Aggressive Mining

[Mongrel]

Minecraft Digital Legos Thread.

I am pretty hyped for v1.8. Maybe even hyped enough to start playing again!

[zaratustra]

Maybe it's time to get a server running again?

[Newbie]

I hear good things about Minecraft Realms as an effective way to maintain a community server, but I haven't looked closely enough to determine if $$$ is worth the potential mitigation of setup frustration. The only thing I can declare with any certainty is that the default biomes/world gen parameters are boooorrrrrriiiiiiiing.

[Mongrel]

Starr has a fair amount of experience in maintaining a sever and a buttload of experience doing map generations and custom maps. So if you want help with that, I could ask her.

[Mongrel]

Rumours flying that Microsoft will purchase Mojang

Not sure how I feel about that, but I don't think it's a good feeling.

[François]

I'd be right surprised if that turned out to be true. Notch has more money than God, and I doubt anyone at Mojang would be interested in taking orders from anyone at Microsoft. The only possible reason I could see for this deal would be that Microsoft wants the Minecraft IP, but considering the game's coming out on Sony platforms, that'd be sorta weird.

That said I was surprised that Disney bought LucasArts, for practically the same reasons, so...

[zaratustra]

When you say 'anyone at Microsoft', I guess you're imagining the stodgy folks that want fridges to run Windows. Microsoft is a huge company that, yes, sometimes hires young and trendy people that could convince Notch it's time for him to go into charity work.

[Grath]

Thing is, Notch seems like someone who would just say "Yeah... no" to this just on principle.

[zaratustra]

Two years ago I'd agree with you. But this is a guy that recently got divorced, lost a parent, gave up on his next two big projects then posted a clicker game about the impermanence of everything. He strikes me as someone that wants to go hermit, is what I'm saying.

[François]

I didn't mean it in terms of "man I don't want to answer to those freaking suits, they'll put me to work on Office!". I guess I personally find the idea of a shorter chain of command that doesn't have have a jillion shareholders at one end much more appealing, regardless of how many links in that chain are young and trendy. But you do make a good point. I'd still be surprised, but now I'm more worried. :D

[Mongrel]

Well, there's that fact that Notch has repeatedly and explicitly named Microsoft - specifically Microsoft, by name - as a company he hates.

Granted people can change, and sometimes you can throw enough money at people to trigger that, but that would still be quite the 180.

[Newbie]

Considering how kind of inexplicable and haphazard Minecraft development has been since approximately The Adventure Update, I'd actually consider ownership by Microsoft a good thing. Besides which, Mojang may have made incredible bank during Minecraft's popularity supernova, but Microsoft still has orders of magnitude more cash, and game development is notoriously expensive.

[Mothra]

There is no way Notch would go for this.

[Cthulhu-chan]

He'd be an idiot not to. It's become clear he doesn't have the juice to replicate minecraft's success, and minecraft itself isn't going to earn him 2 goddamn billion dollars.

What is puzzling is just what the fuck MS thinks they're going to get out of this, because it pretty hard to imagine them getting that 2 billion back.

Assuming, of course, that any of this is for real. I've yet to hear anything other than anonymous sources claiming this is on the table for either party. Then again, nobody's denied it yet, either.

[Büge]

There is no way Notch would go for this.

WIPE TO: Brontoforumus, sometime in late October

I can't believe Notch went for this!

[Brantly B.]

I get the feeling it's more of an aggressive bid on Microsoft's part. They won't gain $2 billion back from the purchase but Sony and Oracle will feel the pain of losing the app hard enough for it to be worth it to MS. There's also a pretty good chance that someone else has an offer in already, and MS is just trying to drive up the price.

[zaratustra]

What is puzzling is just what the fuck MS thinks they're going to get out of this, because it pretty hard to imagine them getting that 2 billion back.

Just how big is Little Big Planet?

[Z%rø]

Minecraft - look at the current user base and the marketing opportunities. Look at how many shit stupid creeper shirts and diamond picks you see in stores. Look at the awareness of the product on an international scale without a single tv commercial.

Imagine a Minecraft 2 (Minecraft Squared. And Cubed for the third.) that is Surface/Windows 8+/Xbone exclusive. Imagine all the children begging their parents for an Xbox one so they can play their favorite game with their friends. Imagine the revenue from licensed skin/texture packs (that already exist on xbox) on a larger scale. Imagine the money that Microsoft could make using their cloud hosting services if that was the only way to host a server.

I have no doubt in my mind they could make the money back or even a massive profit based on how bad they want to fuck everyone over.

[zaratustra]

I really, really miss those days. Games weren’t as big serious business back then.

[François]

Speculation aside, for the record I've also been getting the itch lately and if something happens here again I'll be so in you won't believe I was ever out.