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[Renton]

Someone tell me when the purchasing page is back up. Daddy's gonna get him a copy.

[OneMoreGo]

Amazing... I saw a few screenshots of this and thought "meh" but have actually been playing it (since it's freely playable this weekend) and it's great. I'll definately order it now i've had a go. Even my wife has been sitting watching my progress with fascination.

As for needing instructions, it's not that tricky is it? The only thing I had to google for was the craft recipes and unusual things and I end up doing that on non indie AAA games too!

[Nix]

regardless of which type of game you prefer, you have to at least recognize that notch is giving his audience what they want, and that his audience *doesn't want* a step by step guide telling them what to do. some people enjoy figuring stuff out, others don't, it's not a flaw in either type of game to appeal to what its audience wants.

I doubt he's going to leave it that way on release, though. What about the greyed out "Play the Tutorial Level" button on the main screen? I suppose for now, you're right. His target audience is indie gamer's who are willing to play an incomplete game because it's awesome. But in the end, I highly doubt that he will leave the "what am I supposed to do" problem unaddressed.

(I too had a bit of trouble at the start. At one point I started carving out a stairway in stone with my bare hands. I spend about half an hour on that until I decided to do a search for "how to play minecraft", at which point I went  and started over. As bvanery said, if you figured it out right away, you got lucky. But you can't guarantee that with everyone. Without a tutorial of some sort, the crafting is basically impossible to figure out.)

[bvanevery]

i think bvanevery may be used to casual indie games. hardcore indie games have a different audience and different user base. for the latter, tutorials and hand-holding and telling the player what to do are seen as bad things, not good things. experimentation and figuring things out are seen as good things.

More like I'm used to hardcore mainstream games, which have evolved a canon of what is considered good UI design or gameplay design over the years.  Leaving your player in the lurch at the beginning of the game ain't it, because it usually creates unhappy customers.  I'll accept your premise that everything is backwards in this hardcore indie niche, that it creates happy customers. "It's not a bug, it's a feature!"  I've played one game like that before, Kingdom of Loathing  The substance of the game is discovering crafting recipes for yourself, there's very little else.  After a substantial time investment I decided it was unrewarding as the quirky humor value of the game had worn off.  I was spending more time with my thumb in walkthough websites than I was in the game itself.

It's probably not a coincidence that it, too, is a crudely drawn game.  I'm all for art experimentation, to a fault really if you follow the debate that has raged in the Art forum recently.  I wonder if it's likely to indicate something about a player community though.  In Kingdom of Loathing there may be a social one-upsmanship driving many players to participate.  This is lost on me as I simply don't care, I'm generally a soloist.

This experience affirms my view that all games should have demos.  Lots of people may tell you a game is great, but they may be part of an early adopter or core niche that's very different in sensibility from your own.

This is the longest Feedback thread about a game in the past 6 months, if I have done my backpost clicking correctly.  There are a few games that have threads half as long.  I wonder what that indicates.

[Landshark RAWR]

if you follow the debate that has raged in the Art forum recently.

you mean the one YOUR antagonizing?

EDIT:

[bvanevery]

if you follow the debate that has raged in the Art forum recently.

you mean the one YOUR antagonizing?

I see you value free debate highly.

I have a song just for you

Now wasn't that special.

[TwilightVulpine]

I had more fun with Minecraft in it's currently incomplete state than I had with many finished games that costed even more. Notch hasn't abandoned the game unfinished either, he is constantly releasing new features and bugfixes. This pre-purchase with Alpha access is actually an excelent model. The developer gets more feedback and may implement stuff that the player community want in return. It's better than buying your typical prepackaged game in which your feedback doesn't make any difference.

The game is also labeled as Alpha, i.e. under development and not even close to it's finished state. If you think the game isn't good enough yet, you could just wait before buying.

Minecraft is surprisingly playable (in the sense of crashing little) for just an Alpha version. I just wish Multiplayer Alpha had all features Singleplayer Alpha has.

[Iamthejuggler]

I do agree that the crafting is pretty unintuitive to a newcomer. I didn't have a cluse what to do till i looked up a quick newcomers guide. I certainly wouldn't have guessed that to make an item i have to draw the rough shape of the item in the crafting box, i mean i've never seen that done, so why would it occur to me to try it?

Then again notch has said he's working ways to introduce new players to the game, so it's all good.

And the fact that this thread is one of the longest in feedback is a surprise to you? Really? This is one of the most successful indie releases in years. Just look at some of the threads on various gaming forums around the net. People are lapping it up, despite there not being a tutorial ...


Anyways, back on topic. I want to show off my latest project. A treehouse!





and a couple of night shots as i love how it looks all lit up

[Melly]

bvanevery, you have to work on how you give your opinions or feedback. Your posts reek of an obnoxious tone that seems to encourage less a friendly and constructive discussion and more of a "these fools are obviously wrong and I need to hammer this in their heads" argument.

Very few people will respect or pay much heed to your opinions here if you continue to act this way, except for those that respond to you out of annoyance or politeness (like it would be 'impolite' to leave a question or point you made from being answered to, regardless of your behaviour).

It's perfectly fine to give constructive, even harsh feedback to a game, if you do so politely and without being obnoxious. Posting 8 times in a row out of some kind of apparent spite for the game and the thread's length will just make you look like a troll (and don't mention the fact that the thread notification only works with new posts, you could have easily written down those points and condensed them in a single new post. It's what most people do when providing feedback).

We've been having many cases of people that seem personally upset that a game they deem inferior is highly successful. That behaviour makes you seem less like someone who wants to see the game improve and more like someone who's envious of another's success. Maybe this isn't how you feel, but it's how you come out to people.

If you want less of your posts to be removed in the future maybe you should reevaluate how you conduct your discussions. Free debate around here doesn't exempt you from politeness. You should be here to make friends, not enemies.

[Ntero]

There will be a tutorial level.  There is even a button for it.

The feedback of adding in a tutorial level is a good one, but that is more relevant towards release.  Currently he is experimenting with features and modes and items.  He can't be expected to redo the tutorial level every week when he changes or adds a new feature.

It can be confusing to learn initially, however if you've ever seen an alpha of even the most polished AAA game, they are not pretty.  Polish comes last.

I think the confusion here comes from a paid alpha.  I see your view as, if it's paid for, it should be final product and contain the relevant polish.  I disagree, so long as the developer makes it understood the form of the product you are purchasing, of which I feel Notch did.  It's Alpha.  It has a massive string of Debug messages and the rules and even game style can change any Friday.  I don't know of any other game with a paid alpha, but it's definitly something I expect to see a lot more of considering the mind boggling success that Minecraft is seeing.  It has provided it to likely grow into something much larger than was initially planned.

While I do agree there could be a quickstart page on the site, that explains the basics, I don't think a tutorial level would be feasible at this stage due to the weekly changes.

It will be polished, but it's currently alpha, and alpha is not for polish.  If you expect more polish don't pay for an alpha version and wait until it is closer to release.  it's not like he's hiding the fact that it is still in development.

Also, the reason this feedback page is so massive is because it is probably the only game that has recieved constant changes since May 2009 and been in feedback the entire time.  Think of every month being essentially feedback on a new, but similar game.

[Bood_war]

Iamthejuggler, that is pretty rad. I never thought to plant trees on to of other trees. I'll have to try that sometime.

[Landshark RAWR]

im gonna go experiment with planting trees under glass to see if i can make an underwater dome

[bvanevery]

bvanevery, you have to work on how you give your opinions or feedback.

And you need to work on how you moderate forums.  I see you've done nothing about people that have made personal attacks and uttered vulgarities at my expense.  Instead you "call me out" as a troublemaker in public, giving me lessons on how I should speak.  You could have handled it privately.  Since you're using a double standard, does it surprise you that I'm not going to act on your advice?  If you start deleting my posts because you don't like their tone, I will take it up with whatever the moderator chain of command is around here.  Deleting my posts because there were 8 of 'em in a row I took in stride.  Clearly I stepped on some local taboo that at least has an objective standard behind it.

[Melly]

You are correct that I should have mentioned the people that made personal attacks to you. I was still reading over the thread and taking in people's comments, so my response to those was somewhat delayed.

You are free to take this to a superior if you wish to. It's within your right. I focused on you first merely because all this wouldn't have happened if you did not act the way you did.

And gunmaggot, making personal attacks to other people doesn't help things. You've been warned about this before.

[bvanevery]

I think the confusion here comes from a paid alpha.  I see your view as, if it's paid for, it should be final product and contain the relevant polish.

My view is, if it's paid for, the developer owes a beginning player some usable instructions to get started.  Saying "well it's only an alpha" is not acceptable to me, because there are paying customers.  The game is clearly selling more than a backstage pass, it is trading on the interim playability of the game.  Thus for a newbie it should not seem completely unplayable.  That's the experience I had.

My view is also that games that do not offer some kind of free demo, some way of try before you buy, are cheating people.  If a game has no demo, I advocate software piracy for purposes of evaluating the game only.  In practice, as a consumer I pirate nothing and just don't play games that don't have demos.  But I fully support people who do pirate for this reason.  Conversely, if the game has a demo, there is no excuse for piracy.  As you know, not everyone holds these views.  I make my views known in a Feedback forum as a potential customer.  It may come as a surprise to the majority of you who are loving this game, but there's something here to make someone slightly angry.

I don't know of any other game with a paid alpha,

I don't even know of a paid beta.  This is an evolving industry practice, and as a software engineer, it's not one I'm in favor of.  At least as the practice evolves, there will be room for different vendors to compete with their release models.  There may come a time when the majority world view is that taking customer money without a basic tutorial and "get started" instructions in the game is deemed unacceptable.

It will be polished, but it's currently alpha, and alpha is not for polish.

Traditionally, alpha is also not for making money.  I say developers should not be allowed to have their cake and eat it too.  But the market will bear what it bears.  I know my dollars will go elsewhere.

Also, the reason this feedback page is so massive is because it is probably the only game that has recieved constant changes since May 2009 and been in feedback the entire time.  Think of every month being essentially feedback on a new, but similar game.

Extensive game revisions.  Ok, that's a data point.

[Hangedman]

Comparing this game's development to a lot of other games' development is simply a category mistake. Minecraft's developmental progression is part of what makes it interesting: it is entirely emergent, not only just in the gameplay but in the development too. Any suggestion may lead to a new game development.

The instructions will come with the completed version, I'm sure. But the lack of instruction does not render the game in any way unplayable or unenjoyable, and so people play and enjoy it, both hardcore players and more casual players. You may not enjoy or play it, but that is your concern. We may, and that is not your concern.

[Zaphos]

You may not enjoy or play it, but that is your concern. We may, and that is not your concern.

This is still a feedback thread, so it is kind of the point of this thread to discuss whether we enjoy it or not?

The 'release an alpha' thing has been done by several other indie developers I think, with success -- wolfire & data realms come to mind.  I think some people enjoy seeing games through the development process.

[Hangedman]

We can discuss whether we enjoy it or not.

The claim that it is unenjoyable kind of flies in the face of that, though

[bvanevery]

The claim that it is unenjoyable kind of flies in the face of that, though

Walking around for 3+ hours when you don't know how to dig is unenjoyable.

There's very little you can do.  You can climb the highest mountain.  After a few times, you see that the landscape is more or less the same in all directions.  You can descend to the lowest pit.  This will probably get you trapped.  If there's enough of a ledge inside the pit, you can kill yourself and respawn.  If there isn't, all you can do is start over with another world.  You can pick up stuff that you have no idea what to do with.  You can observe discolorations in rock faces that you think might matter somehow, but you can't do anything about them.  You can admire the cuteness of the livestock for about 10 minutes.  You can beat up helpless livestock, to obtain items that you can't do anything with.  It reminds one of grinding in a RPG, just minus the reward part, and gets old real quick.  You can be ambushed and summarily killed by an exploding monster.  If you figure out how to survive that, you could do some crude mining with it.  But given the spawn rate and the day/night cycle, you're gonna wanna find better things to do with your life.

I played for 3+ hours out of patience and discipline, not enjoyment.  I was determined to have the "cold" experience of the game.  The experience I will never be able to have again, once I know how to play the game.  When I go to a film I don't read a plot synopsis or a spoiler either.

[Skofo]

Nobody show this guy Dwarf Fortress!