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You'd think Mojang would have a legal team to go after people that sell Minecraft clones that use so many of the same assets. Some interesting concepts I guess, but it feels more like a glorified mod than a game that stands on its own.
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Apr 29, 2013 22:50
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Putting the ethics and legal issues aside, why be so lazy and unoriginal and make it look exactly like Minecraft? The original is flawed and looks like crap. And I don't know if they use the exact textures, but they easily could've paid off one of the dozens of texture pack artists and gotten better textures legally that look different.
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Apr 29, 2013 23:18
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Parkingtigers posted:There's a Minecraft clone just come out on iPad which has apparently been out on Android and Windows Phone for a while. Called SurvivalCraft. Looks really impressive, it's years ahead of MCPE. Has caves, texture pack support, redstone wiring (that actually can be placed on walls), weather effects, infinite worlds, and you can ride horses and herd cattle with a whistle. The developer is very active and this looks like it's worth buying into for Minecraft on the go. Wow, he somehow made combat worse than minecrafts. Nothing like having your entire screen turn a solid red without any transparency, have that hang for a little over a second, then slowly fade away, only to be refreshed the next time you get hit. The movement bothers me a lot too, like it has moon gravity or something, way too drifty and you fall for too long. But yeah, it would be nice to see some kind of originality in a MC clone. Besides the extra mobs, nothing is really new there and a lot of the graphics look like lightly modified vanilla variants or are directly based on vanilla (crafting table, looking at you). Heck, even the spikes are not original as that is something Dinnerbone has been wanting to implement for a while and has been marked on their wiki for over a year now. Also, Minecraft announces horses, he announces horses. 
Enzer fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Apr 29, 2013 |
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Apr 29, 2013 23:35
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Schweinhund posted:Putting the ethics and legal issues aside, why be so lazy and unoriginal and make it look exactly like Minecraft? The original is flawed and looks like crap. And I don't know if they use the exact textures, but they easily could've paid off one of the dozens of texture pack artists and gotten better textures legally that look different. When you say "the original looks like crap", are you referring to previous versions of this game? Or are you seriously trying to say that Minecraft itself looks like crap? I'll admit some of the newer additions don't fit the theme as seamlessly, but Minecraft has a fantastic look and feel.
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Apr 30, 2013 00:04
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jivjov posted:When you say "the original looks like crap", are you referring to previous versions of this game? Or are you seriously trying to say that Minecraft itself looks like crap? I'll admit some of the newer additions don't fit the theme as seamlessly, but Minecraft has a fantastic look and feel. But aren't the default textures originally place holders till they got someone able to make someone before they decided to keep them?
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Apr 30, 2013 00:22
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xanthan posted:But aren't the default textures originally place holders till they got someone able to make someone before they decided to keep them? Maybe they are, but it's an amazing and, at this point, iconic look.
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Apr 30, 2013 00:24
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xanthan posted:But aren't the default textures originally place holders till they got someone able to make someone before they decided to keep them? I think this was mostly a rumor created by fans when everyone found out that Mojang hired on a very well known pixel artist. The problem was that he was hired on to do artwork for Scrolls, which I don't think was announced publicly at the time, so people kind of jumped to conclusions, especially after he made some quick title art for the game.
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Apr 30, 2013 00:28
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jivjov posted:When you say "the original looks like crap", are you referring to previous versions of this game? Or are you seriously trying to say that Minecraft itself looks like crap? I'll admit some of the newer additions don't fit the theme as seamlessly, but Minecraft has a fantastic look and feel. EEhhhhh. I'll admit, it's all subjective. I don't mind the low-rez nature of the blocks, but I definitely wouldn't say that MC has a fantastic look. A large part of my problem with it is simply how the game works, along with the lighting engine (recent tweaks and the earlier addition of smooth lighting helped), but Minecraft has an incredibly flat look to me. The terrain generation can generate some nifty areas, but when I take a (rather large) step back the cool area just looks bland due to the textures and lighting. Thankfully MC has a decent texture pack swapping system so it's incredibly easy to find something that works for you in Vanilla. Unfortunately I mostly play a heavily modified Minecraft, and while some texture packs do have some mod support (like Sphax, if only I hadn't grown tired of the look  ) it's a pain getting something set up that doesn't having glaring mismatches.xanthan posted:But aren't the default textures originally place holders till they got someone able to make someone before they decided to keep them? Programmer art. It's a thing and it's usually terrible. Unfortunately Minecraft got too popular too quickly. When it came time to think about updating the textures the look had already become so synonymous with Minecraft that it would have been incredibly difficult to get the community to accept any change. Edit: Enzer posted:I think this was mostly a rumor created by fans when everyone found out that Mojang hired on a very well known pixel artist. The problem was that he was hired on to do artwork for Scrolls, which I don't think was announced publicly at the time, so people kind of jumped to conclusions, especially after he made some quick title art for the game. Hadn't heard of that before. That sounds plausible.
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Apr 30, 2013 00:31
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It's not an uncommon opinion that Minecraft's art looks like crap. It's probably why it has such a large texture pack community; While you can look at the simplistic textures as a blank canvas to redo however you envision, but a lot of people WANT to redo them because they really dislike them. If you like the default art design of the game, there's probably nothing wrong with that. It's just not something you want to state loudly in any shady-looking neighborhoods or anything.
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Apr 30, 2013 00:46
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Minecraft's art is an affront to all artists everywhere. I mean if you like it that's fine, but to release a game with art like that and call it finished is just awful. Luckily it's easy to replace so it's not that huge of a deal. Onean posted:Unfortunately I mostly play a heavily modified Minecraft, and while some texture packs do have some mod support (like Sphax, if only I hadn't grown tired of the look http://jstr.jslegacy.com/ It's still going through the painful process of updating to the 1.5.1 format, but in 1.4.7 they have basically every popular mod covered, and it looks great. Given a couple more weeks most of the textures will be ported to 1.5.1 I think.
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Apr 30, 2013 00:55
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Taffer posted:Minecraft's art is an affront to all artists everywhere. I mean if you like it that's fine, but to release a game with art like that and call it finished is just awful. True, but since people were making Minecraft themed products while the game was still in development, they kind of got stuck with the textures since that became a major face of their marketing. Had they shoved new textures with release it would have hosed over a ton of first party and third party products. I mean, not the biggest excuse, but it is a still a very good one when you think about cost and logistics for changing products for a ton of stuff.
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Apr 30, 2013 05:14
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I see absolutely nothing wrong with Minecraft's art as it stands (I like it). It's a game made of blocks, I don't expect hyper-realistic looking grass because that looks incredibly dumb when you're in a game where everything is 1x1x1 meter blocks. Additionally, I'm curious as to exactly what about the vanilla textures people vehemently hate.
Syenite fucked around with this message at 05:22 on Apr 30, 2013 |
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Apr 30, 2013 05:20
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Shukaro posted:Additionally, I'm curious as to exactly what about the vanilla textures people vehemently hate. For me, it's just that there's all of zero personality in the vanilla textures. The palette is awful, there's very little cohesion between everything, and it just all-around looks really hastily and sloppily thrown together. Like, here, compare the vanilla texture pack (unfortunately from a while back, but honestly not too different from how it is currently) with this screenshot from Painterly, which uses the same amount of pixels per block.   There's just more visual information carried in all the sprites without being too busy, the colors mesh where they need to and contrast where they should, and it just resembles something approaching art direction. Everything was designed with the aesthetics of other parts of the game in mind, whereas the format for, say, vanilla ores at this point is "well, what color specks haven't we used yet?"
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Apr 30, 2013 05:55
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Has Notch had a meltdown over this yet?
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Apr 30, 2013 06:21
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Shukaro posted:I see absolutely nothing wrong with Minecraft's art as it stands (I like it). It's a game made of blocks, I don't expect hyper-realistic looking grass because that looks incredibly dumb when you're in a game where everything is 1x1x1 meter blocks. Additionally, I'm curious as to exactly what about the vanilla textures people vehemently hate. Nobody said anything about realism?  It's not bad because it's "unrealistic", it's bad because it has no color palette, no consistency or visual style, no personality. It's just dull, bland, utilitarian and poorly made programmer art. When new blocks are added, Notch or whoever (I don't know who does it now) is just like "oh better make a texture" then they slap something together. Which is fine for development, but when it comes to release is should be done properly, by a real artist who knows what they're doing. It's not just me sperging out either, it makes the game look really really bad and unappealing to people who aren't familiar with it, which is to say they lose a non-negligible amount of profit by people being turned away by how ugly it is. And it's not because it's made out of blocks, minecraft CAN look good with a well made texture pack, it can look like it has solid art direction and a good visual style, but the vanilla textures just make it look like a cheap lazy game. (which honestly, it is).
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Apr 30, 2013 07:04
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Taffer posted:When new blocks are added, Notch or whoever (I don't know who does it now) is just like "oh better make a texture" then they slap something together.
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Apr 30, 2013 07:08
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Taffer posted:Nobody said anything about realism? Several of my friends have looked at screenshots and said "oh that's neat, looks like Lego but with trees and stuff". Not one has called it bland, lazy, or poorly made. You don't like the graphics, that's fine, your prerogative. But don't try to pass off your opinion as holy gospel. Lots of people find minecraft's simple art style and minimalist textures appealing.
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Apr 30, 2013 07:09
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I'm sure on their end it's just laziness but in practice it forces you (with the power of ugliness) to go out and find a texture pack that you actually love instead of dealing with an 'alright' stock one that you can't be bothered to replace.
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Apr 30, 2013 07:29
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I never minded Minecraft's artwork. Sometimes I liked to change it up and have higher res or even standard res texture packs, but generally speaking that was because I saw stuff that looked nice in Youtube videos and wanted to see how my stuff would look and not because I was dissatisfied with the default assets. You're welcome to dislike it though and as said, there are plenty of options. Not only this, but it's easy now, instead of the old days where you had to manually replace all the texture sheets and swapping between packs was a huge hassle.
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Apr 30, 2013 07:53
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Heavy Lobster posted:-snip- Actually, I really think that using alpha screenshots is kind of harsh. Between the nontransparent leaf blocks and the (albeit limited) shading and tinted lighting based on time of day and light level, vanilla minecraft looks a hell of a lot better now than it did back in Alpha. Also, I really do not know how you could call it without personality, sure you might not think it is the best personality compared to a lot of the fancier packs, but for as minimalistic as it is, MC has done a great job of staying consistent with block textures, even after having two different devs introduced doing art, everything still feels like it belongs in the same world. The only block I could say feels a little off is the solid quartz block, but that is more an issue where a lot of minecraft's blocks lend it to a more medieval theme while the quartz has a very different time period and region feel to it because of the fact that it looks like pink marble.
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Apr 30, 2013 08:05
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I used to hate the vanilla textures, painterly really helped in the early days but I have to admit things have improved a lot from the lighting engine, smoothing and also changes to the worst textures, comparing recent screens and those from a couple of years ago you'll see a world of difference. It's nowhere near as a offensive as it used to be, and certain elements have their charm. I thought the idea of using their grass block texture for a lego box was terrible but seeing it in the flesh it really works.
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Apr 30, 2013 09:40
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jivjov posted:Several of my friends have looked at screenshots and said "oh that's neat, looks like Lego but with trees and stuff". Not one has called it bland, lazy, or poorly made. You don't like the graphics, that's fine, your prerogative. But don't try to pass off your opinion as holy gospel. Lots of people find minecraft's simple art style and minimalist textures appealing. I feel you. I do. I like the game too. Remember that a real art director can give the game a less slapdash appearance while generally preserving the same feel. That's the thing. The game has no art direction, but an artist with a good set of instructions could alter the default textures in a subtle direction, giving everything a smooth, homey feel while maintaining that blocky, LEGO aesthetic. There's more to art direction than making everything more 'realistic'. A good art director would work with Minecraft's legacy, not against it. Nobody is telling you that your taste is wrong; we're arguing that a hypothetical art director could take what we already have, and make it better. Because that's what art directors do. Dismissing any hypothetical improvement as impossible before you've ever seen it is a little reactive. I'm fine with the art too. I'm not puking when I play vanilla or anything. But I'd like to see what a paid artist can accomplish with what we already have.
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Apr 30, 2013 14:29
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Vanilla textures to me are way too bright and flat. What Painterly definitely does best is shading and making the blocks feel rich and deep while still keeping the original feel.       (Holy moly the default dirt is so bad) What I really love most about Painterly though is the gunpowder/TNT: 
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Apr 30, 2013 14:39
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Quick trip report on that SurvivalCraft. Playing it on iPad Mini. I just spawned in on a beach next to a giant frozen lake. I could see sharks in the ocean and birds flew overhead. I ran across the lake, being chased by a polar bear, and found some nice tall mountains. Saw a little cave up on the hill, decided I wanted to live there but a brown bear already called it home and told me to gently caress off. Tried fighting it with snowballs, but that went badly. Killed it by blocking it in and hitting it with dirt, but a wolf ate me before I could secure the entrance. Then I respawned at the beach and saw lighting set a polar bear on fire. Game owns. Combat is terrible, and the controls need a little tweaking, but this feels like playing mid-beta Minecraft desktop edition, but on an an iPad. It is a blatant, blatant clone, but having spent $7 on MCPE just on the hope that one day it wouldn't be terrible (and months later still waiting for even the most basic of features), I give exactly zero fucks. It's technically very polished, excellent framerate and loads quickly, pretty good draw distance, and the ability to download maps and texture packs from within the app (and swap these on the fly) is really good. Honestly, if you are away from a real version of Minecraft, but have the itch to do a little digging or building while on the commute, this is very satisfying. It does have some rough edges, and does need some work, but it is actually being worked on. Checking out his vids he's already implemented a bunch of features at user request.
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Apr 30, 2013 16:02
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Im That One Guy posted:Clearly you just don't understand Indie Charm™. Glaucoma world
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Apr 30, 2013 18:11
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Check this out, dunno if it's been posted already. This guy makes all kinds of fictional weapons, he's got a pretty cool series going. http://youtu.be/aNZRmvELxXM
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Apr 30, 2013 19:41
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Arkitektbmw posted:Check this out, dunno if it's been posted already. He also has an IMDB page http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1044149/ Senior Scarybagels fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Apr 30, 2013 |
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Apr 30, 2013 19:44
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Anyone know of a nice 16x16 texture pack with some animated textures? I want to try one out, but as Painterly doesn't have that yet (which I fully understand!) I don't know where to look.
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May 1, 2013 10:19
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Anyone know how to get Connected Texture Mod working with Painterly? I build a ton with glass and it really bugs me when it looks ugly and non-connected, so I've been waiting for Painterly to get updated to work with the new CTM format Optifine updated to - but after so long it appears that it's either not in the plans or wayyy on the backburner for Painterly. Are there any workarounds or autoconverters out there?
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May 1, 2013 14:02
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I think the default textures are a bit boring, but some of the HD packs are pretty nice. Anyone else use the John Smith one?
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May 2, 2013 17:05
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Anyone else who gets great performance normally noticing sluggish controls with the new launcher? I can play it just fine with how it always was, pre-new launcher. Running the same (or at least I assume the same) jar file via the launcher gives me lag and chunks taking a while to load.
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May 2, 2013 21:01
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Holy poo poo in the new snapshot they finally added coal blocks!  Mojang posted:Update: 13w18b was released to fix some crashes. You can see it in this video. Another awesome change I like is that carpet can now be put on glowstone and carpet so you can have lit flooring now! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UghcPcPfOo
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May 3, 2013 00:07
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Desperate Character posted:Holy poo poo in the new snapshot they finally added coal blocks! I very much appreciate that all the minerals have corresponding block types now. My only complaint is not all of them can be broken back down, so I hope they fix that soon. I'm confused by something though. Are there no more "pig saddles" and "horse saddles?" Is there just a universal saddle that you use for both? If so, hooray! But in that video, the guy was saying you could only find them in dungeons, so does that mean you can't buy saddles from villagers anymore? And what is the difference between riding a horse with an without a saddle?
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May 3, 2013 01:42
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Here's something I don't understand; why don't you get experience from mining iron? They should make the pickups for iron be something other than the iron ore blocks themselves, so we can just get xp from digging out iron in the first place.
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May 3, 2013 01:47
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Jamesman posted:I'm confused by something though. Are there no more "pig saddles" and "horse saddles?" Is there just a universal saddle that you use for both? If so, hooray! But in that video, the guy was saying you could only find them in dungeons, so does that mean you can't buy saddles from villagers anymore? And what is the difference between riding a horse with an without a saddle? I've just checked and there is only one type of saddle now. You need the saddle to actually control what direction the horse goes. No idea about the villagers still selling them though. Desperate Character fucked around with this message at 01:50 on May 3, 2013 |
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May 3, 2013 01:48
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Because you get XP from smelting iron. Any ore that must be smelted gives XP on smelting, otherwise it gives XP immediately on mining. You'll still get it, it just differs on when.
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May 3, 2013 01:48
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Chests are more plentiful and spawn in the nether fortresses as well now.
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May 3, 2013 01:50
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Jamesman posted:I very much appreciate that all the minerals have corresponding block types now. My only complaint is not all of them can be broken back down, so I hope they fix that soon. Wait, which ores do not break down? Coal, Iron, Gold, Lapis, Diamond, Emerald, and Redstone all break back down. The only thing I can think of may be quartz, which isn't a storage block (uses 4 instead of 9) and instead follows sandstone rules, which doesn't break back down into sand as well.
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May 3, 2013 02:16
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Redstone DOES break back down? For some reason, I believed it didn't. My mistake. But I would really like if you could break down quartz. Either by breaking quartz blocks (like glowstone or clay) or by a crafting recipe. Just a nitpick, I guess. And now that you brought it up, sandstone breaking down into sand would be nice too. I really need more sand and I don't want to deface my desert for it.
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May 3, 2013 02:56
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Jamesman posted:Redstone DOES break back down? For some reason, I believed it didn't. My mistake. But I would really like if you could break down quartz. Either by breaking quartz blocks (like glowstone or clay) or by a crafting recipe. Just a nitpick, I guess. Yeah, being able to break quartz back down would be nice, unsure if having it work like glowstone would be the best. Personally I think that would be annoying as hell having to recraft the blocks if you misplaced during a build. Inventory conversion like storage blocks would be what I'd prefer. Sandstone conversion would be nice too. Our server kind of solved things by making the desert area of the map have something like 10-15 layers of sand sitting on top of 40 layers of sandstone. That way there would be less massive sand excavation for sandstone, leaving less impact on the terrain from glass crafting. Hell, I'd totally support a hammer tool that smashes any block into the items it was crafted from with a chance of not getting back fully what you put in. Stone brick drops stone, sandstones drop sand, quartz drops quartz crystals, pistons drop all their bits, etc etc.
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May 3, 2013 03:03
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