certain 'buildplates' which people could make their builds on, and those creations would presumably be there for others to discover and work upon? I'm guessing here. As Free-to-plays go, there were a couple of currencies and likely some timeout mechanics in order to keep the lights on, but for the most part the game was apparently an invitation to creative freedom. So what went wrong?

Well just the other day the official Minecraft website received a forum post written the team claiming that their last update had just dropped and that support for the app would cease by June. And as this was an Online App, that means it will be unfunctioning after support ends, thus cutting off any potential scalper market that may arise. (I remember how much phones were selling for when the original Flappy Bird was killed off) But what was the impetus? Well, that could be anything under the sun to be honest, but before speculation begins we can start by assessing the official reason given in said announcement. There the team are rather upfront, the say that the app was made in a time where it made sense to encourage people to go out and explore, but given the recent worldwide pandemic that just isn't really an option anymore. Thus they thought it wise to reallocate resources (Oh look, one of my predictions was right!) and kill of Minecraft Earth. So basically they're going for 'the Quibi defence', "That Covid killed my app!", seems legit enough.

To believe the statement you have to acknowledge that the very raison d'être for the App is now redundant; communication and making friends with fellow Minecraft enthusiasts (so that you can spend money as a group) has been kyboshed. When you look at it like that, this actually makes a lot more sense than Quibi's failure, thus I'm actually inclined to take their word for it. However, I do know companies and company culture well enough to see when we're only being told most of the truth, because a lie based on truth is much easier to sell. So yes, I'll buy that the App couldn't be used as intended, but I doubt that's the reason the thing was killed off, I believe the very fact this App couldn't be used as intended likely led to a drop in active players to the point where it wasn't profitable, or not profitable enough, to keep the thing around anymore. let's me real, if the thing was still making money than they'd forget about "failing to live up to the vision" in a heartbeat.

Yet even if I'm right, there's is the question to ask of why this App didn't make it through the pandemic whilst other similar one's seem to be managing. It's no great secret that a lot of ideas which make Minecraft Earth work are borrowed from Pokemon GO, but whilst GO is undergoing a little underground renaissance of sorts, (thanks in no small part to their recent HOME integration) Earth is getting the boot. Now Niantic were surprisingly proactive when lockdowns started landing, implementing some features to help players with remotely engaging with the game, (Albeit, never quite enough to forgo the act of gratuitous travel) so that certainly helped somewhat. But I think this really comes down to situation and the way that Minecraft can afford swallowing a team into the wider group whilst letting their mobile venture fall to the wayside; very much unlike Niantic who's whole enterprise rests on Pokemon Go and that Harry Potter game which I hear some people actually play. (Each to their own) If Niantic had to eat some profits for a few months to stay afloat they'll damn well do it, but I'd imagine a corporate overlord like Microsoft (or maybe even Mojang themselves) wouldn't share such patience.

Of course, my words are speculative and my opinions are my own. Who's to say what bought Minecraft Earth down after a measly year and some change of life. (Although 'failure of vision' is a pretty flimsy excuse in my book) The facts are thus, an actually somewhat cool idea is getting the axe and that's a little bit of a shame; I always hate to see a project unceremoniously discontinued. Of course, this may lay the groundwork for such cool ideas to make their way elsewhere, because every ending is a beginning and all that, so let's not let this be so dour, shall we? I suppose at the end of the day the only real surprise in this, the very fact I was interested at all, is because a venture baring the Minecraft name didn't blow up like you'd expect. Isn't that a headscratcher? It makes me wonder if there's room in the world for that 'Minecraft Killer' Hytale afterall...

Speedrunning

  Gotta Speed fast!

So perhaps I haven't always afforded the art of speedrunning, or those who partake, with the respect it and they deserve. That comes from an inherent disconnect between what I fundamentally seek out of games and the way that they make a career out of twisting systems and breaking sequences in order to get to the end faster. I'm all about the adventure of delving into another world, experiencing a new story and becoming immersed in any life other than my own; whereas Speedrunners are all about breaking the magic box down to see all the machinery underneath, then rearranging all that machinery however they so choose. (Actually, that analogy makes them sound a little like modders. Ideally there should be a difference between those two branches of the gaming community) My particular leaning towards games is the very reason why I don't exactly gel with those 'playground' games which pop up every now and then, such as the Just Cause games. I just run out of reasons to come back after the explosions lose their appeal, which for me is around about the third explosion, and thus I've no reason to really clamber after the series. Now admittedly, this is a problem of my personal perception which I've struggled to rectify, but I'm made some inroads now that I'm helplessly addicted to some speedrunning content. (Send help.)

Now the speedrunning world that I'm currently invested in revolves around the sort of game you'd usually not expect to see in these circles; Grand Theft Auto V. Yes, it's one of the biggest and most talked about video games of the last generation, (Or should I say 'the generation before that') but it's also an openworld adventure game with a simply ludicrous amount of uncontrollable factors. This isn't like a straightforward 'A Link Between Worlds' sort of game where every single run of the game is more or less the same, there's things like randomly generated traffic to watch out for, inconsistent ragdolls, several physics based script moments; it's boggling to try and break down into a speedrunning game. And yet there are folk who do it, and the sit down and grind out this 20 hour game in ludicrous times that make one quite honestly balk. And the things that you can learn about how this incredibly intricate videogame works just by watching one of these runs is fascinating.

I think what really grabbed my attention then, for the kind of running game that GTA is, is the fact that it's a very freeform kind of run where pretty much anything can happen and so the talent in charge has to be highly knowledgeable about intricacies. Such knowledge such as how in Blitz Play your AI companions are actually programmed to be unable to kill enough enemies to move the scene forward. As in their guns will just stop doing damage and they'll effectively be shooting blanks for most of the mission whilst the player cleans things up. Really shatters the illusion of 'three man money heist', now doesn't it? Or how about in The Paleto Score, when you're tasked with driving Micheal and Trevor to the steelworks in a bulldozer and the national guard are called in, the tanks that arrive on the scene are actually programmed to miss you. All these little tips and tricks and quirks of the programming aren't enough to shatter my realm of immersion but to just edge in a little to the development minds behind a genuine masterpiece of a game, and I appreciate that chance.

But then, as with any community, the meat of the speedrunning circles are the people behind the scenes that try they hardest to keep everything official, and that's what really impresses me. When it comes to speedrunning, afterall, you're talking about people who are competing to attain an accolade as coveted as 'the best in the world', with a world record run. (At least until that record is inevitably broken) To everyone's credit this is actually a whole world more professionally handled than 'The Guinness Books of World Records' in that there's no system in place to buy yourself a world record for free marketing rights. Rather, runners typically Stream and have their whole process viewable for any judge to view, or there's some sort of save file offered around for specific runs that ensures everyone is playing on the same playing field. These judges and moderators have such passion and dedication that they can disseminate even the slightest inconsistence and pull it apart, all because they have a desire to keep the art of Speedrunning somewhat legitimate. (Or maybe that obsession is just a kneejerk reaction to the 'Billy Mitchel' effect, I don't know.) 

And even with my stipulation which got me into GTA V speedrunning 'It didn't shatter my immersion too hard', there still has been another speedrunning game that's caught me up in it's world, although that might just be a reaction to the ludicrousness of it all. 'Mr Krabs Overdoses on Ketamine' might not officially licenced Spongebob product, but it is a real game. (One I actually saw the launch trailer for and decided not to cover on this blog for some reason) This is a little joke game about collecting Ketamine in order to... okay, let's not pretend the game has any story. But it managed to somehow get the attention of the speedrunner community and now it's a title with a dedicated crowd around it as well as some drama involving a slightly muddled run. All in the space of couple weeks. (Wild how these things develop, no?)

Then of course there is the Minecraft Speedrunning community who's entire premise makes even less sense to me than the GTA one. Whereas GTA V has some huge RNG factors that can leave runs in the hand of chance, Minecraft is literally a game designed around procedural generation, so runs are destined to be scuffed almost every second. Some streamers spend hours resetting until they get that perfect start to launch themselves off, and I just cannot fathom the amount of precision one would have to nail to speedrun Minecraft. So you have to track down, kill and get lucky with Enderpearls, go to the Nether and get blazerods, then trackdown the End Fortress and kill the Elderdragon? The amount of chance behind each of those actions rattles my mind. Heck, I can't even get my head around the strats other than the lava bucket strat to get around building a nether Portal without needing to find diamonds.

Of course, when anything as invaluable as pride is on the line, there's bound to be controversy and Speedrunning is in no way immune to all that. I mentioned before how a 'Mr Krabs Overdoeses on Ketamine' run was called into question on accounts of allegedly doctored footage, but that's just the absolute tip of the iceburg in these sorts of scandals. Recently a popular Minecraft record, which wasn't number 1 but still insanely high scoring, was called into question over allegations of teaks to probability systems in order to make things drop easier. All of this calls back to mind the classic aforementioned debacle with Billy Mitchell who maybe wasn't a speedrunner, but the way that these communities delved into the microanalysis level to unravel the subtlest of lies is honestly quite humbling to watch. It's the sort of dedication you'd see from organised professional sport, and I love to see that people care that much.

So whilst you'd never catch me on the grind to knock my run down in the microseconds, I've developed something of an appreciation and understanding for those that do. Rather than unravelling and depreciating all the things that I love about my favourite games, I understand that it's another way of expressing that love through competition. (Although, that being said, I'm sure there's some guys out there who just hate the games they speedrun with a passion.) Now with that out of the way, I have a 4-hour livestream speedrun to watch...