Notch is no longer lead developer on Minecraft | Hacker News Reader

Notch is no longer lead developer on Minecraft

notch.tumblr.com

156 points5hoom42 comments

The title of the blog post "Och med dom orden så passar jag micken" is Swedish for "With those words, I hand over the microphone". Just in case anyone is wondering.

Actually, it's "Swenglish". Passar != pass, it really means "watch over" or "keep track of".

Unless of course he meant in the same way that you "passar" a hockey puck, in which case it is only an unusual choice of words.

It's a line from the Fattaru song Mina hundar.

Swedish rap. That sure was a new experience... http://grooveshark.com/s/Mina+Hundar/2pL3f4?src=5

Upvoted, but really should permalink:

http://notch.tumblr.com/post/13633493969/och-med-dom-orden-s...

I'm glad this is the case. A common trap for indie developers is to make one game, have it be at least partially successful, and then to continue to make that game - making DLC, expansions, porting it to other platforms, making a multiplayer version etc. It makes me sad as a player, because it's done instead of developing something new. It's far better to pass on these porting efforts to other developers and to get to work creating new IP, as Notch is doing.

I'm more familiar with games than with startup culture - does the same thing apply there?

Don't really care, as there are too many video games in the world that I never played before. Polish existing ones, instead.

Too many food; make existing ones better

Too many websites; make existing ones better

Too many songs; make existing ones better

There's a place for both approaches. I agree with kiba that with video games (and websites, and lots of other software for that matter), novelty is weighted much too heavily.

Companies don't tend to polish them, though. Sure we have a few polished/polishing games for their genres: Half Life, Team Fortress, League of Legends, WoW; but, many companies just rehash sequels to make more and more of the same game.

It makes me sad as a player, because it's done instead of developing something new.

I think this is a problem of attitude. If you are so desperate for something new, why not create it yourself? The indie has every right to do what they feel like with their content, time, energy & money. They're not your monkey to dance & sing whenever you please. If you disagree with how they're spending their time, then spend your time making something you'd rather see.

Because they're better at it than me. My interests are in the playing and not in the creation.

And as a customer, I'm more interested in new awesomeness than addaddons.

I am an indie dev, and I do make things myself. But that in no way diminishes the pleasure I get at seeing other people's works, being delighted and surprised by a novel or well-executed bit of game. It's difficult to be delighted and surprised by your own works.

And yeah, they of course have the right to make what they want and I can in no way take that away from them. Remaking the same game might even be worth it, financially. But it doesn't build value like getting going making new IP can, and it doesn't give me something exciting and new to play. I'm allowed to ask, they don't have to give it to me.

Everyone likes new shiny things true, but the effort required to create new & shiny things consistently is extremely high, especially for a one man band. You probably know the effort required.

I get the idea that you like to see new concepts, but I don't get why you'd complain about people polishing old ideas. You suggest that it's keeping them from working on new ideas but just because something is new, doesn't mean it's good. Not every new thing someone puts out is gold. If they have a proven winner, then they should push & see how far they can take it.

Good for him. Notch has earned a well-deserved break.

Some people are better at starting new things, and some people are better at maintaining and expanding on existing things. I'm happy to hear that Notch has some new ideas that he's itching to get started on.

Here is an interview with Notch and Jeb about the change: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/38917/Persson_Hands_Minec...

I'm very glad to see that the mod API is now top priority. They've made similar claims in the past, but this sounds more serious.

The future of this game is definitely all about mods, custom maps, and new game formats. There is tremendous potential, some of which has already been realized, but only through elaborate unofficial hacks.

I'm really conflicted on Notch, Minecraft in general, and therefore this announcement.

Let's get the good out of the way first, Minecraft is an awesome game, and Notch (and his team) deserves every bit of kudos they've gotten for it. I bought the game back in alpha, and I've gotten more than my money's worth.

The bad? Lingering (big) problems that aren't being dealt with. SMP is still a mess when it comes to performance. There are a ton of bugs in what is supposed to be a final 1.0 release (Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXO6tYkjYMc)

I don't have to be a full time developer or a company owner to make a judgement call on whether that is a bad thing or not. Minecraft seems to be suffering from the same kind of featuritis that plagued Second Life for so long.

Mojang. Please. Fix old, no new.

Given all that has happened in the last year I think Notch is very much deserving of a break. His work ethic is something to admire and his success well earned. I look forward to seeing what projects he creates with his time in the future.

Much respect for making it to the 1.0, that shows great dedication on his part. He earned the break, and I look forward to seeing what's next!

I expect to see the code base quality increase and number of obscene bugs that make it to production decrease significantly.

Gave this an upvote, since it's from the official Notch blog instead of what could have been possible conjecture from reddit.

Please don't let this bit of reddit-stupidity transfer here. "LOl upvotd" posts don't add anything and just clutter the discussion.

Too late. HN has basically become reddit.com/r/programming in the last year or so. The glory days are over. You have to admire how long the quality remained high, though.

Even though I had to highlight the text of your comment to read it, you do echo a point that has kind of irritated me somewhat. On a website called "hacker news", 90% (hyperbole) of the links are related to designing flashy GUIs and selling social web startups and whatever the flavor-of-the-week web design trend is. There's very little "do it yourself, do it quickly, do what no one has done before" spirit, it's mostly "do what everyone has done before, but flashier and in a newer language".

Not that it's a bad thing in any way, but the title of "hacker news" is a bit disingenuous when "developer news" might be a little more accurate. I wish I could filter out the programming and startup stuff.

What's disingenuous about programming on a site called "Hacker News," and what would be left other than political posts if you took out the startup and programming stuff?

There are a number of good science posts that make the frontpage. This is originally what kept me on this site.

It's not just the programming stuff I wish I could filter, it's the worship of Ruby, node.js, CSS, etc. Web languages that really aren't useful in the hacker sense of the word, but rather in the business sense of the word.

My opinion wasn't so much about what would replace those posts, but what not having those posts would attract.

This is anecdotal, but I've seen more Python articles in the past couple of weeks than Ruby. node.js is a pretty useful tool for random hackery, and most of the CSS articles have been "hacks" for creating cool UIs. I like to think of the "Hacker" in Hacker News as someone who employs neat tricks to get the job done.

Are you looking for news related to network security?

Network security would be one aspect of hacking (actually the aspect I am employed in). Breaking out of the confines of an API would be another, or just doing something because you want to see if it can be done, not because you're following a tutorial on GitHub. Actually, someone on reddit put it best related to their plans for a Darknet project: "don't expect help from Hacker News, if it doesn't have a business plan they won't be interested." Hackers don't care about business plans. The site used to be called "Startup News", in the days when the original redditors were pining for the days of the original reddit base. Based on the content still present, Startup News is still quite fitting.

In short, simply re-creating something in a new-wave language is what I'm kind of complaining about. That's not "hacking", that's just good programming.

Hacker means people who hack on code. Why aren't languages like Ruby relevant.

It's not that they aren't relevant. I think it's the frequency of mention of said languages that is the problem to the above poster.

At least in my view of the term, creating intelligent code isn't "hacking". It's just being a good programmer. Hacking would be doing something that hasn't been done before on a wide scale with the intention of creating a result that varies from what an average user would expect. The jailbreakers hacked sideloaded applications onto their iPhone. The average user followed their directions and achieved expected, predictable results.

Ruby _can_ be used hacking. "How to recreate Path in Ruby" does not a "hack" make.

Hacker News was originally called Startup News; that would still be a more accurate title.

I wish I could filter out the gadget-fanboyism. I guess I couldn't read it, but it's exasperating to see how much animosity is inflamed by such a petty subject.

I came over from Reddit this last month, the number of memes just become too much for me.

May I make the suggestion of installing Reddit Enhancement Suite. Unsubscribe from all the default sub/r's (wtf, offbeat,askreddit, etc), and block all posts from imgur and quickmeme, and things look a lot better.

Doesn't really help. The Reddit "culture" infects everything, not just the main subs.

I suppose for example /r/gamedev isn't awful, but really, GameDev.net is much bigger and better. There's little reason to bother with Reddit.

I did all this actually. I blocked imgur, so the majority of the posts were from Tinypic. The whole community has changed.

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