blockland: the community that killed the game

[SWAT One]

Lack of updates, Lack of media, lack of mobile support. These three things kinda killed it.

I contend that technological limits really did Blockland in. Being stuck as a 32-bit application with only single-core optimization really kneecaps a program across the 2010s and beyond. As someone who also loves to work with Events, and probably still would if I were to return, I was also held back by concurrent events limits which made highly interactive worlds impossible. The technological limits of Blockland played a large part of why I left, or rather, why Blockland more or less chose proverbial curtains for me.

Design choices such as Shaders XOR Terrains+Interiors has been critiqued to the moon and back already by people far more knowledgeable than I am, to an extent far better than I can.


As many have said before, marketing the game to children in the combination of not having moderation features was a mistake. If it were moderated to the extent that it was but was marketed to young adults, you would still see the usual Drama topics about the individual problem users, but I find it neither likely that issues of this kind would become endemic, nor metastasize into this kind of topic.

Despite the toxicity, I really did have over a decade of awesome moments on this game, met some amazing people. When Mac support dropped 32-bit applications on my only computer, my tenure on Blockland the game just about came to an end. I have another computer now that can run it, but the lights are off, and no one seems to be around, so I'm left scratching my head thinking what the point is. If the community was as vibrant as it was in 2019 when I still could hop on and have some cool moments, I think I would still consider booting up the game, but it feels like with all the servers there are competing for so few players, I couldn't really put together the large projects that I wanted to make, that required large teams in TDMs or tournament-style Colosseum matches.

So maybe someday. But I'm not counting on it.


Edit: Speaking of player count, if you use a JS Injector, I made a simple script to display the player count at the top of the servers page. Use it or don't, idc; it's up to you.

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[Alyx Vance]

I didn't realize the depth of Blockland's insanity and assumed I was a pusillanimous individual or something but

2 days ago I made Blockland crafts for my husband and he straight up told me "I'm sorry but i'm scared to put the magnets on my work toolbox because I don't need no godamn person lookin it up" and normally i'd just get upset or assume it's some kind of excuse but holy stuff for once I actually understand

So many awkward situations that could come of this

• Your boss or coworker gets enough info to look the game up, immediately sees the weird members of the community and/or badspot's schizophrenic ramblings, thinks you're part of some kind of online hate group or creep ring
• The game and forum is so small it would be incredibly easily link a person to their forum account, your boss or coworker reads all the cringey stuff you posted at age 13 and thinks you're a handicap
• Someone from the game recognizes you, rapes your little pinky back door

personally i dont get anxious or embarrassed as often as I used to, so i would still wear Blockland stuff... but even then, i feel like if someone asked me what the game was i'd have to give them a loving warning, viewer discretion advised. Iban wants to take you on a road trip to "meet badspot" and rape your loving starfish until it bleeds. Beware of snakees cut on forgetin tuna jars. what the forget

edit: now he wants to use the magnets i'll update you when our life falls apart

[Conan]

meanwhile two of my coworkers used to play the game a lot and we're all chill.

[Alyx Vance]

meanwhile two of my coworkers used to play the game a lot and we're all chill.

thats actually really cool

i'm super curious how you found out that you were all blockland players, and when you did, was it someone you already knew?

i always hope i run into another blocklander because i know everyone on here

[Camel]

As many have said before, marketing the game to children in the combination of not having moderation features was a mistake. If it were moderated to the extent that it was but was marketed to young adults, you would still see the usual Drama topics about the individual problem users, but I find it neither likely that issues of this kind would become endemic, nor metastasize into this kind of topic.

I think Blockland would've been impossible to market only to young adults. Legos have been able to transcend past kids toy and you can buy a lego model of the Guggenheim now, but I feel like even only 15 years ago that wasn't the case, Legos were strictly a kids thing, and Blockland was not Lego-adjacent like Minecraft, it's straight up a digital lego sandbox. I can't even imagine what sort of media and advertisements you could push that would keep kids away within the Blockland framework. He needed more moderation.

[Mr. Bones]

Comparing Blockland to two games I remember getting very popular after being smaller than Blockland isn't fair comparison?

Yes, all games start small. Again, ROBLOX had Blockland beat within a year of it's release. Minecraft quickly followed suit. These games had large development teams (well Minecraft didn't but this changed quickly) and tons of advertising. You're comparing a mom and pop corner store to Wal-mart. It's not a fair comparison.

Maybe if Badspot turned BL into a survival-crafting game it would have gone big. Imagine chopping trees and mining rocks to get stronger bricks.

I'd rather not play a Minecraft clone, we already had bazillions of them

[Alyx Vance]

I think Blockland would've been impossible to market only to young adults. Legos have been able to transcend past kids toy and you can buy a lego model of the Guggenheim now, but I feel like even only 15 years ago that wasn't the case, Legos were strictly a kids thing, and Blockland was not Lego-adjacent like Minecraft, it's straight up a digital lego sandbox. I can't even imagine what sort of media and advertisements you could push that would keep kids away within the Blockland framework. He needed more moderation.

At the very least, if he couldn't enforce good moderation he should've covered his ass better, and been upfront about the lack of moderation so parents could make informed decisions on letting their kids play. while it's true a lot of us hid the forums from our parents, it was less common for each kid to have their own device n stuff, he could've easily covered his ass (the anxiety of trying to close the page when my parents walked in the living room D: )

of course i think it's not fair to entirely blame him 100%... but i agree that he definitely contributed to the toxicity of the game by being a bad influence himself. badspot is like having a "cool" family member and as you grow up, you realize they were actually irresponsible. on one hand, it is "his lego block game, his rules" but on the other hand... he allowed a lot of toxic things to fester on here knowing there were children present.

I'm torn on how i should feel because in reality, he unwillingly became the online babysitter to a bunch of moronic edgy kids, teens and mentally stunted adults... so i cant say i blame him for not wanting to or being unable to keep up with moderation... but also to be fair, he was the one who carried all of the power, so maybe he should've been more responsible or like i said, upfront about the lack of moderation (in a way that doesn't involve calling someone's mom handicapped)

[Soukuw]

Yes, all games start small. Again, ROBLOX had Blockland beat within a year of it's release. Minecraft quickly followed suit. These games had large development teams (well Minecraft didn't but this changed quickly) and tons of advertising. You're comparing a mom and pop corner store to Wal-mart. It's not a fair comparison.
I'd rather not play a Minecraft clone, we already had bazillions of them

If you're trolling the best part is the spaces at the end of your posts, those actually are getting to me.

Did you even read my first post? Do you even know what you're arguing about? I'm saying content updates wouldn't help Blockland. There are more interesting things to play nowadays.

You even say that in the second section, people moved on. All we had was Gmod and Blockland. Maybe if Badspot turned BL into a survival-crafting game it would have gone big.

This is past tense. This is not a "do it now" this is a do it right after minecraft released or before.

Edit: Were there survival harvesting mining mods before Minecraft? The only survival game I can think of was Stranded 1/2. I remember searching a stuff load as a kid for a survival game.

edit2: unReal world, Wurm Online

[Alyx Vance]

If you're trolling the best part is the spaces at the end of your posts, those actually are getting to me.

Did you even read my first post? Do you even know what you're arguing about? I'm saying content updates wouldn't help Blockland. There are more interesting things to play nowadays.This is past tense. This is not a "do it now" this is a do it right after minecraft released or before.

Edit: Were there survival harvesting mining mods before Minecraft? The only survival game I can think of was Stranded 1/2. I remember searching a stuff load as a kid for a survival game.

edit2: unReal world, Wurm Online

kind of random but you might be interested:

the only survival game i ever played before minecraft was actually Survival 101 on Roblox and this was in 2009. I suppose you could count stuff like Oregon trail but it's more of a strategic planning game with survival elements.

Sims Castaway came out in 2007 but again that wasn't like the modern survival game either, it was more like a town builder or a management game.

i really enjoy survival games but when they were all over the place in the 2010s i just got so sick of every game having to be survival based. i also used to suck at resource management so i spent more time in my worlds, but now they just don't feel as rewarding, survival is kind of boring in general. i actually completely understand why you played with like 1000 mods on Minecraft.

sometimes i also feel like minecraft singlehandedly brought indie games (especially survival and sandbox) into the limelight but also turned the indie scene into stuff because everyone thinks indie game dev is a "get rich quick scheme"

[Mr. Bones]

Did you even read my first post?

I read and replied to what I quoted, that's what the quote feature is for.

Do you even know what you're arguing about?

You questioned my reasoning as to why I thought the comparison was not fair to make, so I replied to you by explaining my reasoning.

I'm saying content updates wouldn't help Blockland. There are more interesting things to play nowadays.

You're mistaken, your post I replied to doesn't say anything like that anywhere. Don't question my reading abilities when you're literally imagining you said things that you didn't say lol. I've been courteous enough ignoring the cringe quips you start every reply with.

[Goth77]

If you're trolling the best part is the spaces at the end of your posts, those actually are getting to me.

content updates wouldn't help Blockland. There are more interesting things to play nowadays.

Edit: Were there survival harvesting mining mods before Minecraft? The only survival game I can think of was Stranded 1/2. I remember searching a stuff load as a kid for a survival game.

edit2: unReal world, Wurm Online

content updates probably not, but engine updates maybe - giving new features to the game and things modders could hook into. just wishful thinking but that'd be cool

also stranded 2 was fun, my brother and I modded for that game. evidently the developer is still working on stranded 3 (for over a decade now!) i find myself checking the site like once a year to see if its out yet lol

I would consider stranded kids and the lost in blue series survival games but they weren't on the level of games like stranded 2 and sims castaways in the terms of sandbox gameplay, which is what made them so great imo

i really enjoy survival games but when they were all over the place in the 2010s i just got so sick of every game having to be survival based. i also used to suck at resource management so i spent more time in my worlds, but now they just don't feel as rewarding, survival is kind of boring in general. i actually completely understand why you played with like 1000 mods on Minecraft.

this is kinda how i feel now about survival games, they are almost all the same anymore and it's a bit grindy and boring. granted there are only so many systems and such you can put in place before it gets too tedious and ridiculous but it's like the survival genre has been over-used in a sense. maybe i've just played too many...and the last part lol...is exactly why my minecraft 1.5.2 server had like 20 different mods, because I wanted the survival aspects to be more realistic. These games need that extra stuff otherwise it feels like the same boring survival game as every other. that being said I still find myself looking for a good survival game, specifically co-op survival. Some I have enjoyed recently are 7 days to die (zombie survival game) because it's like minecraft in a building and chunk generation sense but adds realistic features to make the game look and feel more modern. Grounded because it's unique in the sense your a shrunken person in a backyard and it's like "honey i shrunk the kids" survival with a story - awesome fun with a friend. Valheim was good too but waiting for more updates before playing again. The Forest was decent though some of the gameplay mechanics feels clunky and just off in general, but the caves are pretty creepy if your playing in vr

[Ceist]

blockland ultimately failed because we didn't get any huge forgetin titties to stare at while building.

[Satan From Wreck-It-Ralph]

blockland ultimately failed because we didn't get any huge forgetin titties to stare at while building.

she could have saved us...

[Alyx Vance]

7days is really badass, i never really wanted to mess with games outside of cartoony cute looking indie sandboxes and retro games but my husband got me into it. Unturned is a similar game and i prefer the style of that Unturned, but to be honest... i prefer 7days' crafting (probably cause i like automation) and gameplay.

I haven't tried Valheim or grounded but i'm interested in both :o

my favorite version of minecraft has to be 1.12.2 just cause it's got a lot of modern MC features but is still close enough to 1.7.5 for me to enjoy. i tried to play with tekkit and FtB mod packs and all that, got really overwhelmed and my stuff computer could not handle it. my husband built me a gaming PC under the premise that i'd try new games and mods with him to get over my fear of new things lol

i actually became really addicted to these crazy modpacks and we ended up making our own... sometimes i hate him for getting me so dependent on Buildcraft and IC2. literally cannot play MC without at least those 2 mods now, but i also love Forestry and Gregtech.

Minecraft itself is so loving piss easy that we often have a IC2 reactor within the first in-game week.

[Pixel]

I'm convinced a large portion of the active users are either extremely delusional or didn't exist when blockland was at its peak