So what was everyone's thoughts?
In case anyone didn't see the features announced:
!Combat Trials, New hostile mob (mini wither boss looking thing), More Copper and Tuff varients, New Mob Spawner Type, An automatic crafter !<
Personally I didn't watch it, though I've looked through all that was announced. Honestly not sure how I feel about it. Part of me was really hoping for some work on inventory (like desperately) and they said nothing.
The trials thing seems interesting, though not really my play style so I don't have much to comment on. The copper and Tuff variants are cool but it feels like a feature we should have got a few updates ago. The crafter, I'm not sure how I feel about and am curious what the community thinks. Part of me thinks it's not super "vanilla" as you can automate so much now, and Mojang had expressed how they didn't want that to be an aspect of the game so I'm a bit confused. The way they implemented it and the ways players will have to engineer it to do what they want fit the vanilla feel though imo. That being said some of these features have already existed through modding for years.
I used to be much more of a "vanilla" survival player (some qol mods, similar to something like Hermitcraft) though I have recently started playing a Create focused pack I made. After playing the modded version I have a hard time seeing myself going back to "vanilla". With this latest live, I noticed I already had some features that they announced in my pack. Sort of kills the hype imo, when you have to wait so long for the update.
Sorta an unfair comparison as there are hundreds/thousands of mod authors leading to a wide variety of polish. There are a good bit of mods that are very well thought out and polished. If you take for example the Create team and compare it to the polish of Mojang I would say they're comparable (they both have different intentions, more commenting on the polish and thought put into features.)
I'm decently excited for them stepping out of their comfort zones to try something different, it's what leads to interesting changes and features that can change the game forever. The big issue I see is how they fail to communicate the decision well. I think in the recent past, it seems as though Mojang have had issues communicating their decisions to remove content previously announced. I think these decisions need to be more openly communicated with the community. Crafter is a very huge addition that will likely change the game forever, I think it would be a net beneficial thing for Mojang to communicate why their design decisions have changed to add such a large feature. Changing your mind is always a good idea, but when you are a large figure in a community it's beneficial to communicate why your mind has changed.
Well, in fairness, I believe it was only ever Jens who said that he never wanted to automate mining or crafting. While he's obviously a big voice on the team, I don't think it was ever the official Mojang position.
Even if it was only jeb making passing comments, or other developers, it still put the community in a place where they didn't think something like an autocrafter would be added. (Especially since jeb was/is the lead developer of the game). In my opinion if the lead dev comments on something, it represents the game too, that's why they have the platform to begin with. There are plenty of posts throughout the community saying they never expect an autocrafter to be added. Whether intentional or not the community was led to these expectations by the developers of the game. I think that either way it's beneficial for them to communicate the thinking behind such a game changing feature.