What technical elements? Technically, the game rates very poorly. It is horribly optimized (thanks Java) and uses basic generation elements that have become less impressive over time. Not only that, but the building is completely polygon based, which has been done many times and years ago.
Artistic elements? The textures for Minecraft were supposedly to be placeholders until more effort was put into creating better art. Unfortunately, people raved over them, so now we're stuck with them.
And by adventure elements I hope you don't mean the tacked on hunger meter, stamina, experience, etc.
Where Minecraft excels is taking an idea that has existed for some time (constructable tile based world) and putting it in an easy to consume shell.
Last time I tried the game, I was immediately greeted by instructions telling me what to do and how to do it along with a giant achievement tree.
Wow. Way to make assumptions. Minecraft was just a casualized dwarf fortress to begin with, so get off of your high horse.
I played Minecraft from the beginning. I remember thinking how crazy it was when Notch hit 10k sales ("wow, that's 100k. he can quit his job!"). I remember the floating island maps, the even dumber water physics, having to pick map size, etc.
I never said that minecraft has no gameplay value for adults - just that is has moved from being popular in the adult gamer crowd to being popular in the preteen/youtubers-who-make-videos-for-preteens crowd. Look at the Minecraft conventions. It is almost all children. Look at all the Minecraft merchandise marketed to children.
Nobody that I know who used to play Minecraft from the beginning still plays today. Of course, we could just be tired of the game, but since the game is constantly 'evolving' that seems like a weird reason. In my opinion, a lot of what has been added has made the game worse and less of a pure experience. This goes over the head of children, who play Minecraft because Joe Shmoe plays it on youtube, and he's a cool dude.
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