I always wondered why Minecraft wasn't expanded to be "massive" like those RPGs. Technically, at its root Minecraft has the right core design to allow that scalability, in addition to a client-server model. Already private servers can be pretty huge, with dozens of players and large, expansive randomly generated worlds.
And then I realized that the issue isn't technological, but it's people. See, in a sandbox game like Minecraft, building new structures is easy, and destroying them even simpler. So this isn't about simply preventing stealing stuff, but also preventing structures built by other users from being destroyed. This still doesn't work perfectly though, as you can imagine that some might simply want to create giant indestructible wall structures to annoy other players. The only compromise I can see is that you could make a system where a player (or group) would "own" all structures above ground within a delimited region.
And that's only one thing. What about combat? Trading? Preventing cheating? Without massive commercial backing, I can understand why Minecraft is then made for private servers, where moderators make the law through countless 3rd-party plugins.
Published on December 8, 2012 at 21:36 EST
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