Minecraft: A "Quantum Leap" {correction: revolution} in Gaming?

[Continuity]

(Edit: Beaten to the punch, but only just) Firstly, I'd like to nip the misuse of 'quantum leap' in the bud there. As a fanciful TV show title which potentially created tiny changes in other people's lives at the right place to change things for the better, it was an apt title, but in general, people misuse that term so badly.

'Quantum' comes from the Latin word 'quantus', meaning 'how much', and was coined to represent a single unit of quantization of things in physics (an alternate was already in use- the Greek word 'atomos', meaning literally 'uncuttable', used by physicists to refer to atoms which they believed, at the time, to be the indivisible units of matter). This means a 'quantum leap' is the smallest change possible (although the idea that it has a potentially a huge effect wouldn't be going too wrong either). I haven't seen the phrase used in the mainstream media for quite some time as I'd like to hope and believe they've all been educated otherwise. 'Revolution' is certainly a far better term.

By all means, educate your friend and feel smarter in the process. I'll resist kicking other Escapist members in the shins until they become a repeat offender despite having been educated otherwise.

Now I'm off my little soap-box...

I'm sorry but i'm calling bullshit on your little soapbox rant there. Quantum essentially means a discrete amount. The size of the amount isn't the point, the nature of how it changes is.. i.e. its a leap or step from one value or state to another. There is no 1.5 quanta, you go from 1 quanta to 2 quanta.

Thus using the term "quantum leap" is a perfectly sensible synonym for "step change" or "paradigm shift" in the sense that it implies a discontinuous change.

Edit:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/quantum+leap

EDIT: My apologies for the misuse of the term "quantum leap"

OP, your usage is legit, please correct your correction!! XD

 

[GiantRaven]

It's enjoyable for a while, but eventually it's just a droll mining through pointless rock.

To you perhaps, but not everybody (my point being that even if you tire of the game, it isn't pointless if other still find enjoyment in it).

And you're neglecting to mention the other big areas of the game, including the big draw for most players; the creative building aspect.

 

[DanDanikov]

The most painful part of Dwarf Fortress isn't the lack of graphics, it's the lack of inclination by the developer to either a) develop some graphics, b) get other people involved to develop some graphics, or c) decouple the engine from the graphics so others may develop and plug-in their own graphics. The DF community does seem to have some kind of giant stick up their collective butts with regards to making the game more accessible- it's like some elitist club that doesn't want the steep learning curve dropped. Toady himself is very much like a guy I once worked with (both happen to have Ph.Ds)- they don't work well in a team, micromanage, generate monolithic code that is incomprehensible to others due to having an architecture fetish. It's quite possible the DF codebase is unfathomable to anyone but Toady, and that's not a desirable quality.

I'd like to see a studio blatantly rip the good bits from Dwarf Fortress and make something better. Minecraft proves it's certainly doable to approximate it, but that's another one-developer wonder. Damn developers and their egos...

I'm sorry but i'm calling bullshit on your little soapbox rant there. Quantum essentially means a discrete amount. The size of the amount isn't the point, the nature of how it changes is.. i.e. its a leap or step from one value or state to another. There is no 1.5 quanta, you go from 1 quanta to 2 quanta.

Thus using the term "quantum leap" is a perfectly sensible synonym for "step change" or "paradigm shift" in the sense that it implies a discontinuous change.

Well, I'm going to call bullshit on your calling bullshit You say the size of the amount isn't the point, and it isn't... directly. What you said about the nature of the change is accurate- the whole idea is the nature of the change is indivisible and you cannot have incremental changes in quanta (as you said, no 1.5 quanta). By natural extension, quantum tend to be very small as change rarely has such large granularity, hence the natural association with the very small.

thefreedictionary.com's definition seems totally counter to this: 'a sudden large increase or advance' seems entirely concerned with the size of the change, not the quantization of it, nor equating it with a paradigm shift. I do think it can be argued that a quantum leap could be equivalent to a paradigm shift (as paradigms could be considered indivisible), but that doesn't change that previous popular usage has taken it far from its original meaning, as evidenced by that definition.

Regardless to the suitability of using 'quantum leap', there exists other less contentious phrases, such as 'step change' or 'paradigm shift', and on that basis I'd still recommend against using it.