It’s official. [Notch], creator of Minecraft, has confirmed he’s shelved plans for 0x10c, the space-based block building and exploration MMO that features assembly programming as a core game component.
Over the last year or so since 0x10c was announced, a whole lot of programmers have picked up the in-game fictional CPU – the DCPU – by writing emulators and even emulating this CPU that only exists as a design document on an AVR. Needless to say, there are a lot of very skilled programmers that want this game to exist. Now, it seems, this community is forging ahead with this project without [Notch].
This is a truly massive undertaking by the community. Not only are the current plans to build an open world, procedurally generated, space-based MMO, it looks like these new developers will also be writing their own engine from scratch. If this were a commercial endeavour, it would require millions of dollars and many years to get to a rough alpha build, and the 0x10c community is doing this for free.
If you have experience in C++, OpenGL, and 3D game programming, the official signup thread is over on the 0x10c subreddit. Even if you’re not a programmer and only have experience in modeling, writing, your experience would be greatly appreciated.
The Minecraft modding community is a great thing, so I can understand why people would think that turning 0x10c into a community-developed game would be a good idea.
However, I think the missing thing here is that the vast majority of people modding Minecraft are high-school students just learning Java or college students with no practical development experience, and that being the community Mojang is surrounded with, it’s going to be the same pool that self-selects to work on a community version of 0x10c.
There are very few actual professional software engineers working on Minecraft mods, and there will be fewer actual professional software engineers with the time, wherewithal and skill to make an open-world, procedurally-generated, space-based MMO. It would be hard enough without the “MMO” part, let alone with the “MMO” part.
This “community effort” sounds like the kind of pie-in-the-sky, head-in-the-clouds kind of wankery that self-professed “ideas guys” come up with (“oh, but surely other people will do the real work of course, they’ll all be so impressed by my awesome ‘ideas’!”) and I will be absolutely gobsmacked if they end up with anything other than a shoddy demo backed up by a codebase that’s an unmaintainable heap of shit.
I don’t necessarily disagree with your premise that the Minecraft community would not be up to the task. However, I think it is irrelevant.
Have you SEEN the 0x10c community? Seriously. These are people writing targeting algorithms, basic OSes, and games in a made up assembly language for a game that doesn’t yet exist. For fun.
I mean, I’ll admit, I was a big part of the community for a while. I never delved too deep into the assembly but I had an interpreter running that could take commands and run functions. Nothing dynamic, you had to code each command and I only had like, version and echo, but it was still fun. But, there was a guy in our corporation who made a targeting algorithm that took the relative acceleration, velocities, and positions of two ships to calculate where to shoot. And it was pretty damn accurate. He ran tests and plotted the results and… they were damn impressive. Not every hit landed, but you’d have a hell of a leg up on anyone shooting manually. And this was all taking into account how slow these DCPU’s are supposed to be. It was one of the coolest things I’d ever seen.
That’s the kind of people that are taking on this project. I think they can do it.
Frankly, I’m surprised it’s taken them this long. I think the only reason the community HASN’T started development already was because we respect Notch’s vision for his own game.
I don’t necessarily disagree with your premise that the Minecraft community would not be up to the task. However, I think it is irrelevant.
Have you SEEN the 0x10c community? Seriously. These are people writing targeting algorithms, basic OSes, and games in a made up assembly language for a game that doesn’t yet exist. For fun.
I mean, I’ll admit, I was a big part of the community for a while. I never delved too deep into the assembly but I had an interpreter running that could take commands and run functions. Nothing dynamic, you had to code each command and I only had like, version and echo, but it was still fun. But, there was a guy in our corporation who made a targeting algorithm that took the relative acceleration, velocities, and positions of two ships to calculate where to shoot. And it was pretty damn accurate. He ran tests and plotted the results and… they were damn impressive. Not every hit landed, but you’d have a hell of a leg up on anyone shooting manually. And this was all taking into account how slow these DCPU’s are supposed to be. It was one of the coolest things I’d ever seen.
That’s the kind of people that are taking on this project. I think they can do it.
Frankly, I’m surprised it’s taken them this long. I think the only reason the community HASN’T started development already was because we respect Notch’s vision for his own game.
In addition to my comment above, I *love* the fact that the community has somehow interpreted the words “If someone AT THE OFFICE wants to do it” as “The community can do it”. Good job, guys! I’m sure with reading comprehension like that, the engine will come together in no time!
Yeah, people seem to suck at reading, and some of those posts on the subreddit are just painfully naive/stupid, eg:
“If we can get ideas together, and argue which parts should/shouldn’t be included, we could write a sort of specification for a 0x10c-like game, and programmers can start working on it. Then programmers can start working on a project that incorporates the specification, and if any of them get far enough, then the community can start building upon that. ”
Yeah, ok buddy.
I think their reading comprehension is fine, and you just forget the first rule of fun: if it is not illegal or forbidden, you don’t need anyone’s permission.
There is even an old saying that pertains to this: Who dares, wins.
You missed the point: Notch didn’t say, as the original posting claimed, that he’d be handing it off the the community. The community can absolutely make a game in the vein of what Notch described, but without his permission they can’t use the DCPU’s specifications without violating his copyright, which again he hasn’t made any statement even implying he won’t enforce.
The DCPU is just a standard, it can be used by anyone. If the story was taken wholesale *then* he could do something. Right now, it’s a game that is inspired by his work that will incorporate the DCPU spec.
What? Brian, where is this annoucement that it’s going to be a community driven game?
It’s certainly not on Reddit, it’s certainly not on the offical 0x10c forums, Notch hasn’t posted about it on twitter and it’s not on the official Mojang pages.
All you’ve got is a video with Notch saying he’s not currently working on it, and a load of reddit people saying he should open source it, and then deciding they’re going to make their own clone based on the ideas he put forward for the game.
Unless I’ve missed a link or article, there’s no official line on this *at all*, which sadly makes this a very bad rumour article.
I will of course apologise if you find a concrete statement from Mojang/Notch on the matter.
He never said that its an official mojang supported community developed game.
Certainly implied it.
Been following this one for abit, NOICE!
They probably decided that, albeit without the computer aspect, Starbound is going to be a major competitor and will definitely be complete sooner rather than later.
I haven’t checked it out for a few years, but the Open Source game “Vega Strike” has already nailed quite a few mechanics of 0x10c (minus the DCPU). The community could easily fork the game to be more 0x10c-ish, or build an entirely new storyline that includes an ancient 16-bit computer. The game is playable right now, so it would be a great springboard for the effort. I’m sure the Vega Strike team would love the infusion of talent on a similar project, even if the effort forks the storyline.
Disclaimer: I’ve played Vega Strike a couple years in the past, but am not currently contributing or associated with the effort.
You guys should check out Starmade. It’s a space sandbox shooter, sort of like MC in space. it’s in alpha, but it’s already pretty cool. It’s also free to play! Find it here: http://www.starmade.org