It's So Sipover

A fun bullshitting excersize against an outmatched fool.

Preface

Okay, I saw his update video and he’s mad as fuck. Bleh. That makes my job harder, as he actually admitted to screwing up. Good for him.

He should however realize that controversies do not blow over. You start one, you deal with it for the rest of your career, and it’s always gonna be lurking there. New people will see that video, after all. Deleting it will just make you look stupid. There are no good options.

But also, I just can’t leave this be. It pokes at every single ideal I have. So I’m murdering him again anyway :P. It’s all jokes and bullshit, take it lightly. This is how I casually talk.

The Rant

Minecraft just doesn’t feel the same as it used to.

No shit it fucking doesn’t. Of course it doesn’t . Things change, don’t they? There’s a massive issue with the entire idea behind every single ‘old Minecraft was better’ video. You can simply choose not to deal with it. Just ignore the newer versions. Sure, everyone else plays on those, but I doubt Sipover has anyone else in their life.

And alright, you’re entitled to your opinion. But I think we all know what Sipover was looking for when he wrote this script.

But nowadays, I can’t be bothered to start up a new world or even sit through the latest trending YouTube videos.

I will admit to also not bothering to make worlds. I always prefer to play on servers, public or with friends. Sometimes I’ll just want to do some mindless PVP to relax. Or to hang with friends, or perhaps making things for ‘em. That’s only because I personally find nothing fun if I don’t have good people to do it with.

Sipover simply doesn’t want to because he’s lazy. You see that in every single video he makes, and his entire outlook on Minecraft as detailed in this one.

As for ‘the latest trending YouTube videos’, that’s completely irrelevant. Mojang might try things to influence their fandom and creators, but that’s ultimately not their purview. Youtube’s gone to shit anyway, with the corporatization of it’s culture. I won’t say Mojang isn’t doing the same thing with their game, but they’re not responsible for what other people do to their game.

It could just be that I’d grown up

The average age of a Minecraft player is about 24.

That scene at 0:39 where all the veterans fade away and Sipover looks around confused

Do NOT equate yourself to them. You fuckin’ fraud.

Playing classic with a bunch of youtubers

You know, I don’t think Minecraft classic had bows.

The segment where they play Classic and Sipover preaches about complete creative freedom

This is the essence of nostalgia baiting. All those youtubers aren’t happy to see that build because it ‘captures the essence of Minecraft’ or whatever. No, it’s because it’s an old-ass build that carries cultural significance, which concerns the fandom and not the design of the game itself.

And then there’s the bullshit about how Classic promoted complete creative freedom. Complete creative freedom, with a total of about seven colours to work with. Right. And no flying. It’s infinitely easier to make your creations come to life in modern Minecraft, what with creative mode and more block variety and even custom tools like Axiom and Worldedit – though disregard that last one if you like. Again, that’s got nothing to do with Mojang’s designs.

The creative freedom aspect of the game was always there and still is. It never left, it’s just that some people can’t muster up the creative drive or the effort to actually use it.

The so-called freedom Sipover references is not what he says it is. It’s not a function of Mojang’s new updates that makes every solution solved and publicisized. It’s time. Unless you somehow kept Minecraft in perfect stasis, of course every problem would eventually be solved. Would you rather they never found their footing in the wider world and stopped giving the game attention until it fell away to obscurity? No fandom to create new things and iterate infinitely? A personal little game, just for you?

If beta was the modern version of the game and there was an expansive list of updates that led up to it just like the current situation, Sipover would still be making this video. It’s not about the game, it’s about the people. Was the fandom supposed to keep themselves isolated to preserve the beautiful experience of solving every problem yourself, to never share their creations?

Modern Minecraft has an advancements page to follow, certain steps you need to beat the game, millions of tutorials to guide you, and it feels like you never need to use your brain.

Sipover, allow me to introduce you to a fundamental part of existence. Using your fucking brain. You may be new to this experience.

You do realize you can just, ignore all of that, right? You don’t have to beat the game. You don’t have to listen to advancements. All the aspects that allowed you to play the game how you want are still there – in fact, I’d say the newer aspects enhance that experience. There’s more options, and no one says you need to take all of them. Weren’t you just saying that players could use their own playstyle?

The only reason all of these new features seem like limitations to Sipover is because he is lazy. He doesn’t bother using his brain, and follows the advancements mindlessly because he refuses to even try customizing his experience. It’s sad, it’s pathetic, and now he comes to youtube to drain sympathy from his six year old audience who doesn’t know any better, as well as from any other braindeads like him.

One should also take into consideration that beating the game and following tutorials are usually used as crutches to take you into the endgame of Minecraft – having the resources to do whatever the hell you want. But of course, Sipover is too lazy to even decide what he wants, so he puts those resources nowhere and quits the game instead.

For instance, how would you solve this modern day Minecraft problem of being chased by a horde of zombies?

This is not a ‘modern day problem’. This happens in older versions too. Bad phrasing.

Ignoring my pedantry, there’s also the fact that you can run from them quite easily in beta as well.

Not to mention the obvious elephant in the room: YOU ARE BEING CHASED BY MONSTERS. YOU HAVE NOTHING ON YOU. NO WEAPONS, NOTHING. THERE’S PLENTY OF SPACE TO RUN AWAY ALL AROUND YOU. WHAT ELSE ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO DO?

Modern day Minecraft problem two: you’re running low on items.

First off, please stop using those obnoxious sound effects.

Secondly, the fact that villager trading exists doesn’t mean you can’t go out and grind for items in other ways.

Third. I have no experience in game design, but Sipover is eschewing a lot of valuable context here. Leveling a toolsmith to the level that they can trade you diamond gear is an arduous process requiring reliable methods to farm emeralds that can take days to set up if you don’t know what you’re doing. Hours, even if you do. This isn’t as trivial a thing as he makes it out.

Sure, you could argue that once all that’s done it is indeed trivially easy to get gear. That’s just flat out wrong. Villagers sell gear with low level enchantments, and you’ll also need netherite if you want to truly max it out – and there’s no easy way to get that.

If you are satisfied with what villager are selling straight up, I’d still consider it balanced. Because you already put tons of effort in to make it work. It’s the same thing as how we don’t run into the wilderness and build our own manufacturing plants from scratch from the trees. You’ve done all the work already and deserve to reap the results. Why force players to do all the effort over again?

Players were required to think creatively to solve these problems, making it a true sandbox

Once again, just goddamn ignore the existing solutions. No one is telling you you have to do something. Also, that’s not exactly what I’d consider the largest factor in making a ‘true sandbox’. There’s tons more to consider. Sorry, I’m being pedantic about sentences again.

In my opinion, creating something completely from your own imagination and seeing a vision come to life is much more rewarding and fun.

Than what? You can’t just end a sentence on that. There’s nothing else to compare it. But okay, let’s just assume he means the supposed set progression of modern Minecraft. Again: WHAT SET PROGRESSION? The goal of the game is not to beat the dragon. That’s a side mechanic that serves as a gateway to the End and it’s resources, and also a cool trophy for the completionists. Listen to how I phrase it. It’s insignificant. It doesn’t matter. There’s a reason Minecraft’s bosses don’t give you much more than access to just a few features, instead of triggering some grand ending cinematic. Minecraft was never about it’s story. It was about the player’s story. Whatever story they chose to write as they played.

And while things like basic redstone and deeper progression were added, the game perfectly held on to that sandbox, open-imagination feel like it did before.

Oh yeah, let’s just frame 90% of the features added in the beta era as completely insignificant. Trust me, this Minecraft was way better than modern Minecraft! Don’t mind that all the fundamental mechanics are in both…

Notice how all the stuff about the new content is factual, while the latter part is just Sipover’s opinion. And we all know just how valid that is.

The temple of Notch is a great reflection of how Beta 1.7.3 Minecraft felt at the time. As soon as you loaded into the map, you were welcomed with a new adventure.

But what nature of adventure? Isn’t the Temple of Notch just as rigid and set-progressing as you so proclaimed modern Minecraft is? You spawn in, walk forwards, and stand in a box while Notch does all the action and does something. This is a terrible example of your point.

Viewers will notice a slow shift of the theme as we progress through the video from this point on. While Sipover was rebuking the addition of progression to Minecraft, the latter half of the video is just him complaining about all the random extra features Mojang added that have nothing to do with the progression. He even seems to see them as distractions from the progression, the goal – which is, of course, beating the dragon.

That sense of adventure that Beta 1.7.3 has that modern Minecraft just doesn’t

Really, Sipover. How much of your arguments just dependent on ‘just doesn’t’?

Now, when I load into a world, I have the next 20 years planned out

Once again, that’s only because you choose to follow the normal path. You don’t bother forging your own. And following the normal path is alright, actually. Because that’s all set up. Building the infrastructure upon which you can easier accomplish your actual goals. That’s why so many letsplays start by beating the dragon and setting up a trading hall and then getting to the meat of the letsplay.

There’s no villages, no predictable cave generation…

Ah yes, because cave generation was always so very predictable. In every version. Always. And if Minecraft had stayed on that version the whole time? Wouldn’t players find solutions to every problem within it too? This ‘greatness’ you associate with older versions doesn’t come from the inherent design of the game – it comes from time and the fanbase.

In modern Minecraft, I know every threat I could face…

That’s called being good at the game, Sipover. You may also be new to this experience.

Furthermore, you do realize that updates are usually about adding rather than removing? It’s not like the threats from earlier versions are no longer in modern Minecraft. They’re pretty much all still there. You know how to handle skeletons and zombies, whether they’re in alpha or 1.21. You’re not missing older versions of Minecraft, you’re missing a bygone era. The entirety of the ‘old Minecraft was better’ argument is built on a subjective foundation of nostalgia.

While the game being so carefree and predictable can support other aspects of the game, like building…

MY DEAR FRIEND. OTHER ASPECTS, LIKE BUILDING? OTHER????!!!!!!!

The entirety of Minecraft is a support system for building. Well, not specifically building, but the act of creation, of using creativity to create. All the other features and processes are used to get items that can then be used in acts of creation, whether building a castle, coding a redstone machine, whatever! You can’t just shove it aside like this. Of course, Sipover wouldn’t notice this. He’s too busy beating the dragon.

The Whole Skyblock is great bit

Skyblock is not the essence of Minecraft. It is a customized experience of it – something a player went and developed for themselves and then set out to share. Yeah it’s good, I don’t deny that, but it’s a bad fit for this argument. Everyone knows how to make a cobblestone generator. Everyone knows exactly what to do in Skyblock. So, isn’t it just the same set progression as before?

Oh, but what about building your island? Making something of it with the little you have? Problem solving to obtain new resources?

The problems are all solved. Skyblock is old, and therefore has tons of people figuring out every single thing in it. Right back to that supposed set progression.

Now, building is the aspect that is useful to us here. If we compare skyblock and Minecraft as a whole, we see that skyblock is a microcosm of Minecraft. You set up all the infrastructure – cobble gen, a tree farm, etc. – and use them as a crutch to start doing what you actually want. Building your island. Creating new things. Though of course, Sipover probably faked his enthusiasm as he was running out of arguments. The farthest he ever got was the cobble generator.

For instance, look at how simple the creative menu is compared to now

Are you really telling me that a more organized selection menu is somehow detrimental to finding what you need? The old version didn’t even have a search bar!

Choice overload bias

That’s not the issue. The issue is you being too lazy to choose.

Old minecraft is good for building

Are you an AI art supporter, Sipover? Because this is the kind of talk I hear from them. You wish all these newfangled techniques and strategies were never made – now the bar of entry is too high for your lazy, pampered hands. How does less choice support creative freedom at all? Isn’t freedom supposed to be the ability make your own choices? How is that helped when you have less to choose from?

You want everyone to be able to make incredible art with a snap of the finger. You want to diminish respect for people who have actually spent time building up their skills to create masterpieces. They earned those masterpieces with practice, experience, and dedication. You did not earn yours. This thinking is exactly like an AI art supporter’s – except, instead of raising the unskilled up, you want to pull everybody down, which sounds rather worse. Somehow. It’s a low bar to limbo under, and you still pulled it off.

Testing house appearances in modern and old versions

First off, subjectivity is a thing. I think they look shitty in both.

How good each one looks is indeed because of Minecraft’s changing art style. As I covered the whole democratizing building thing earlier, I won’t repeat myself. With that point covered, the rest of this falls flat as completely unrelated.

The modern version looks weird because of its lack of contrast. Cobble just doesn’t work so well when it’s slapped flatly on top of a cube – older textures made up for this by having a lot more contrast and thus driving more visual interest and depth.

‘Immersive Simplicity’

I’m going to define this term because Sipover neglects to do anything but throw it around like a buzzword.

Basically, from what I can tell, immersive simplicity is like a society indoctrinating all its citizens from birth to believe that their lack of options is normal. Immersive.

Focused on progressing and being able to survive the night

This is like calling the human centipede good for its shameless body horror and lack of depth. I’m stressed trying to survive the night, so I’m immersed. It’s a shock reaction, basically. Also, wasn’t Sipover just earlier calling out the set progression? Why’s he advocating for focusing on a set goal all of a sudden?

Meaningless and useless stimulation

Y’know, I thought Sipover would love that stuff. After all, isn’t that his entire channel?

The entire shtick about Minecraft Youtube

Dude. Mojang doesn’t control that.

Disregarding that, the change in the nature of Minecraft content is not just because of the newer versions. It’s because of an overall shift in internet culture to optimization of revenue and clout. Mojang has also followed along with it’s moves to monetization. Also, is he really promoting parasocialism?

Ahh, do you hear that? Music to my ears.

He says while listening to people screaming after becoming victims of police brutality via firearm.

When I go out to eat, I always go to a local, family-owned restaurant, or something.

He orders big macs at McDonalds.

[The employees] just look at you like a dollar sign

Of course they fucking do, they’re working strenuous 9-5s, and you might just be the next annoying asshole at the counter.

Sipover roleplaying with fake Notch

Is it just me or does Sipover absolutely demolishing that cake in classic Minecraft style seem really discontinuous with his point?

Emotional baiting with Technoblade

Do not disgrace our saviour with your bullshit.

Conclusion

Sipover. Please stop making video essays. Because I will come after you if the next is as sloppy as I expect.

In all seriousness, this idiot is entitled to his opinion. Whether it actually is his or was just an engagement net, we’ll never know, but I think you can guess which one I’m leaning towards. Posting on the internet comes with the social obligation that you better make sure you’re not wrong.