This is my first blog, although I'd rather describe it as a random collection of thoughts about the status of Minecraft. This may be the reason for the rather unstructured format, but I'm sure [or I hope] you get the point. Well...I hopt I got it...so let's start.

I've been thinking about the direction, Minecraft has to go to continue its success and I've figured out some things, which are kind of unusual, but interesting and give the game a new [or old?] perspective.

Let's start with a short flashback. Since Minecraft became famous a couple of years ago, there have been so many versions, from alpha to beta and last but not least to the full version, which still recieves updates. The question, which makes me worry about MC's [Minecraft] future is "how far will they go"? How far will they move away from MC's origin of exploring and building? What will they add? New mobs, items, biomes to keep exploring fresh, new redstone features to allow even bigger mechanical creations.
I mean, it's cool to have some new content once in a while, especially when it gives you the ability to create something you always wanted to do. For instance, redstone chests, which are perfect to build traps, light sensors [was about time :) ] and different minecarts.

But then again there are new features, which are nice, but bring more trouble than excitement. New blocks like quartz, new wood, redstone block, coal block, colored glass [which is planned], hardened clay and so on. Those blocks may be really good for themed texture packs and allows them to add new textures of whatever the pack is about, but it kind of ruins the creative process of the current world [especially survival maps].

Imagine this: You've always wanted to build a very special building that is in your mind, but you need a certain color. The only block, which has this color does have a pattern, which is more than unsuitable for this building, so you think of another way to build it and start using your own creativity. The result of this work may not be perfect, but it's your creation, it has personality, maybe flaws, but it's yours!

Then a new updates is released and introduces you to a new block, having just the color and pattern you needed before. When you're playing in a survival world, you may be pretty pissed, because you put so much effort of collecting stuff into your building and now you can have it the actual way you wanted it to be. You go ahead, collect new items, craft these new blocks and start replacing old ones. The time you spent on building "your" building is wasted and it constantly loses its character. Finally you may have got what you wanted before, but you won't be happy with it, because you already got used to "your" house and now it's different, it's not yours anymore. I felt like this a couple of times before, which is why I won't rebuild anything I built before.
If you're playing in a creative world, you can easily replace old blocks with new ones and 9/10 times it won't bother you, because you don't built up some kind of connection to your buildings as you do in survival mode.
Playing in creative mode mostly is just for designing a "perfect world" or a giant machine.

Therefore MC is not in need of new blocks, new decoration features, or else, which, more or less, force you to stick to old buildings, rip them up and rebuild them to create something new, but still old and low on personality. For me they take away the thrill of exploring, because you know you have to do something else and cannot find relief in walking around, digging into the earth, finding dungeons, exploring the Nether...there's this small part inside of you, which knows you can do something you couldn't do before and now you have to do it to come up with your former expectations of how it should be.

It's kind of weird what I am writing here, because the average gamer is looking forward to new things to improve former ones. Well, so am I, but I don't want to lose what I accomplished before. I want to keep my buildings, my creations, my flaws, because this is what Minecraft is all about. Creating the best posible with only the few things you can find and craft. When there are more and more blocks you can use, of course it's fine and cool, but it threatenes your former ideal of what's nice and good. Your personal standard increases and you won't find peace anymore, because you will have to change everything you build before jhust to keep it on the same level as everything new.
And as soon as you've finished upgrading your world a new updates comes along with new blocks and the work starts again.

So what does it take to change this problem?

There is no real answer to this, because it's again, just like so many aspects in life [virtual or real], an individual point of view we're talking about. You can give suggestions and help, but when it comes to actually doing something, everybody has to decide on his own what to do.

One suggestion is to come to an end with these Minecraft updates. Of course there are many things, which could be added and improve the game experience, but let's be honest, there are more mods for MC than anybody could ever install. More mods, which bring more additional content than anybody could ever play and enjoy. Still, many mods are incompatible with others, which doesn't really offer me a good gaming experience.
One step forward could be the long expected mod support for Minecraft to finally allow a broad mod experience without any trouble. In addition to that, what about a direct and official overview of mods in your Minecraft launcher? Just click on those you'd like to add to your game and start. A huge cloud of MC mods with direct access. No need for Mojang to work on future updates, which bring more gaming content, because it's already there and now you can find and use it easily.
This'd give you an awesome overview of what you can get, what is currently worked on and what you need to build what's in your mind. And because of the huge Minecraft cloud, you don't have to worry about this extra content to disappear when you reinstall the game, either because your computer had a problem, or any other reason. It's always there. Your saves, texture and resource packs, mods, everything.

To come to an end...I know I got off the subject a bit here and there, but what I want to express with this little blog is that Minecraft does not need future updates. It's good the way it is and still offers so many things. If you're in need of new content, a Minecraft cloud would be the perfect feature to recieve new things you need without being afraid of the next update and every mod to disappear. A constant mod support without any redesigning of Minecraft's datas and the following disfunction of mods.
This allows you to expand your creativity to a new standard...wait...isn't this what I just criticised before? Indeed, but still a different way. When you have access to all those features from the beginning you can start building whatever you want to build and not having to rebuild older creations and not being able to create new stuff, because you always stick to former ones...being able to go after your targets instead of having to wait for them to happen.

This is very contradictious to what I said before and this is the reason why I think Minecraft cannot continue its success over a longer time. As sad, or crazy as it may sound, but I believe Minecraft already passed its zenith.
Still, it is possible to keep the level of Minecraft's experience without lowering it, because of boring continuity.

Agree or disagree with my opinion, feel free to comment, criticise and give your own suggestion of how to save Minecraft.

[I actually hate annotations like this, but please don't judge this text because of its grammar. English is not my native language. I'm just wirting this annotation, because the topic is kinda difficult to explain, which is why some expressions I used may not....exist.]

Thank you for reading, now feel free to rejoice :)