Minecraft has been around for nearly a decade and the fanbase it has cultivated in that time is still as active as ever. But the game has continued to evolve to keep things fresh even for the most veteran of players.
Mods make the game more interesting for players who’ve spent years playing the base game. Servers allow large groups to play in the same world. Moreover, dozens of YouTubers are available to explain the introductory content to new fans.
However, with such an active community comes an active discourse about the direction that Minecraft has gone in the last 10 years. One of the most active of them all is on Reddit where fans get a chance to voice their unpopular opinions about the game’s features.
10 Cats > Dogs
Minecraft features a number of animals for the player to tame and befriend in their adventures. The dog (wolf) has been in Minecraft since practically the beginning while cats were added shortly after. Many players prefer dogs since they were easier to find than cats for new players in the early days of Minecraft and a budding affinity grew.
However, Redditor u/Hemlock_Deci finds dogs annoying and much prefers cats. They cite an incident where their dog “threw itself into lava” and how cats can now bring the player items due to a recent update. As in the real world, some people just don’t prefer dogs.
9 Pretty Things Are Important Too
Minecraft’s community is full of lively, vocal players who are friendly but often complain about the developers’ choices. They are never afraid to add their suggestion to the internet conversation about where Minecraft should go next. Attuned to this collective conversation, Reddit user BruhestMoment12 wishes that players would stop to smell the flowers, so to speak.
They argue that Minecraft fans don’t appreciate changes that are purely aesthetic, like desert wells, that add to the ambiance and immersive quality of the game. After the RTX update, as well, things like light filtering through the water can be especially mesmerising.
8 Terraria Isn’t Really Side-Scrolling Minecraft
Terraria is an action-adventure sandbox game developed by Re-Logic and released the same year as Minecraft. Lots of people have compared Terraria and Minecraft since they both involve mining resources, a block-like world, and crafting gear. Like Minecraft, it’s even available to play on mobile.
However, Reddit user BubbaRooski03 argues that Terraria is more akin to Borderlands than Minecraft. While they share some similarities, much of Terraria’s gameplay is dedicated to defeating a set of bosses and not just one. Once the player has beaten the boss, they need to keep farming in order to continue to get better gear to take on the next one.
7 Diamond Sword > Diamond Pickaxe
Diamonds are a beloved resource by nearly every Minecraft fan. Early adopters will remember the feeling of finally finding one or two diamonds in the deepest mines they could reach, surrounded by lava and creepers. This raw emotion has carried throughout the game’s history even as the game became better understood and diamonds were no longer so rare.
Some world seeds were favoured particularly because they had more diamonds. The first thing many players made was a diamond pickaxe to mine more valuable resources. On Reddit, u/BLINDSPECTOR admits they’d rather have a diamond sword than a diamond pickaxe and, to be fair, Minecraft’s monsters can be a pain for new players.
6 The Music Is Overhyped
Minecraft’s overworld features soft, ambient music that has gone largely unchanged since the game’s release a decade ago. Youtube is full of videos titled some variation of “10 Hours of Minecraft Music (nostalgic).” Many players, especially those who started when Minecraft was new, would agree: it is a nostalgic feeling.
However, Reddit user abcd_Simon argues that the Minecraft music isn’t really that impressive. Maybe that explains why Minecraft Esports in China used Devil May Cry music for their promotions. While the comments often disagreed with him, they did admit that Minecraft would benefit from new music including biome-specific tracks.
5 New Games Are Just More Minecraft
Fall Guys was one of the most popular games of 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic caused lockdowns worldwide. People clamoured to video games as a way to hang out with friends. Among Us has since rocketed to popularity for the same reason. One Redditor, u/Amoskow, feels that these new titles are just rip-offs of classic minigames from Minecraft and GMod servers.
Other commenters pointed out that battle royale existed before PUBG, that few games are wholly “original” in content, and that some of these minigames even existed before Minecraft. But u/Amoskow does draw attention to how creative the Minecraft community was in its prime by developing games that are now massive successes.
4 Down With The Elytra
The Elytra is a contraption that was added to Minecraft in 2016. It allows the player to glide off of high places to safety below. If they have firework rockets, they can ignite those to shoot themselves into the air and, essentially, fly.
Players were largely in awe of this new tool – especially since it has to be earned. Players can only obtain it after they defeat the Ender Dragon. Redditor u/Deepno, however, feels strongly that the elytra ruined Minecraft. They argue that players shouldn’t be able to travel such long distances in seconds and that flying should have stayed exclusively in Creative mode.
3 Creative Mode > Survival Mode
Minecraft’s Survival mode is a cruel mistress. While some biomes the player spawns in may be ideal for thriving until they can set up camp, others are unforgiving. Many fans feel that, while Creative mode is great for building, Survival Minecraft is the “true experience”.
Redditor u/SeperiorGT, on the other hand, doesn’t feel captivated by Minecraft’s survival experience. They argue that there’s not enough to do nor enough to build without working too hard for too long to obtain the resources first.
2 The Ender Dragon Was Enough
The Ender Dragon is effectively Minecraft’s final boss. The player fights her once they’ve scrounged up enough resources, food, and gear to dare travel to the End – another realm where she lives. For Reddit user WickedHaunt, all the updates after the one which added the Ender Dragon were a waste of time.
WickedHaunt preferred the beautiful simplicity of Minecraft when playing in survival mode didn’t mean navigating complex systems just to play the game. Most fans have enjoyed Minecraft’s updates, but the simplicity which this user recalls is definitely an appeal of the game.
1 The Dreaded (?) Permadeath
Death in Minecraft is largely considered to be punishing, but fair. When the player dies, they are able to respawn wherever they last slept, having dropped all their equipment wherever they were killed. This means that, in a hard-to-reach place like the depths of a mine, they need to be careful not to die and lose all the resources they’ve gathered.
However, in the open world, it’s much easier to retain the lost items they dropped. Redditor u/InonednTheDragon disagrees, though, suggesting that Minecraft should feature permadeath where the player needs to restart from scratch once they die. The comments are mostly full of players noting that u/InonednTheDragon could play that way if they wanted to by just deleting the save file after each death.
NEXT: 10 Best Open-World Games That Have Couch Co-Op
