Mojang

Minecraft snapshot 16w36a

Thu, 08 Sep 2016 05:00:00 +0200

Time for a new 1.11 snapshot!

The main focus for this snapshot is bug fixes, but Minecon is getting closer and closer. Actually, it’s only two weeks left! Yay! And during Minecon, we will show you all the new exciting features for 1.11!

And this snapshot includes…

Notable changes:

Multiple bug reports are now in prime state to be reopened again!

Bugs fixed in 16w36a:

[Bug MC-29544] - Particles from falling/landing/sprinting on leaves do not use foliage color
[Bug MC-41270] - Resourcepack’s glyph_sizes.bin and some unicode_pages are only loaded on startup
[Bug MC-83905] - Compass animates incorrectly
[Bug MC-95460] - Compass needle spins only in lower half randomly in the End and Nether
[Bug MC-96463] - UV mapping in cross.json and tinted_cross.json models is incorrect / South face of crossed textures of saplings, plants, etc. is mirrored
[Bug MC-101555] - Resource pack fails to load when the itemframe blockstate is multipart
[Bug MC-103550] - Malformed ping packet from server crashes client
[Bug MC-105886] - World File Names Containing Brackets Will Not Load Packaged Resource Packs
[Bug MC-105978] - Lingering Potions lose their effect when thrown in survival
[Bug MC-105982] - Placing a sign that was in a stack of 1 causes it to lose it’s data
[Bug MC-106046] - Lava bucket gets used up in smelting
[Bug MC-106084] - Passengers do not upgrade correctly from old versions
[Bug MC-106314] - Don’t know what stat.killEntity.Creeper is
[Bug MC-106485] - Crafted Banner applied to a Shield defaults color to black/doesn’t change the shield
[Bug MC-106536] - The block model of bone blocks lacks some cullface definitions
[Bug MC-106665] - Pause on lost focus inconsistent spelling.
[Bug MC-106675] - Command feedback inconsistency.
[Bug MC-106708] - Block Model Random Offset Compatibility

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!

A Journey’s End: Story Mode Episode 8 incoming!

Wed, 07 Sep 2016 17:00:00 +0200

Are you sitting down? I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is that Story Mode Episode 8 is almost here! It’s due to roll out on September 13th for PC, Mac and consoles. Hooray! The bad news is that this thrilling caper represents the very final instalment of the three-part DLC adventure. I know, I know. Do you need to be held? I’ve heard that breathing into a paper bag helps.

But if Jesse and the gang’s tale is coming to a conclusion, then it’s certainly not going out quietly. Having survived supernatural storms, maniacs in mansions, malevolent intelligence and more, Jesse’s crew have one last and potentially lethal trial before they can find their way back through the Portal Corridor. In their haste to obtain the Atlas, our heroes find themselves stumbling into the midst of a deadly tournament, in which people are forced to Spleef for their very lives, or else find themselves cracking quartz in the mines.

What strange rules define The Games? Who are the mysterious trio who run them? Will Jesse and co even make it to the finish line alive? All these questions and more will be answered when you play the episode on the 13th - available to download individually for $4.99 or as part of the $14.99 Adventure Pass which gives you access to all three episodes of our DLC mini-season.

Cheerio!

Marsh - @marshdavies

Battle Map pack 3 unleashed on console!

Thu, 01 Sep 2016 18:00:00 +0200

Hello!

We’ve recently released Map pack 3 for Battle - our free, combat-focused mini-game - on all console editions of Minecraft. It includes three new locations for you to take on your friends and enemies and costs a cool $2.99 or equivalent.

First, there’s Castle that will have you jumping off ramparts, climbing ladders, and engaging in hand-to-hand combat on huge banqueting tables majestic halls.

Invasion is a modern city that’s been destroyed by an unknown presence. The crashed UFOs hint that aliens might be involved, but who knows? Maybe that Herobrine chap had something to do with it.

And, finally, Shipyard - a city build around an airship suspended miles above the ground. A truly epic location and a great place to prove your might in combat. Keep your eyes on the prize and don’t look down!

Have fun playing Battle, people! And (even even thought the mode is about thwarting your enemies) be nice to your fellow crafter!

Owen - @bopogamel

Minecraft snapshot 16w35a

Thu, 01 Sep 2016 15:52:00 +0200

Another week, another snapshot. And another opportunity for me to use that exact same phrase to introduce it.

We are still focused on fixing bugs in the 1.11 snapshots, but Minecon is getting closer and we have some new features to show there.

We made text change to bring the Snooper Data description into line with the updated privacy policy. This refers to the fact that we collect a hashed identifier for your Minecraft account, so we can get an idea of the size of our active userbase. Remember you can always opt out!

Notable changes:

Some bugs have been asked to bother another game
Most bugs agreed to move on

Bugs fixed in 16w35a:

[Bug MC-2298] - Placing trapdoors / fence gates right beside a redstone source will not update them to the open state
[Bug MC-4603] - The Ender Dragon is hostile to players in Creative
[Bug MC-83337] - Eye of Ender in the mainhand doesn’t block offhand item usage
[Bug MC-84095] - Ender Dragon destroys fireballs/Fireballs invisible
[Bug MC-85805] - Two pistons smashing a shulker glitch
[Bug MC-94274] - Hitbox of cocoa beans too small
[Bug MC-94485] - Hand animation continue swing when cocoa block placed already
[Bug MC-95738] - Slimes health resets to max when setting any nbt-tag
[Bug MC-102506] - Ugly Bryce terrain generation (generation of stone above ground)
[Bug MC-103261] - Desert villages generate with cobblestone around the well
[Bug MC-104259] - Player/Mob stuck/through when on farmland while it changes to dirt
[Bug MC-106058] - Villager converted from zombie has random trades from random profession.
[Bug MC-106075] - Hopper timings depend on the gametick they’re activated in.
[Bug MC-106099] - Firework Rocket does not spawn
[Bug MC-106165] - Mob Potion effects are inflicted through shields
[Bug MC-106179] - Zombie burns you when you block with shield
[Bug MC-106252] - Slowness arrows from strays don’t stack with crafted/shot arrows
[Bug MC-106298] - Unequipping horse armor shows armor equipping subtitle “Horse armor equips”
[Bug MC-106300] - Cake hitbox appears at 0,0,0
[Bug MC-106302] - Unable to name saddled pigs
[Bug MC-106303] - 3 carpets are not enough to smelt one item
[Bug MC-106311] - A Tipped Arrow shot in Creative Mode will add to Inventory upon Pickup
[Bug MC-106324] - Generated villagers can have impossible Career
[Bug MC-106343] - Can’t use right click ability while looking at a Green Villager
[Bug MC-106362] - Newly generated Villagers have Incorrect Tier 1 trades
[Bug MC-106364] - Lightning impact subtitle is misspelled as lighting
[Bug MC-106399] - Igloos generating zombie instead of zombie villager
[Bug MC-106524] - Stray chunks being generated far away
[Bug MC-106552] - “save-all flush” puts untranslated messages into chat

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!

We’ve just updated our privacy policy!

Thu, 01 Sep 2016 15:17:00 +0200

Hello, everyone!

It’s exactly as the title says. Our privacy policy was looking a little dog-eared and a refresh was due! So, in order to bring things up to date, we’ve now adopted the privacy policy of our owner, Microsoft.

It’s pretty normal for a company of Microsoft’s size to have a single privacy policy for all of its different bits as it takes a lot of time and effort to maintain multiple policies and translate them into different languages for our users all around the world. By joining the Microsoft Privacy Statement , we can spend less time maintaining all these separate policies and more time making our games even more awesome. This is the same policy used by Skype, Outlook and our fellow devs over at 343 Industries - so you’ll see stuff in there that doesn’t directly apply to Minecraft.

One thing we are doing is to clarify for our PC / Mac players that - in addition to cookies - we may use device and account identifiers and similar technologies to tell how large our active userbase is and to analyze how our games are performing. Our old privacy policy already allowed us to do that with cookies but we wanted to make sure our policy keeps up with the times. In any case, we give you a breakdown of exactly what we collect in the game’s options menu, and you can always toggle the whole thing off if you want to opt out. But we hope you don’t - it’s super useful to have this data as we continue to improve the game, figuring out what hardware needs support and which problems need our attention.

Anyway, have a read of the new policy!

Cheerio!

Marsh - @marshdavies

It’s only natural: changelog 0.15.7 for Pocket & Win 10

Wed, 31 Aug 2016 18:00:00 +0200

We may have just released the Android beta for 0.16, but rest assured we aren’t getting too far ahead of ourselves: our devs have been working on packaging up all manner of bug-fixes and tweaks for the less experimental 0.15.7 Pocket / Windows Edition release! It’ll be rolling out today.

Much of the effort has gone into resolving issues with the Oculus Rift features on Windows 10, but we also added support for the Natural texture pack, so you can enjoy higher-res textures and more realistic sheep faces - that’s 108 extra pixels for every inscrutable ruminant stare. Wow!

If you find any bugs, be sure to report them here! Click here to go to the official feedback site and tell us what you like, don’t like, or just upvote a suggestion you think is pretty neat.

New Features:

Natural texture pack now available!

Tweaks:

Added localization for the Natural texture pack.
Improved some text rendering, spacing and button sizes to accommodate above mentioned localization.
Updated size and positions for logo and text for better comfort in Rift. (Win 10 only)

Bug Fixes:

Fixed Rift mode crashing on launch in some circumstances. (Win 10 only)
Rowing a boat now works with keyboard in full immersive mode in Rift. (Win 10 only)
You can now buy & extend realms when playing on Win 10 in Rift mode.
Mouse gets correctly captured when you put the Rift headset back on after taking it off. (Win 10 only)
Fixed a crash when a player entered or created any world.
Fixed a crash for some players who weren’t signed into Xbox Live.
Fixed some issues with Rift mirror textures for distant water & trees. (Win 10 only)
The game no longer occasionally crashes when it is closed.
Several fixes regarding removing the Rift headset. (Win 10 only)
Pause screen fixed for trial mode. (Win 10 only)
Virtual living room no longer affected by the player falling in the game in Rift. (Win 10 only)
No more black shadow boxes appearing when jumping near hanging blocks in immersive mode on the Rift. (Win 10 only)
Gaze cursor now re-centers correctly when looking up or down while dead in Rift. (Win 10 only)
Fixed textures for non-enchanted potions.

Enjoy!

Marsh - @marshdavies

What is it even thinking?! Argh!

Vote for us at SXSW! Oh, go on.

Wed, 31 Aug 2016 12:00:00 +0200

The South by Southwest Conference, aka SXSW, is an amazing celebration of the convergence of interactive, film and music industries. It’s held in Austin, Texas each year, and is the height of all that is hip and cool. You know who else is hip and cool? We are. (You can tell by the way we use hip and cool phrases like “hip and cool”.)

We’d really like to go along to SXSW and tell people about our charity work with Block By Block, and our educational efforts with Minecraft: Education Edition. We’ve proposed a bunch of panels to present - and these are now up for a public vote. That means you can help us!

If you fancy giving us a hand, head over to the SXSW community voting page, sign up, and give us a thumbs up on these two panels: “Minecraft in the Real World” and “Beyond STEM: Building Kids’ Creative Confidence”.

Hopefully we’ll see you at the conference in March next year!

Thanks! And cheerio!

Marsh - @marshdavies

Let's get ready to Tumble! Console mini game out now!

Tue, 30 Aug 2016 14:00:00 +0200

Break blocks and bring your foes low! Tumble is the second mini game we’ve released for Console Edition - a frantic competitive clash in which players destroy the very floor beneath their enemies’ feet, sending them plummeting to their doom.

Sound familiar? It’s inspired by community favourite: Spleef! We wanted to bring that experience to console and, as with Battle, streamline the experience so players don’t have to worry about re-setting maps between matches or even keeping score.

Oh, and it’s available as a free update today! Freeeeeeeeeeee!

There are two variants of the game to choose from: one which lets players launch snowballs, the other equipping combatants with shovels. Each bout consists of a best of three, on a series of semi-randomised maps, each with several layers of differing materials and hazards. Do you duke it out at the top, or tactically drop a level, blasting your opponent’s perch from beneath? Take care not to get glued to slime blocks or trip over TNT!

Anyway, it’s smashing fun.

Oh! And console owners can also get their mitts on the latest map pack for our first mini game - Battle! There are three thrilling new maps within: the colossal Castle, the incredible Shipyard and the terrifying Invasion! It’s available for $2.99 from your console’s store!

Have another Tumble screenshot for good measure:

Get out there and get cracking!

Cheerio!

Marsh - @marshdavies

Sneak Peek: Boss Update coming to Pocket & Win 10

Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:00:00 +0200

UPDATE: Oops! It turns out the Wither got stuck in traffic and couldn’t make it to the first beta roll-out. But he’ll be in the beta (along with the Nether Star) on Friday!

The adventurous among you will know there’s nothing quite like taking down a ferocious boss to prove your gaming might. Until now, that’s been a tricky thing for Pocket Edition/Windows 10 crafters to do.

Thanks to update 0.16 that’s about to change. Soon Pocket Edition/Windows 10 players will have access to some of the most ferocious mobs we’ve ever devised. But we’re not stopping there - the update will also include ocean monuments and the trinkets to explore them, a bunch of new blocks, beacons, and Slash commands. We’re calling it The Boss Update because it includes bosses, is “boss” in nature, and is in charge of hiring and firing all the other updates released so far.

So yes, the big baddies. First, there’s the Elder Guardian who has a penchant for hanging out in the new underwater ocean monuments with an army of minions while shooting lazers. Elder Guardians are a force to be reckoned with. But this update also includes the Wither - a three-headed spookster that shoots blue skulls at your face. I’m a bit scared of the Wither to be honest. That said, I don’t recommend shying away from either of these mobs - defeat them and you’ll get rare loot including sponges and Nether Stars. Handy!

In less creepy news we’re also bringing Slash commands to Pocket and Windows 10 Editions of Minecraft. They give you the chance to tweak the way the game plays - you can give items away, summon mobs, change the time of day, and lots more, all while playing the game. This update included 20 commands but we’ll be adding more in the future.

The Boss Update will be available as a free update soon-ish for all Pocket Edition, Windows 10 Edition, and Gear VR Edition players but if you’re playing Minecraft on Android, you can help us test it out right now! Sign up to the beta, and give us feedback so we can make it even better! One note - players with active Realms won’t be able to access them while testing - you’ll need to revert back to 0.15.6 to re-enter your worlds.

We’ll be sharing more information on The Boss Update at MINECON. Until then, happy crafting!

Owen - @bopogamel

What’s happening with redstone on Pocket / Win 10?

Mon, 22 Aug 2016 16:00:00 +0200

Hey there everyone!

As you may have heard, we’ve been making a few changes to the way redstone works in Pocket / Windows 10 Edition - just part of our ongoing mission to give minecrafters as many cool tools as possible. Most recently, we’ve been trying to simplify the peculiarities of redstone without compromising on the power.

Talking of power, right now a block can:

give off power (often referred to as a strong signal or directly powered signal)
be powered (often referred to as giving off a weak, or indirectly powered signal)
be unpowered

In the image below you can see this in action. The redstone block on the left gives off a strong signal, lighting up the adjacent lamp. But the lamp diagonal to the redstone block and the one next to that remain unpowered. Over on the right, a redstone wire has been placed on the middle lamp, allowing it to carry the strong signal from the redstone block and light the lamp next to it.

Pistons get powered the exact same way!

Of course, Redstone engineers from PC / Mac may note something missing here: something our community calls quasi-connectivity!

What’s quasi-connectivity? In a sense, it’s a bug. But it’s one that’s become so useful to crafters that it’s become a feature! In the PC edition of Minecraft, pistons can receive redstone power from a distance of two blocks when they are placed in a very specific diagonal position, rather than from a block right next to it. But blocks only get updated when something affects adjacent blocks. It means that you can power a piston and then remove the power without the piston detecting it! It puts the piston in this state where it actually needs to be deactivated, but doesn’t know yet. Clever minecrafters exploit that to build elaborate trigger mechanisms known as Block Update Detectors: when something happens to a block next to a piston - like a block being placed or destroyed, gravel falling, fire igniting, rails re-orientating or even cake being eaten - the piston will “wake up”, notice that it isn’t powered any more, retract and trigger something else.

We never really intended this - but the community quickly showed us its potential, using it to build automatic farming contraptions, flying machines and so much more.

When remaking Minecraft for Pocket, we had to rethink how redstone works: we decided it’d make more sense to remove the bug - or, rather, never put it in - but offer an alternative, official way to achieve the same result. And so we’ve introduced the Observer block. It checks for changes in the environment and, if triggered, switches between emitting a strong signal and an unpowered state - but without relying on a bug to do so.

We’ve tested this with lots and lots of different builds, and we can’t wait to see what you lot do with it. We’ve also added some other cool stuff: pistons can now push chests and many other things!

We’re not done yet, either! We’ll continue listening to what you folks have to say and refine redstone accordingly. PC crafters can rest easy, too: we aren’t planning to remove quasi-connectivity from that version. But stay tuned for other exciting developments there, too!

Cheerio!

Marsh - @marshdavies