Minecraft's in Alpha.
No, it's not. It's past Alpha, in Beta.
I hate that Argument. If I can say one semi-positive thing about Minecraft, and it's really a neutral thing is that it has proven that the model of "alpha" and "beta" obsolete. It's nothing more than a shield guard for liability. The argument I hear is usually
"Hey this game is really good!" Response: "I know!"
"Hey this game wiped my hard drive/eats my save file, causes all my characters o stand and cry" "Oh, it's in alpha/beta". No, no, no, no, no. From what I hear, the man has made 30 million dollars on this thing. Tarn's never charged me for a thing, I don't mind calling dwarf fortress unfinished. Notch has made more than many of us will ever see in our entire lives- hiding behind an "oh it's beta" stops working when you're charging people for things that doesn't hold up well from a moral stand point.
Entirely irrelevant, I thin Tarn is a much more motivated coder than Notch.
ON TOPIC, ZP has openly admitted he doesn't like RTS, it's why he doesn't review Starcraft 2, he doesn't like that kind of game. Yeah, DF is a sim game, but where it stands on the RTS/Sim line depends on a hundred finicky criteria. I don't think he'd like it.
But maybe adventure mode after the latest update might appeal to him a bit, who knows. He's a picky guy, although I think he really exaggerates most of the time for comedic effect. And I like some JRPGS.