This sort of thing has been banned from the Terraria forums, so...

I'd be interested to hear what "sandbox" fans think of these two games, and which one you prefer. Note that the topic is "Minecraft and Terraria," not "Minecraft vs Terraria." This is not supposed to turn into a heated debate. I'd just like to hear some CIVIL RATIONAL THOUGHTS. CAN YOU MINECRAFT AND TERRARIA FANS HANDLE THAT???

ahem...sorry.

Anyway... I initially was a huge Minecraft fan (and I still think it's a wonderful game), and although I bought Terraria, I didn't ever give it a serious try. But now that I've played it, I think I'm gonna lean toward preferring Terraria. The best explanation is that Terraria focuses much more on its adventuring than Minecraft does. Sure, there less creative possibilities (no redstone, no minecarts, no "note blocks" or dispensers, and it's limited to a 2d plane), but most of your building in Terraria feels like its accomplishing a clear goal. Houses will attract NPCs that provide services. Traps will actually aid during dynamic events like the Blood Moon. Stuff like that. There are a lot more interesting places to explore (An underground jungle?? That's awesome!), and exponentially more reasons to do so. Your character actually feels like he's slowly turning from a scavenging survivor into a powerful warrior. The world feels like it's dangerous, and it actually evolves and changes throughout the duration of the game, even to the point of posing a threat to your creations. And best of all, the nitty gritty gameplay has all the charm of a good oldschool sidescroller, and evolves considerably throughout the duration of the game. You'll be stuck with a weak shortsword and maybe a few shurikens at the beginning, and gradually are able to craft things like potions that reverse gravity, grappling hooks, shotguns, magical swords, and even chainsaws. To me, the entire experience feels so much more lush and vivid than that of Minecraft. I think that Minecraft still fills a different niche, but I personally much prefer Terraria.

So how about you guys?

"Minecraft is a toy; Terraria is a game".

Terraria I only play alone, Minecraft mostly on multiplayer.

My view is that whilst they contain very similar elements they are, in the end very different games to play.


Terraria - this is far more a side scrolling combat based game, with building and mining features built in. The primary intent of the game and the focus is more aimed toward combat, against randoms and against boss monsters. Alongside this you've got the typical wide selection of various weapons that combat heavy games are familiar with; offering a range of options to gut, shoot and kill your opponents.
Building is most certainly present and the Terraria has the bonus of a slightly more focused development (it would seem) and increased content in the base game. This gives a wide variety of options for the builder to decorate their structures with. However its my view that whilst this is a feature of the game its not really quite enough to be the whole element of the game.

Minecraft - this is far more a sandbox building game than a combat one. I would argue that its primary focus is exploration, extraction and construction with combat currently being a sideline event (after not too long with the combination of beds and torches you can remove a considerable amount of combat risk from commonly used areas).
Because its not aimed at being a large spawn fighting game the individual monsters are higher risk to the player (ie do more damage) an the nether world also presents and almost alternate game environment where combat is much more heavily present.

However at the heart of this game is building, construction of simple and complex structures. For this reason mining in minecraft is a much more rewarding experience for the player, because the options for 3D creation and the nature of the 3D maps gives them, I feel, more liberation to build what they want.

Minecraft is also very mod friendly and has a massive modding community, this helps to support the base game, which can sometimes feel a little lacking in additional decorative content or features. It also means that the game can have massive variety added to it via the use of various mods to change its appearance or functionality.




In the end I think they are two rather different kinds of game, based on a very similar starting point, but the developers have clearly taken them in very separate directions. Both also work well either as singleplayer or as mutliplayer experiences. I would also argue that minecraft is one of the rarer games in popular multiplayer environments which is not focused purely around fighting and destruction.

I've tried only that free Minecraft version from their own page, but it did not appeal to me at all.

On the other hand I have really enjoyed Terraria, though I did not play it that much. The graphics has the nostalgic feeling of older games and the gameplay is fun.

Only played terraria.
But I play with a few friends who used to play minecraft and they say that terraria is better because there is a lot more to do than minecraft

Minecraft is great fun. Like klaymen I tried it alone and was put off at first. But then a bunch of friends made me play it in multiplayer on our own server. I ended up buying the game 2h later, plus another copy for my wife, and we must have put at least 100h each in the game since then. Sure after 10h there is not any challenge left, but just building stuff, inventing redstone circuits and so on is amazing in multiplayer with some good friends.

I also bought a Terraria 4-pack at christmas when it was dirt cheap. I have played like 30min, I'll keep it for later when my friends and I are tired of Minecraft.

Same here. I'd be willing to give Terraria a serious spin if it wasn't on PC and I wasn't so invested in Playstation 3 right now. :) Banned there? Why? Insecure about the size of their penises?

In this I have to commend GOG, they were never affraid to discuss and let people discuss ANYTHING on their forums. So do like GOG, grow a pair and stop banning healthy discussion on your forums everyone!

Because such discussions tend to end....badly. Some people discuss politely, then fanboys (preferrably from both camps) jump in and there you go.

Basically this. It's not "officially" banned, but it is STRONGLY discouraged. Because you inevitably start getting people saying things like "Minecraft sucks, Terraria rocks" or vise versa. And then the flame wars start...

Which is a real shame, because I find comparing the two games to be strangely fascinating. On the outside they look practically identical, but when you really start looking at it they appeal to much different people.

I've actually never tried Minecraft multiplayer. Maybe that would have made the creating a little more engaging for me. Oh well... the other plus to Terraria is that it runs find on my computer, whereas Minecraft lags horribly :3.

I prefer Minecraft and have sunk many, many hours into it (and made my own Ultima-based texture pack!).

I tried Terraria for a bit after buying it in the winter sale, and I wasn't hugely impressed. Admittedly, I haven't played it for very long, so perhaps I would like it more after spending more time with it, but I have so many games to play and not enough time...

Minecraft for mods and graphics, Terraria for singleplayer and exploration boners.

Same here, if Terraria ever becomes available outside of Steam, it'll be an insta-buy for me.

BTW, can you actually play Terraria offline or do you have to connect to a server for the singleplayer portion?

I could never get into either of those games. Now, the last time I played minecraft it was still in the alpha phase and online wasn't working properly so that might have had something to do with it, but I find that I don't stay interested for long if I don't have any goals to achieve. I need something to work towards, else I'll just grow bored. I don't know if terraria is any better in that regard, but from what I've seen it's the same when it comes to that. Maybe those are the kind of games that are only fun to play online, but I haven't tried that yet.