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Comment by NotGMan | Hacker News Reader

Minecraft is a good counterexample to what the author wants.

People look up recipes all the time on wiki and yet Minecraft is the #1 best selling game, so obviously it isn't an issue in the real world.

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Minecraft is interesting in this regard since for the longest time there was no in-game recipe guide. It would be absolutely unreasonable to expect the players to figure out the crafting recipes on their own (perhaps beyond a few basic ones).

So of course everyone used a wiki from the very start. I wonder if Notch ever spoke about this and what were his thoughts. Did he design the game already with a wiki in mind? It made it problematic for new players to play offline, so there are some downsides.

Minecraft is still pretty opaque. It's gotten a lot better with the recipe book and advancement list giving some guides. But if you'd never played or interacted with Minecraft before and were dropped into the game I'm not sure you'd ever understand how to do certain things without outside help - be that the wiki or watching another player. Are the ruined portals dotted around enough to make you realise that you can craft a nether portal? How would you figure out how to make eyes of ender? Even if you made one would you understand what it does? Once you found a stronghold it's not unreasonable that you'd figure out how to open the portal, and once in the end the fight with the dragon should be pretty obvious (even if it takes you a while to figure out an effective strategy). But what then, would you find the end gateway and see the outlying end islands? Would you wander around enough to find a city and a ship? Would you understand what Elytra do, or what Shulker boxes do? Both of those elements (Elytra and Shulker Boxes) are so fundamental to how the game is actually played that it's a different game without them.

There is a fragile relation there, between invested work and thus user investment and willingness to put in work.

The UI can loose the "self-learn" mode, as soon, as the user has invested and is invested in the game behind it. Before that - you are fishing without bait and got no leverage.

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