Let me start this post off by saying I got the idea to post this after X (the creator of the best Minecraft LP) posted something similar, I have not read the entire post as it is truly a wall of text, but feel free to check it out here. (It is much better than this post)

My History in Minecraft

Minecraft is a truly amazing game and I can still truthfully say that I love it, even after purchasing it (in Alpha) about 7 months ago, the same is not true for something like Call of Duty: Black Ops (which I got about 4 months ago), though I can say I am started to be a little bored by it.  The game has lost a lot of its excitement for me, but the path I have taken while playing this game is a bit different than most, I started my own Multiplayer server less than a week (about 4 days) after buying the game.  Now this was way back, and I mean before redstone and minecarts worked (they actually made the whole server miserable and often crashed it), but it was fun none the less.  One thing I didn’t play until fairly recently, meaning about 2 months ago, is Single Player, the core part of Minecraft.  When I first entered the world of Single Player I had a very hard time adapting, no people to talk to, no spawning item, but also less glitches.  I have nothing against single player, but I will say I prefer multiplayer as it has other people to play with.

How I Play

I honestly don’t think I enjoy the game as much as many other players, I love knowing EVERYTHING!  Now this is great in school and most things related to computers and gaming, but it isn’t the best for Minecraft.  Now I am not saying you should be clueless and not know how to move your character or make a pick, but the way I used the wiki, the forums, and a variety of YouTube videos to learn everything about the game took away the excitement of the game for me.  If someone doesn’t know why something is happening or is wondering how to do something on a video, I know, and it can be irritating to me not being able to explore.  That said, I have not lost all the enjoyment in the game, but I can’t make it past making a house and gathering materials.  I am a fairly creative person, but I don’t know what to do in Minecraft, exploring used to be pretty cool, but now everyone has seen it all, so why would you venture off in a direction for an hour?

The Nether (and the Halloween update)

It sounded awesome!  Another dimension to explore!  Ghasts, zombie pigmen, portals, lanterns and more!  Now people rarely use the nether.  Why?  It is a place to die, there is almost no reason to use it!  But, this could have been different had lanterns actually made it into the game and required that you visit the nether to get materials for them.  This is easy, most likely notch still has some of the code for lanterns and he could implement them into the game and give the nether some use.

The Lag

While this isn’t exactly about Minecraft being boring, it has definitely made a lot of people leave the game (myself almost included).  Minecraft has become near unplayable on my laptop (which got about 60-80 fps when I bought the game) as it gets between 6-18fps and nearly none when recording.  Luckily it was about time for me to get a new computer, but the thing is, my laptop isn’t really underpowered, in fact it was one of the best ones you could get when I bought it 3 years ago.  My new desktop can get as much as 400fps with settings adjusted accordingly, but it gets around 60-90 maxed out on any resolution texture pack, tested up to 128x.  The thing is though, I got an amazing deal on my desktop at $650 (plus $80 for a monitor) but it has about $900 of components in it (if you were to build it) or about $1,500- $2k if you bought a mac with similar or lower specs.  Minecraft needs to be optimized for less powerful computers (more mainstream ones like my laptop) if it wants its players to remain loyal.  I do understand that Minecraft does do a lot of stuff and is more advanced (believe it or not) than a lot of games, but there are mods that optimize it (even for integrated graphics!) and Notch should seriously think about adding some of them to the game.

Wrapping up

Minecraft is an awesome game and I plan on playing for a long time, but it will definitely need some things added to improve gameplay.  I know that the game is still in Beta and I am truly grateful that the Mojang team (notch in particular) has allowed us the play the game while it is till being coded and I think that it will be the best it can be by the time it is released on 11/11/11, though I do not like that they set a “due date” for it to be done as I do not want them to rush through it or compromise the quality of the game just to get it out on a specific date.  Finally, I would like to thank Notch, for making the game, Skullflag44 and Conrad12, for introducing me to the game, X, for convincing me to buy the game, and all the people (especially those with British accents) who have played with me on my server!

Wow!  Thanks for reading my post and I hope you enjoyed it.  Please remember this site is still on a subdomain but it will be up on a top level domain shortly!

If you really enjoyed this post, please share it using the little tweet button below!