What would a "modern day" Minecraft be like?

[Siigari]

Alright, I know the title is sort of a conundrum, being that Minecraft is a modern day game, but let's say it wasn't coded in Java, was rendered in a gorgeous engine with fully detailed landscapes (think super modded Skyrim or Crysis-style) and it didn't use blocks per se, but more of just "resources."

I dunno, say you go digging for dirt. Sure you'd make a hole and you'd collect dirt, but it would be something that you could pile up rather than build blocks of. No more floating blocks! Digging would be different though -- digging through stone and dense earth would still give you a cave-like experience.

Just a stray thought, but it'd be awesome to hear what you guys have to say!

 

[ThatOneSlowking]

Hmmm
Sounds like a game that is not minecraft
I think... On the fence. It sounds cool, but at the same time would suck

 

[Siigari]

Well, to use the dirt example, I could have say X piles, pounds, whatever of dirt. I could place dirt in a line and then smooth it to make a dirt wall. So to speak. So yeah, it'd still be Minecraft just a bit different.

I dunno, my mind wanders.

 

[malicious_bloke]

They could update the game for 90s graphics and tweak the combat engine a bit and then you have morrowind XD

 

[twisto51]

I think it would play about the same but run even worse and crash more often, setting the rare PC on fire. After 20+ years of IT work, much of it spent building and maintaining systems for programmers to play with I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter how big of a bag you give them, they'll try to shove more shit into it than it will hold.

 

[darkeshrine]

Hmmm
Sounds like a game that is not minecraft
I think... On the fence. It sounds cool, but at the same time would suck

You're definitely right. I doubt minecraft would be anywhere near as popular as it is if it were originally released looking like skyrim.

 

[Eruantien]

It's the simplicity of it, yet its inner potential to be so vast, that draws us all in...



... that and Thaumcraft. =D

 

[Bruigaar]

Hahaha I read the title of the post and immediately thought " Well it would have Computercraft as an Endgame mod. Because once everyone built their first one they would just sit I front of it and play Minecraft! "


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[namiasdf]

In modern, in that our processors have to process hundreds of chunks, containing millions of blocks/entities.

In games like Skyrim, with very non-interactive environments (can't cut down a house), it's all one big entity. Much less modern, in terms of taxing on your computational power.

 

[Feniks]

I think the retro look is something that distinguish Minecraft from other games. People don't come here for fancy graphics but a game play. Developers don't have to worry how to make game pretty and cac focus on other aspects of it so Mojang don't have to wast resources in graphinc design etc. I think if Minecraft had fancier graphics it would be updated slower and more buggy. I have seen how bug other fancier games are look at Planetary Explorers or 7 Days to Die for instance.

 

[pderuiter]

The appeal (at first anyways) was the cretive mode building you could do. Adventuring was added later, and with realistic physics and such.. How would you nerdpole up?

 

[Juanitierno]

There are quite a few games trying to achieve this sort of thing. Honestly they dont look too good, and you still get floating stuff (the voxels are still there, they are just rendered in a way so that the polygons connect in curved shapes)

The point of a voxel game, in my opinion, is to make it so the developers dont have to worry about complex 3d models and how to position them in the world. It enables them to focus on other aspects of the game, and it also enables people with little knoweledge to write addons to that game (im not a modder, but im quite sure thinking of everything as blocks simplifies a ton the process of mod-making, compared to physics-enabled skyrim-like world)

Edit: Just wanted to add, if minecraft has beed built with newer technologies (TBH java was already pretty old when it was made) it would be about the same, but would just run much better. Just keep in mind minecraft organically evolved from a browser game (a good one).

 

[99.99%derpy]

I like my minecraft simple Things look werid if it were to be like skyrim.

 

[ThatOneSlowking]

There are quite a few games trying to achieve this sort of thing. Honestly they dont look too good, and you still get floating stuff (the voxels are still there, they are just rendered in a way so that the polygons connect in curved shapes)

The point of a voxel game, in my opinion, is to make it so the developers dont have to worry about complex 3d models and how to position them in the world. It enables them to focus on other aspects of the game, and it also enables people with little knoweledge to write addons to that game (im not a modder, but im quite sure thinking of everything as blocks simplifies a ton the process of mod-making, compared to physics-enabled skyrim-like world)

Edit: Just wanted to add, if minecraft has beed built with newer technologies (TBH java was already pretty old when it was made) it would be about the same, but would just run much better. Just keep in mind minecraft organically evolved from a browser game (a good one).

Rubydung, correct?

 

[Bibble]

You could make a version that looks and functions the same as it does now, but would run far better without the layers of abstraction. The cost to that would be that mods would be MUCH more difficult (and would actually require an api), and cross-platform support would be much more difficult.

The point is that it would take much more work, and most of the dev time would go into firefighting, rather than into content.

 

[pderuiter]

You could make a version that looks and functions the same as it does now, but would run far better without the layers of abstraction. The cost to that would be that mods would be MUCH more difficult (and would actually require an api), and cross-platform support would be much more difficult.

The point is that it would take much more work, and most of the dev time would go into firefighting, rather than into content.

It's not so much the layers of abstraction. It's that the codebase is not optimized for mod support. Meaning i.e. forge must do a lot of extra work (costing cpu cycles and memory). If Forge (or something very similar) was directly incorporated in minecraft, it would save performance

 

[Brian Cherrick]

They have a similar game already. It's called Everquest Landmark, LOL.

 

[Bibble]

It's not so much the layers of abstraction. It's that the codebase is not optimized for mod support. Meaning i.e. forge must do a lot of extra work (costing cpu cycles and memory). If Forge (or something very similar) was directly incorporated in minecraft, it would save performance

I was thinking more the layers of abstraction within Java, and the stuff that lets it run (relatively) well on numerous systems. I'm not a proponent of java, ordinarily, but, when you're looking at something that needs to run on so many pieces of equipment, then it does help that something else handles the OS and the abstraction, so you just program the Java VM.

 

[Vasa]

If Minecraft was programmed in lets say C++, making mods would be more difficult.
Correct me if im wrong.

 

[pderuiter]

If Minecraft was programmed in lets say C++, making mods would be more difficult.
Correct me if im wrong.

It all depends on how the mods are supposed to communicate with the base game. In that regard there is no difference between C++, Java, C#, Pascal or any other language you can think of.
Besides, If it weren't for Forge, mods would be a lot harder, even in java