Instigator / Pro
0
1511
rating
18
debates
38.89%
won
Topic
#5363
Minecraft has only gotten worse since version 1.2.1.
Status
Finished
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
Winner & statistics
Winner
0
4
After 4 votes and with 4 points ahead, the winner is...
Benjamin
Tags
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 4
- Time for argument
- Two days
- Max argument characters
- 5,000
- Voting period
- One month
- Point system
- Winner selection
- Voting system
- Open
Contender / Con
4
1774
rating
95
debates
77.37%
won
Description
I will be arguing that Minecraft has continually gotten worse since version 1.2.1.
To win this debate, you must prove that Minecraft has continually gotten better since version 1.2.1.
Round 1
Pro
#1
New Minecraft is definitely not the same game I played as a kid.
This is a just a sample of all the stupid things that have been added to Minecraft since version 1.2.
- Chiseled bookshelfs.
- Pottery sherds.
- Barrels.
- Suspicious sand.
- Sniffers.
- Water zombies.
- Tridents.
- Pitcher plants.
- Cherry trees.
- Bamboo.
- Pillagers.
- Colored TNT.
- Dyed glass.
- Tinted glass.
- No more bipedal zombie pigs.
- Beehives.
So why is this such a big problem?
Well I'll tell you why:
Once a game becomes needlessly complicated, confusion rises, and enjoyment plummets.
New Minecraft is more confusing than fun, and Mojang has been heading in that direction ever since Minecraft version 1.2.
Con
#2
Thank you, 7000series.
Framework:
PRO did not redefine the resolution in the description. He did not write "resolution", "interpreted resolution" or "full resolution" in the description, so the title is the resolution.
Resolution: Minecraft has only gotten worse since version 1.2.1.
BoP:
The description attempts to assign BoP this way:
- PRO: Minecraft has continually gotten worse since version 1.2.1.
- CON: Minecraft has continually gotten better since version 1.2.1.
Voters will notice that this is a false dichotomy, and fails to accurately reflect the resolution. A mix of good and bad changes would disprove the statement that it has ONLY gotten worse.
Correct BoP assignment:
- PRO needs to prove that Minecraft has only gotten worse.
- CON needs to disprove this
The BoP leans heavily towards PRO to prove that everything that has changed about Minecraft can be accurately described as it getting worse. CON must merely refute this.
Definitions:
- Minecraft 1.2.1: a major update to the Java version of Minecraft released on March 1, 2012.
- Worse: of poorer quality or lower standard; less good or desirable.
- Only: and no one or nothing more besides; solely.
What it means to be only getting worse:
Here is what I think it means for something to have only gotten worse:
- The thing in question has been changed more than one time.
- Each individual change was a negative one:
- Meaning either that every single modification was negative on its own.
- Or more charitably for PRO's case, it means that every single completed package of changes, what we would call updates, were negative overall.
- If at any point an update made the game better than the previous version, the the game got better at least at one point, and was not exclusively getting worse all the time.
Something having only gotten worse requires at the very least that every single iteration was worse than the previous version. I will illustrate with an example:
- X = 10
- X = 7
- X = 6
- X = 8
- X = 5
If I say that X has only gotten lower since version 1, that would be false, since at one point it increased from 6 to 8. Similarly, even one good update after 1.2.1 would disprove the resolution.
Measuring game quality
Trust me this is the last bit of framework, but it is absolutely crucial. There are 3 main ways to measure the quality of a game.
Standard 1: The success of a game.
This is a broad concept that encompasses many others. But primarily commercial success and cultural relevancy. A good game is one that is popular, profitable and culturally relevant.
Standard 2: Artistic achievement.
Many game developers have a specific vison when creating their game. For example, maybe they want a beatiful game, or one that evokes certain emotions or allows engineers to run wild. There are many high-quality games which the majority of gamers find uninteresting, that are still undeniably some of the coolest, most clever and original titles out there.
Standard 3: Players enjoyment.
How much people playing a game enjoys the experience is important. But even the most popular and beloved games will receive scathing criticism, because not everyone enjoys the same.
PRO's case lack objective weight
Even if we are being charitable, PRO's case is very bad. Essentially, he is saying the game is too confusing. That sounds like a skill issue, not a problem with the game. Most of these things he has listed is not even something you are forced to interact with, but you certainly should. The trident is an amazingly fun and badass weapon that makes you feel like Thor. You can throw it and it will smite you enemy with lightning and return to you, and when it rains you can use it to literally fly. Pillagers are amazing for farms and single-player challenges. All the block he dislikes are just more usefull tools for builders, and enabling creativity was the original vision of the game. PRO's personal feelings towards these changes do not prove they are objectively bad, just that he as an individual doesn't like them.
Affirmative case
I have 5 excellent arguments for why Minecraft after 1.2.1 became better:
- It was made available on more consoles, making it more accessible
- It got greater modding support, more customization, multiplayer options and resource packs
- New mechanics and blocks where added, that greatly increase the variety of things you can do and build in Minecraft, and that fits its overall theme as a sandbox
- Minecraft is primarily great because of its community, and the community today is larger, more diverse and generates a lot more content content of higher quality and quantity
- The peak of Minecrafts popularity, profitability and cultural relevancy came in 2020 , long after 1.2.1, which intuitively suggests that it improved during that time.
Even if version 1.2.1 was actually overall better than the ones following, and the mods, youtube videoes and so forth from that era was better, all of that content is still available. Modern Minecraft allows you to play on 1.2.1 if you prefer that version, but the 1.2.1 edition of minecraft did not allow you to play on the versions that came after it. Think of it this way. On halloween, you go from door to door, asking for candy. After a while, you get the tastiest most perfect piece of candy possible. None of the houses you visit afterwards have anything that good. But so long as you do not loose the perfect piece of candy, the sum value of the candy in your bag always increases with every addition. Nobody is going to say the bag with less candy is better. The very same principle applies here. So long as version 1.2.1 is still available in the launcher, is it impossible for Minecraft to get worse.
Round 2
Pro
#3
Thank you, Benjamin, for accepting this debate.
After this debate, my win ratio will go up thanks to you.
And yes, every single update since version 1.2 has made Minecraft worse as a whole.
I believe that video games are a form of art.
A great video game is one that has fully achieved its artistic vision.
By that metric, Minecraft has been declining in greatness ever since version 1.2.
Here is a quote from Notch.
I'm not the one to speak ill of the dead, but yeah, Minecraft's a little bit dead.
The original developer of Minecraft has publicly claimed that Minecraft is dead.
After version 1.2, Minecraft boomed in popularity, and so many core parts of the game were compromised to make money.
- Minecraft 1.3: Villager trading decreases the need for exploration.
- Minecraft 1.4: Witches, bats, zombie villagers, and wither skeletons don't fit in aesthetically.
- Minecraft 1.5: This update complicated redstone way too much. After this point, Minecraft could not be considered charmingly simple.
- Minecraft 1.6: Horses made travel faster, but now you can just run away from mobs. No skill required!
- Minecraft 1.7: Too many types of wood clog up my inventory. Plus, they're barely different from one another.
- Minecraft 1.8: Weapons tailored to PVP combat are not fun for anything other than PVP combat.
- Minecraft 1.9: Weapons tailored to PVP combat are not fun for anything other than PVP combat! ! !
- Minecraft 1.10: Minecraft polar bears are ridiculous, unnecessary, and marketable. Minecraft llamas are ridiculous, unnecessary, and marketable.
- Minecraft 1.11: Vexes and shulker boxes are just weird, and they didn't fit in aesthetically.
- Minecraft 1.12: Everything can now be dyed, and that's it. Minecraft should have given us a real update.
- Minecraft 1.13: The swimming animation doesn't fit in aesthetically. Also, Minecraft just dumped a bunch of random shit into the sea and called it an update.
- Minecraft 1.14: Minecraft lost a good chunk of its playerbase when it changed the crafting system.
- Minecraft 1.15: There are too many types of flowers to keep track of. And Minecraft bees were a stupid idea.
- Minecraft 1.16: This update really fucked up the nether. Does the nether really have to have trees and endermen?
- Minecraft 1.17: The stalactites, stalagmites, and crystals don't look blocky. Minecraft needs to look blocky! And don't get me started on the textures.
- Minecraft 1.18: The overworld looks like shit now. Caves no longer feel the same either.
- Minecraft 1.19: Can there not just be one type of swamp?!?
- Minecraft 1.20: The 'sniffer' is a creature straight out of a cartoon, and pottery in Minecraft is just stupid.
Keep in mind that Minecraft was originally supposed to be an introspective and simplistic game about survival.
Minecraft is just too cluttered now.
And yes, Minecraft 1.20 allows you to play the older versions of Minecraft, but it's just not the same.
The Mona Lisa would be ruined if Leonardo da Vinci had made Mona Lisa version 2.0.
Yes, the original Mona Lisa would still exist, but it just wouldn't be the same.
Con
#4
PRO conceedes that one good or neutral update disproves the resolution. He has the BoP to PROVE that every single update was a downgrade, not just inject his opinion.
The original developer of Minecraft has publicly claimed that Minecraft is dead.
- He said that in 2021, after a decade of updates.
- He has never claimed that version 1.3 through 1.20 were each worse than the previous one, or even that 1.20 is worse than 1.2.
- And a game being "dead" does not even mean that a game is bad, just unpopular.
- Plus, Notch was heavily BIASED when he makes this claim due to his well-known beef with Mojang [1]:
- "The Swedish developer has been involved in a plethora of controversies due to his musings on social media, where he has been openly misogynistic, racist, homophobic, and transphobic in the past. His questionable behavior eventually led Microsoft to remove any mention of the developer from the game, and all splash screen text which mentioned Persson, including the quote which stated “Made by Notch!” was silently removed during a patch in 2019."
- As well as his statement being FACTUALLY INCORRECT [1]:
- "Despite Notch’s remarks, Minecraft is incredibly far from being considered a dead game. the game had recently hit an all time record of over 140 million monthly players, with the Minecraft Marketplace selling over 1 billion mods, the profit totaling approximately $350 million. These statistics appear to directly contradict Persson’s sentiments, showing that the game is more alive than ever."
The Mona Lisa would be ruined if Leonardo da Vinci had made Mona Lisa version 2.0.
- Update 1.2 is literally Minecraft 2.0 but neither that version nor any that came after ruined it as proven by the fact that many people still enjoy minecraft beta.
- Even the alpha version is still played and talked about. Even among games that have entirely remade from scratch, like mario and zelda, the old ones are still enjoyed.
- The premise that new versions of a game automatically ruins the experience of previous versions is wrong.
- Plus, most people who dislike modern minecraft probably consider the peak of minecraft some update that came after 1.2, just like PRO considers 1.2 better than the beta.
- Having access to all versions of minecraft is better because that allows everyone to be satisfied.
- All the best minecraft servers run on versions that came after 1.2 because every mechanic was improved upon in subsequent updates: PvP, Redstone, Modding, datapacks.
A great video game is one that has fully achieved its artistic vision.
- A game that fully achieves it's artistic vision, and then goes on to become the most popular game in the history of games, is better than a game that ONLY did the first part.
Keep in mind that Minecraft was originally supposed to be an introspective and simplistic game about survival.
- No, that only came afterwards. At the start, all he wanted was a block-based sandbox game that enables unlimited creativity.
- The current game is far better suited to that:
- Unlimited moddability. Works of art have been made using the new blocks, as well as billions of hours of minecraft content on twithc and youtube that has dominated culture.
Minecraft 1.5: This update complicated redstone way too much. After this point, Minecraft could not be considered charmingly simple.
- People who LIKE redstone prefer the updates. The point of redstone was never to be charmingly simple, but to appeal to nerds and see what they could create.
- Someone made a redstone computer that you can use to play minecraft in minecraft, so the current game is turing complete.
- There are countless servers dedicated to redstone engineering, nearly all of which run on newer versions.
Minecraft 1.12: Everything can now be dyed, and that's it. Minecraft should have given us a real update.
- PRO complains if they change anything, no matter what the change entails. When they finally don't change anything, he complains that they didn't.
- Even according to CON this update did NOTHING to make the game worse. All it did was help minecraft builders have more colour variety.
- So this game was GOOD, or at the very least NEUTRAL, disproving the resolution even if we use PRO's analysis of the update.
Villager trading decreases the need for exploration.
- Okay, so PRO admits that the need for exploration is good. Many items have been added to minecraft that you cannot trade for, like the awesome elytra and trident.
- Minecraft has also added far more variety to the world and new biomes to explore.
Minecraft 1.14: Minecraft lost a good chunk of its playerbase when it changed the crafting system.
- If we measure minecraft by its popularity then the game peaked in 2021 with 140 million players, disproving PRO's case since minecraft 1.2 had not even a fraction of that.
Minecraft is just too cluttered now.
- Terrible argument. As stated before, this is a skill issue. Most gamers can handle the complexity of minecraft, which is not even that complex compared to other beloved games.
Most of PRO's points about the updates being bad are terrible, with no source or argument, not even the main sentiment in the community, just his own personal opinion.
Me and my one friend disagree with all of PRO's reasons for disliking the cherry picked parts of the updates. And definitely reject that every single one of them is bad overall.
So we are 2 against 1 in terms of personal opinion. PRO has still failed to fulfill his BoP.
Round 3
Pro
#5
Benjamin clearly does not know what he is talking about:
- Minecraft 1.0 was the draft
- Minecraft 1.1 was the prototype
- Minecraft 1.2 was the GOAT
- Everything after that was trash
We can see this pattern repeated in all great video game franchises:
- Pokemon blue/red was the draft
- Pokemon gold/silver was the prototype
- Pokemon ruby/sapphire was the GOAT
- Everything after that was trash
- The Legend of Zelda was the draft
- The Adventure of Link was the prototype
- A Link to the Past was the GOAT
- Everything after that was trash
- Mortal combat I was the draft
- Mortal combat II was the prototype
- Mortal combat III was the GOAT
- Everything after that was trash
- Sonic the Hedgehog was the draft
- Sonic 2 was the prototype
- Sonic 3 was the GOAT
- Everything after that was trash
I could go on and on but you get the point.
Benjamin may not understand, but you understand.
VOTE PRO
Con
#6
Unsubstantiated claims are not evidence, so PRO's last round has zero weight behind it.
Older versions of minecraft, as well as older games in popular franchises, have NOT been ruined by new updates, PRO does not dispute this.
Modern minecraft contains both the supposed GOAT version, as well as all the new updates, more and better servers, more and better mods, and more and better players to have fun with.
Modern minecraft satisfies both the nostalgia addicts as well as many other types of players who prefer a more complex, exciting and creatively fullfilling experience.
The updates to minecraft has made the game far more popular, increased the cultural impact and ammount of player satisfaction, suggesting they cannot have all been strict downgrades.
Version 1.2 did not allow more than 10 people per server. Today you can play on that excact version but with more friends. So even the 1.2 version of the game has improved.
Round 4
Pro
#7
I concede.
My claim is a fundamental truth that cannot be proven.
I am trapped within the confines of logic.
Kurt Gödel proved the existence of unprovable truths.
Benjamin is still objectively wrong, but I cannot prove this.
Does winning feel good, Benjamin?
Cherry trees are awesom
Why a whole month of voting?
Once something is perfect, making it shinier will only degrade the quality of the piece.
They added 3D environments.
They all have different styles and themes.
Majora's Mask added the whole mask shapeshifting thing.
Twilight Princess has a more fleshed out combat system than any of the games before it.
There's more, but I agree that Link to the Past is a very good game.
Plus, all of the other Zelda games after a Link to the Past added nothing new. They were just variations on the same thing.
The combat system was amazing.
No, Twilight Princess is technically a superior game and my personal favorite.
Why do you think Link to the Past is the goat?
I agree partially; the Adventure of Link was the (failed) prototype, but it was a necessary stepping stone. A link to the past was the absolute peak of the series.
Your statement about the draft, prototype, goat, and trash pattern is dumb and incorrect. Particularly when it comes to the Legend of Zelda.
The Adventures of Link was a rushed sequel that was just made to keep the franchise relevant and is structured more like a primitive yet cookie-cutter/generic RPG more so than a real Zelda game. Ocarina of Time, Majora's mask,, Wind Waker and especially Twilight Princess were all superior games to the older ones and only the nostalgia of a few old school game fans says otherwise.
I'll admit Skyward Sword was lacking and the most recent ones use too many generic-feeling RPG mechanics but they are far from "trash".
Time's almost up. . .
That was not intentional.
Good catch. I'm lucky Benjamin accepted this.
The resolution and BoP statements are slightly misaligned.
If nobody accepts this debate, then it means that nobody has a good enough argument to win this debate, meaning that I am correct in saying that Minecraft has only gotten worse since version 1.2.1.