Mojang

MINECON 2016 tickets announcement!

Mon, 18 Apr 2016 13:16:00 +0000

Hello future (and past) MINECONners!

We have excellent news for you all: tickets are going on sale on May 6 and May 7! We’re selling them in two batches to give people in different time-zones a fair chance - you can check out the countdown to each sale time at https://minecon.minecraft.net.

MINECON 2016 will take place on September 24-25 at Anaheim Convention Center in sun-soaked Southern California, US. It’s going to be the biggest MINECON yet, with 12,000 attendees! And, as always, each of them will receive a swish new cape just for coming along.

Now onto the details! There’s a lot of info here, but if you plan on purchasing tickets, it’s pretty important you read it:

Tickets will be $160 each (3 years old and under are free).
Tickets will only be sold at https://minecon.minecraft.net, and they will be sold through Eventbrite.
6,000 tickets will go on sale at 6pm PDT (that’s Los Angeles time) on Friday, May 6, 2016.
6,000 additional tickets will go on sale at 12pm noon PDT on Saturday, May 7, 2016.
You will be able to purchase up to 6 tickets on one order.
You will need the name of EACH person you are buying a ticket for at the time you purchase tickets, you’ll need to enter these details to complete your order.
Tickets cannot be resold and are non-transferrable, the person whose name is on the ticket at the time of purchase is the person who will be admitted to MINECON. This means you cannot resell tickets.

Some frequently asked questions:

What will there be to do/see/enjoy at MINECON?

Loads and loads! There’ll be panels discussing hot Minecraft topics, exhibitors showing off all the cool stuff they’re doing with the game and a bunch of interactive attractions during the event. On Saturday night, there will also be a show on-site for everyone who attends MINECON. Have a look at the videos from last year for an idea of what happens at MINECON.

Will there be a costume contest this year?

Most definitely! We love having people show off their creativity when it comes to their Minecraft costumes. There will be prizes and accolades for the best of the best. Here is a video of our costume contest from the last MINECON.

What do I do if it turns out I can’t attend MINECON after I’ve bought a ticket?

You can request a refund up to 15 days before the event.

How can I volunteer to be a MINECON Agent?

Each year our MINECON Agents help make MINECON possible. It’s a huge event and couldn’t happen without them! If you want to volunteer, head over and fill out this form. If you’re chosen you will not need to purchase a MINECON ticket, but you will put down a deposit of $60 which will be refunded when you complete your service.

Can I buy a MINECON ticket just to get the fancy cape?

We want all tickets to go to people who will come and enjoy the event, so only people who come to MINECON will get their cape. When you arrive, we scan your ticket, and only scanned tickets will get a cape.

I’m taking my daughter/son/nephew/neighbor to MINECON but I’m an adult and don’t play Minecraft, do I need a ticket for myself as well?

Yes you do! We have players of all ages and we have events and things to do for everyone (even a bunch of cool panels for parents of Minecrafters) so all attendees will need to purchase a ticket.

I have an amazing idea for a panel! Can I tell you, please?

Yes! But not just yet. Soon you’ll be able to submit panel ideas, and maybe yours will be chosen!

Any other information you might want will be on the MINECON website at https://minecon.minecraft.net.

Cheers!

-Vu (@vubui)

Get smarter! Minecraft: Education Edition on its way!

Fri, 15 Apr 2016 07:30:00 +0000

Earlier this year, we announced Minecraft: Education Edition, a new version of Minecraft designed to help kids learn real good and make better brain-words about stuff. We’re pleased to say a Beta program will launch this May, involving over 100 schools from 30 countries all around the world. Then, in June, we’ll launch an early access program for teachers to download and try for free. Those lucky things!

Since 2011, we’ve been working with profs, boffins and other cleverclogs to bring classroom subjects to life using Minecraft - and not just essential topics like ocelot domestication and Nether portal design, but useful things like geometry, coding, architecture, ancient history and electrical engineering. The new Education Edition hopes to make that even smoother, using feedback from the Beta and early access period to fine-tune the controls teachers need to create an even richer learning environment.

When it launches, Minecraft: Education Edition early access will be available in 11 languages and 41 countries, and released on the hot new operating systems, Win 10 and OS X El Capitan. Gold stars all round!

Find out more on the Education Edition blog.

Cheerio!

Marsh - @marshdavies

Play Cobalt for free right now! Or buy it cheap!

Thu, 14 Apr 2016 14:00:00 +0000

Cobalt is both a cosmically huge side-scrolling singleplayer adventure and an intensely competitive multiplayer arena. It’s awesome. Oxeye Game Studio made it, we published it and the PC version is free for to you to play until Monday 18th April!

Download it right now and enjoy the thrill of blasting robots with super slo-mo trick-shots, uncover the secrets of a distant colony, pit your skills against co-op challenges or ruin your friends to rule the leaderboards!

If you like what you see, you can buy the game at 33%-off the usual price. That offer lasts until Monday too, so you have the weekend to explore Cobalt’s crazy-cool robot-sploding antics before you decide to open your wallet.

You can get Cobalt for PC on Steam, and for Xbox 360 and Xbox One. The price isn’t discounted on Xbox, but it’s still the finest game about slow-mo-somersaulting, gun-toting robots to be found anywhere in the known universe. We would say that of course - so don’t take our word for it, just read the glowing user reviews!

Cheerio!

Marsh - @marshdavies

Minecraft Realms is coming to Pocket and Win 10

Tue, 12 Apr 2016 11:44:00 +0000

Hi everyone,

We get lots of requests here at Mojang. And, though we don’t share your love of toilets and guns, we do agree that Minecraft Realms is a great thing that should be spread across the world, and to all editions of Minecraft.

For that reason, I’m happy to announce that we’re working on Realms for Minecraft: Pocket Edition and the Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition Beta.

What is Minecraft Realms?

Minecraft Realms is the easiest way to play Minecraft together with your friends and family. Realms worlds are always online and can only be accessed by an approved group of people. Though it’s nice to have some alone time, there’s something really special about creating and adventuring as a group. Realms makes that really easy to do.

Can I play with people on other platforms?

Yes! Minecraft Realms will support cross-platform play between the iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Windows 10 editions of Minecraft. We’re using Xbox Live logins to make that possible. If you don’t already have one, don’t worry, they’re quick to create and free! Minecrafters have been playing Minecraft via Xbox Live since we released Xbox 360 Edition back in 2012, and it supports multiple platforms, so it made sense for us to use it for Realms. Also: now that we’re part of Microsoft, we have easy access to the fancy back-end systems and Xbox Live technology, so it was kind-of a no-brainer.

Will Realms cost money to use?

Yes - we have to keep the servers running 24/7, so Minecraft Realms is a paid service. We’re not ready to share our pricing plan quite yet. You won’t need an Xbox Live Gold subscription to use the service.

When can I get my hands on this thing?

Though Minecraft Realms isn’t out officially for a little while, we’ve just launched a free alpha for Android devices. If you’d like to help us test out an early build, have an Android device, and a copy of Minecraft: Pocket Edition purchased from the Google Play store, opt in here. It’s worth pointing out that though you’ll need an Xbox Live account to partake in the Alpha, in the future, it’ll only be required for online play - you won’t need one for single player Pocket Edition.

Have a great day!

Owen - @bopogamel

Minecraft snapshot 16w15b

Mon, 11 Apr 2016 14:28:00 +0000

Update: Snapshot 16w15b is now available

While we have started working on it, there won’t be any snapshots for Minecraft 1.10 for at least another 2-3 weeks. This snapshot is for Minecraft 1.9.x and will eventually lead to a 1.9.3 pre-release.

TL;DR: this snapshot is for 1.9.x and not for 1.10

Notable changes:

Introduces some new bugs
Fixed some existing bugs
Removed the new bugs again
Performance might improve in 16w15b, or be worse, or the same

Bugs fixed in 16w15b:

[Bug MC-98822] - Exponential lag because of entities in 1.9
[Bug MC-98994] - Chunk Generation Performance Regressed by 20-30%
[Bug MC-100442] - DEV - Navigation Listener very slow code
[Bug MC-100692] - Collisions cause extreme lag

Bugs fixed in 16w15a:

[Bug MC-94438] - Server: Massive Lag in any versions 15w49a and later

Wait a moment… I think I have a deja vu here. Didn’t we have exactly the same blog post last week?

Please report any and all bugs you find in Minecraft to bugs.mojang.com. If nobody reports a bug, we can’t fix it!

To get snapshots, open your launcher and press the “New Profile” button. Call it “snapshots” and check the box saying “Enable experimental development snapshots” and save. To switch to the normal version, you can select it in the dropdown at the bottom left corner of the launcher. Back up your world first or run the game on in a different folder (See the “new profile” dialog).

Snapshots can corrupt your world, please backup and/or run them in a different folder from your main worlds.

Cross-platform server jar:

Minecraft server jar

Report bugs here:

Minecraft issue tracker!

Minecraft snapshot 16w14a

Thu, 07 Apr 2016 12:18:00 +0000

TL;DR: this snapshot is for 1.9.x and not for 1.10

Notable changes:

Introduces some new bugs
Fixed some existing bugs
Removed the new bugs again

Bugs fixed in 16w14a:

[Bug MC-100382] - Pathfinding Memory Leak

Please report any and all bugs you find in Minecraft to bugs.mojang.com. If nobody reports a bug, we can’t fix it!

Snapshots can corrupt your world, please backup and/or run them in a different folder from your main worlds.

Cross-platform server jar:

Minecraft server jar

Report bugs here:

Minecraft issue tracker!

Story Mode skins are here. Free-ish for the first week!

Tue, 05 Apr 2016 07:13:00 +0000

To celebrate the dramatic conclusion of Story Mode’s first season, we’re releasing a skin pack so you can strut your stuff in the shape of Jesse, Olivia, Axel, Petra and many other characters from Telltale’s adventure series. There are 27 different skins in total and they’re all free for the first week on iOS, Xbox, Xbox One, Playstation (mostly) or Windows 10!

Hatch dastardly plots as the beardy schemer Ivor, leave a trail of explosive destruction as the roguish Magnus, or get a gang together and see if you can survive the whirring cogs of Soren’s mob-grinder in this Story Mode-themed arena map. That’s free, too!

After the first week, the skin pack will cost $2.99, but, as with any skin pack we release, some of the skins will remain free forever: in this case, you can play as any of the six available Jesse skins for the grand total of zero bucks.

But wait! Why did I say “free-ish”? For peculiar reasons, it’s not possible for us to give away the pack to Playstation players in Japan, or to Android users, either. So, instead, we’re going to charge the smallest amount it’s possible for us to charge on those platforms.

For Playstation players outside Japan, and for every other platform but Android, the skin pack will be totally 100% definitely entirely utterly properly free from April 6th to April 12th. So much free stuff! Here’s the word “free” another three times, for free: free free free.

Cheerio!

Marsh @marshdavies

Minecraft 1.RV - the Trendy Update Pre-release 1

Thu, 31 Mar 2016 14:29:00 +0000

Woho! It’s already time for a pre-release of the next Minecraft version: 1.RV, The Trendy Update! This must have been the speediest update we’ve ever been able to push out, only a few days after 1.9.2.

With the Trendy Update we thought; why should we bring Minecraft to modern technology when we can bring technology to Minecraft? It’s time to get in line with the times and make Minecraft a game that feels it belongs in 2016. There has never been so much fuss about gadgets and wearables as in recent months, and trends are meant to inspire innovation. Not has there been a single IT exhibition without the flood of digital bracelets, miniature monitors attached to your glasses, and motion tracking devices. All to make our lives more engaged and immersed, with exciting new experiences.

So here comes an update to Minecraft that will really make the game feel fresh and thrilling. Have a list of the feature highlights:

Monsters will now be equipped with the latest gear on the market. What market? The monster market.
New tools that once you use them, you can’t remember how you could live your life without them. They may even not come off! But why would you want that anyway?
Never miss any important information! What’s important? We don’t know, so it will tell you everything. With sound!
All these gadgets will need more power, so we’ve added a USB Charger Block to help you out
Digitalized Herobrine
Removed Herobrine

This pre-release is available as a development snapshot in a launcher near you.

Minecraft 1.9.2

Wed, 30 Mar 2016 12:36:00 +0000

Update: Minecraft 1.9.2 is now available and fixed the issue that some players could not connect to some servers or their realms.

1.9.1 notes:

Woooosh. That’s the sound of the elytra and the main feature of the 1.9.1 release of Minecraft. The second notable change is a new property (toughness) for armor that “makes diamond armor useful again”.

Apart from these awesome additions, we also fixed some reported bugs and improved the performance and memory usage of servers a bit. Command blocks in custom maps should also behave much better now, especially with long sequences that are executed every tick.

Please report any and all bugs you find in Minecraft to bugs.mojang.com. If nobody reports a bug, we can’t fix it!

Notable changes:

Added Elytra sound effects
Improved AI
Improved entity selectors
Loot tables now also work in dispensers and droppers
Hoppers can now pull items out of blocked chests
Increased limit for “executed command blocks per tick”

Report bugs here:

Minecraft issue tracker!

Story mode Episode 5 out today! Much rejoicing!

Tue, 29 Mar 2016 12:58:00 +0000

The adventure didn’t end with the Wither Storm, you know. Jesse and his chums now find themselves on a new journey to Sky City - mysterious, beautiful and very, very keen on rules. (Well, except gravity.)

And you can join Jesse and the gang in Story Mode Episode 5 right now!

Check out the trailer above for a glimpse of the high drama that awaits or just hammer the download button on your platform of choice. Story Mode’s Season Pass is available on PC/Mac, Windows 10, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and handheld devices. Check the Apple Store for iOS editions, and Google Play or Amazon for the Android version.

And don’t forget there are three new Story Mode episodes in the works, too! Good gosh. Check out Owen’s post for details on all the hot new Story Mode goodness coming your way.

Cheerio!

Marsh - @marshdavies