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Earth Microsoft Software Games Entertainment Technology

Minecraft Earth Goes a Step Beyond Pokemon Go To Cover the World In Blocks (theverge.com) 46

Microsoft is working on an ambitious new Minecraft game with an augmented-reality spin that hopes to one up Niantic's wildly popular Pokemon Go mobile game. The Verge's Tom Warren sat down with Microsoft's HoloLens and Kinect creator, Alex Kipman, to take a look Minecraft Earth, a new free-to-play game for iOS and Android that lets players create and share whatever they've made in the game with friends in the real world, away from TV screens and monitors.

"We have covered the entire planet in Minecraft," explains Torfi Ilafsson, game director of Minecraft Earth. "Every lake is a place you can fish, every park is a place you can chop down trees. We've actually taken maps of the entire world and converted them to Minecraft." Warren writes: These maps, based on OpenStreetMap, have allowed Microsoft to start working out where to place Minecraft adventures into the world. These adventures spawn dynamically on the Minecraft Earth map and are designed for multiple people to get involved in. This is really where Minecraft Earth starts to get interesting and beyond anything I've played in other AR games like Pokemon Go. I tried a variety of adventures during my brief Minecraft Earth gameplay demo, and they range from peaceful and friendly to a little more risky, knowing you enter them and might lose all your treasure if you die to a monster. The fascinating part of adventures is that you can be side-by-side with friends, all experiencing the same game on the exact same spot of a sidewalk or in a park at the same time. Microsoft is doing some impressive behind-the-scenes computational magic (more on that later) so that when you play an adventure, it's in a precise location, beyond regular GPS coordinates, so that everyone is experiencing the same thing. You can fight monsters, break down structures for resources together, and even stand in front of a friend to block them from physically killing a virtual sheep.

All of the blocks that are collected during an adventure are shared with fellow players, so there are no player-versus-player battles here to kill each other and steal materials. You'll even see the tools that fellow players have in their hands on your phone's screen, alongside their username. The idea is that you essentially become your phone in Minecraft Earth, and your camera is a lens into this virtual world. Once you've gathered lots of resources, you can then start building. Every player will have a library of build plates, with some that are as big as 200 x 200 feet. You can use build plates to sit a Minecraft build down on a table and build something with friends. Every piece of material that a friend uses on your own plate will then be part of your build, so it's a collaborative effort to create giant structures; playing solo will mean a lot of searching around for materials. Once you've completed a build, you can then share a link to it for friends or followers to then play with your creation on a table or in giant scale in an open space.
The game will be available in beta on iOS and Android this summer.
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Minecraft Earth Goes a Step Beyond Pokemon Go To Cover the World In Blocks

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  • Good Luck (Score:2, Troll)

    by sexconker ( 1179573 )

    Minecraft is popular with the very young and very autistic. Neither group does well outside, far from home, or without adult supervision.

    If you think that's offensive or mean, fine. If you think that's incorrect, lookup some MineCon videos on YouTube.

    • Re: Good Luck (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Yes, but itâ(TM)s also fairly popular with normal high school students. Source: I am a high school teacher.

    • I'm 58, and still playing Mincraft, and... yeah, I'm a computer programmer, so I'm borderline autistic, just like Bill Gates.
    • by msauve ( 701917 )
      Panem et circenses, level up!

      Neither group does well outside, far from home, or without adult supervision.

      You do realize you're commenting on /., where a large number of readers still live in their mother's basement?

      • by Tom ( 822 )

        That was true 20 years ago. Now most of the /. nerds earn twice as much as the guys who used to beat them up in school and are with the more sexy sisters of the girls who made fun of them.

        The nerd imagine perptuated by movies is stuck in the late 90s. Much has changed, mostly due to the Internet and computers and mobile tech becoming so ubiquitous and a 25 year shortage of skilled tech people.

  • by Locke2005 ( 849178 ) on Friday May 17, 2019 @06:16PM (#58611464)
    The first thing any 'net shared community art form will be used for is penis drawings... anything stopping Minecraft Earth from being used for that? I drew out an entire 8-bit Mario and Peach in Minecraft Blocks in Creative Mode once... dicks should be much easier.
    • It's not a rule. It's just that it only takes one griefer asshole like yourself to ruin it for everyone. Once we learn how to detect sociopathy in the womb, we can eliminate your kind from our race and we can have nice things. The test is coming and your kind's days are numbered.
    • by twms2h ( 473383 )

      The first thing any 'net shared community art form will be used for is penis drawings... anything stopping Minecraft Earth from being used for that? I drew out an entire 8-bit Mario and Peach in Minecraft Blocks in Creative Mode once... dicks should be much easier.

      And the problem with this is ... ?

  • Seems like some sort of attractant...

  • by Dallas May ( 4891515 ) on Friday May 17, 2019 @06:34PM (#58611530)

    Game Idea:

    Played like Pokemon Go, where the player uses their phone to solve clues and hunt for criminals. The Twist? This game is played on a world wide scale where the player actually has to get on a plane and physically travel to the location of the answer of the clue to hunt for the Criminal.

  • ... Micropenis makes you pay for binary stuff in real cash. The Gates gang doesn't do charity.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    Children and adults for that matter should really be spending time in actual reality and not "augmented reality". There is a lot going on out there, stop being a fuckin moron and go forth into the world you motars

    • Actually, Pokemon Go got me out walking around downtown and in the parks. I don't play it hardly at all anymore, but I go out more, because it's kind of nice to get out.

  • by Bonker ( 243350 ) on Friday May 17, 2019 @09:19PM (#58612028)

    "So explain to me again how you broke your arm..." the doctor said.

    "I was trying to get away from the creeper."

    "As in a monster."

    "Yeah. It hisses and then explodes."

    "And you felt you had to run into moving traffic to get away from it."

    "I had an entire stack of diamonds on me! I couldn't just let him blow me up."

    "Uh-huh."

    The police officer chimed in, "You know, some of the people on that bus that hit you were more seriously injured than this. You're damn lucky you *only* have a broken arm."

    The doctor shook his head. "Last year this same time, it was a kid chasing a Gyrados pokemon into the side of a street-sweeper. He's still in halo gear. But this year, they've got virtual treasure to hide and monsters intent on taking it from them."

He who has but four and spends five has no need for a wallet.

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