We go hands on with Square Enix’s answer to Minecraft, Dragon Quest Builders
Specifications
Available formats: PS4, PS3, PS Vita
The comparisons with Minecraft are inevitable. With its blocky, voxel-based landscape and reliance on crafting to make your way in the world, Dragon Quest Builders unashamedly draws on the same driving mechanisms as Mojang’s mega-hit.
And yet, for all Minecraft’s might and popularity, it’s Dragon Quest Builders that has me itching to play more. It begins in much the same way, asking players to dig deep and build their way out of a pit, before constructing a simple two-block-high house out of mud. However, Builders’ foundations go a little deeper, with the focus being on creating communities for its dozens of NPC characters that roam the dark, gloomy land of Alefgard.
It’s a simple addition to Mojang’s tried-and-tested formula, but one that helps give its minute-to-minute crafting a much-needed girder of purpose; it adds a welcome sense of structure to Minecraft’s sometimes terrifying blank canvas. Rather than leaving players to simply fend for themselves and go forth into the unknown, DQ Builders pins its progression on a string of villager mission requests, asking players to build more complex pieces of furniture in order to grow their towns and increase the resident population.
You’ll start small, first building a simple bedroom, before progressing to a workstation, kitchen and additional, decorated rooms. Eventually, though, you’ll progress onto more advanced projects and create further outposts across the world.
Of course, having played only the first three hours of Dragon Quest Builders, it’s hard to tell exactly what lies beyond the game’s rather more prescriptive set of early tutorials. However, the more quests you complete and the bigger your town becomes, the more people will flock to your newly developed digs to ply you with quests, so you should have plenty to keep you entertained over the course of its run-time.
It helps that Dragon Quest Builders keeps things simple, too, as players are automatically notified what they can make (or to use the in-game parlance, “learn new recipes”) as soon as they discover a new material. Of course, some might say this takes the fun out of the experimental nature of crafting, but for me, it only strengthens DQ Builders’ commitment to making the game more accessible. I provides an easy way to keep on top of your ever-growing inventory and spiralling list of objectives.
For starters, there’s less guesswork involved, and it provides an immediate indication of whether you’re on the right track. This enables you to carefully focus your efforts, rather than simply going out and gathering every last mineral you see and hoping for the best. You’ll still need a workstation to see the rest of the necessary ingredients, but it really doesn’t take much to set up shop and get crafting.
The only thing DQ Builders doesn’t quite improve on is Minecraft’s combat. While the cast of creatures draws extensively from Dragon Quest’s lauded bestiary, defeating them and claiming their prized materials still boils down to crudely beating them with sticks – or, eventually, whacking them with a hammer.
It’s entirely lacking in that classic turn-based combat for which the series is known, but then switching to a dedicated battle screen every time you encounter an enemy would severely hamper the game’s overall pace, so I can understand the need to keep battles taking place in real-time. It remains to be seen how Builders handles larger enemies, but for now, it certainly helps make short work of the general rank and file.
There isn’t long to go now before the game’s final release. Coming to PS4, PS3 and the PS Vita on 14 October (all with cross-play compatibility, I might add), Dragon Quest Builders looks like it could finally be a worthy contender to Minecraft’s crown, offering a more mature, structured take on gaming’s unstoppable behemoth.
I’ll have to wait and see how the combat fares later on in the game, but for now, Dragon Quest Builders is definitely one to watch for would-be Minecraft players.
Beware if you tend to veer into dystopian paranoia: Cinemark CEO Mark Zoradi offered a glimpse of moviegoing’s future Wednesday, and it includes windowless rooms where our children have replaced Little League baseball with Minecraft tourneys.
The executive said Wednesday that Cinemark anticipates virtual reality and gaming as opportunities for “significant alternative content” to the traditional feature-length films in its theater chain, which is the third biggest in the US by number of screens.
The comment is a sign of the shifting tastes of consumers. Once upon a time, a simple run of movies was enough to satisfy audiences. Now tastes have gotten more sophisticated as consumers seek more-immersive forms of entertainment.
Zoradi touted the opportunity for hosting video-gaming events both for players and spectators. Commonly known as e-sports, video gaming as spectator entertainment has been growing in mainstream popularity, with researcher Superdata estimating its worldwide audience will widen to 275 million people this year.
Plano, Texas-based Cinemark is already hosting Super League Gaming competitions, which Zoradi likened to video game Little League. “Your kids are in a league…and they’re playing literally in our seats on their laptops against another team in another city,” he said.
Zoradi also said the company is looking into all aspects of bringing virtual reality into theaters. That could be “pods” for individual viewers to watch 15-minute VR shorts in theater lobbies, or it could mean group VR experiences inside some of its small cinemas, he said, speaking at the Goldman Sachs investor conference in New York.
Cinemark is the latest to talk up virtual reality, an entertainment format that makes viewers feel like they’re in the middle of the action. It’s among the buzziest consumer technologies this year, as big investments in VR hardware by tech giants like Facebook and Samsung start to deliver those products to consumers more widely.
Cinemark’s bigger rival AMC has begun bringing virtual-reality demos into its theaters. In the last year, it’s offered some moviegoers the opportunity to check out VR experiences related to the “Paranormal Activity” franchise and “The Jungle Book.”
Last year, Zoradi said VR wasn’t likely to be a “big strategic initiative” for the company in the near future.
As Minecraft developer Mojang is gearing up for Minecon 2016 in Anaheim this weekend, the game studio has announced today that it has partnered with American toy manufacturing company Mattel to bring your Minecraft avatar to life. Minecon attendees will be able to use the company’s skin printing service to create a skin for a nice figurine with the Minecraft avatar of their choice:
It’s seriously cool. You craft the look of your unique figure by using an actual skin from the game. Mattel creates and prints a custom label based on your in-game skin (or one of the exclusive soon-to-be-revealed MINECON 2016 designs!), and then you stick it onto the figure.
dwv90_c_17_202-887×630 Mattel teams with Minecraft to deliver 3D printed skins, available at Minecon
Minecon attendees will be able to design their own Minecraft figurine.
To try the skin-printing service, attendees will have to purchase a Survival Mode Player One Figure ($15.00 + tax) at the the Mattel booth and also print their label over there. To get prepared, Mojang is inviting all attendees to check the skin editing app Skin Studio which is available on iOS and Android devices.
Additionally, Mojang has announced today the release of a new Minecraft Snapshot tagged 16W38A and you can find the full list of changes and bug fixes below:
Notable changes:
The poor squids shouldn’t spawn in lava anymore. At least I would not enjoy spawning in lava We have a new gamerule: maxEntityCramming Mooshrooms now really appreciates to walk on mycelium. Probably it feels soft and cosy on their hooves
Bugs fixed in 16w38a:
[Bug MC-3841] – Attacking an unsaddled pig while holding a saddle saddles the pig [Bug MC-36927] – Durability of Golden Swords occasionally dropped by Zombie Pigmen is not random (always 25) [Bug MC-46456] – Written books given by command crashes when copied in crafting table if “Author” is missing [Bug MC-61997] – squids spawn in lava [Bug MC-66946] – 2-block tall hitbox on small armor stands. [Bug MC-67406] – Small armor stands display items differently than normal ones [Bug MC-70424] – Baby Zombie Pigmen’s sword slightly tiled forward [Bug MC-70738] – Killing Guardian with Lava does not give Cooked Fish [Bug MC-80551] – You can place redstone, doors, rails etc. onto 7/8 layers of snow [Bug MC-86130] – Shields changes its base color when damaged & repaired / Crafting different in colors results in damage [Bug MC-86164] – armor stands can’t be renamed by name tag [Bug MC-89921] – Elytra not rendered on entities/mobs [Bug MC-91383] – Horses (now only skeleton horses and zombie horses) drop different amount of loot than before [Bug MC-92772] – Saddled pigs don’t drop saddle with doMobLoot=false [Bug MC-92776] – Ink sacs are fished in stacks of 1 instead of 10 [Bug MC-93435] – Cobblestone walls listed in “Building Blocks” tab [Bug MC-93609] – Player is floating above the saddle of a mule [Bug MC-93824] – Feeding golden carrot to breed horse works if InLove is greater than 0 [Bug MC-94476] – Killing Rabbits with Looting does not give more raw rabbit [Bug MC-94947] – Chicken “steping” sound still works when the chicken is swimming [Bug MC-95450] – Villager Loot Table missing [Bug MC-95469] – Middle click / pick block on farmland gives dirt [Bug MC-96499] – Boats collide with any entity (Arrows, Paintings, etc.) even if Marker:1b is on (armor stand) [Bug MC-98260] – Water bottles have inconsistent NBT tag depending on how you obtain them. [Bug MC-99602] – Impossible to detect Water Bottle from ocean in player’s inventory [Bug MC-100950] – Boats can travel / remain on the fog of lingering potion / dragon’s breath [Bug MC-101615] – Silverfish do more damage to players on easy difficulty than on normal difficulty [Bug MC-101642] – Iron golem / VillagerGolem is holding red flower client side 400 ticks too long [Bug MC-103339] – Mushroom Cows do not path to mycelium, but grass. Causes unintended spawning requirements [Bug MC-105071] – Random green/gray dot in anvil GUI [Bug MC-106485] – Banner applied to a Shield doesn’t change the shield correctly [Bug MC-106747] – Wither bosses break structure blocks / structure voids [Bug MC-106842] – Target selector stops parsing its arguments if an entry is not = [Bug MC-106896] – Crash when using backspace after deleting all the characters in the name of anything with a custom one [Bug MC-107054] – lit_furnace item model but no item [Bug MC-107055] – 2 models for old wooden slab’s item [Bug MC-107062] – Hitting backspace in the anvil naming field when empty causes the game to crash
For those of you who can’t wait for the release of the 1.11 build of Minecraft, the game developer added that it will reveal “info about several new exciting 1.11 features” during Minecon 2016. The annual event will take place on September 24-25 at Anaheim Convention Center and those of you who can’t attend will be able to watch the live stream on the dedicated website.
At 8 PM ET/PT on September 21st, the 33rd season of the CBS reality series Survivorwill begin. This year’s competition carries the subtitle Millennials vs. Gen X, and it will pit contestants from two neighboring generations against one another. For fans of YouTube, there will be a familiar face in the Millennial camp. Mari Takahashi, known for her videos on the Smosh Games channel, will attempt to outlast her fellow competitors to earn the title of Sole Survivor.
As Takahashi told Tubefilter, she was introduced to the CBS team behind Survivor after two fellow YouTube stars, Joslyn Davis and Erin Ward of Clevver TV, were contestants on another CBS reality series, The Amazing Race. Davis and Ward are friends of Takahashi’s (and fellow Defy Media partners), which led to her selection for the new Survivor season.
To prepare for her Survivor role, Takasashi “binge-watched” all of the show’s previous seasons. “Good thing for me,” she told Tubefilter, “I’m actually really good at sitting on the couch and watching television.” She also noted that several of Smosh Games’ more physically-demanding videos, such as those in its Smosh Summer Games series, helped her prepare for the challenges she would face while on the Survivor island.
While Survivor filmed in Fiji earlier this year, Takahashi’s team at Defy Media had to pull off a digital media magic trick of sorts: They had to make her seem active in Smosh Games videos even when she wasn’t there, in order to maintain the confidentiality of her agreement with CBS. To pull that off, she had to film several videos ahead of time. “We shot about two months worth of videos in advance to make it look like I didn’t go anywhere,” she said.
When the broadcast of the new Survivor season begins, Takahashi expects to see many new viewers migrating from CBS to her videos — and that’s where a new series, titled Maricraft: Outlaster comes in. Launched two days before Survivor’s season premiere, Outlaster is a semi-scripted series that creates a mock Survivor setup within the world of Minecraft. All of the Smosh Games hosts will be present, and their avatars will participate in challenges, confessionals, and other typical Survivor fare across six episodes.
While Takahashi thinks longtime Smosh Games fans will enjoy Outlaster, she also believes that new viewers from CBS will dig it as well. She says the series is “the bridge” between YouTube and TV and “the way for us to say ‘this is what we do, let’s put it in a perspective you might understand.’”
Don’t think for a second, though, that Takahashi will leave her fans behind as she appeals to TV viewers. Survivor is a fun jump to TV for her, but in the end, she’s still a YouTuber at heart. “I’ve never been more grateful for what I get to do and the people I get to do this with,” she said. “I went a month-and-a-half without technology, without any connection to friends and family, and when I came back, it was the best homecoming I could have possibly asked for.”
Time moves differently in Minecraft. A day lasts 20 minutes. A night lasts only seven. With the right conditions, Rome can be built in a day. And with the right supplies, a troll can burn it to ashes in minutes.
2b2t, a malevolent form of Minecraft, is full of such ruins: It’s a place of beauty and terror.
Ranked among the world’s most popular video games, Minecraft is often praised for fostering creativity and constructive play. It is the parent-approved successor of Lego, even used as an educational tool in schools. In addition to the usual gameplay modes, multiplayer servers turn the game into a social activity. These communal worlds are subject to rules: Start a fight or destroy property, and a moderator will usually ban you.
2b2t is an “anarchy server,” the oldest and most infamous of its kind. It offers a world without rules, where aggression is encouraged and survival is rarely assured. 2b2t plays out like a Cormac McCarthy novel built with thousands of 1×1 digital bricks.
While Minecraft is the terrain of the imagination, 2b2t gives free rein to your darkest impulses. And now, 2b2t is being ravaged by war.
The Facepunch Era
Anarchy servers are a dark tradition within Minecraft. In a standard game, you are dropped into a randomly generated world, where you mine for resources and build structures, one block at a time. There’s a survival mode—players have to scrounge for food and fight off zombies at night—and a more free-form creative mode, where players have unlimited health and resources. Players can join friends and strangers to play in servers online, though they are discouraged from attacking others, laying waste to buildings or using pornographic terms to describe someone’s mother.
Its first colonizers were users of the Facepunch forum, hence 2b2t’s seminal “Facepunch Era.” Members began to map and establish bases. The first factions were formed as rival forums signed up to the server and began to launch raids to destroy each other’s work.
Today, the server is more chaotic still. Players are divided into two camps. “Rushers” are disorganized newbies seeking to infiltrate 2b2t’s settlements and claim them as their own. They battle the “veterans,” more experienced residents who have rigged the “spawn” (the point at which players arrive in the game) with traps to kill off new players.
The newbie invasion was triggered by TheCampingRusher, a YouTuber whose video exploring the server was posted on June 1 and already has over 2 million views. In the video, his elation is palpable as he enters this previously hidden world. Almost immediately after it was posted, new players began to flood into 2b2t, throwing the server deeper into chaos.
Since then, the battle lines have become more ambiguous: 2b2t’s oldest users have retreated to edges of the map to preserve their settlements and sit out the siege in peace, leaving the newbies to attack each other.
My Time in Minecraft Hell
Much of the appeal of 2b2t is about learning what is possible—a world with few limits other thanone’s will to power and survival. In the server, cuddly Minecraft becomes a horror game, one that demands a Zen-like sense of self-effacement as you die repeatedly and re-spawn back to where you started. In the chat window, a stream of insults and shitposting blends in with server updates. No arrival goes unannounced. No death goes unsung. While playing, I’m informed that a player called Dr Funky Pepper has just “become lava.” Two others get “slashed into gibs by a zombie pigman” and reduced to “a bloody meat pile with just fists.”
To traverse 2b2t is to feel lost and overwhelmed, and to play is to accept this pain and confusion as a condition of existence. The ordeal begins even before you enter: The queue to join the server is over 1,000 players long. A very slow-moving countdown appears on screen; when it reaches zero, you’re allowed in.
It took me three tries and over four hours to join 2b2t. It was worth the wait. I spawned before an abyss—I was standing looking at a heady drop into sea and stone and lava. After I overcame my virtual vertigo, I edged my way up a gigantic craggy mountain.
Hidden across the landscape are some especially cruel traps: fake sanctuaries that explode in flames, pits that drop you into a river of lava and false floors that open into prisons built from obsidian, with no way to dig out. (Players entombed there have no choice but to log out and sit through the queue all over again.)
To navigate this land requires an arsenal of hacked clients—altered versions of the game with enhancements, similar to cheats, like X-ray vision or teleporting. Popular cheats include the power to see through walls to find supplies and victims and one to improve aim. (This might explain how a figure in the far distance was able to shoot me down with a crossbow. In the dark.)
As I played, alerts in my chat window listed the deaths occurring by the second; the calming, ambient Minecraft theme song played as body after body hit the floor.
Nazi propaganda, racist slurs and a succession of death threats pour into the chat window with mechanical efficiency. Their sheer volume negates the effect, and they become part of the background. I want to beat this. I want to feel at home in chaos.
I too am cursing now, shouting very loudly at my screen. I fall. I re-spawn. I fall again.
A Story Written in Blood
For several years now, Devi Ever has been known on 2b2t as something of a pirate and a griefer (those who terrorize other players for their own amusement). She says the best sights in 2b2t are far out from spawn, logged by players on interactive maps where the distance is measured in bricks—one brick is roughly equal to a cubic meter. “The million [brick] mark…that’s where all the cool stuff is,” she says. “The thing I enjoyed the most wasn’t destroying, it was exploring.”
She adds, “Exploring 2b2t is like archaeology.… There’s so much that it says about the nature of Minecraft itself and about the design of the game. 2b2t deserves a book.”
As a seasoned player, Ever has access to the priority queue, which allows her to skip the four-hour wait (some fans believe this is an artificial barrier, one thrown up to slow anyone who joined after June 1, the date TheCampingRusher’s video went live). Players have approached her asking to buy her old accounts for their quick access privileges. Sometimes they’re looking to trade intel for espionage or offering payments of hundreds of dollars. Information is currency in 2b2t: Ever traded a spare account for the location of 2b2t’s fabled Jesus statue, built in homage to the Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro.
The server’s massive size and ephemeral nature make it difficult to track its history. Still, there are attempts to organize its past into a coherent narrative. Redditor ArchCrono, known in-game as ArchQuantum, authored a series of posts detailing 2b2t’s history, which eventually made it to the site’s front page. Their popularity is why he was asked to lead a faction into 2b2t, a challenge he reluctantly accepted.
Why do players queue for hours just to spawn and be killed off in seconds? “Minecraft notoriously lacks a standard story mode,” ArchCrono theorizes. “This is a very real void the developers have not chosen to directly address.”
2b2t provides a meta-narrative beyond the game, similar to the halftime show during sports broadcasts. Players post about the server on YouTube and Reddit, like amateur sports analysts. “If you are on 2b2t, what you do matters more than what you do on a single player or local setting, because it is available to so many people,” ArchCrono says. “The YouTube channels that cover 2b2t, particularly TheCampingRusher and FitMC , are providing commentary that crafts the plot of a story mode. When I posted on Imgur, I basically added an entire new section of plot.”
The rushers, then, are queuing up to play a role in Minecraft history.
Not Safe for Life
Hausemaster, the founder of 2b2t, is a quasi-mythical figure both praised and trolled . He says he set up the server in 2011, when Minecraft Multiplayer was first released. Players flooded in, forming settlements and communities. He picked 2b2t’s final setting, “anarchy” mode without moderation. “I wanted to see what destruction would be made, but also whether there would be connections between players in such a chaotic, rule-free environment.”
I assumed Hausemaster would disapprove of the current influx of rushers, but he’s happy to see the server getting attention, even if the world he helped create erupted in violence. “2b2t is definitely not ruined—in my opinion it’s how it should be: absolutely chaotic.”
2b2t gives players free rein to abuse, destroy and self-destruct. It is essentially nihilistic, as players thrash against the walls of their virtual cage, taking out their disaffection on the same technology they are addicted to. Their behavior is more than not safe for work: It is not safe for life itself.
Perhaps enduring this noxious landscape is ultimately 2b2t’s true appeal. “2b2 is about pride,” says Ever. “Pride in being able to flourish in what is considered the most notorious environment you can play in.”
Nobody survives very long in 2b2t—the pride comes from having died there.
