Minecraft: 2.5 Year Beta Finally Goes Gold

[qubit]

Yes, after 2.5 years in the making and over 4 million sales, Minecraft has finally gone gold. This is the game with the charmingly blocky graphics where the player builds their cartoon world out of blocks and must hide from monsters at night. It will be officially released at the inaugural MineCon event in Las Vegas this Friday. Developer Markus "Notch" Persson head of studio Mojang announced it had gone gold on Twitter:

So, yes. Minecraft has gone gold.

Sources: CVG, www.minecraft.net, http://minecon.mojang.com

[happita]

This is going to be interesting. I've never tried the game, but I've heard so many good thigns about it. If the price is right, I might even snag a copy to see what it's all about. I predict people who already play this game will lose even more sleep as it is

[AsRock]

Originally Posted by happita

This is going to be interesting. I've never tried the game, but I've heard so many good thigns about it. If the price is right, I might even snag a copy to see what it's all about. I predict people who already play this game will lose even more sleep as it is

The demo made me oddly curious. I think it was PC gamer who had a demo of it.

[JATownes]

My 15 year old son, 12 year old nephew and 7 year old daughter love this game. I personally don't get it. It reminds me of something we would have played in the mid 90s, but they love it. More power to them, but I will stick with my HD graphics!!

[FordGT90Concept]

Originally Posted by happita

This is going to be interesting. I've never tried the game, but I've heard so many good thigns about it. If the price is right, I might even snag a copy to see what it's all about. I predict people who already play this game will lose even more sleep as it is

Supposedly the price is going to go up when 1.0 is released (November 18). It's best to buy now.

Originally Posted by JATownes

My 15 year old son, 12 year old nephew and 7 year old daughter love this game. I personally don't get it. It reminds me of something we would have played in the mid 90s, but they love it. More power to them, but I will stick with my HD graphics!!

It's the simplicity and flexibility that makes the game so appealing. If you can imagine it, you can build it.

[NC37]

Yeah, I have no desire to play it. I've seen the stuff people do with it and it looks fun and all if I hadn't been gaming for decades now. Social gaming and cell phone games have added a lot of gamers to the pool. Stuff like this is prolly out of this world to them. Being able to do all sorts of stuff, make their own creations. Not necessarily a bad thing.

Heck I spent most of high school everynight working on Marathon levels in Forge. Creating all sorts of designs. Only reason I stopped is because, as tech advanced, the level tools just became alien to me. UED I still can't grasp all because I don't like how the design works. Instead of making the world, you carve it out from a virtual block. I personally cannot work that way. I'm not a carver. I can draw out blueprints but I usually add on as I build. Much easier to redo Forge polygons than UED brushes.

Then they changed the terms of everything. To me it just made it into a foreign language. I'd mess with it but ultimately I'd get tired of trying to translate what the programmer thought made sense when I had used Forge that was 1000x easier, with terms that made sense.

[Nick89]

I didn't understand the appeal of the game until I played it on a friends PC.

Its a survival horror game mixed with the ultimate sandbox elements. If you have the time, you can dig up and move entire mountains. Also you can go to hell, literally.

I love making forts in this game.

[johnnyfiive]

I got this wayyyyyy back when it was starting to make a stir, cost me a measly $10. I never thought it would be THIS popular.

[MRCL]

Its basically Lego. And who doesn't like Lego. Also with a friend its a great time waster. I've played through nights and nights on end. Especially with all the mods, Buildcraft, Industrialcraft, its hell of a lot of fun.

But.

What will change with the Gold status?

[FordGT90Concept]

http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Minecraft_1.0

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

Originally Posted by FordGT90Concept

It's the simplicity and flexibility that makes the game so appealing. If you can imagine it, you can build it.

Why not just go play with legos?

I personally refuse to play this game. If I want 8bit graphics, Ill go back to playing Mario on the NES.

[RejZoR]

I've bought it back in alpha days because it was free and we were promised to get free lifetime updates. Buyers of final version will not have this luxury as far as i know...

[FordGT90Concept]

It isn't 8-bit graphics. It uses 32-bit PNGs (ARGB) but the textures are small so the graphic style comes from the stretching. It makes modifying textures/skins not-so-intimidating.

Legos are expensive! $20 for a small Lego kit or about the same price for a game with near infinite possibilites. Minecraft would be like Legos reproducing on demand.

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

Originally Posted by FordGT90Concept

It isn't 8-bit graphics. It uses PNGs but the textures are small so the graphic style comes from the stretching. It makes modifying textures/skins not-so-intimidating.

Legos are expensive! $20 for a small Lego kit or about the same price for a game with near infinite possibilites. Minecraft would be like Legos reproducing on demand.

Either way it reminds me of 8 bit.

[1Kurgan1]

Originally Posted by RejZoR

I've bought it back in alpha days because it was free and we were promised to get free lifetime updates. Buyers of final version will not have this luxury as far as i know...

Am I reading this right, you bought it when it was free? I bought mine in the Beta stage, but I did buy a friend a copy during Alpha stages for I think $12.95. What luxury are you talking about, free price (though I assume not as it isn't free right now) or free lifetime updates (would be interesting if they did away with that).

[MRCL]

Originally Posted by CrAsHnBuRnXp

Why not just go play with legos?

I personally refuse to play this game. If I want 8bit graphics, Ill go back to playing Mario on the NES.

You know I thought the same about it. until a friend talked me into playing it.
Now I have a home in a mountain, with a panoramic lodge, an ancient tribe site with lava falls and a portal to the nether, a railway system, a giant Golden Gate like bridge, a private island with an illuminated diamond pool, etc etc. All built alone. Not to mention the stuff I built with friends.

For what? its useless yes but fun and really great for passing those sleepless nights.

[rpsgc]

Originally Posted by 1Kurgan1

Am I reading this right, you bought it when it was free? I bought mine in the Beta stage, but I did buy a friend a copy during Alpha stages for I think $12.95. What luxury are you talking about, free price (though I assume not as it isn't free right now) or free lifetime updates (would be interesting if they did away with that).

Free "lifetime" updates.

Alpha codes get all future updates for free, apparently.

[Vancha]

To the graphics-fussy, does this do anything for you?

http://minecraftsandbox.com/minecraft-texture-packs/lb-photo-realism-texture-pack/

Comparing this game to Mario on the NES is like comparing Ocarina of Time to Sega's "Turbo".

[yogurt_21]

4 million copies sold, gotta be an indy record of some sorts, especially for a pre-launch product.

we'll see how the launch affects sales.

[3volvedcombat]

Originally Posted by CrAsHnBuRnXp

Why not just go play with legos?

I personally refuse to play this game. If I want 8bit graphics, Ill go back to playing Mario on the NES.

It is not the same as lego's

Someone is going to get butt raped by goons very soon.

I thought this game was suck, now I realize how insane it is, If you walked on foot, you would get lost in about 5-10 minutes, that's if you survive the night. The world is huge, epic huge, and that is just the top lands, not the mines and caves that last forever.

8-bit TEXTURES I have played this game at 1920x1080 perfectly fine, its an epic experience unless your a snob (above ^^^^^^).

Full weather physics, and night and day, hundreds, if not THOUSANDS of items and ridiculousness for quest.

The building blocks allow you to build anything(which you will need to) after you gather it up, and I mean you could replicate your house period.

[FordGT90Concept]

Originally Posted by 3volvedcombat

I thought this game was suck, now I realize how insane it is, If you walked on foot, you would get lost in about 5-10 minutes, that's if you survive the night. The world is huge, epic huge, and that is just the top lands, not the mines and caves that last forever.

It is endless so long as the server has enough memory and hard drive space to make it bigger.

[Jizzler]

Cool. Time to buy a second account while the price is low. The kids have been beggin' to get on our local MC server at the same time.

[newtekie1]

It wasn't a 2.5 year beta, it was a ~11 month beta. It was in Alpha before that.

[qubit]

Originally Posted by newtekie1

It wasn't a 2.5 year beta, it was a ~11 month beta. It was in Alpha before that.

Yes smartypants, you're right. I blame the news posting software for this one...

[Thefumigator]

Most games today are boring, people are half playing the games and half benchmarking their rig (if they are on PC of course). Then the game is over, with an awfully dissapointing ending and look for another game and the same happens. And this became the basis of today's boredom.

that's why games like super meat boy, world of goo and minecraft are so popular and successful, bringing balance to the force. Like tetris. They are so planar that anyone can play them. like almost any Atari 2600 game, except E.T. perhaps.