Minecraft Gamers Begin Gravitating to Linden Lab's Patterns

Linden Lab's Patterns was launched late last week in a very early version, and we're already starting to see a lot of first look reviews on YouTube. Interestingly, most (all?) are made by folks very familiar with Minecraft, while few (none?) seem to be coming from Second Life veterans. Here's one by "JagThunder1", who usually does Minecraft walkthroughs:

I love how gamers have already dubbed Patterns' avatar "Dorito Chip Man" or another nacho-esque variation. For the game itself (which I haven't played yet), I'm really digging the physics and the user interface, though I still think the visuals are not as appealing as Minecraft. Speaking of which, here's another first look from a Minecraft gamer:

And from another Minecraft tutorial, a tutorial for building a wheel. Since the world's entirely physics enabled, it's a lot more complicated than doing so in, say, SL:

Daniel Voyager has many more videos here, and this Google/YouTube search will bring up many, many, more.

If you've played it already, please share your own first impressions in Comments -- especially if you have YouTube/Flickr/etc. links to pass along!

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Comments

[cube republic]

Lol at the genetica textures

[Damien Fate]

I added some really short vids of my first 10 minutes or so with Patterns and description on Plurk, if you're interested. http://www.plurk.com/p/herzcp

[Caliburn Susanto]

The reason we're not making videos is for the very reason you wrote this...YouTube is already filling with them, so why be redundant? Also, machinima is time consuming and uses up a lot of storage space. Needs something more worthwhile to justify it. :-)

Still photos, however, are simpler and while I fooled around with the game for a couple of days I started an annotated set on Flickr. [ http://www.flickr.com/photos/caliburnsusanto/sets/72157631699357330/ ]

Now that the discovery period is over I've started a new (from scratch) game, applying the things I learned the first time with the goal of creating something (and aesthetics) rather than just going around destroying everything (which is necessary both to learn and to collect building materials -- also it's fun, for a little while). Patterns™ is entertaining for the moment. Whether it keeps my interest will depend entirely on what Linden Lab adds to it, not to mention bug fixes.

My recommendation for people who want to try it: Go down to the lower levels and strip mine everything down there, accumulating all the building material that you can gather. Go to the farthest reaches and take everything takeable. Then destroy the giant bridge that gave you access and accumulate all of that material as well. Doing that will leave you stranded down there, but no worries. After you are sure you have collected every single thing available just jump off the side of a cliff and you will immediately wind up back at the starting point of the game with a full load of building material (over 4,000 Jasper and 2,000 Bone Stone).

[Riisu]

After having seen a few videos, I snapped and bought Patterns. In Euros, it's cheaper than 10 bucks.

I played once... 4 hours. I can say I checked it from top to bottom. (I touched the clouds at the top of a pyramid and the ones at the bottom below the islands... where I died because my scaffolding collapsed.)

Well, it's cute... A bit childish, i.e. annoying after a while with the constant noise. It's challenging at the beginning when you wonder "How am I going to go there?" but it's not Portal. And it's frustrating. The hardcoded keys are a nuisance for French keyboards where WASD keys are scrambled. My hand is definitively not wide enough to reach the arrows and the TAB key at the same time. The camera is nothing like in SL. (No camming! Sigh.) Building is also not as easy. And I set the forge on fire... because it failed to recognize more than once that I had build the assigned prim.

BUT it's quite fun. I guess I can say that after having spent 4 hours in-game. I destroyed a lot of thing, I built a few things, including a few wheels even if I already tested extensively the physics when I tore down the pyramid above the forge. I now have magisterial stairs to go in and out of the forge and a nice (secure) bridge to leave the spawn island.

I left after having built the bridge because I felt frustrated. Nobody to share my enthusiasm with... and I mean in real time.

That's what I want LL to put in first position on its agenda: Multiplayer. Next: Bigger world. And 3rd: More prims. I'm not talking about shapes but properties. To ask for scripts is too much so I just want prims which do things... like in M*n*cr*ft. ;-)

[Sandy Sandalwood]

Why in the world would anyone find these crude, clunky figures and objects more desirable than the realistic people, places and things in Second Life? This is even uglier and more rudimentary than Cloud Party. It's almost as if the LL haters are regressing to their childhood times when they enjoyed playing with blocks and putting round pegs in square holes.

[Archangel Mortenwold]

Okay, so whoopee for Mincraft players and five-year-olds. What appeal is this low-quality game going to have for anyone else? For the life of me I can't understand why Linden Lab's executives think putting out games that look like something Nintenso came out with almost twenty years ago will somehow save the company from its own bad business decisions.

[Archangel Mortenwold]

And Sandy, you're right about Cloud Party. I tried it about a month ago and found it sorely lacking.

[Aliasi Stonebender]

What's with the hate?

[Hitomi Tiponi]

Ooh - a UI that has the same base colour as Second Life Viewer 1 :)

[Caliburn Susanto]

Hate comes naturally to a lot of people; gives them a feeling of smug self-importance. Just ignore it. Any comparison between SL and Patterns is bizzare. Patterns is just a simple building game for a little bit of diversionary fun -- no different than doing crossword puzzles or putting together a jigsaw puzzle. Certainly the geometric challenges are better brain exercise than flopping on the sofa staring at television for hours on end.

Nobody loves SL more (or has been is in-world more often in the last six years, I would wager) than me. But I'm glad LL made this little game and am looking forward to how they expand on it once the bugs are ironed out.

[Hamlet Au]

Well said, Susanto.

"Why in the world would anyone find these crude, clunky figures and objects more desirable than the realistic people, places and things in Second Life?"

For many reasons, but the fact is, most people *do* prefer cartoon avatars and objects to realistic people/places/etc. Minecraft is much more popular than SL, for example, as is Roblox.

[Archangel Mortenwold]

I don't think anybody's "hating" on Patterns. But I and others do question whether something that appears to have been created for small children to play with will be the thing to save Linden Lab. This is another niche product.

[ZZ Bottom]

Minecraft is popular cause its cheap and it works!
Period!

[ZZ Bottom]

And even if i agree that LL should diverse and launch new products, not being SL its only income, I cant advise any to feel safe with any of LL products as long as they keep treating Sl users as they do!
If, LL really starts to support and be much more communicative with its user base and if it can (I really douvt of that) regiaj its user base trust, then for sure any would recomend another product!
But as they are pushing the line with the lack of communication and bugs (latest Merchant tools, latest roll out of Le tigre server) i can only prey that those where the last and Maestro Linden is serious when He says the LAb will change the way it communicates!

[ZZ Bottom]

Any do guess if valve, known by their strict non sexual politiqs, would allow LL to be on steam?
Why all thought of Seconsd Life, when sex is all that supports it still?
Patterns is the obvious choice!
And if some other gamers can be atracted to patterns and then they found out that there is something 1 million times better, that is the metaverses, be Sl or another grid, then LL did some good for a change!

[Adeon Writer]

ZZ Bottom: Patterns is already on Steam, it is the only way you can play it. And Second Life will still be available on Steam (optionally) as well, this was announced last month.

[Dizzy Banjo]

I've been trying out Patterns too. I think it has a lot of potential. I wish I could get the time to do a blog post about it actually. Its generally very professionally executed and there seems to be a good attitude towards community informed iterative development on their get satisfaction forum. There are already some camps being defined within the small user base - gamers and SL people - which isnt helpful really to be honest, people are stereotyping and creating generalisations. But I have lots of hope for it as an interesting freeform gamey creativey thingy!

[ZZ Bottom]

Adeon, trying to deny the obvious is not clever!
Sl strives and breaths on sex!
valve rule is:
No sex, period!
So tell me how Sl will be on steam?
WILL STEAM USERS be restricted to general areas?

[James OReilly]

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