Latest / Stuff You Should Know / Minecraft! Minecraft! Minecraft!
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey,
- 0:11Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck
- 0:14Speaker 1: and Jerry's here too, and this is Stuff you Should
- 0:17Speaker 1: Know in Way over our Heads edition.
- 0:21Speaker 2: The help Parents understand what their child is doing in
- 0:25Speaker 2: their room all day Edition.
- 0:26Speaker 1: I hope so, but I suspect that more than just
- 0:29Speaker 1: parents are going to listen to this. And I've never
- 0:32Speaker 1: been more nervous about what a group of eight year
- 0:34Speaker 1: olds thinks of me than I am right now because
- 0:37Speaker 1: I know too much about Minecraft, like I can go
- 0:40Speaker 1: way too deep in it, But I also feel very
- 0:43Speaker 1: clearly I don't know enough to not get hate mail
- 0:46Speaker 1: for misspeaking.
- 0:48Speaker 2: Yeah, I would maybe not dig too deep on this one,
- 0:51Speaker 2: because the deeper you go, the more you risk. Oh yeah,
- 0:55Speaker 2: it's being mad for sure.
- 0:57Speaker 1: But one of the key things about Minecraft is like
- 1:00Speaker 1: it's nothing but rabbit holes. You look up one thing
- 1:04Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, that leads to ten other things,
- 1:06Speaker 1: and those ten other things lead twenty other things each.
- 1:09Speaker 1: And it's so fascinating how complex and complicated this whole
- 1:14Speaker 1: thing is, especially when you understand the actual mechanics of
- 1:19Speaker 1: how these worlds are built, how they originate, how simple
- 1:22Speaker 1: it is. It's just I love it. I love Minecraft
- 1:25Speaker 1: a lot. If I didn't get addicted to things that
- 1:27Speaker 1: I like, I would probably start playing Minecraft. But I
- 1:32Speaker 1: know that that would ruin my life.
- 1:34Speaker 2: Well, I'm glad you're addicted to podcasting with me.
- 1:38Speaker 1: I totally am. I can't get enough of it.
- 1:40Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, if that wasn't clear all that that
- 1:42Speaker 2: we just said, like this is officially a CoA, like
- 1:45Speaker 2: this will be a broad overview of a very very
- 1:48Speaker 2: very dense game that neither one of us play. So
- 1:53Speaker 2: we're gonna get stuff wrong. We're not going to dive
- 1:56Speaker 2: into things you want us to dive into. So just
- 1:59Speaker 2: an email disappointed. Yeah, Like, I can't believe you didn't
- 2:02Speaker 2: mention blank, like just say it. And thanks to Ruby
- 2:08Speaker 2: we got a little help.
- 2:09Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 2:09Speaker 2: I sent some questions last night that I guess, you know,
- 2:15Speaker 2: will Pepper in it if they apply?
- 2:17Speaker 1: For sure? Yeah, there was a few things that I
- 2:19Speaker 1: just couldn't nail down, and I was like, oh that
- 2:21Speaker 1: Ruby knows this, and sure enough she did.
- 2:23Speaker 2: Yeah. Well maybe, I mean she doesn't really play anymore.
- 2:26Speaker 1: She played.
- 2:27Speaker 2: I'm kind of glad about this. Like Minecraft is a
- 2:29Speaker 2: wonderful game, and we're going we'll go over the benefits
- 2:31Speaker 2: of it, because there are many compared to most video games,
- 2:36Speaker 2: but it's also a game, and we'll go over the pitfalls.
- 2:39Speaker 2: It's also a game that can really get under your
- 2:42Speaker 2: skin as a kid and as an adult. I guess.
- 2:46Speaker 2: But what it's not great if you're a kid and
- 2:48Speaker 2: you have other things like schooling to do, if you
- 2:51Speaker 2: have a kid that's super super super super into it,
- 2:53Speaker 2: and she never got that into it. She really enjoyed it,
- 2:56Speaker 2: but she's a kind of kid if like you take
- 2:59Speaker 2: it away or for go away for a minute, she says, like, what,
- 3:02Speaker 2: all right, I'll just do something else, which is he's
- 3:04Speaker 2: just good.
- 3:05Speaker 1: She's not gonna give you the satisfaction of pun.
- 3:07Speaker 2: Maybe I don't know, honestly, think she just forgets oh cool,
- 3:12Speaker 2: because she was all into the Roadblocks game, which is
- 3:14Speaker 2: a whole other kind of game, and like really into it.
- 3:19Speaker 2: And as a punishment for something, we we wiped it
- 3:22Speaker 2: off her iPad along with everything else except for music.
- 3:24Speaker 1: Like were you yelling when you did it?
- 3:26Speaker 2: No, But we just cleaned the iPad free of everything
- 3:29Speaker 2: except for podcast and music and it's like the next
- 3:33Speaker 2: day she was like, oh, all right, whatever.
- 3:35Speaker 1: That reminds me. Do you remember Doctor Katz, the nineties
- 3:38Speaker 1: cartoon with the squiggly lines.
- 3:40Speaker 2: Of course, it loved cats.
- 3:41Speaker 1: And Don Morrera was a regular on that. Man here
- 3:46Speaker 1: was a great Yeah, he is great. He was talking
- 3:48Speaker 1: about how cats just never give you the satisfaction of like,
- 3:53Speaker 1: no matter what you do to him, they're not going
- 3:55Speaker 1: to let on that you've bothered them. So, like he
- 3:57Speaker 1: gave the example of throwing a cat through the air,
- 4:00Speaker 1: the cat would be like, thanks, my man, I wanted
- 4:02Speaker 1: to go this way anyway.
- 4:04Speaker 2: Well into cats too, So maybe that's it. Yeah, sure,
- 4:08Speaker 2: she's part cat.
- 4:09Speaker 1: There you go. I think that's what it is.
- 4:11Speaker 2: Maybe, so that's fine, Yeah, for sure.
- 4:15Speaker 1: So I think we should give a little bit of
- 4:16Speaker 1: background on Minecraft for people who don't know what Minecraft is. Surely,
- 4:23Speaker 1: I mean, at the very least most people walking around
- 4:26Speaker 1: know that it's a very, very very popular video.
- 4:29Speaker 2: Game, right yeah, I mean I think so, And we'll
- 4:32Speaker 2: get into the history. But at its base, it is
- 4:34Speaker 2: a you know, if you look at it, it goes
- 4:38Speaker 2: counter to a lot of like the way it got
- 4:41Speaker 2: popular is just almost astounding in some ways, because it
- 4:44Speaker 2: goes counter to most video games these days, which try
- 4:47Speaker 2: to make things very very real looking, and Minecraft is
- 4:50Speaker 2: very blocky and pixelated, an old school and it's sort
- 4:54Speaker 2: of like an interactive lego game. It's called the sandbox game,
- 4:59Speaker 2: where you can just go around and and build things
- 5:02Speaker 2: you mind, things to craft with.
- 5:05Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's the point. And there's plenty of
- 5:09Speaker 1: things to do. Like it's not like they're like nothing happens. Yeah,
- 5:14Speaker 1: Like like you can because there are so few rules,
- 5:16Speaker 1: because there's no real point to it. There's not like
- 5:21Speaker 1: a game that you like want to win or conquer
- 5:23Speaker 1: anything like that. Like, it's essentially up to the limits
- 5:27Speaker 1: of your imagination what you do in this amazing blocky world.
- 5:32Speaker 2: Yeah. And despite those blocks, despite the fact that there
- 5:35Speaker 2: is no real plot, it is the best selling PC
- 5:38Speaker 2: game of all time, second to Tetris as the biggest
- 5:42Speaker 2: video game in Tetris. By the way, that's coming. We
- 5:45Speaker 2: need to do that's got a great story to it. Okay,
- 5:48Speaker 2: so we need to do one of those. But yeah,
- 5:51Speaker 2: it's it's one of the all time giants. And it
- 5:53Speaker 2: was created by a not very good dude named Marcus
- 5:59Speaker 2: with a K Person of Sweden aka Notch.
- 6:04Speaker 1: Yeah, and he was a coder from wayback, like he
- 6:07Speaker 1: taught himself on a Commodore one twenty eight, which came
- 6:09Speaker 1: out in nineteen eighty five. I'm not quite sure how
- 6:12Speaker 1: old he was when he was working on it, but
- 6:15Speaker 1: just suffice to say, like that's like you really had
- 6:18Speaker 1: to understand code to code with one of those things. Right,
- 6:22Speaker 1: So he was like a game developer, a coder from
- 6:25Speaker 1: from the outset essentially, And he got a couple jobs
- 6:28Speaker 1: at some of the big game companies in Sweden, and
- 6:32Speaker 1: he was working at one of them, I think it
- 6:33Speaker 1: was King dot com when he was inspired to kind
- 6:36Speaker 1: of create his own game. And he was playing a
- 6:39Speaker 1: game called Infinna Minor, Right am I saying that? Right?
- 6:42Speaker 1: Like Infinity Minor but without the tea part. Yeah, okay,
- 6:46Speaker 1: And essentially you mine resources and you build stuff with
- 6:50Speaker 1: these blocks that you mine. It's a mining game essentially.
- 6:53Speaker 1: Sounds very familiar, and he's not like shy about saying
- 6:56Speaker 1: like this was a copy, a spoof basically of Infinom Minor,
- 7:03Speaker 1: but it was also inspired by some other games, like
- 7:05Speaker 1: one called Dwarf Fortress, which is really simple, but the
- 7:11Speaker 1: all of the characters involved in all of the non
- 7:13Speaker 1: player characters kind of have their own drive and decisions,
- 7:17Speaker 1: so a lot of random stuff can happen in there.
- 7:20Speaker 1: And then also roller coaster Tycoon, where you could just
- 7:23Speaker 1: build your own well roller coasters. So if you put
- 7:26Speaker 1: all those three things together, you have kind of the
- 7:28Speaker 1: rough outlines of Minecraft, which he really started releasing I
- 7:32Speaker 1: think in two thousand and nine.
- 7:34Speaker 2: Yeah, and I you know, I went down a twenty
- 7:38Speaker 2: second rabbit hole of because once I looked up in
- 7:41Speaker 2: Phenomnor and I was like, wait a minute, did he
- 7:42Speaker 2: just like literally kind of steal that game? And that
- 7:46Speaker 2: is a rabbit hole that I was loath to go
- 7:48Speaker 2: down because I found myself on Reddit and it's just
- 7:51Speaker 2: like it's very contentious of people who are like, yeah,
- 7:55Speaker 2: he totally stole that game and ripped it off, and
- 7:57Speaker 2: people are like, no, he didn't. He was inspired by
- 8:00Speaker 2: So I'm not wading into that argument. Probably you can
- 8:04Speaker 2: make up your own mind about that, right, but.
- 8:08Speaker 1: Yeah, However, however it came out, he released it in
- 8:11Speaker 1: two thousand and nine and people just dug on it
- 8:14Speaker 1: very very quickly.
- 8:16Speaker 2: I think that was the alpha version. Yeah, the beta
- 8:19Speaker 2: version main release.
- 8:21Speaker 1: No the and he was like, he just put the
- 8:23Speaker 1: word out there, and I think he actually started charging
- 8:26Speaker 1: people thirteen dollars for just to play the alpha version.
- 8:30Speaker 1: But he was also getting offs of feedback and like
- 8:32Speaker 1: blogging about it and everything. The whole thing was his
- 8:35Speaker 1: side gig, and but little by little it kind of
- 8:38Speaker 1: moved his main gig, like alf to the side itself,
- 8:42Speaker 1: and then until it was like I can actually support
- 8:45Speaker 1: myself with Minecraft. I'm quitting my day job.
- 8:49Speaker 2: Yeah, which finally in twenty ten, he founded the company
- 8:53Speaker 2: Swedish for gadget. It's Mojang moj Ang almost a g
- 8:59Speaker 2: with a couple of coworkers name And here's where I
- 9:02Speaker 2: don't know whether to say Jacob or Yakub.
- 9:05Speaker 1: It's it's not Yakub or Jacob is Jacob.
- 9:10Speaker 2: It's Papioma.
- 9:12Speaker 1: No, it really is Jacob. What was wrong with Pepioma?
- 9:14Speaker 1: I didn't read that email closely enough.
- 9:16Speaker 2: It's Papaloma. Oh, and I knew that, and I heard
- 9:20Speaker 2: you saying it. But I was just like, I guess
- 9:22Speaker 2: you know something I don't know because that was such
- 9:24Speaker 2: a wild stab. I just figured you were ahead of me.
- 9:28Speaker 1: You just found it so enchanting anyway.
- 9:31Speaker 2: You said it is yakub I forgot already h JOCKI, Jacob,
- 9:36Speaker 2: Jacob Porcer and Karl MANA M A N N e H.
- 9:41Speaker 2: They hired some people, they had a gaming company all
- 9:44Speaker 2: of a sudden, and the beta version came out not
- 9:49Speaker 2: too long after, and they went over a six month
- 9:52Speaker 2: period at the beginning of twenty eleven to July of
- 9:55Speaker 2: that year. They went from a million players to ten
- 9:58Speaker 2: million in that short time. I'm officially launching in November
- 10:03Speaker 2: twenty eleven at mine Con, which was it's still an
- 10:07Speaker 2: ongoing event. I think they do it online now, but
- 10:09Speaker 2: for a while it was a live event in Vegas
- 10:12Speaker 2: called Minecraft Live.
- 10:14Speaker 1: Yeah. I think they held the twenty fifteen one in
- 10:17Speaker 1: London and it set the record for the largest attendance
- 10:21Speaker 1: of any convention in the history of humanity.
- 10:23Speaker 2: I think it's big stuff, everybody.
- 10:26Speaker 1: It's huge. I mean, it is enormous. I didn't see
- 10:30Speaker 1: any statistics on what percentage of the world plays it,
- 10:34Speaker 1: but I did see that at any point in time
- 10:37Speaker 1: there's as many as like thirty forty fifty million people
- 10:41Speaker 1: playing it at the same time, not necessarily altogether, because
- 10:44Speaker 1: as we'll see there's different ways to play it by
- 10:46Speaker 1: yourself or with other people. But if you just were
- 10:49Speaker 1: able to zoom out and look at what everybody in
- 10:52Speaker 1: the world's doing, thirty million of them would be playing
- 10:56Speaker 1: Minecraft at that moment.
- 10:58Speaker 2: Oh boy. So starting in twenty eleven, there was a
- 11:02Speaker 2: man named or and still is name Yen's Jeb Bergenston
- 11:07Speaker 2: as lead designer. Watched a few interviews with this guys.
- 11:12Speaker 2: It's definitely YenS, but it's also Jeb and not Yeb.
- 11:17Speaker 2: It's getting very confusing. Notch stayed on on the Minecraft team,
- 11:24Speaker 2: but you know, it was basically sort of letting YenS
- 11:27Speaker 2: run the show. It seems like as far as being
- 11:29Speaker 2: in the weeds he was developing other games, Notch was
- 11:33Speaker 2: and you know, kind of live in the high life
- 11:34Speaker 2: because he got very wealthy, very quick.
- 11:37Speaker 1: Yeah. One of the first things he did was by
- 11:39Speaker 1: himself a Fedora, which became kind of like a trademark
- 11:44Speaker 1: look for him. Sure, and he started just basically join
- 11:49Speaker 1: the international party set. It was like, how much how
- 11:52Speaker 1: much money does it cost to get in here? They're like,
- 11:55Speaker 1: you've got you've got enough, come on in, so well
- 11:58Speaker 1: it exactly right. So he kind of got I got
- 12:02Speaker 1: the impression that he was not just distracted by this
- 12:07Speaker 1: newfound wealth and all the stuff you could do with it,
- 12:09Speaker 1: but that he was not really interested in seeing a
- 12:13Speaker 1: game like becoming a massive, globally dominating blockbuster and all
- 12:18Speaker 1: the work that takes and coordination and all that. He
- 12:21Speaker 1: was more interested in developing games. So he stepped away,
- 12:24Speaker 1: like you said, and handed it over to Jeb. And
- 12:27Speaker 1: then when Microsoft came a call in twenty fourteen, apparently
- 12:32Speaker 1: not tweeted, who does anybody want to buy my share
- 12:36Speaker 1: of Mojang because I'm ready to move on with my life.
- 12:40Speaker 1: Apparently like all these companies were like, uh yeah, we
- 12:42Speaker 1: totally will supposedly set up that Microsoft deal for two
- 12:46Speaker 1: and a half billion, and at that point he's like,
- 12:48Speaker 1: I'm completely gone now.
- 12:50Speaker 2: Yeah. Forbes had him as of like last week at
- 12:53Speaker 2: about a one point two billion dollar net worth, and
- 12:57Speaker 2: that seems pretty reliable, not like the stupid Sealle network rights.
- 13:01Speaker 1: Not too shabby for somebody who wears a fedora in public.
- 13:04Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, and he you know, he stayed sort of
- 13:09Speaker 2: associated with the game in the company for a long
- 13:11Speaker 2: time even after the Microsoft purchase, well not that long
- 13:14Speaker 2: about five years ish when they basically stopped referencing him
- 13:21Speaker 2: on the loading page in twenty nineteen, stopped inviting him
- 13:25Speaker 2: to their Minecraft parties, like their tenth anniversary anniversary celebration. Yeah, basically,
- 13:33Speaker 2: he started letting everyone know his thoughts about QAnon and
- 13:40Speaker 2: far right wing politics and homophobic things and transphobic things
- 13:45Speaker 2: and sexist and misogynist things. It was sort of the
- 13:48Speaker 2: greatest hits of that kind of guy. And he went
- 13:51Speaker 2: public with all of it and issued some pretty lame
- 13:55Speaker 2: apologies for some of it. But yeah, so that's what happened,
- 14:00Speaker 2: and that's who he is.
- 14:02Speaker 1: Yeah, so Minecraft just kept going on without him, And
- 14:06Speaker 1: from what I can tell, like when Jeb took over,
- 14:08Speaker 1: is he still the lead game designer, like essentially the showrunner.
- 14:12Speaker 2: From But I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure he is.
- 14:15Speaker 1: Like it, even if he stopped, like a couple of
- 14:17Speaker 1: years ago, that game really flourished under his oversight. Like
- 14:22Speaker 1: he he's really creative. Also, really, and I think Natch
- 14:26Speaker 1: was willing to do this too, but Jeb was or
- 14:28Speaker 1: is really willing to be. Like, Hey, some player, some
- 14:31Speaker 1: random person somewhere came up with this amazing invention we're
- 14:36Speaker 1: going to actually release it as an update or add
- 14:40Speaker 1: on or something to the game like there, and it's
- 14:43Speaker 1: just it's a really creative, flourishing game still because of
- 14:47Speaker 1: that guy, from what I can tell.
- 14:49Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. So there are three modes, and this is
- 14:53Speaker 2: the regular unmoded version, because as you'll learn, you can
- 14:57Speaker 2: modify it in all kinds of you know, creative kind
- 14:59Speaker 2: of ways or vanilla mode. But if you're playing just
- 15:03Speaker 2: that regular version that my daughter plays on the PlayStation,
- 15:08Speaker 2: you can play in survival mode, hardcore mode, or creative mode.
- 15:14Speaker 1: Right. So survival mode is like the kind of like
- 15:18Speaker 1: the where the game part comes in, Like you can
- 15:21Speaker 1: actually die. So you're doing all of the interesting stuff
- 15:25Speaker 1: that you do in Minecraft that will you know, talk
- 15:28Speaker 1: about more extensively. But there's zombies attacking you, or there's
- 15:33Speaker 1: creepers coming up and blowing themselves up and hurting you,
- 15:36Speaker 1: or you can drown underwater, fall off a cliff, and
- 15:40Speaker 1: when that happens, all of the stuff that you've gathered
- 15:43Speaker 1: that make up what's called your inventory, all the things
- 15:45Speaker 1: you can use to make other stuff, all the stuff
- 15:48Speaker 1: you've made out of other things already that you want
- 15:50Speaker 1: to use to like extend your life or jump high
- 15:52Speaker 1: or whatever. You lose all that it actually stays in
- 15:56Speaker 1: the location that you died at in Minecraft World, and
- 16:00Speaker 1: but you are teleported back to either where you started
- 16:03Speaker 1: the game or your bed if you've made yourself a bed,
- 16:07Speaker 1: and I saw that if you can get there within
- 16:09Speaker 1: five like our reality minutes five minutes in our reality,
- 16:15Speaker 1: you can go pick up your stuff again, but it
- 16:18Speaker 1: can be very hard to do if you're really far
- 16:20Speaker 1: away from your bed.
- 16:22Speaker 2: That's right. And what happens is you start basically with nothing.
- 16:28Speaker 2: If you're a parent, you've wandered through and it looks
- 16:30Speaker 2: like what is that blocky pixelated thing like punching everything
- 16:34Speaker 2: for that's the gameplay. You start with nothing, and you
- 16:38Speaker 2: basically go at the very beginning and you punch a
- 16:40Speaker 2: tree to get some wood. And what you're doing is,
- 16:43Speaker 2: you know, you're getting resources to build stuff, so you
- 16:46Speaker 2: just keep punching and diggings things and finding new things
- 16:50Speaker 2: and then and transforming them into i mean all kinds
- 16:54Speaker 2: of things from you know, farms to animals to buildings
- 16:57Speaker 2: and oceans and rivers, and you know you're building, you're
- 17:00Speaker 2: literally building your world as you go in all the modes.
- 17:04Speaker 2: From what I can tell you, got hardcore mode is next.
- 17:08Speaker 2: But if you die, like the game is over, which
- 17:13Speaker 2: is kind of a bummer.
- 17:15Speaker 1: I guess yeah, because I mean, like, you can get
- 17:17Speaker 1: really far and develop a lot of stuff. So when
- 17:19Speaker 1: you're walking around like punching stuff, like punching a tree,
- 17:22Speaker 1: you're punching a tree to get wood. And when you
- 17:25Speaker 1: collect some wood, you can actually turn it into say, lumber,
- 17:29Speaker 1: and if you combine that lumber with something else you've
- 17:31Speaker 1: gotten I don't remember why, I think wool from a sheep. Sure,
- 17:35Speaker 1: put it together. You build yourself a bed. It's one
- 17:37Speaker 1: of the first things you're supposed to do it. You're supposed
- 17:38Speaker 1: to build a shelter and make a bed in your shelter.
- 17:42Speaker 1: And the reason why you want to make a bed
- 17:44Speaker 1: is because if you die in survival mode, you basically
- 17:49Speaker 1: it's called respawning. You wake up, you're teleported back in
- 17:53Speaker 1: your bed to start over. The problem is all that
- 17:56Speaker 1: stuff that you've accumulated, all the lumber and all the wool,
- 17:59Speaker 1: and all the things that you can make. By combining
- 18:01Speaker 1: those things, they make up what's called your inventory. And
- 18:05Speaker 1: your inventory can get pretty extensive. The longer you stay
- 18:08Speaker 1: alive and play and do stuff in the in the
- 18:10Speaker 1: Minecraft world, and you lose all that stuff, it's gone.
- 18:13Speaker 1: It's actually physically in the Minecraft world where you died,
- 18:17Speaker 1: and if you could make it over there in time
- 18:19Speaker 1: after you respawn, you could pick that stuff up. But
- 18:22Speaker 1: it can be really hard if you're really far away.
- 18:24Speaker 1: And then with hard core mode, like all that's just
- 18:27Speaker 1: gone forever, you have to start the game over completely.
- 18:30Speaker 1: And the reason that I know that that's true is
- 18:32Speaker 1: because Ruby answered that question.
- 18:35Speaker 2: That was actually the funniest answer, because you said, hey,
- 18:38Speaker 2: if you die in hardcore mode, is like, is that
- 18:41Speaker 2: it is everything gone that you've ever built? And she said, yeah,
- 18:45Speaker 2: it's hardcore Josh. She doesn't play that mode, though she
- 18:49Speaker 2: plays the third mode almost exclusively. I think when she plays,
- 18:53Speaker 2: which is Creative Mode. And this is the super cute
- 18:57Speaker 2: fun one that when you see your you know, seven
- 18:59Speaker 2: and eight, your old daughter playing, you're like, this is
- 19:02Speaker 2: the greatest game ever. Because I sat down with her
- 19:04Speaker 2: one day and watched and she's just like, oh, look,
- 19:06Speaker 2: this is my farm, and this is my garden, and
- 19:08Speaker 2: these are my sheep, this is my animal pin and
- 19:11Speaker 2: this is my house, and look, I've got a pool
- 19:14Speaker 2: on the top floor and I've got a deck and
- 19:16Speaker 2: it's just really creative and super sweet and fun. You
- 19:19Speaker 2: can fly and creative mode, like if you want to
- 19:22Speaker 2: get up to the top of your thing, you can
- 19:25Speaker 2: fly up there. And the best thing is you can't
- 19:28Speaker 2: be harmed. There's no zombie coming to kill you. No.
- 19:32Speaker 1: Yeah, you just do fun stuff like you said farm,
- 19:36Speaker 1: and it's not like, oh, I built a farm and
- 19:38Speaker 1: now this farm's running. Like you build the farm and
- 19:40Speaker 1: then you have to operate the farm to keep it going.
- 19:44Speaker 1: It's like, it's just amazing and neat all the stuff
- 19:47Speaker 1: that you can do in this game. It's just crazy.
- 19:49Speaker 1: And we'll talk about some of the just the mind
- 19:51Speaker 1: boggling stuff that people make. But one of the cool
- 19:54Speaker 1: things about it is you can build this world by yourself,
- 19:58Speaker 1: or you can work with others, play with others people
- 20:01Speaker 1: in your house using a local area network, or there's
- 20:04Speaker 1: Minecraft servers to where you're building a world together, and
- 20:09Speaker 1: like other people can come in and walk around your
- 20:11Speaker 1: world and hang out with you and sometimes mess with
- 20:14Speaker 1: you in your world too, because it's a giant shared world.
- 20:18Speaker 1: Whereas there's also another version which I ticket Ruby was playing,
- 20:22Speaker 1: where that is like that's your world. Nobody else can
- 20:25Speaker 1: come in because it's just on that one computer. It's
- 20:28Speaker 1: not being shared with the rest of the world.
- 20:31Speaker 2: Yeah, and we just didn't know enough about it and
- 20:34Speaker 2: said that's the only version you can play, because the
- 20:36Speaker 2: last thing I wanted was some you know, you know,
- 20:42Speaker 2: I don't want to meeting those people. So I'm sure
- 20:45Speaker 2: there's a lot of fun that can be had on
- 20:46Speaker 2: those you know, multiplayer private server games. I'm sure it's
- 20:51Speaker 2: great in most ways. There are some very cool versions
- 20:55Speaker 2: of that. There's one called Pixel Mindcraft where they have
- 20:59Speaker 2: recreated the gameplay of Pokemon within the Minecraft world, which
- 21:03Speaker 2: is super cool. Yeah, and some of these are like
- 21:05Speaker 2: full on companies. Olivia found this boy, God blessed Livia
- 21:09Speaker 2: for the breadth of things that she helps us with. Yeah,
- 21:12Speaker 2: for sure, it's like, how about philosophy and then Minecraft.
- 21:17Speaker 2: But there's one called high Pixel, which has like forty
- 21:20Speaker 2: developers on staff and got bought themselves by Riot Games,
- 21:24Speaker 2: one of the big companies in twenty twenty. And you know,
- 21:28Speaker 2: these are all just modifying this game that was so
- 21:32Speaker 2: popular already. It's really, really kind of nuts.
- 21:34Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say a cottage industry has grown up
- 21:36Speaker 1: around it. About like fifty different cottage industries have grown
- 21:40Speaker 1: up around it, with a bunch of different companies in
- 21:42Speaker 1: each that high pixel. To give you an example, they
- 21:45Speaker 1: make like games you can play in the Minecraft world.
- 21:50Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 21:51Speaker 1: So, like there's one called Skyblock where you start out
- 21:53Speaker 1: on just a little patch of ground floating in the
- 21:55Speaker 1: sky with a single tree and a couple of resources,
- 21:58Speaker 1: and you have to build your way out of that.
- 22:01Speaker 1: You have to expand it with way more limited resources
- 22:04Speaker 1: than you would get normally. There's a one called bed Wars,
- 22:07Speaker 1: where your point is to like destroy your friend's bed
- 22:11Speaker 1: so that they can't they can't respawn in their bed again.
- 22:14Speaker 1: They have to go back to where they started the game. Yeah,
- 22:16Speaker 1: it's fun stuff, but that's on their server and they
- 22:20Speaker 1: they modified Minecraft, and the makers of Minecraft mojang don't
- 22:24Speaker 1: sue those people because you put it all together and
- 22:27Speaker 1: it's this it's almost like the Wikipedia of games, where
- 22:32Speaker 1: the entire world has collaborated on making this amazing game
- 22:38Speaker 1: that is Minecraft.
- 22:40Speaker 2: I wonder if because he so heavily borrowed let's say,
- 22:43Speaker 2: from Infinity Minor or infinite minor. He was like, yeah,
- 22:47Speaker 2: maybe I'll just sit back and be super wealthy and
- 22:50Speaker 2: not worry about these people that are doing this stuff. Maybe.
- 22:52Speaker 1: But also the mind boggling thing is now Microsoft owns
- 22:55Speaker 1: it and they don't sue other yeah created points. Yeah,
- 22:59Speaker 1: it's nuts. There's some them we're going on here. Man.
- 23:02Speaker 2: All right, well, let's take a break and we'll be
- 23:05Speaker 2: right back to talk about who the heck is playing
- 23:07Speaker 2: this game and more about the world right after this.
- 23:28Speaker 2: So there's a lot of video games where you pay
- 23:32Speaker 2: monthly subscription fees. Sometimes you'll like buy the game but
- 23:36Speaker 2: then also subscribe monthly to get extra stuff or whatever,
- 23:40Speaker 2: new editions of the game, things like that. But Minecraft
- 23:43Speaker 2: has always been pretty great in that you buy the
- 23:46Speaker 2: game and that's it. You own the game. The game
- 23:49Speaker 2: is updated for free, the updates just roll out. A
- 23:51Speaker 2: lot of games do that as well. It's not the
- 23:53Speaker 2: only one, but it was sort of the core business model,
- 23:57Speaker 2: which is you buy this game, and whether it's a
- 24:02Speaker 2: PC or PlayStation or whatever, and that's your game for forever.
- 24:06Speaker 2: You've got that Minecraft game, and kids can grow into
- 24:09Speaker 2: adulthood like playing the same game that you, you know, insert
- 24:14Speaker 2: the disc into the player.
- 24:15Speaker 1: Right, So there are other there's like in game purchases
- 24:20Speaker 1: and add ons and stuff you can buy. I think
- 24:23Speaker 1: the big hubbub that I picked up on is that
- 24:26Speaker 1: a SpongeBob bikini bottom biome is coming along, I think
- 24:31Speaker 1: in August, so you can play it by Bob and yeah,
- 24:35Speaker 1: it looks like it's gonna be pretty cool. There's other
- 24:38Speaker 1: like things called textures, which take this the very standard
- 24:43Speaker 1: like recognizable Minecraft look and do all sorts of things
- 24:47Speaker 1: to it. Some make it way smoother, some add different
- 24:50Speaker 1: kinds of shading. There's one called pastel that changes the
- 24:53Speaker 1: color palette and makes it much pinker and happier. There's
- 24:57Speaker 1: just a ton of stuff you can get. An add
- 24:59Speaker 1: on that like is you're it's a mansion, Like you
- 25:03Speaker 1: don't have to build yourself. It's just now you can
- 25:06Speaker 1: buy a mansion rather than build. It seems counterintuited over
- 25:10Speaker 1: counter against the point, I guess, but I'm sure some
- 25:14Speaker 1: kids are like, I just want to buy the mansion
- 25:16Speaker 1: in Farm instead. I don't want to waste my time
- 25:18Speaker 1: building my mansion. You're rabbit holing, sorry, but yes, my
- 25:23Speaker 1: point is there are stuff you can buy. But a
- 25:26Speaker 1: lot of that stuff is free too, a lot of
- 25:28Speaker 1: the mods are free.
- 25:29Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's hard to get great statistics on who's
- 25:33Speaker 2: playing it, but Livia did found a survey from Jeez,
- 25:36Speaker 2: like seven years ago from Australia where fifth and you know,
- 25:40Speaker 2: I bet it's pretty indicative of who's playing worldwide. Fifty
- 25:44Speaker 2: four percent of boys ages three to twelve were playing it,
- 25:48Speaker 2: thirty two percent of girls.
- 25:51Speaker 1: All of them raised on Foster's Beer.
- 25:56Speaker 2: And early on it started out is more sort of
- 26:00Speaker 2: young adult men or older teenagers, but it has since
- 26:04Speaker 2: crept down in age, and I'm sure you know people
- 26:06Speaker 2: of all a just still play it. But you know,
- 26:08Speaker 2: it's a game that a four year old can kind
- 26:11Speaker 2: of start playing if they're good with their fingies. There
- 26:15Speaker 2: are two different default players from the early years. Steve
- 26:20Speaker 2: Well he was the only default player in the early years,
- 26:22Speaker 2: and then in twenty fourteen they added Alex. They added
- 26:25Speaker 2: a man and a woman, and then they rolled out
- 26:28Speaker 2: seven more in twenty twenty two with different outfits and
- 26:32Speaker 2: different skin tones. But you can skin your character. You
- 26:36Speaker 2: can create the stuff yourself, and I believe you can
- 26:38Speaker 2: probably buy stuff and get skins that other people have
- 26:41Speaker 2: created to make your player look more like you want
- 26:45Speaker 2: them to look.
- 26:46Speaker 1: Yeah, they'd be more like you. Even Like there's clowns,
- 26:49Speaker 1: Japanese demons, scarecrows, there's a lot of cool skins out there.
- 26:54Speaker 1: For sure.
- 26:55Speaker 2: You just stopped yourself. Yes, it hiss on that list,
- 27:01Speaker 2: So I guess we should talk about the fact that
- 27:05Speaker 2: and this is another really cool part of it. When
- 27:07Speaker 2: you start out, you know, I said, you start out
- 27:08Speaker 2: like and you just punch that tree. You start out
- 27:11Speaker 2: with one chunk of landscape that is a sixteen by
- 27:14Speaker 2: sixteen block square block, And once you reach those edges,
- 27:18Speaker 2: you start creating. Like you build as you go, and
- 27:21Speaker 2: it's procedurally generated as you go. And eventually if you're
- 27:26Speaker 2: asking like, is there even a limit? Yes, sixty million
- 27:30Speaker 2: blocks per side, which is seven times larger than the
- 27:34Speaker 2: Earth's surface.
- 27:35Speaker 1: Yeah, if you consider a block a square kilometer of Earth,
- 27:40Speaker 1: it is. It's about half the size of Neptune and
- 27:42Speaker 1: twice the size of Earth. Isn't that nuts? Yeah, that's
- 27:47Speaker 1: just one world. So I read this amazing post by
- 27:51Speaker 1: a guy named Alan Zuconi called the World Generation of Minecraft.
- 27:56Speaker 1: I'm going to just dance just along the top of it.
- 27:59Speaker 1: But if you're at all interested in how the actual
- 28:01Speaker 1: world is generated, and it's quite fascinating and go read that.
- 28:06Speaker 1: But essentially, what they start with is what's called a seed.
- 28:09Speaker 1: It's sixty four bits of information, right, which is nothing
- 28:14Speaker 1: that's so small, but just following a couple of algorithmic rules,
- 28:19Speaker 1: the whole world generates from there. And because these sixty
- 28:23Speaker 1: four bits are slightly different in each seed, there's something
- 28:27Speaker 1: like eighteen point four quintillion possible worlds that can develop
- 28:33Speaker 1: from a seed. That's how many seeds are possible.
- 28:38Speaker 2: Out there, right, Well, tell them what a seed is.
- 28:40Speaker 1: So a seed is that sixty four bits that create
- 28:43Speaker 1: the world. And when you have a game like Ruby's game,
- 28:46Speaker 1: where she bought that game, she bought a seed. So
- 28:49Speaker 1: if she bought it, okay, her dad bought it for
- 28:54Speaker 1: and so if she started over when she started the game,
- 28:58Speaker 1: every time, that same world is gonna be built because
- 29:01Speaker 1: it's the same information following the same rules. So it's
- 29:04Speaker 1: gonna build the same world. But if she went and
- 29:06Speaker 1: bought another one, they'll see that it grew from would
- 29:10Speaker 1: create a totally different world. And it follows these really
- 29:13Speaker 1: simple rules like if the temperature is this, and the
- 29:16Speaker 1: altitude is this. This is the biome it's going to create,
- 29:19Speaker 1: like a desert or a tundra or a forest or
- 29:22Speaker 1: something like that. And so if you've created a forest
- 29:25Speaker 1: biome now in this spot, that means it's gonna have
- 29:28Speaker 1: trees and certain kinds of animals running around. If it's underwater,
- 29:32Speaker 1: what's the water temperature? And depending on the water temperature,
- 29:37Speaker 1: there's gonna be different animals in that biome too. And
- 29:40Speaker 1: it's just following like if then rules that create a
- 29:44Speaker 1: world from sixty four bits. It's nuts what they've done.
- 29:50Speaker 1: And the other thing about it, too, is people play
- 29:52Speaker 1: this so much that they'll actually go out and buy
- 29:54Speaker 1: another copy because they know that world so well.
- 29:58Speaker 2: Can you imagine, Uh, can't you just start over?
- 30:03Speaker 1: You can't. But it's going to be the same world,
- 30:06Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying.
- 30:06Speaker 2: Oh no, I mean as a different character or something.
- 30:10Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, you could start over, but you're going
- 30:12Speaker 1: to be exploring the same world that you did. You
- 30:15Speaker 1: know before, you could buy another copy, and it's going
- 30:18Speaker 1: to be a totally different world.
- 30:20Speaker 2: Oh I thought if you started over as a new
- 30:22Speaker 2: like if I logged in as me in her game.
- 30:25Speaker 2: I could just start as whatever I wanted.
- 30:27Speaker 1: No, because it's the same seed. Yeah, you could be
- 30:29Speaker 1: a different character, skin in or whatever, but.
- 30:31Speaker 2: The mean the world start from scratch.
- 30:33Speaker 1: Yeah, the world will still be the same because it's
- 30:35Speaker 1: growing from the same seed. I should probably caveat this
- 30:38Speaker 1: that this is Alan Ducony talking. I'm just I'm dis
- 30:42Speaker 1: amplifying what he's saying.
- 30:44Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about those biomes. There are sixty four
- 30:47Speaker 2: biome types, fifty three in the over World, which is
- 30:51Speaker 2: where you know, that's sort of the main gameplay area,
- 30:55Speaker 2: and then they have a couple of other areas, the Nether,
- 30:58Speaker 2: which was added in twenty ten, which is pretty scary
- 31:01Speaker 2: like hellish place, and then the End, which is that
- 31:07Speaker 2: was in twenty eleven. That's a very very dark, very
- 31:10Speaker 2: bleak place, a very bleak landscape.
- 31:13Speaker 1: It's kind of metroidy.
- 31:14Speaker 2: Yeah, you can actually win that game if you defeat
- 31:18Speaker 2: the Ender Dragon. But I believe there are fifty three
- 31:22Speaker 2: biomes in the Overworld, five in the Nether, five in
- 31:26Speaker 2: the End, and then one that I didn't completely understand,
- 31:30Speaker 2: So I'm not even going to get into it, but
- 31:32Speaker 2: it gets really really detailed. Like you said, you know,
- 31:35Speaker 2: if you go to the ocean and the water temperature
- 31:37Speaker 2: to this, like there are nine oceans you can do
- 31:39Speaker 2: like warm water ocean, frozen ocean, cold water ocean. It
- 31:44Speaker 2: just and you know the different forests you can drill
- 31:47Speaker 2: down very very specifically within those sixty four biomes, which
- 31:51Speaker 2: is like only lens to the creativity. I think kids
- 31:55Speaker 2: can just not only are they like being creative, but
- 31:59Speaker 2: they're they're learning something about these biomes for sure, you know,
- 32:03Speaker 2: maybe not the most detailed stuff, but they know that, hey,
- 32:06Speaker 2: in this kind of biome, these are the plants and
- 32:08Speaker 2: trees that you'll have.
- 32:10Speaker 1: Right, there's kids walking around that are like, yeah, if
- 32:12Speaker 1: you go under the ocean, you'll find abandoned cities that
- 32:15Speaker 1: the ancient builders created. That's what they're learning, Chuck.
- 32:22Speaker 2: Mobile entities is another thing, or mobs. These are like
- 32:26Speaker 2: the animals and the monsters and stuff. When they're killed,
- 32:31Speaker 2: they can drop things that you can pick up. Sometimes
- 32:34Speaker 2: you can tame them. They if you get updates, these
- 32:38Speaker 2: mobs expand. I think they're more than seventy five now.
- 32:40Speaker 2: But the things I've seen walking through the room are
- 32:44Speaker 2: like sheep and pigs and things like that. Those were
- 32:47Speaker 2: the first animals kind of created that you can use
- 32:50Speaker 2: that you can you know, get wool from them. If
- 32:54Speaker 2: you want to make that bed, you're going to have
- 32:56Speaker 2: to get that wool from that sheep.
- 32:58Speaker 1: Right. So, and you talked about different biomes having different animals,
- 33:01Speaker 1: and one of the reasons to go to the biomes
- 33:04Speaker 1: is not just to explore new cool things, but you
- 33:07Speaker 1: can get different things out of different mobs. Right. So,
- 33:11Speaker 1: if you went to a warm water ocean, you would
- 33:13Speaker 1: find pufferfish. And if you get a pufferfish and you
- 33:17Speaker 1: combine it with something else I don't remember, you can
- 33:19Speaker 1: create a potion that will let you breathe underwater, so
- 33:22Speaker 1: you can walk around and explore underwater. So everything that
- 33:25Speaker 1: you encounter that's a mob, which is essentially another term
- 33:29Speaker 1: for a non player character. You can get something from
- 33:32Speaker 1: and you can combine it with other stuff that you
- 33:35Speaker 1: got from other mobs, or from punching a tree, or
- 33:38Speaker 1: from digging up or with your pickaxe to create new
- 33:41Speaker 1: things to do new stuff with. That's what people are
- 33:45Speaker 1: doing when they're playing Minecraft.
- 33:47Speaker 2: One of the other things that you can find, or zombies,
- 33:49Speaker 2: is very big part of the game. They are kind
- 33:53Speaker 2: of like most zombies are pretty easy to take care
- 33:55Speaker 2: of and defeat. They're different variations of zombies. Creepers are
- 34:01Speaker 2: kind of a fun mob because creepers are a mistake.
- 34:06Speaker 2: I believe that. What's the guy's name again, Marcus Person. Yeah,
- 34:10Speaker 2: he was trying to make a pig, but he coded
- 34:13Speaker 2: it wrong and it stretched out tall instead of wide,
- 34:16Speaker 2: and he thought it looked creepy. He liked it, and
- 34:19Speaker 2: so creepers became a very sort of popular monster in
- 34:24Speaker 2: the game because he just said, I love that mistake,
- 34:26Speaker 2: Let's leave it.
- 34:27Speaker 1: And they're considered hostile mops, right because they'll attack you. Yeah, yeah,
- 34:32Speaker 1: and they do that by blowing up I think we
- 34:34Speaker 1: said earlier.
- 34:35Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 34:36Speaker 1: There's also something called ender Men, which is kind of
- 34:38Speaker 1: a play on slender Man, and there are these creepy
- 34:42Speaker 1: entities that may or may not attack you, depending on
- 34:44Speaker 1: whether you look at.
- 34:45Speaker 2: Him or not.
- 34:46Speaker 1: So there's like there's definitely gameplay to this, right, Like
- 34:50Speaker 1: there's like you can go off and like defeat these
- 34:52Speaker 1: things and fight them and protect villages and stuff like that.
- 34:57Speaker 1: But there's also like you can also just farm and
- 35:00Speaker 1: once in a while you have to defend your farm
- 35:01Speaker 1: against some zombies. Or something.
- 35:04Speaker 2: Yeah, you'll also come up on villagers and villages where
- 35:09Speaker 2: they live. And these you know look like they don't
- 35:13Speaker 2: look like they look like humans, I guess or their
- 35:16Speaker 2: version of humans, right, And you can get things from them.
- 35:18Speaker 2: You can trade with them. They have different jobs. You
- 35:21Speaker 2: can change their job if you want to. If you
- 35:24Speaker 2: need like food or something, you can make them unemployed
- 35:28Speaker 2: by destroying their job and then giving them a new job.
- 35:31Speaker 2: Then all of a sudden, you got somebody giving you food.
- 35:33Speaker 1: Right exactly, And you like, it's just crazy that like
- 35:37Speaker 1: people have village farms essentially where they're breeding villagers to
- 35:41Speaker 1: make them stuff that they want. It can get really
- 35:44Speaker 1: really complicated really fast. But in the most basic version,
- 35:48Speaker 1: you're just you know, trading with the villagers given them.
- 35:50Speaker 1: You go get emeralds and you come bring them to
- 35:52Speaker 1: the villagers and they give you food or wool or
- 35:54Speaker 1: something like that.
- 35:56Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, you learn where to look for
- 35:58Speaker 2: different things that you need. Like if you want coal,
- 36:02Speaker 2: you know you can dig down not too deep bleef
- 36:04Speaker 2: or coal. If you want this thing called red, or
- 36:07Speaker 2: if you want like diamonds, you got a deep dig
- 36:09Speaker 2: really really deep to find the diamonds. Just like the
- 36:11Speaker 2: real world. And then Lyvia pointed out this thing called Redstone,
- 36:16Speaker 2: which was I believe it was an update to the alpha.
- 36:19Speaker 2: So it's been around basically from the beginning. But it
- 36:22Speaker 2: has a lot of different kinds of functions, but it
- 36:24Speaker 2: mainly functions like electrical wires. You can build and automate things.
- 36:29Speaker 1: Yeah, it makes things go, powers them right, like everything
- 36:33Speaker 1: from pistons to doors opening to whatever. People make crazy
- 36:37Speaker 1: machines using Redstone. There's a kid who made a functioning
- 36:40Speaker 1: calculator by arranging Redstone and other items in a certain way.
- 36:45Speaker 1: He made a calculator in Minecraft, and it's kind of
- 36:49Speaker 1: one of those things you have to see to really
- 36:50Speaker 1: understand how crazy that is. But that's really it's neat.
- 36:53Speaker 1: I think it'd be. I don't know how well the
- 36:55Speaker 1: game would work at all if there wasn't such a
- 36:57Speaker 1: thing as Redstone, or if you know, you could just
- 37:00Speaker 1: make things work just by pressing them right, then having
- 37:03Speaker 1: to go mine Redstone and using it to make the
- 37:06Speaker 1: specific thing work the specific way.
- 37:08Speaker 2: That's how you know.
- 37:09Speaker 1: That's how detailed it involved. It is because of choices
- 37:12Speaker 1: like that and the development totally.
- 37:16Speaker 2: Should we take our second break sure. All right, we'll
- 37:19Speaker 2: take that break and we'll talk about how this is
- 37:21Speaker 2: sort of taken over YouTube as well.
- 37:24Speaker 1: Right for this, Okay, Chuck, So you mentioned YouTube and
- 37:45Speaker 1: that is basically the official outlet for Minecraft. That's where
- 37:51Speaker 1: Minecraft pours out into the rest of the world.
- 37:54Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, we'll go over some of the ways
- 37:57Speaker 2: YouTube is utilized. It's very very I mean, YouTube is
- 38:03Speaker 2: full full full of Minecraft stuff. But one of the
- 38:06Speaker 2: things that sort of alarmed me and kind of disappointed
- 38:10Speaker 2: me with this and roadblocks is that kids will just
- 38:13Speaker 2: sit around watching people play this game on YouTube sometime
- 38:18Speaker 2: it's like to learn how to do things. But with
- 38:21Speaker 2: Ruby and her friends, I will see them just sitting
- 38:23Speaker 2: around and watching it instead of playing it. And I'm
- 38:26Speaker 2: always like, as a parent, like, oh god, can you
- 38:29Speaker 2: you know, can you play the game and like get
- 38:30Speaker 2: involved and you know, but try to pick my battles
- 38:34Speaker 2: and just limit it. You know.
- 38:37Speaker 1: Well, they've really turned things around on their head. If
- 38:39Speaker 1: you're like, man, can you please play the video game?
- 38:44Speaker 2: It?
- 38:45Speaker 1: Can you go outside? Now? It's like, can you play
- 38:48Speaker 1: the video game rather than watch other people play?
- 38:50Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good point.
- 38:51Speaker 1: That's how far we've slipped I get it though, It's like,
- 38:53Speaker 1: essentially she's watching an unscripted TV show money like that,
- 39:01Speaker 1: and there are people that do that. There's something called
- 39:03Speaker 1: Survival multiplayer Channels. There's one called dream SMP. I think
- 39:07Speaker 1: they disbanded, but essentially they had loosely scripted story arcs
- 39:12Speaker 1: that they acted out in Minecraft world as like kind
- 39:16Speaker 1: of fictionalized versions of themselves like our stuff you should
- 39:19Speaker 1: know TV show, and there were just plots that took place,
- 39:25Speaker 1: and people would watch YouTube videos of these essentially shows
- 39:29Speaker 1: created in Minecraft.
- 39:32Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a one guy named Pewdiepi p E W
- 39:36Speaker 2: d I E p i E. It's got one hundred
- 39:40Speaker 2: and eleven million subs and is a very very very
- 39:43Speaker 2: wealthy man.
- 39:45Speaker 1: Yeah, he was one of the first like genuine YouTube stars.
- 39:49Speaker 1: I think he was as big as it got for
- 39:51Speaker 1: a while and.
- 39:52Speaker 2: Then for him, I'm not knocking it, by the way, he.
- 39:54Speaker 1: Was toppled by an i think a Bollywood record label.
- 39:58Speaker 1: There was a competition a four year old from Taiwan,
- 40:01Speaker 1: right exactly who opened Minecraft lego gift sets. Yeah, but yeah,
- 40:06Speaker 1: so PewDiePie got very very wealthy just essentially from starting
- 40:09Speaker 1: out from playing Minecraft videos and you said people watch
- 40:12Speaker 1: people playing Minecraft, Phil watch speed runs, see how fast
- 40:15Speaker 1: they can go. There's parody music videos set in the
- 40:19Speaker 1: Minecraft world. Like I think it's one of those things
- 40:23Speaker 1: where like you can't get enough Minecraft once it gets
- 40:25Speaker 1: under your skin to where if you're like I don't
- 40:27Speaker 1: feel like playing today, I'm going to watch somebody else
- 40:29Speaker 1: play and that will satisfy that inch.
- 40:32Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know what now that I've said that,
- 40:34Speaker 2: save your emails everyone, because yes, at home, I used
- 40:39Speaker 2: to sit around and watch my friends play Adventure when
- 40:43Speaker 2: they played and it was their turn, And I would
- 40:46Speaker 2: hover over the shoulders of my friends at arcades and
- 40:48Speaker 2: watch them play the games. So we did the exact
- 40:52Speaker 2: same thing, and I take it all back.
- 40:54Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's a little different because you're sitting there
- 40:56Speaker 1: like willing your friend to hurry up and die so
- 40:58Speaker 1: it can be your you.
- 41:00Speaker 2: Know, that's it's a little different.
- 41:02Speaker 1: Yeah, you're you're up next, that's the reason. And what
- 41:04Speaker 1: else are you gonna do? You know, you're on your
- 41:06Speaker 1: eighth Orange Julius. You're not gonna go get another one
- 41:09Speaker 1: of those, so you might as well stand around and watch.
- 41:11Speaker 2: Yeah, and your quarter sitting there flat on the on
- 41:14Speaker 2: the screen of the arcade game.
- 41:15Speaker 1: So you're definitely next.
- 41:18Speaker 2: Oh man, those were the days.
- 41:20Speaker 1: What else you want to talk about the Lord at
- 41:22Speaker 1: all or move on?
- 41:23Speaker 2: Uh? Yeah, well, I mean I think it's kind of
- 41:26Speaker 2: cool in that if you have a world like this,
- 41:28Speaker 2: you're gonna you're gonna get some stuff like fan fiction.
- 41:31Speaker 2: Even though technically Alex and Steve are sort of until
- 41:34Speaker 2: they release, the other ones were the only two kind
- 41:36Speaker 2: of characters. So it's you know, it's a little weird
- 41:39Speaker 2: to have fan fiction about these two blocky people that
- 41:41Speaker 2: really have did you know nothing about personality wise? Sure,
- 41:45Speaker 2: I guess that's the point of fan fiction. They've also
- 41:47Speaker 2: come up with this stuff, this sort of like fan fiction,
- 41:50Speaker 2: you know, where you talked about the ancient Builders, Like
- 41:53Speaker 2: they've created this backstory sort of of the ancient ones
- 41:57Speaker 2: who who created the original structures in the game, and
- 42:01Speaker 2: like where did they come from? So like the creativity
- 42:05Speaker 2: is really off the charts, you know.
- 42:06Speaker 1: Yeah, it's yeah, Yeah, that's the thing about it is
- 42:09Speaker 1: we'll see, like one of the big benefits of it
- 42:11Speaker 1: for kids but also for anybody is it it really
- 42:14Speaker 1: gets your imagination and creativity going along with some other
- 42:17Speaker 1: stuff too.
- 42:18Speaker 2: What about Hero Brian.
- 42:19Speaker 1: Herobrian is a legendary character from what I saw, Notch
- 42:23Speaker 1: said unequivocally that Herobrien doesn't exist.
- 42:26Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 42:27Speaker 1: In Minecraft World, there was a four cham post from
- 42:30Speaker 1: years back where somebody claimed to have encountered Steve, but
- 42:33Speaker 1: it was Steve with all white eyes, and he was
- 42:36Speaker 1: a weirdo doing weird stuff following him around the Minecraft world,
- 42:42Speaker 1: and that became the legend of Herobrien, this character that
- 42:46Speaker 1: supposedly is the ghost of Nach's dead brother, right, not
- 42:50Speaker 1: just like I don't even have a brother, I have
- 42:52Speaker 1: a half brother I've never met. So no, there's no Herobrien.
- 42:56Speaker 1: Sorry to bust that bubble.
- 42:58Speaker 2: Yeah, and I believe, like in mods and things, people
- 43:01Speaker 2: have created that kind of stuff, but in the official
- 43:03Speaker 2: Minecraft game there never has been one, even though people
- 43:06Speaker 2: swear that they've come across exactly.
- 43:09Speaker 1: Yeah. So there's a lot of ways that you can
- 43:13Speaker 1: modify Minecraft yourself. Again, one of the cottage industries is
- 43:17Speaker 1: creating editors to let Minecraft players modify the game to
- 43:21Speaker 1: their own specifications, to let them do things like, you know,
- 43:25Speaker 1: jump really high and survival mode or fly or whatever
- 43:28Speaker 1: you want to do. But one of the things that
- 43:31Speaker 1: people have done is build stuff with or without modifications,
- 43:37Speaker 1: and the less you modify, the more impressive your build is.
- 43:41Speaker 1: It's what they're called their builds. For example, one kid
- 43:45Speaker 1: named Atmospheric Beats.
- 43:47Speaker 2: This is incredible.
- 43:49Speaker 1: Who may or may not be Travis Hicks. I found
- 43:51Speaker 1: a YouTube video and a Reddit post. I can't imagine.
- 43:55Speaker 1: There's too many people running around making one to one
- 43:58Speaker 1: scale models of Kansas City in Minecraft. Either way, there
- 44:02Speaker 1: is a one to one scale model of Kansas City,
- 44:05Speaker 1: every building, every tree, every street, and you can go
- 44:09Speaker 1: inside every building. It's just completely true to life in Minecraft.
- 44:14Speaker 1: Somebody built that.
- 44:16Speaker 2: I want that for Atlanta because I would have fun
- 44:19Speaker 2: running around there.
- 44:20Speaker 1: Well, there's a whole group called Build the Earth where
- 44:23Speaker 1: people around the world are creating like faithful to life. Yeah,
- 44:29Speaker 1: creations of buildings. The point is to recreate every building
- 44:32Speaker 1: on Earth. So you can do that.
- 44:36Speaker 2: Okay, maybe will one day. It gets even cooler if
- 44:41Speaker 2: you're like, all right, Kansas City one to one scale
- 44:44Speaker 2: model not bad. Scale model of the entire Earth not
- 44:48Speaker 2: pretty impressive. There's an eighteen year old This is a
- 44:50Speaker 2: couple of years ago, so I guess he's twenty ish
- 44:52Speaker 2: now a YouTuber named Christopher Slayton. I think his real
- 44:57Speaker 2: name is Chris Decal. Yet probably the other way. I
- 45:03Speaker 2: thought Slayton was the made up thing, not Decal Slayton.
- 45:07Speaker 1: If it was like slay Tour, maybe.
- 45:10Speaker 2: Yeah, I had that reverse. But he made a model
- 45:12Speaker 2: of the observable universe.
- 45:15Speaker 1: Did you see the video of this, of the explanation. Yeah,
- 45:19Speaker 1: it wasn't like he was like, oh, I'm gonna draw
- 45:21Speaker 1: this in Minecraft. The kid did the physics required to
- 45:24Speaker 1: create the models of the universe. I mean, like everything
- 45:29Speaker 1: from like nebula galaxies to the Sun, Like you can
- 45:33Speaker 1: zoom into pixels on the Sun. It's just one of
- 45:36Speaker 1: the most impressive things I've ever seen in my entire life.
- 45:39Speaker 2: Would that be a photon?
- 45:41Speaker 1: I guess so. It'd be a one kilometer square photon.
- 45:46Speaker 2: If all that wasn't cool enough. In twenty twenty, the
- 45:49Speaker 2: group Reporters Without Borders started a project called Uncensored Library.
- 45:54Speaker 2: And this this is amazing. In places like Saudi Arabia
- 45:59Speaker 2: and Russia where the real news is like censored or
- 46:03Speaker 2: you don't have access to these news sites, they are
- 46:06Speaker 2: burying news inside the Minecraft world. Because you can play
- 46:11Speaker 2: Minecraft there.
- 46:12Speaker 1: Yeah, they write books or they create books that have
- 46:15Speaker 1: these articles in them.
- 46:16Speaker 2: And that's cool, unbelievably cool.
- 46:18Speaker 1: There's another thing too. I mentioned a kid who made
- 46:20Speaker 1: a calculator. You can arrange these Redstone like or basically
- 46:27Speaker 1: and make things into logic gates on off if then
- 46:31Speaker 1: that kind of stuff and if you make if you
- 46:33Speaker 1: arrange different logic gates together, you can create computers. And
- 46:37Speaker 1: there was somebody who created a computer that plays Minecraft
- 46:41Speaker 1: in Minecraft. Like you go on to Minecraft, go over
- 46:45Speaker 1: to that computer and play Minecraft on that computer that
- 46:48Speaker 1: exists only in Minecraft. I just want to make sure
- 46:51Speaker 1: it's totally clear what I'm saying here, and it actually works.
- 46:54Speaker 1: It's not some it's not a drawing. It's like it's
- 46:58Speaker 1: operating on logic gates that they created with arrangements of
- 47:02Speaker 1: Redstone or incredible. So let's talk about this because I
- 47:06Speaker 1: think it's pretty clear Chuck, that there are a lot
- 47:08Speaker 1: of benefits to playing this, Like, yes, it would be
- 47:11Speaker 1: really easy for a kid to become addicted, and that
- 47:14Speaker 1: really can happen, and I've seen that that actually is
- 47:16Speaker 1: an actual thing and you have to look out for it.
- 47:18Speaker 1: But there's also some real benefits to this, to playing this,
- 47:22Speaker 1: especially as a kid.
- 47:24Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, if you're a parent, keep
- 47:26Speaker 2: an eye on your kid. Monitor there there how long
- 47:30Speaker 2: they're playing this game. Because it is great, and we're
- 47:33Speaker 2: gonna talk about the benefits for sure, but like if
- 47:36Speaker 2: they don't want to do anything but Minecraft, and if
- 47:39Speaker 2: it seems like they're never satisfied with the amount that
- 47:43Speaker 2: they're playing and they're lying about their playing, and if
- 47:46Speaker 2: they don't have it, they're you know, experiencing you know,
- 47:50Speaker 2: the withdrawal symptoms of anything else, and they're grumpy and
- 47:53Speaker 2: irritated or depressed. Like, seriously, get involved because it's a
- 47:57Speaker 2: real danger. The benefits, you know, been talking about how
- 48:00Speaker 2: creative it is. It's not only is it going to
- 48:03Speaker 2: encourage you to just use your creative brain, but you're
- 48:06Speaker 2: problem solving, you're using math, you're working with other people
- 48:11Speaker 2: like teamwork, potentially learning to code. Like there, this is
- 48:15Speaker 2: the one game I believe. I asked Hodgman because I
- 48:18Speaker 2: knew his son played, and I was like, Hey, is
- 48:20Speaker 2: this Minecraft thing? And he was like, that's kind of
- 48:21Speaker 2: the one game that it's it's okay for kids to
- 48:24Speaker 2: start playing because it's got like plenty of good benefits.
- 48:27Speaker 1: Yeah, and even more esoteric stuff that like managing resources.
- 48:31Speaker 1: Like it's not like the kids like, oh, I'm learning
- 48:33Speaker 1: to manage resources is great just by virtue of playing Minecraft.
- 48:36Speaker 1: You have to learn to manage resources. You have to
- 48:39Speaker 1: keep up with your sheep and make sure that they're
- 48:41Speaker 1: breeding so that you can get enough wool, like like
- 48:45Speaker 1: you have to know what to use, where, where to
- 48:47Speaker 1: go get it, and then how to use it smartly
- 48:51Speaker 1: so that you can get the most out of it.
- 48:53Speaker 1: Like that's a huge part of playing Minecraft, and that's
- 48:55Speaker 1: a great thing to learn. It also teaches kids to
- 48:59Speaker 1: like focus on a you know, well you want to
- 49:02Speaker 1: raise some sheep. I know, I keep going to that. Well,
- 49:04Speaker 1: but it's a good one. Yeah, you have to go
- 49:07Speaker 1: you have to farm the food to feed the sheep,
- 49:09Speaker 1: and then you have to shear the sheep to get
- 49:11Speaker 1: the wool, and then you use the wool that do
- 49:13Speaker 1: god knows what with And you have a goal and
- 49:15Speaker 1: it's not just that one goal. That goal is made
- 49:18Speaker 1: up of a series of sub goals too, And that's
- 49:20Speaker 1: a great thing to learn early on.
- 49:23Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know your kids aren't coming to you
- 49:25Speaker 2: and asking you how to do it unless you happen
- 49:27Speaker 2: to be a parent that really knew Minecraft, because I'm
- 49:30Speaker 2: sure you know that exists now, it's been around long enough.
- 49:33Speaker 2: But generally, like your kid's probably in the other room
- 49:36Speaker 2: figuring this stuff out. Maybe they're asking friends for help.
- 49:40Speaker 2: Maybe they're not. They're learning as they go and making
- 49:43Speaker 2: like what they think are like smart decisions to do
- 49:47Speaker 2: better in the game and real time. My advice to
- 49:51Speaker 2: a parent is like, it's really easy just to sort
- 49:53Speaker 2: of walk by anytime your kid is doing this with
- 49:56Speaker 2: zero interest, but just maybe once or twice down and
- 50:01Speaker 2: ask them to tell you about their world for fifteen minutes.
- 50:06Speaker 2: Just like sit there with them while they played for
- 50:07Speaker 2: like fifteen minutes and say show me your world. I
- 50:09Speaker 2: did that a couple of times, and it's incredible to see.
- 50:13Speaker 2: I mean she was like five or six at the time.
- 50:15Speaker 2: Oh wow, to see a kid really like I was like,
- 50:19Speaker 2: oh my god, and you figured out that, and you
- 50:21Speaker 2: figured out you needed to do that to get that
- 50:23Speaker 2: And to them, they're like, yeah, Dad, that's duh, that's
- 50:26Speaker 2: the game. But I'm over here going like this is incredible,
- 50:29Speaker 2: Like you're learning, Like, keep at it. That's cool and
- 50:33Speaker 2: I'm glad you stopped playing it.
- 50:34Speaker 1: At the same time, I feel like we would be
- 50:38Speaker 1: grossly reversed if we didn't give a shout out to
- 50:40Speaker 1: our little friend from the Medford Show. Yeah, that's right,
- 50:45Speaker 1: who requested this. I don't remember his name, and I'm
- 50:48Speaker 1: very sorry for that. But there was a kid, a guy,
- 50:51Speaker 1: a young dude at the Medford Show recently, I think
- 50:55Speaker 1: in May who during QA asked us to do an
- 50:58Speaker 1: episode on Minecraft. The whole thing started with him asking
- 51:01Speaker 1: us about mobs, and we're like, what is a mob?
- 51:04Speaker 2: Yeah?
- 51:04Speaker 1: Yeah, it kind of kicked the whole thing off. So
- 51:06Speaker 1: that's why we're where we are right now.
- 51:09Speaker 2: That's right. And if you hear this kid and parent
- 51:12Speaker 2: and you want us to set the record straight and
- 51:14Speaker 2: get that name on the air, like email, listen, we'll
- 51:16Speaker 2: include that in a future correction for sure.
- 51:19Speaker 1: And speaking of email, I think, Chuck, it's time for
- 51:21Speaker 1: listening now.
- 51:25Speaker 2: Uh yeah, this is about salsa. We got a lot
- 51:29Speaker 2: of good salsa emails. People love salsa. I like to
- 51:31Speaker 2: say salsa, saying and eating. Boy that did you see
- 51:36Speaker 2: the one woman who's sent in the black salsa from
- 51:38Speaker 2: that restaurant in Chicago? No, I didn't see that it
- 51:42Speaker 2: looked good. I think it was the last couple of
- 51:43Speaker 2: days she posted a picture and it's like Charred Pepper's
- 51:46Speaker 2: basically nice boy, did it look good? Hey, guys, great
- 51:50Speaker 2: job on the recent episode on salsa. I was born
- 51:52Speaker 2: and raised in northwestern Mexico, being Mexican, I was very
- 51:56Speaker 2: interested on how you guys would tackle this. Josh got
- 51:59Speaker 2: it right about the fact that salsa is a condiment mostly,
- 52:02Speaker 2: but he did get it wrong that it is in
- 52:04Speaker 2: fact served at most restaurants in Mexico along with tortilla
- 52:08Speaker 2: chips called to topos or like the tostadas like Chuck
- 52:12Speaker 2: mentioned being broken apart. It is not an appetizer, nor
- 52:16Speaker 2: do you need to order it. It's just served. And
- 52:18Speaker 2: you can also use the salsa as a condiment with
- 52:20Speaker 2: your food. And I saw someone else wrote in a
- 52:24Speaker 2: Mexican woman that said a lot of times, that's a
- 52:27Speaker 2: good way to test the salsa, to test taste tests
- 52:32Speaker 2: sort of the salsa or the different sauceas you get
- 52:35Speaker 2: to see which one you do want to use as.
- 52:36Speaker 1: A coe, which makes sense.
- 52:40Speaker 2: Sorry, but the only thing that that was innovated in
- 52:44Speaker 2: the US was to charge for something that comes free
- 52:46Speaker 2: with your meal.
- 52:47Speaker 1: Of Mexico boo.
- 52:49Speaker 2: Indeed, also guys tortilla chips go back to the pre
- 52:52Speaker 2: Hispanic era with the Mexican word for tortilla chip again
- 52:56Speaker 2: to topo coming from a nahuato where meaning to toast
- 53:01Speaker 2: or brown, and finally for chuck. Pico degao Mexico's any
- 53:06Speaker 2: sort of mixed or chopped fruits and vegetables. Pico digao
- 53:10Speaker 2: that he referenced in the US is usually called salsa
- 53:12Speaker 2: fresca I don't know, I didn't say it, or salsa
- 53:16Speaker 2: bendero bendera meaning flag and the chilies, onion, and tomato
- 53:22Speaker 2: are green, white and red like the Mexican flag. Very nice,
- 53:25Speaker 2: great email. That's from Ricardo Lamas Vidales.
- 53:29Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Ricardo. We appreciate that. It's nice to
- 53:31Speaker 1: hear from a local expert. And if you want to
- 53:34Speaker 1: be like Ricardo and set us straight on some stuff,
- 53:36Speaker 1: we would love to hear that. You can send it
- 53:39Speaker 1: off to Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot Stuff you Should
- 53:46Speaker 1: Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
- 53:49Speaker 2: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
- 53:52Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Yeah,