It was recently suggested in a tweet by Dinnerbone (Tweet) that Minecraft would be possibly be altered to support multi-core processing. Like many of you I said: "Finally!" But this brings me to a topic that can't be denied. Multi-Core, despite being the norm in computers for some time now, is not supported by many online games. Look up another game you play. Odds are it isn't supported.
The reasons for this are legion, but all boil down to not wanting to exclude people with older, or less powerful systems, and trying to optimize across a near infinity of hardware profiles. While I can see the logic of these, it is a point of frustration for many. The fact is that the hardware available on the market has passed by the needs of the vast majority of users.
If you are old enough, you remember having the list of games that you were "so going to buy" the minute you got a better machine to play them on; because your current battle station didn't pack the gear to run the newest games. When is the last time that happened? I'm guessing sometime back when people still used the word "Millennium" a lot.
Back to the topic at hand. There will be many hands up right now asking why this particular non-issue is being addressed ahead of some real problems, missing features, or other content. Those are the same questions that are asked in every online game, when any feature is announced.
The good news is that the developers take the community's interests to heart. They do listen, and one gets the impression that they care. Look up the forums for Mechwarrior online to see what the other side of the coin looks like. While they have reformed, of late; historically their draconian policing of the forums is the stuff of legend. Or at least a case study in how to turn people away from your, otherwise excellent, product.
I sit here typing this on an Asus ROG laptop that I have only ever come close to maxing out playing The Sims 3. (Meh). So any time a developer says they are going to optimize for multi-core, I get excited. I want that feature for every game. I just don't expect it.
