Sign up here: https://minecraft.net/earth
The AR in the video looks a bit more wobbly than the previous demonstrations but still looks better than most other examples I've seen for phone AR. Looking forward to trying this.
Its probably a free game already.Do those of us suckers who have already bought Minecraft on 20 types of devices get this for free? I kid, I kid. *sigh*
I know you are joking but it probably will be F2PDo those of us suckers who have already bought Minecraft on 20 types of devices get this for free? I kid, I kid. *sigh*
It's f2p with monetization.
What kind of monetization hasn't been revealed yet.
It's f2p with monetization.
Until AR snaps to world in a rock solid manner I'm really not interested. It just looks terrible to me.
I was able to do this since 2012 when I demoed this for my class and it still doesn't work any better.
Sign up here: https://minecraft.net/earth
The AR in the video looks a bit more wobbly than the previous demonstrations but still looks better than most other examples I've seen for phone AR. Looking forward to trying this.
Tried signing in for the beta, but it takes me to a page asking if I want to delete my data?
🤔
I guess you signed up when they initially announced this? I had the same thing. I think we're already signed up
Not judging by that video, and I have to assume they'd make their promotional stuff look as good as possible.
I expected far more by now.
is it supposed to remember exactly where you place things in the real world? So more accurate than just a GPS tag - wonder if its storing/sending some of the AR data to the cloud so you and others can see it properly
Also giant minecraft dicks in every major city
Apparently, they're making it so collectables are not tied to how interesting your area is. Things can pop up anywhere and will essentially generate around you. So you don't get boring stuff just because you don't live in a city. For better or worse.Wow, that looks pretty impressive. Fell off the Minecraft hype some years ago now, used to be building a lot in the X360 era and the start of the X1 one, but this might pull me back a little bit, albeit the Pokémon GO formula is not really for me and it's probably not very ideal for small towns like mine.
Woah what. No. You just saw 3 people interacting with the same virtual object hosted through an off site remote server that allowed them all to not only interact in the same world, but reliably enough to build blocks around each other. That's incredible. Some slight wobble doesn't detract from the fact that this actually works. We DID NOT have this back in 2012, especially not in the real world in production without specialized environments with markers.Until AR snaps to world in a rock solid manner I'm really not interested. It just looks terrible to me.
I was able to do this since 2012 when I demoed this for my class and it still doesn't work any better.
Yea, it's using azure spatial anchors to remember and place things accurately where they are in the world. The same way HoloLens does it.is it supposed to remember exactly where you place things in the real world? So more accurate than just a GPS tag - wonder if its storing/sending some of the AR data to the cloud so you and others can see it properly
Also giant minecraft dicks in every major city
Apparently, they're making it so collectables are not tied to how interesting your area is. Things can pop up anywhere and will essentially generate around you. So you don't get boring stuff just because you don't live in a city. For better or worse.
This is the game's default loading screen, and it makes the Minecraft Earth building process look fun and magical. But in practice, building something that tall and complicated is more of a logistical pain in the butt than doing so in vanilla Minecraft.
I tested the game with an iPhone X—one of Apple's newer ARKit-compatible devices—and frequently struggled to pick up or put down objects. Walking around a table or floor inevitably led to the buildplate world glitching out or super-zooming in either direction, and this happened in recommended conditions: bright room, clear "textured" surfaces. Plus, my taps often placed objects nowhere near where I wanted them since the game made faulty guesses about 3D depth. This wasn't helped by ARKit judders shaking my perspective just enough to make the world move at the moment I tapped. There's a reason vanilla Minecraft makes players move to an exact X-Y-Z coordinate spot to place and manipulate objects, and Minecraft Earth desperately needs an equivalent.
Ars Technica only received one preview code for Minecraft Earth, so I couldn't test its multiplayer functions, which allow you to bring friends into both Build and Play modes. So long as everyone has Minecraft Earth installed on a phone in their hands, they can conceivably join each other's augmented reality sessions, all calibrated so that every smartphone is looking at the same content from the same central, real-world point. (We don't yet know if this will work in cross-platform fashion.)
This may very well be the secret sauce for Minecraft Earth fun, at least in Build mode. Assuming this works as advertised, and everyone's camera angles don't glitch out, then multiple people could spend time putting together a massive virtual tower in the same room—and applying rare items like redstones, mine carts, and switches to the whole thing. That sounds like a fun, real-world twist, as opposed to gathering around a TV, right? The catch in this case is that players don't get an unlimited canvas, à la vanilla Minecraft's "creative" mode. Everyone's personal inventory is limited in Minecraft Earth, thanks to a "tappables" economy. If you leave anything on a friend's buildplate, they get to keep it, and you lose it. Plus, I'm giving Minecraft Earth a hugebenefit of the doubt here, in terms of assuming that more players in the same instance won't lead to more device-sync glitches, on top of the ARKit and camera-angle woes I've already faced.
In good news, Mojang has opted for simplicity over intricacy, and that bodes well for the game's future. I uninstalled Harry Potter's Wizards Unite within a few days of testing that soup of confusing currencies and unclear quests. But I can see myself regularly checking in on whatever weird ideas Minecraft Earth might come up with. For all of its current failings, at least the game still understands the reason Minecraft is fun: it's what you as a player make of it, not what plot line and purpose is shoved down your throat.
I could be wrong but I don't think there is any?
I think my biggest most immediate complaint is that the map use is absolutely pointless.
Take my immediate area:
In Pokémon Go, there are a few spinny spot things in the area, which make it worth heading out there. In Minecraft, they've just gone and dumped a random generation of items over the whole area. The map might as well not exist, it's not using any aspect of it. There are trees in buildings there. Behind the camera is a stream on the map, but there's nothing watery in it to collect. Just more trees, rocks, cows, chickens, and chests. It doesn't feel like opening the game near a friend's house in another city will offer me any difference.