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Microsoft Hardware Games Linux

Notch Expands On 0x10c, Microsoft and Quantum Computing 94

Posted by timothy from the and-for-his-next-trick dept.
eldavojohn writes "Mojang's Marcus Persson (better known as 'Notch') has answered quite a few questions in an interview with PC Gamer about his new game 0x10c. Since its announcement, there's been very few details about game play aside from the DCPU-16 and art tests. But in this interview, Notch has revealed quite a bit about how the game will function and non-final ideas he has for either a monthly fee to play in a 'multiverse' or micropayments. He talks about a custom OS people are working on to load into the game's CPU as well as a an in-game 3D printer that will allow you to make virtual objects. When asked about Kickstarter and his Oculus dev kit, Notch said 'Definitely going to make it work in 0x10c no matter what' and his account of using the Oculus Rift sounds more than promising for the VR Device. When asked about Linux he said, '[Linux] is wonderful. I think we need to have it, and it's a shame that more people, including myself, don't use it. It's gotten easier and friendlier.' When asked about Microsoft he said, 'I use their OS – Windows 7 is an amazing operating system in my opinion and of course there's the Xbox, which I love. I'm sure Bing is going to take off and save them. [Editor's note: Notch is smiling mischievously as he says this.]'"
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Notch Expands On 0x10c, Microsoft and Quantum Computing More

Notch Expands On 0x10c, Microsoft and Quantum Computing

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  • Bing will save us all! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Bing will save us all!

    • Re:Bing will save us all! (Score:4, Informative)

      by dj245 ( 732906 ) on Thursday November 29, 2012 @02:26PM (#42133411)
      Everybody laughs at Bing, but their aerial maps and photos are sometimes very good. Better than Google in many cases. Here is an example-

      google [google.com]
      Bing [binged.it]

      That said I only use them for their maps, and only if I need the aerial photo.
      • Bing's maps are provided by Nokia

        • Bing maps are sourced from several different sources, one of them being MapQuest (now a part of Nokia). However, the "bird's eye" view was there long before Nokia provided its data.

          You can generally see where any given part of the map came from by observing the copyrights in the lower right corner.

        • Wrong. I worked on Bing maps for a year. They've bought a couple different companies over the years which provide various services including one that actually made the cameras and does the data processing for what those cameras capture, that's why they have such high quality aerial data compared to google. That's all in-house Microsoft now, that said they still buy some of their mapping data from NavTeq, but not the majority of it.

      • Thanks, never tried these out before, just found out that the maps also render much faster than these of Google.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Cinder6 ( 894572 )

        Hey, wait, that's actually impressive. Last I used Bing Maps, the interface was terrible now it's actually good, and the link for getting your current location is much more obvious.

      • The other Bing service you might want to consider is Bing Shopping. Not because it's awesome, but because Google seriously screwed up by turning its own Shopping search feature into a walled garden, where people have to be specifically posting their products to be listed, for a pay. Bing Shopping still uses the old model of scrubbing various online stores and aggregating data. So if you want to find the place that sells something cheapest, it's usually a far better option.

        Then there's also the issue of Goog

      • Yes that birds eye (45 degree) shot does look clearer than Google.

        However Google kicks their butt by a big margin (IMHO) for top down view.
        I have no clue how they have clear 45 degree footage but over sharpened rubbish for top down.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dj245 ( 732906 )

          Yes that birds eye (45 degree) shot does look clearer than Google.

          However Google kicks their butt by a big margin (IMHO) for top down view. I have no clue how they have clear 45 degree footage but over sharpened rubbish for top down.

          Some of their imagery is from airplanes. It is fairly obvious which are airplanes and which are satellite. They do some stupid and crude "give it some 3d depth!" processing which ruins the clarity of the sat photos. It can be turned off it you play with the settings.

  • Expounds (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dywolf ( 2673597 ) on Thursday November 29, 2012 @02:05PM (#42133147)

    The word is expounds. Not expands.

    • Yeah, that's some truly shit editing. Never a mod point when I need one.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The word is expounds. Not expands.

      Expands [wiktionary.org]:

      To express (something) at length and/or in detail.

      What, exactly, is the problem here?

  • Success Seems Unlikely (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bencoder ( 1197139 ) on Thursday November 29, 2012 @02:08PM (#42133169)
    0x10c sounds like a game that geeks (like me) would make if they didn't have financial constraints. I doubt it will reach any kind of mass market appeal and the hoards of minecraft fans hanging on Notch's every word will probably be dissapointed. But I'm looking forward to it.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I don't know, secondlife had a lot of fans for a good long while. And I'm sure the various OS's that people are building will abstract use of the ships computer.

      And this looks a bit like the original Quake in appearance, but with some geekiness to offset the fps part. The multiplayer fps demos they did with the devs in the office looked a little iffy and very incomplete, but we'll see what happens... it's still early.

      • I think it will be a great game. And if it's good enough that non-programmers will want to join it will get interesting because programmer will become the most important characters of the game. Everyone will need their help with programming and if something like trading programs for money/other stuff will be possible it might become really nice to play as a programmer.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Yeah, it is like the people who would play Tekkit, the ones who want more depth as opposed to those who just want to build their 79th craphouse.
      It is a considerably smaller market than Minecraft is.

      I co-run a Tekkit server just now and it is mostly just friends and around 5-6 randoms from minecraft forums on occasion.
      I expect this game to be more or less the same in numbers, unless Notch makes it incredibly easy to actually get in to.
      And considering how Minecraft had the ease of forcing a chicken up your le

    • I never really understand Notch games. First Minecraft: Why the hell people want to spend so much time build ugly and useless 3d objects using a horrible user interface and complex material collection/selection methods? Not only that minecraft is very expensive for a 4 year old "indie" game. I can download Blender(for free), build entire 3D worlds on it, they'll look much better, are interactive if you use the built in game engine, and depending on what you create you can actually sell for real money or use

      • Games should exist to provide experiences you just can't have in real life. Notch games are just crappy versions of thing you already can experience in real life.

        So Call of Duty sucks because you can just join the army?

        • If the army experience was anything close to CoD then yes. But it's not. Minecraft you are in front of a screen building virtual stuff using a mouse and a keyboard. In Blender or anything else you are in front of a screen building virtual stuff using a mouse and a keyboard. Minecraft will waste a lot of time and will return crappy results no matter how much effort you put on it. Everything else you will get results much faster and the quality is up to you.

          Driving a car in a video game is not the same as d

  • Didn't this topic have a few hundred comments just minutes ago? Or am I going crazy?

  • Whew (Score:2)

    by tgd ( 2822 )

    I was worried it was going to have Quake-like graphics, but really the art form peaked with Doom.

  • I read the interview, the older Slashdot story, visited the 0x10^c web site, and skimmed through the DCPU-16 documentation, and I still have no idea what the actual game is. All of the details are about simulating embedded programming in assembly. I guess you can build onto your ship and add DCPU code to run it? Can anyone clarify this?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      This appears to be the case. You can write in-game code to automate tasks like docking or running a defense turret. I expect this to have very narrow appeal, but a moron-free MMO would be pretty cool.

      • Re:What exactly is the game? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by rasmusbr ( 2186518 ) on Thursday November 29, 2012 @03:23PM (#42134091)

        Don't say that. I imagine there would eventually be an in game trade system which would allow anyone to buy ships and turrets with DCPU-16 software preinstalled.

        The whole thing sounds to me like a scheme for transforming smart kids into proper nerds who write assembly and know their P from their I from their D. I like it.

        • Don't say that. I imagine there would eventually be an in game trade system which would allow anyone to buy ships and turrets with DCPU-16 software preinstalled.

          The whole thing sounds to me like a scheme for transforming smart kids into proper nerds who write assembly and know their P from their I from their D. I like it.

          Thank you. I was rather disheartened reading these comments. People are apparently planning on using this game to validate that they have holier than thou intellects over the general populace of gamers. My hope for this game is that it attracts the FPS gamers with its exploration mode and after a while they want to know more about how to program their DCPU-16 and awaken a thirst for knowledge inside them. Of course, that's a hope and may not be reality but I think Notch was alluding to that when he said:

          It has a strange Quake-like quality to it: slightly too fast. I think it could be entertaining on LAN play but I don’t think you want to play it over the internet because with latency it’s going to become very unfair because it’s so fast. The goal still is to get it so that you can have a ship with the computer components in. Because then not only can you try the game but the people who want to build stuff for the computer can actually start doing that – it actually has some utility as well.

          Basically I imagine the bullies in The Simpsons beating Notch up after they learn that he tricked them into learning.

        • For every one kid who programs, hundreds will just download stuff from web sites. There will always be lame nerds who freely give away their stuff.

          (insert tongue in cheek and running away smiley faces here)

      • I will salivate for that... Thats what I was begging to be included on Eve online.. you can get so much information out of the game from their api but no way to utilize automatically from inside of the game.

    • What I Know About 0x10c (Score:5, Insightful)

      by eldavojohn ( 898314 ) * <eldavojohn@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Thursday November 29, 2012 @02:56PM (#42133799) Journal
      So first off, nothing is truly finalized yet. Mojang is not some big EA game maker that had a deadline and forces it to happen regardless of how ready the game is or isn't. Instead, according to the interview they have two developers working on 0x10c right now and it sounds like Notch and company are still playing around with a lot of cool ideas. The pricing and revenue streams aren't even cemented yet!

      So from the story part of the page you said you skimmed [0x10c.com] there were sleep chambers that screwed up little endian with big endian and put everyone to sleep for 1 0000 0000 0000 years and now it's 281 474 976 712 644 AD and the first people are starting to wake up. You've got an extremely sparse universe with black holes and lots of empty space.

      Now according to the interview the first release will consist only of "you can build a ship and you can play with the computer components in it." And you can design the ship, lay it out more efficiently, etc. However, "Each ship has a generator capable of producing a fixed wattage, and everything you connect to it drains wattage. A cloaking field, for example, might require almost all the power from the generator, forcing you to turn off all computers and dim all lights in order to successfully cloak. The computer in the game is a fully functioning emulated 16 bit CPU that can be used to control your entire ship, or just to play games on while waiting for a large mining operation to finish." So you're going to have to manage your resources and Notch mentions Faster Than Light (a game I kickstarted and enjoyed).

      He also alludes to the possibility of your ship flying around and searching for things, a 3D printer, planetary exploration and that kind of stuff. They're not too clear on how multiplayer will work but it sounds like it's going to mostly be a crew on the same ship. Notch talks about 'launching all nukes at space stations' when he's leading and so it sounds like you'll interact with things outside your ship (probably through your DCPU-16).

      It sounds like a lot of these ideas are half baked like the 3D printer that he described:

      The idea is that, with things like turrets, you have a 3D printer to build the shell, like a computer case shell, but you still have to put components in there. Players in the game aren’t really engineers – they’re more like pilots, so they can’t build those parts. You have to scavenge for those parts, and find abandoned ships and try to find a working CPU or something. And those could have slightly different attributes: you might find a CPU running at 105% and try to trade that. But you can also mine for basic resources, like if you want a gold computer case – we’ll see if we actually have different materials, but that’s what I want – you have to mine for gold and put it in the 3D printer.

      But I'm really excited for this game, even if it is just a Faster Than Light type game where you build a spaceship and outfit it and attack or aid outside ships. You would fight intruders that beam into your ship or repair holes left by attacks/asteroids. You know there's a lot that could still be added or modified in this game and anything with this setting and emulation embedded really excites me.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        It sounds like a boring version of FTL so far...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AdamHaun ( 43173 )

        Notch talks about 'launching all nukes at space stations' when he's leading and so it sounds like you'll interact with things outside your ship (probably through your DCPU-16).

        That was the part I was missing. From what you're saying, it sounds like they're going to start off with the ship building/programming stuff and then add on to that based on what players do. This makes more sense now. Thanks for the clarification.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dissy ( 172727 )

        I've been very curious for more details on this new game as well. From the video you linked, this is not what I was expecting at all. Not to imply that is a bad thing however.

        Ironically, I've lately been spending most of my gaming time in Minecraft using the ComputerCraft and RedPower mods.

        One provides computers in-game that run Lua, and can control redstone creations as well as newer items provided by other mods (such as Red Power, Industrial Craft, Rail Craft, etc.) Red Power itself provides computers

    • You're stuck in a ship.
      Other players can join you in your ship.
      The ship has a computer that you can program, in assembly.
      You can install an operating system so you can use an easier language to get things done.
      Your view out of the ship will be VIA this computer... imagine what a 16 bit CPU can show you.
      Through this limited view, you can navigate, interact with other players etc...
      Multiple ships can be networked together... given that, you could potentially build a much more powerful CPU by having a networke

  • B.A.T. Agent (Score:3)

    by Khashishi ( 775369 ) on Thursday November 29, 2012 @03:28PM (#42134161) Journal

    Hmm, a game where you can program a computer within that game? Anybody remember that old adventure game called B.A.T. Agent? Weird game where, IIRC, you can program yourself with some crude scripting language. I don't think there's anything else like it.

    • And for the people who don't remember it I've recently recorded a longplay where you can see the computer programming in action:

      http://youtu.be/MpQhiYzGVdo [youtu.be]

    • Origin had a game called Omega, for the C64 amoung other platforms, to put it in historical perspective.

      You built, then programmed, a cybertank. Basic procedural language with subroutines, conditionals, loops, and inputs from the tanks' devices.

      Mindrover was similar, kinda, but used a visual metaphor of dragging lines from inputs to outputs. Not as cool.

  • Every time I hear of developers not using Linux, I wonder why.

    I've come up with two theories:
    - Microsoft is very influential in the USA, and somehow managed to trick teaching institutions to work with Windows. Since the US is the leader in software development, many other countries try to copy them, even if Microsoft is not as influential there.
    - People making mass-market software (like games) target Windows, and need to use Windows-specific toolchains. While cross-compiling for Windows is p

    • Neither of those theories work here

      1) this guy and his company are in sweden, and Notch has openly refused to left Minecraft be certified to be sold in the windows store fwiw.

      2) He writes horribly inefficient java that does actually run crossplatform (Minecraft runs in windows, linux and macos).

      • Both do, sorry.
        1) irrelevant
        2) irrelevant too. The game market is on windows, that is what matters.

  • Would that be the year 2238 in unix years?

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