Yesterday was the canonical two-thousand-and-twenty-third Mob Vote.
2023生物投票的结果已于昨日(10月16日)出炉
Did you know: The first mob vote was hosted by Roman emporer Tiberius Julius Augustus in the year 1 AD to decide which of three beasts shall be thrown into Gladiatorial battle against Stevus Maximus Aurus; a fighter who gained fame through defeating a squid using nothing but a fishing rod. Probably.
冷知识: 罗马皇帝Tiberius Julius Augustus于公元1年举办了史上第一次生物投票以决定三只猛兽中的哪一只将被丢进斗兽场并与Stevus Maximus Aurus这位只用一根鱼竿就打败了一只鱿鱼的著名“勇士”决斗……也许吧。
Opinions expressed here are my own, they are not representative of Mojang Studios, nor the Minecraft team.
本文所述均为个人观点,不代表Mojang Studios或Minecraft开发团队官方意见。
Full transparency: I do not have any direct involvement in Minecraft Live, nor the mob voting itself, so I am likely talking out of ignorance regarding how things work and my opinions are probably going to be garbage as a result of that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
事先声明: 我并未直接涉及到Minecraft Live与生物投票中,因而我对它们运作机制的误解可能导致本文观点不具参考性 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
What was I involved with?
我是如何参与其中的?
Unlike previous years; this year I didn’t first learn about the mobs via drinking boxed wine with colleagues in Vasaparken. I had the Bedrock Gameplay Tech Lead responsibility of signing off on the mob proposals, giving me the power to make things very difficult for the mob designers by rejecting their ideas with any kind of tech related excuse - if I really wanted to >:D
不同以往的是,今年我不再需要和同事们跑去瓦萨公园喝酒才能知道新生物信息了。作为有权批准新生物提案的基岩版游戏技术总监,我能用任何与技术问题有关的理由拒绝他们的点子,所以只要我想的话,我能让生物设计师们痛不欲生 >:D
Specifically what I was signing off on was “is this idea technically feasible given our time and resources”.
准确地说,我的评判标准是 “以现有的时间与资源来看,这个主意在技术层面上是否可行?”
My Office Conversations
办公室谈话录
Which mob will you vote for?
你会给哪个生物投票?
Between the handful of colleagues I asked, it seemed like the battle will be between the Crab and the Penguin.
在我问到的少数同事里,这貌似已经成为一场独属于螃蟹与企鹅之间的战斗。
Both sides argued that their mob was “cute”, which seems to be the deciding factor amongst the handful of Mojang staff that happened to be in conversation with me.
争论双方都认为他们的生物是很“可爱”的,这貌似已经成为决定碰巧与我谈起这一话题的Mojang工作人员为谁站队的关键因素。
Which mob do you think will win?
你觉得哪个生物会获胜?
This is a very different question, but again it seemed like the battle will be between the Crab and the Penguin.
虽然这是一个截然不同的问题,但争论的焦点仍处于螃蟹与企鹅之中。
The arguments were:
争论的内容是:
Crab has a utility to help players, and players always vote for the useful mob
螃蟹会给玩家带来一个实用的工具,而玩家们总是给有用的生物投票。
Penguin is a real cutie, and players always vote for the cute mob
企鹅真的太可爱啦!玩家们总会给可爱的生物投票哒!
I felt pretty alone when I argued the Armadillo would win, but who’s laughing now?
而当我跟他们讨论到犰狳会赢时,我感觉我就像是被孤立了。但到底是谁笑到了最后?
The Armadillo Won the Mob Vote
犰狳赢下了生物投票
The Armadillo won the mob vote.
犰狳赢下了生物投票
Were the 2023 Mobs Better Balanced?
2023年的生物们是否更加平衡?
Again: I wasn’t involved in this, other than signing off on the technical proposals, so I have no clue how much thought or effort was put into balancing the mobs versus previous years, but as a Minecraft fan it looks to me that some serious effort was put into avoiding having “one obvious choice” that I believe affected previous mob votes.
再次重申: 除了从技术角度批准提案外,我没有参与到任何其他部分中。因而我并不知道在前几年他们在调整生物平衡性方面做了多少努力。但作为一个Minecraft的忠实粉丝,在我看来,他们为了避免出现一边倒的状况真的付出了很多心血,并相信这深刻地影响了之前的生物投票。
I do wonder if the mobs have indeed been simplified versus the Allay or Sniffer in terms of complexity to keep things balanced. Of course, the winning mob will probably have a load more complexity thrown into it as its design is explored (I hope not because that means more work…), but I believe what we presented this year was kept simple and that’s what provided the balance.
我确实想知道今年的生物信息与之前的悦灵和嗅探兽相比是否有被简化来增强平衡性。当然了,随着设计进程的深入,获胜的生物将可能拥有更多更复杂的功能(虽然我不希望这种情况发生,因为这代表要干的活变多了……), 但我相信我们今年展示的生物信息足够简单,并能使生物投票更具平衡性。
We got the mob, a quirk, the location, and 1 feature:
我们能知道的信息包含生物名称、生成地点和一个生物特性:
Mob
生物
Quirk
行为
Biome
生物群系
Feature
特性
Penguin
企鹅
Social amphibian
群居的水陆两栖动物
Stony shores
石岸
Somehow makes boats fast
用某种方式让船变快
Armadillo
犰狳
Curls into a ball
可以缩成一个球
Savanna
热带草原
Scute makes wolf armour
骨甲可以制作狼铠
Crab
螃蟹
It’s a crab.
这是一个螃蟹。
Mangrove swamp
红树林沼泽
Somehow claw places blocks further away
用某种方式在较远的位置放置方块
A world without “one obvious choice” 没有一边倒的世界
Last year I wrote that I saw a handful of comments along the lines of “But seeing the other two mobs lose makes me upset”, and I specifically said “I’m probably not communicating my point here very well, probably because I need more time to think on it.”
在去年的文章中我说我看到了一些类似于 “但看到其它两个生物输了真的很让人沮丧诶” 的言论, 而我也特别表示“我可能没有很好地表达我的观点,我也许得花更多时间来思考”。
I now think that this sentiment from years past came from individuals who believed past mob votes were balanced and were faced with the reality that no matter the winner: it is a 66% loss - and I believe with the mobs being even more balanced this year this sentiment grew to be the dominant discussion on Twitter.
现在,我认为过去几年的这种情绪来自那些相信生物投票绝对平衡的人所必须面对的事实: 无论谁赢了,都会有66%的损失 - 并且我相信,随着今年生物投票平衡性的提高,这种情绪将愈发成为推特上的主导言论。
If there was one obvious choice, then the results of the vote is not a 66% loss, it’s a 0% loss because one of the mobs was clearly better than all the others, and comparatively fewer people would be upset about that.
如果有一个显而易见的选项出现,即其中的某一个生物明显比另外两个好,那么生物投票的结果就将产生0%而非66%的损失,并且因此扫兴的人会更少。
The ceremonial yeeting of the mobs.
生物告别仪式
I think this also plays into the sentiment of “the mob vote just divides the community”. If all mobs had a 33% chance of winning, then the community would be divided into thirds, each third championing their mob.
我认为这种影响也扩散到了“生物投票在撕裂着我们的社区!”这种情绪当中。 如果每个生物都有三分之一的获胜几率,那么社区将因此一分为三,而每一部分都将支持他们喜爱的的生物。
Both of these sentiments are what I’ve personally seen on my Twitter feed this year, leading me to conclude that we got the balance quite close.
我今年在推特上同时看到了这两种言论,这向我表明,我们已经非常接近绝对平衡。
Why did the Armadillo win? 为什么是犰狳赢了?
If the mobs were perfectly balanced, then the vote would tie on a 33% split each (which would have been incredible).
如果生物投票真的达到了完美的平衡,那么得票数将以33%的惊人比例持平(这种情况的出现本身就让人难以置信)。
I remember leaving the meeting where the mobs were first presented to me for tech approval, turning to someone and saying “The Armadillo will win because of the Wolf armour”.
我记得在我离开生物投票提案第一次提交给我以进行技术批准的那场会议时,我对别人说过“犰狳会因狼铠而胜出”。
I asked my Armadillo-voting followers for some info on why they chose this mob and I’ve seen two major points:
我问了我为犰狳投票的粉丝选择犰狳的理由,在他们的答复中我看到了两个关键点:
Savanna is empty
热带草原太贫瘠了
I’ve seen comments that the savanna is empty, lacks identity, lacks a mob, and in general “needs an update”.
我看到有评论说热带草原太贫瘠了,缺少实体与生物,且需要一次更新来进行改善。
Indeed, adding a unique mob to this biome will help, but I’d argue the same applies for the Penguin with the stony shores - that being said the savanna is a more visually interesting biome to build in versus the stony shore.
在这种生物群系中添加一个独特的新生物确实会改善这种情况,但石岸中的企鹅也有着同样的处境 —— 话虽如此,但热带草原看起来可比石岸有趣多了。
Wolf Armour
狼铠
I’m probably cherry picking this reason because it’s the aaaaaaone I predicted, but to my, rather-biased, eyes it does indeed look like wolf armour was the deciding factor.
我可能更倾向于是这个理由让犰狳最终赢得了投票,它也是预测所得的原因,就以我有失偏颇的视角看来,狼铠确实是导致犰狳获胜的主要原因。
I believe more wolf variations (more specifically, dog breeds) is a very popular suggestion from the community, and in general players care a lot for their Minecraft pets, so with wolf armour taking a step towards pet accessories it probably provides more empathetic theming than a crab claw and boats.
更多品种的狼(更准确点说应该是更多品种的狗)是社区中呼声很高的点子之一。通常情况下玩家们都很关心他们在MC里的宠物,因而狼铠这种宠物用品与螃蟹爪和船相比更能引起玩家共鸣。
The actual protection the armour provides is important, too, but I wouldn’t be surprised if players are more interested in the aesthetic potential.
盔甲提供的实际保护确实很重要,但要是玩家对美观性更感兴趣,那倒也是不令人意外的。
The armadillo received over 40% of the over 5 million votes! 📷
犰狳在五百多万个投票者中获得了超过40%的支持率! 📷
Important! I am not part of the Mojang community team: I am just a dude on Twitter, picking his nose as he scrolls through Minecraft tweets, like any other Minecraft player.
请注意!我不是Mojang社区团队的一员,我只是一个像其他Minecraft玩家一样一边看推文一边抠鼻孔的普通推特用户!
I’ve tried to compile some of the reactions I’ve personally seen, with some of my personal thoughts.
我正尝试在此汇总我看到的一些社区反响与我的个人想法。
Mojang is locking these crucial features behind the mob vote
Mojang在生物投票结束后锁定了这些关键特性
I was surprised to see this comment appear in Twitter, because personally I don’t believe these features to be crucial, and I think that’s important for a mob vote specifically because Mojang would otherwise be locking crucial features behind a vote.
我看到这条评论出现在推特上时感到很惊讶,因为就我个人而言,我并不认为这些特性有多重要,但这点区别对生物投票而言却是举足轻重,否则Mojang恐怕真的会在投票结束后锁定某些关键特性。
It’s pretty easy to use the arguments that players have presented against each mob to counter the idea that these are crucial features:
我们能使用玩家们说的话来轻易反驳这些生物们拥有关键特性的论点:
“Crab-claw reach can be achieved by moving closer”
“你可以通过靠的更近来达到和螃蟹钳同样的效果”
“If you need to protect your wolf, you’d leave it at home”
“如果你想保护你的狼,那就把它留在家里得了”
“Dolphins can already speed up swimming”
“海豚也可以提高我们的游泳速度”
That being said, I think there is a learning somewhere here for the Minecraft team regarding the perception of features being critical to the game.
话是这么说,但我觉得Minecraft开发团队在关键功能感知这一方面还是颇有造诣的。
Players who don’t even play Minecraft that much shouldn’t be allowed to vote
不玩Minecraft的玩家不该被允许投票!
An evolution of “no votes from people who don’t own Minecraft”. I have the (very) controversial opinion that even people who watch Minecraft videos without owning the game should be allowed to vote for which mob their favourite content creator gets to interact with.
在向“没买Minecraft就不能进行投票!”演变的过程中, 我有一个颇具争议的观点,即就算没有Minecraft的人,只要他观看了Minecraft类视频,他就应当被允许投票来支持他们最喜欢的内容创作者。
It seems like a mistake to gate keep the mob vote behind play time, although perhaps some kind of interesting game could be made out of this: The more Diamonds you mine the more votes you get? I can imagine this working with the Bedrock Mob Vote map, where perhaps players could take part in an Infiniminer style PvP game of mine the most Diamonds, which are then traded in for mob votes.
把生物投票放在游戏时间之外也许是个错误,虽然如果不这么做可能会导致某些有趣的游戏被开发出来:想要更多选票,那就挖更多钻石怎么样?我都能想象到这一机制与基岩版生物投票地图一起运作时的样子:也许玩家可以参加一场无尽矿工风格的PVP游戏,然后用赢得的钻石来换取生物选票? Maybe Mojang should provide some kind of test to see how pro a Minecraft player is before they can vote? I don’t think so.
也许Mojang应该在投票前做些测试来试试Minecraft玩家到底有多专业?我并不这么认为。
Players always vote for the cute mob 玩家总爱给可爱的生物投票
I think this is more in vein with why I think Wolf armour was a significant factor, where players are voting for something that they can empathise with.
我觉得这更适合用来说明为什么我认为狼铠是犰狳胜利的主要原因,玩家总会支持能与他们引起共鸣的东西。
That being said, the Penguin and Crab are both also rather cute.
话虽如此,企鹅和螃蟹也相当可爱啦。
As I wrote above: the office prediction was that the Crab and Penguin will be split on the argument of Utility vs Cute.
正如前文所述:办公室同事们对螃蟹和企鹅间的主要争论集中在实用性与纯粹的可爱身上。
Looking at the 2020 vote: the content creator communities really gathered around and agreed on the Iceologer as being the “correct” choice to vote for. Most of the discussion I saw were around the utility provided by a hostile mob and whatever item it would probably drop, and I remember in the office we expected an Iceologer sweep, to the point where Ulraf’s reaction when unveiling the Glow Squid was a genuine reaction of surprise. Wait, was the Glow Squid more cute than the Moobloom?
让我们回头看看2020的生物投票吧:内容创作者社区真正联合在了一起并一致同意冰术师是一个“正确的”投票对象。我所看到的大部分讨论内容都围绕着冰术师这么个敌对生物所能提供的功能与其可能的掉落物展开,我记得在办公室里我们还预测会有针对冰术师的扫荡行动出现,这也难怪Ulraf在看到发光鱿鱼获胜时的反应会是如此的惊讶。等会,发光鱿鱼真的比哞花还可爱吗?
Perhaps cute does trump utility, but I’m not sure that’s a bad reason to vote for a mob.
也许可爱确实胜过实用,但并不代表这就是给一个生物投票的错误理由。
The mob is going to be in the game for another 85 years or something, so it should probably be one that players enjoy just hanging around and seeing for the long-run. Chances are: any utility provided will be made obsolete by some random update made within the next 50 years.
由于生物将在接下来的85年或更长时间中持续存在于游戏中,所以它很有可能是玩家们闲的没事干时长期观察的对象。但很有可能,在未来50年内进行的某些更新会导致所有实用性功能黯然失色。
This probably speaks to the different ways that players play the game: Some players really do focus on the technical aspects, where utility is the most important factor.
这也说明了玩家们玩游戏的不同方式:确实有些玩家仅专注于技术方面,因而对他们来说实用性是最重要的因素。
If all mobs were equally cute as they were useful, then we’d be golden.
那让所有生物都有用又可爱,不就皆大欢喜了吗?
Mojang staff shouldn’t be allowed to vote
Mojang员工不该被允许投票
Whilst this one is pretty silly as there’s millions more players than there are staff at Mojang (let alone, people in the Minecraft team), there is probably something to be said about Mojang staff supporting particular mobs on Twitter.
虽然这是个很蠢的想法,因为玩家数量比Mojang的工作人员数量多出数百万(更别说仅属于Minecraft开发团队的人了), 但关于Mojang员工在推特上支持特定生物这一点,我还有些话要讲。
Mojang staff are likely to have inside information, and perhaps there is a biased preference that the Minecraft team would rather work on one mob than the other, so then there’s motivation to encourage your following to vote for your mob of choice.
Mojang员工手上可能有内部信息,又或许有一种特殊的偏爱导致Minecraft团队只想其中一个特定生物上工作,这些都会成为他们鼓励粉丝为特定生物投票的动力。
Of course, this isn’t a sensible line of thinking. The reality is only a handful of people at Mojang are involved with the mobs themselves, and the vast, vast majority of Minecraft players have no social interaction with any Mojang staff.
当然,这只是一种无稽之谈。因为只有少部分Mojang员工直接涉及到生物投票中,并且绝大多数Minecraft玩家都从未与任何Mojang员工进行社交互动。
Plus, it’s just the Minecraft mob vote: It really doesn’t matter.
再说了,这只是Minecraft生物投票:它真的不重要。
Would we be better without a Mob Vote?
没有生物投票,我们会变得更好吗?
On my personal Twitter, I encountered a lot of individuals expressing the sentiment I mentioned above: The mob vote is heart breaking because no matter which mob wins, it’s a 66% loss with the other two mobs.
在我的个人推特上,我看到很多人向我表达了上文所述的情绪:生物投票真的很让人心碎,因为无论哪个生物赢了,其它两个生物的落选都会带来66%的损失。
This naturally led to “Give us all three mobs this year”, and then “Unpaid modders can add these mobs to the game within hours”.
这自然也就导致了“今年请把三个生物一起加入!”的想法,然后“模组作者只要花几个小时就能把这些生物添加至游戏中”这种情况就会发生。
There’s even a petition to this endeavour, which has gone quite viral.
甚至还有一份对此项愿景而设立的请愿书,且这份请愿书已然名声大噪。
A lot has already been said about comparing skilled modders vs Mojang elsewhere, including my post last year (that you should read), but I’ll cover one part from last year’s post-mortem again here:
在其他的地方已经有了很多将模组制作高手与Mojang进行比较的文章,这其中包含我去年的帖子(你应该去读读它!),但我在这里还是要将我的反思内容再复述一遍。
Why have a mob vote?
为什么要有生物投票?
Like the rest of this post, the following is my personal opinion and does not reflect the opinions of Mojang Studios nor the Minecraft team.
就像本文的其它部分一样,以下内容皆为我的个人观点,并不代表Mojang Studios或Minecraft开发团队的官方观点。
For many people, the idea of developing a video game, or working in the games industry, is a far-off dream and many write it off as an impossibility. The mob vote is the chance for players to influence the biggest video game in human history.
对许多人来说,独立开发一款游戏或在游戏行业工作都是一个遥不可及的梦想,许多人甚至认为这是不可能实现的。而生物投票正是玩家们决定人类历史上最大的电子游戏走向的一次机会。
When I think of the mob vote, I think about all the offline communities talking about Minecraft and discussing which mob to vote for and why. Most Minecraft fans do not have Twitter, or Discord, or a voice on YouTube; they are with their friends talking about Minecraft, and they’re hopefully talking about the experiences that a mob brings to their game.
当我想到生物投票时,我想起所有线下社区都在讨论Minecraft,并讨论为谁投票以及为什么为它投票,而大多数的Minecraft粉丝都在YouTube、Twitter与Discord上都不具足够影响力。 他们和朋友们一起畅谈Minecraft,并讨论他们对新生物所能带来的游戏体验的期待。
Maybe they talk about the game design, maybe the artwork, maybe the personality in the animations, or they’re focused on the utility that the mob brings to their game. All of these are game development competencies - and players’ discussions and explorations get to be applied with their mob vote: influencing the development of Minecraft.
他们会谈论游戏设计、艺术设计、动画中体现出的个性,亦或专注于生物将为游戏带来的改变。这些都是游戏开发能力的体现——玩家可以将他们的讨论与探索内容体现在生物投票上并影响Minecraft的开发走向。
It’s a tiny taste of being a game developer: Mojang has the unique opportunity to sow that seed into millions of Minecraft players across the planet once a year. We’re up here with the best game ever made and we should be inviting others to join us. Starting with the players who aren’t even thinking about being game developers, but are currently talking about the design of a Minecraft mob with their friends right before the mob vote.
这是作为一个游戏开发商的小小尝试:Mojang每年都有一次独特的机会将这颗种子散播到全球数百万玩家中。我们有着有史以来最优秀的游戏,而我们应当让其它人也能加入我们。就从那些甚至不考虑成为游戏开发者,但会在生物投票前谈论生物设计的玩家开始吧。
I admit, it’s a very idealistic way of looking at the Minecraft mob vote. Pessimistically, it’s just community engagement, but to me it’s one of those moments where we build a better world.
我承认,这是看待Minecraft生物投票的一种理想化的方式。往坏处想,这只是一个社区活动,但对我来说,这是我们试图建立一个更美好的世界的伟大时刻之一。
In my personal opinion: removing the mob vote would be a net loss.
我个人认为 :取消生物投票有害无益。
Just a few of my thoughts on the Minecraft 2023 Mob Vote. If you want to hear the rest of my thoughts, then join Mojang, get your NDA signed, and ask me in person.
这只是我对Minecraft 2023生物投票的部分想法,如果你想知道我的剩余想法,那就加入Mojang,签完保密协议后当面来问我吧。