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Hytale: Iterating on the Past

Antnest8

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By Antnest8



For those of you who have not noticed, Hypixel Studios launched a new website for the actual studio this last week. Upon seeing the announcment I immediately decided to see if there was anything new, by reading everything on the website, including the Cookie Policy (If you are wondering… No, there was no secret release date announced in the policy, but I did learn a bit about how Cookies worked!). Thankfully there is an actual page about the game Hytale! Although it didn’t announce anything new about the game itself, the team shared more about their vision for the game. Among that vision, they had a passage under the name of +1 x ∞ (+1 times infinity).

It is quite the interesting title that is sure to grab your attention! Before I continue, here are the exact words in the paragraph…

“Hytale is an iteration on an established genre meeting the world's most empowered community. The truest measure of success for a game, or any creative endeavor, is when it transcends from being the output of its original creators into something that is collectively owned by its community.



‘+1’ represents our effort to build a game that iterates on the sandbox adventure genre in such a way that it forms a platform that the ‘infinite’ (our players) will build meaningful and resonant experiences on. Experiences that, in turn, have the capacity to become cornerstones of our players’ identities.”

Seeing this was amazing for me, because this is a topic that has been sitting in my list of topics for a long time. This seems like the perfect opportunity to talk about it!

What is an Iteration?

iteration

[ˌidəˈrāSH(ə)n]

NOUN

the repetition of a process or utterance.

  • repetition of a mathematical or computational procedure applied to the result of a previous application, typically as a means of obtaining successively closer approximations to the solution of a problem.
This is the definition of an iteration that you can find from a google search, but to put it simply, an iteration is the process of repeating a function or process again and again. This Should be a familiar term for the Hypixel Studios team as it is used in code often, such as For to loops! The important part here, is that whenever the loop iterates, something is added!

This makes for a great metaphor for game design and the evolution of genres as we see in real life, when ever new content is added, even if it does not succeed, something is learned!



Hytale’s External Iterations

Hytale itself is an iteration of the block-game, RPG and sandbox genres. There is no doubt that there is much influence from many games in Hytale. Here are a random few that I found have changed the genre Hytale is in and might be an inspiration…



  • Dungeons and Dragons
Ok, so there might be a bit of bias here, as I am an avid D&D fan! I am not the only one though! On twitter, Noxy created a Poll asking if Hytale fans wanted TTRPG tools integrated into Hytale! This came back with a resounding 60% yes. There is even a Hytale D&D podcast being created right now that includes some notable Youtubers!

Hytale being a part of the RPG genre is going to have roots tied to this age-old table-top game. D&D is known to be the first successful RPG and it directly inspired the first Video-Game RPG’s such as colossal cave adventure! Many of Hytale’s revealed features have resemblance to D&D such as the race of Trorks. Trorks are a race made up by the Hypixel Studios team but is a play-off of Orc and Troll. Orc’s were created by J.R.R Tolkien but were only introduced into generic fantasy through Dungeons and Dragons.

There is clearly a lot of inspiration here, but for the sake of space, I will move on.
  • The Bards Tale
A classic RPG that was made in 1985, the bards tale is the earliest account (that I could find) of a game that had Mana or Spell points for using magic! Noxy confirmed Mana a while back in Hytale and now you can think, the first time you fry a trork with a fireball that you can thank The Bards Tale!
  • Jet Rocket
Jet Rocket is a forgotten game made by Sega in 1970 and played on an arcade machine. The game was a simple 3D, flight simulator. If you are confused why Jet Rocket has anything to do with Hytale, it is because Jet Fighter was the first ever, open world game! Hytale will feature advanced Terrain generation that Jet Rocket never had, but the concept of being able to go anywhere was pioneered by it!


  • Infiniminer
Instead of taking the normal road of talking about Minecraft, I’m going to focus on a more unlikely subject, Infiniminer. The game that Minecraft took inspiration from, Infiniminer is a simple block-based game (with higher resolution, yet worse graphics than Minecraft). Still, through the lack luster gameplay we have a lot to thank this game for!

Hytale’s Internal Iterations

In the teams message they also mentioned Hytale’s future modders and content creators as being a part of this process, even giving them the honor of having infinitely more potential than the original game! There are many games with modding communities, but Hytale promises much for their own. If Hytale delivers on it’s promise’s we could be seeing some amazing stuff come out. Since Hytale is not yet out, to get a better look at some amazing mods and achievements that really proved the Hypixel Studios team’s point of adding infinity to the game, here are some notable achievements made in other games.
Team Fortress/Counter-Strike

Ok, so I am going to be honest, I have never played either of these games or their predecessors, but I have heard a lot about them! Both games were created as mods for Quake and Half-Life respectively. It is incredible how much a team of modders can create in a game, completely changing it so that it becomes a game of it’s own! Something can be said that Hytale itself had similar origins, starting as a team of modders creating a game of it’s own (Hypixel) inside Minecraft and eventually producing a standalone version!

Wynncraft

World of Warcraft meets Minecraft. That is a basic summary of what Wynncraft is and it is an impressive server! Featuring everything a MMORPG needs this project has become the most popular such server on the Minecraft Network. Hytale has many groups that want to create their own spin of the MMORPG genre in Hytale and in an interview Noxy addressed this saying that it could be possible! After all, in the new website they do state that ‘No Genre is Off-Limits”

IL-2 Sturmovik: Cliffs of Dover – Blitz Edition

If you have not heard of this game until this point, then you’re in the same boat as myself! While doing research about community creations, this one caught my eye, not because it was especially unique, but because it showcased clearly what I think to be one of the best aspects of community modding!

CoD-Blitz edition is a historical dogfight/flight simulator game. The original launch of the game floundered after several game breaking bugs and low performance plagued the game (not much unlike a recent title we have heard a lot about). However, previous games in the series had built up a devoted fan-base and the modding community went to work to fix the game. They fixed the game and improved performance so drastically that the game was re-released as Blitz edition.

There are so many games with devoted communities that have made fan-made patches and improvements to the game (take opti-fine for example). Hytale promises good performance for the game, but It would not surprise me if someone made some kind of mod to improve performance even more!





Conclusion

Thank you for sticking around to the end of this long, rambley and sometimes random post! I talk with and seen some of the amazing potential that this community has already and I support them 100%. That is why I love making posts like these! Anyway, If you have any other ideas for Hytale’s inspirations and other community projects that deserve a shoutout, please reply with them and talk to you next week!
 

Firestar

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TF2 and CS:GO have become their own internet culture giants over the years, coming from a legacy of modding similar to Hytale. I wonder what sort of impact Hytale will have on internet culture as a possible Minecraft competitor. Great post!
 

Weird

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Didn't even know they launched a new website! Always the best info coming from you, Antnest!
 

Zodak

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Wow, it's great to see you evolve as a writer, keep it up.
 

Reyrey

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@Antnest8 once angain with the great post in hytalehub brocasting in hytale hub news. (joke) but realy good.
 

Chris H.

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Absolutely a super enjoyable read. Great work Antnest! I really like how you took the lesser-knowns of this topic as well!
 

Anim

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Did not know they had a new website, it looks very well made and visually appealing.
 

Antnest8

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Did not know they had a new website, it looks very well made and visually appealing.
If the quality of the website is any indication on how they make games, then Hytale will surely be one of the biggest games to hit the market for the next 4 years
 
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